Opening Sentences in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)

Opening Sentences in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP) are the Scripture sentences with which the minister begins Morning Prayer in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. They form the biblical threshold of the office: before confession, absolution, psalmody, lessons, creed, and collects, the congregation first hears the Word of God summon it to reverence, repentance, praise, and hope.

In the 1928 BCP these sentences are not a decorative preface. They interpret the whole office. Morning Prayer begins under Scripture, and the minister may choose one or more sentences suited to the day or season. The result is a distinctively Anglican pattern in which common prayer is introduced by biblical proclamation rather than by private exhortation or devotional improvisation.

Place in Morning Prayer

The first rubric of the office establishes the governing principle:

The Minister shall begin the Morning Prayer by reading one or more of the following Sentences of Scripture.

This rubric matters because it gives Scripture the first audible word in the office. The congregation is not initially addressed by a sermon, a seasonal announcement, or an explanation of the rite. It is placed before God by biblical words selected from Habakkuk, the Psalms, Isaiah, St. John, St. Paul, and other canonical texts.

The 1928 BCP also includes rubrical flexibility immediately after the sentences. On ordinary days, and especially when the Litany or Holy Communion follows, the minister may pass from the sentences directly toward the Lord's Prayer and versicles. Even where confession and absolution are omitted under the rubric, the office still begins with Scripture. The sentences are therefore the stable scriptural entrance into the morning office.

Reverence Before God

Several of the general sentences teach the congregation that prayer begins with reverence before the presence and holiness of God.

The LORD is in his holy temple: let all the earth keep silence before him.

This sentence restrains casual worship. It does not invite the people to begin with self-expression, but with silence before the Lord who is already present and holy. Morning Prayer is common prayer because the Church is gathered into God's presence under his Word.

Another sentence gives that reverence a personal and liturgical direction:

Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be alway acceptable in thy sight, O LORD, my strength and my redeemer.

Psalm 19 joins outward speech and inward meditation. At the beginning of Morning Prayer, this is especially apt: the congregation will soon confess sin, praise God in the Psalms, hear lessons, say the Creed, and offer collects. The opening sentence asks that all these words be acceptable to the Lord who both judges and redeems.

Repentance and Confession

The opening sentences also prepare the congregation for the confession that normally follows. They make penitence biblical before it becomes liturgical.

Rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the LORD your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the evil.

This Lenten sentence shows why Morning Prayer's confession is evangelical rather than merely moralistic. The people are called to true contrition because God is gracious and merciful. Repentance is not an attempt to earn access to prayer; it is the fitting response to the Lord who calls sinners back to himself.

The same penitential logic appears in the sentence from Psalm 51:

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.

Placed before the General Confession, this sentence teaches that the Church's first offering is not performance but contrition. The office then gives the congregation words for that contrition: "We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep." The opening sentences and confession therefore interpret one another.

Seasonal Proclamation

The 1928 BCP provides seasonal sentences that allow Morning Prayer to announce the Church year from Scripture. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension, Whitsunday, Trinity Sunday, and Thanksgiving Day each receive biblical language suited to the season.

For Advent the office may begin with the preaching of John the Baptist:

Repent ye, for the Kingdom of heaven is at hand.

This makes Advent more than seasonal expectation. It is a summons to repentance before the coming reign of God. Morning Prayer thus teaches the season by Scripture before the collects and lessons unfold it further.

At Christmas the sentence announces the Incarnation as gospel:

Behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

The opening word of the office is therefore not generic festivity, but the angelic proclamation of Christ the Saviour. The sentence names joy, people, city of David, Saviour, and Lord, giving Christmas its doctrinal content before the office continues.

For Easter the Prayer Book turns directly to the resurrection:

He is risen. The Lord is risen indeed.

In Eastertide, Morning Prayer begins not merely with penitence but with victory. The same office that confesses sin also proclaims the risen Christ. This pattern protects Anglican devotion from separating repentance from resurrection hope.

Scripture and Liturgical Logic

The opening sentences reveal the Anglican conviction that liturgy should be saturated with Scripture. They are brief, but they establish the office's order: God speaks, the Church answers in confession and prayer, and the people are then led into praise, lessons, creed, and intercession.

This reflects the apostolic pattern of the Church gathered around doctrine and prayer:

And they continued stedfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.

The same logic appears in St. Paul's account of the usefulness of Scripture:

All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

Morning Prayer does not quote Scripture at the beginning merely to supply a pious motto. The sentences perform the very work St. Paul describes: they teach doctrine, reprove sin, correct the heart, and instruct the congregation in the righteousness for which it is about to pray.

The sentences also help explain why Morning Prayer is both personal and ecclesial. Some texts speak in the singular, as in Psalm 19:14; others summon the whole earth, the nations, or the Church. The worshipper comes before God as a penitent person, but never as a religious isolate. The office gives personal repentance a common, scriptural, ecclesial form.

Theological Interpretation

From a classical Anglican and Reformed Episcopal perspective, the opening sentences show the primacy of Scripture in common prayer. The Prayer Book does not ask the congregation to begin with ecclesiastical authority as an independent source of revelation. It begins with biblical words and then orders confession, absolution, psalmody, and doctrine around those words.

High Church and Tractarian readers have often valued this same feature because it shows that fixed liturgy need not compete with Scripture. The inherited order of Morning Prayer makes the Bible public, audible, seasonal, and formative. The opening sentences are therefore part of the Church's disciplined reception of Scripture, not an alternative to it.

Historically, these sentences stand in continuity with the English Prayer Book tradition. They preserve Cranmerian and later Anglican instincts: public worship should be intelligible, penitential, scriptural, and ordered. The 1928 American book retains that pattern while providing seasonal breadth for parish use.

Use in Worship and Teaching

In parish worship, the opening sentence should be chosen deliberately. A weekday office may call for reverence or contrition; Advent and Lent may require penitential sentences; Easter, Ascension, Whitsunday, and Trinity Sunday allow the office to begin with the saving work of Christ and the confession of the Triune God.

In teaching, the sentences are a useful way to explain the whole logic of Morning Prayer. They show that the office begins with God's Word, moves toward confession and mercy, opens into praise, and forms the congregation by repeated biblical hearing. Catechists can therefore teach the opening sentences alongside General Confession in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP), Absolution in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP), The Psalter (1928 BCP), and Daily Office Lectionary (1928 BCP).

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Daily Office (1928 BCP)
• Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)
• Evening Prayer (1928 BCP)
• General Confession in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)
• Absolution in Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)
• The Psalter (1928 BCP)
• Daily Office Lectionary (1928 BCP)

External Links

• The 1928 Book of Common Prayer