Occasional Offices (1928 BCP)

Occasional Offices (1928 BCP) are the rites in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer that order the Church's ministry at the major passages of Christian life: birth and baptism, catechesis and Confirmation, marriage, sickness, death, burial, household prayer, and public thanksgiving. They are "occasional" because they are not fixed daily offices or the ordinary Sunday Eucharist, yet they are central to the Prayer Book's pastoral theology.

In the 1928 BCP these rites show how common prayer accompanies particular persons without making pastoral care private or improvised. Baptism incorporates the child or convert into Christ's Church; Confirmation strengthens the baptized by prayer and laying on of hands; Matrimony blesses a covenantal household; the Visitation and Communion of the Sick carry repentance, absolution, prayer, and sacramental comfort to the afflicted; Burial speaks resurrection hope over the dead; and the family prayers extend Prayer Book devotion into the home.

Scope in the Prayer Book

The Occasional Offices stand after the regular forms of Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, the Litany, Holy Communion, the Psalter, and the calendar material. They include Holy Baptism, Confirmation, Solemnization of Matrimony, Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, Visitation of the Sick, Communion of the Sick, Burial of the Dead, Churching and pastoral prayers, and household forms. Their sequence follows the ordinary course of Christian life rather than the sequence of the Church Year.

Dearly beloved, forasmuch as all men are conceived and born in sin; and that our Saviour Christ saith, None can enter into the kingdom of God, except he be regenerate and born anew of Water and of the Holy Ghost.

The baptismal office gives the whole section its beginning in grace. The Church does not start with a generic ceremony of welcome, but with Christ's command to baptize in the Triune Name and with the need for new birth. That is why the later Catechism can teach the baptized person to say that he was made "a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven."

Baptism, Catechesis, and Confirmation

The baptismal and confirmation offices are closely joined. Baptism gives the covenantal identity; sponsors undertake the duty of instruction; the Catechism teaches the Creed, Commandments, Lord's Prayer, and Sacraments; Confirmation brings the instructed baptized person to the bishop for prayer and strengthening.

Strengthen them, we beseech thee, O Lord, with the Holy Ghost, the Comforter; and daily increase in them thy manifold gifts of grace.

This prayer interprets Confirmation as ecclesial strengthening, not as a second Baptism. The rite assumes the baptismal promises already made and asks that the Holy Ghost confirm the baptized in wisdom, understanding, counsel, ghostly strength, knowledge, true godliness, and holy fear. Its biblical pattern is the apostolic laying on of hands with prayer for the Holy Ghost (Acts 8:14-17; Acts 19:5-6), received in the Prayer Book as a pastoral act under episcopal oversight.

Matrimony and the Christian Household

The Solemnization of Matrimony places marriage under God's ordinance, not merely under private affection or civil arrangement. The rite speaks of covenantal consent, public vows, mutual fidelity, and the creation of a Christian household ordered toward holiness and charity.

Wilt thou have this Woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony?

The language "after God's ordinance" connects the office with Christ's teaching that what God has joined together man must not put asunder (Matthew 19:6). The office also draws on the apostolic teaching that marriage signifies a disciplined life of love, fidelity, and mutual duty before God (Ephesians 5:21-33). Within the wider Prayer Book, Matrimony is therefore not isolated from worship; it forms a household in which Baptism, catechesis, daily prayer, repentance, and Communion can be lived.

Sickness, Repentance, and Communion

The Visitation of the Sick and Communion of the Sick show the Prayer Book's pastoral realism. Illness is not romanticized, but neither is it treated as spiritually meaningless. The minister is directed to pray, exhort, examine, comfort, and, when appropriate, pronounce absolution and administer Communion.

HEAR us, Almighty and most merciful God and Saviour; extend thy accustomed goodness to this thy servant who is grieved with sickness.

These offices receive James 5:14-16, which joins prayer for the sick, confession, forgiveness, and pastoral ministry. They also connect sickness with the Communion office: the afflicted Christian is not severed from the congregation's sacramental life, but is brought the comfort of Christ's Body and Blood when able to receive. In this way the Prayer Book binds private suffering to the Church's public faith.

Burial and Resurrection Hope

The Burial Office is the most concentrated example of the Occasional Offices' use of Scripture. It opens not with sentimental consolation, but with Christ's own words and apostolic hope. The congregation is taught to mourn in the presence of the Resurrection and the Life.

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.

The committal of the body to the ground is framed by the expectation of "the resurrection to eternal life," so that the office avoids both denial of death and despair before death. Its doctrine is Pauline as well as Johannine: the mortal body is buried in hope because Christ is risen and shall raise his people (1 Corinthians 15:20-23, 42-44).

Public Thanksgiving and Household Prayer

The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, prayers for the sick, and Forms of Prayer to be used in Families show the domestic reach of the 1928 BCP. Prayer Book devotion is not confined to chancel and nave. It enters childbirth, recovery, household worship, and ordinary family dependence upon God.

O ALMIGHTY God, we give thee humble thanks for that thou hast been graciously pleased to preserve, through the great pain and peril of child-birth, this woman, thy servant.

This thanksgiving should be read as pastoral gratitude, not as a separate sacramental rite. It names danger, preservation, humility, and thanksgiving, and it places maternal recovery within the Church's prayer. The family prayers likewise make the household a small school of repentance, praise, Scripture, intercession, and daily trust.

Anglican Pastoral Theology

Taken together, the Occasional Offices reveal a major feature of classical Anglican theology: doctrine is taught by ordered prayer at the moments when doctrine is most needed. New birth, vows, strengthening, sickness, absolution, Communion, death, resurrection, thanksgiving, and household devotion are not treated as disconnected topics. They are joined in one ecclesial pattern of Word, prayer, sacrament, pastoral exhortation, and hope.

For clergy and catechists, the best use of these offices is to teach from the rite outward. The words of the office should be read first, then the Scripture beneath them, then the doctrine they confess. This keeps Anglican pastoral care close to the Prayer Book and prevents the Occasional Offices from becoming either bare ceremony or free-form religious sentiment.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Baptism (1928 BCP)
• Confirmation (1928 BCP)
• Matrimony (1928 BCP)
• Burial of the Dead (1928 BCP)
• Visitation of the Sick (1928 BCP)
• Catechism (1928 BCP)

External Links

• 1928 Book of Common Prayer at Justus Anglican