Prayers and Thanksgivings (1928 BCP)

Prayers and Thanksgivings (1928 BCP) is the collection of occasional intercessions and thanksgivings printed after Evening Prayer and before The Litany in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer. It gives the Church authorized language for public needs that do not belong to only one office: civil government, courts, conventions of the Church, missions, ordinations, fruitful seasons, rain, fair weather, famine, war, calamity, military service, memorial days, and public thanksgiving.

The section is not a miscellaneous appendix detached from common prayer. Its rubric places these prayers inside the normal movement of the Daily Office and other services, especially before the Prayer for all Conditions of Men, before a final thanksgiving or blessing, or before the Grace. The prayers therefore extend the Church's ordinary intercession into concrete historical circumstances while keeping those circumstances under Scripture, providence, repentance, and the mediation of Christ.

Place in the Prayer Book

The 1928 BCP locates Prayers and Thanksgivings immediately after the Daily Offices. This placement is pastoral and theological. Morning and Evening Prayer already teach confession, absolution, psalmody, lessons, creed, collects, intercession, thanksgiving, and blessing; this section then supplies additional forms when the Church must pray for a particular civil, ecclesial, social, agricultural, military, or providential need.

To be used before the Prayer for all Conditions of Men, or, when that is not said, before the final Prayer of Thanksgiving or of Blessing, or before the Grace.

The rubric keeps the prayers from becoming private devotional inserts. They are ordered for public worship. Their normal location before the Prayer for all Conditions of Men is significant because that prayer already gathers the Church's intercession for "all sorts and conditions of men," the holy Church universal, and those afflicted in mind, body, or estate. The occasional prayers name particular occasions within that wider catholic charity.

This also explains why the section belongs with Morning Prayer (1928 BCP), Evening Prayer (1928 BCP), and The Litany (1928 BCP). It shares the Daily Office's orderly structure and the Litany's habit of naming concrete dangers before God. Anglican common prayer does not leave civil life, weather, war, sickness, harvest, or public thanksgiving outside worship; it brings them into disciplined petition through Christ.

Civil authority and public order

Several prayers address civil government directly. The prayer for Congress, prayers for a state legislature and courts of justice, and the prayer for the country assume that Christians may pray for rulers and public order without treating the state as ultimate. The requests are moral and theological: wisdom, truth, justice, peace, religion, piety, and the welfare of the people.

Most gracious God, we humbly beseech thee, as for the people of these United States in general, so especially for their Senate and Representatives in Congress assembled; that thou wouldest be pleased to direct and prosper all their consultations, to the advancement of thy glory, the good of thy Church, the safety, honour, and welfare of thy people.

The prayer is not civil religion in the modern sense. Congress is not flattered as a sacred body; it is prayed for as accountable to God. Its deliberations are asked to serve God's glory, the Church's good, and the welfare of the people. This is close to the apostolic command that supplications and prayers be made for kings and all in authority, "that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty."

The prayer for the country gives the same theme a broader national scope:

Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogancy, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues.

This petition joins public peace to repentance. The nation needs protection from outward disorder, but also from pride and every evil way. The prayer's reference to many kindreds and tongues is especially characteristic of the American Prayer Book: national unity is sought as a divine mercy, not as the erasure of human variety. In worship, the Church asks that civic liberty, justice, learning, manners, and peace be governed by obedience to God's law.

The Church, unity, and mission

The prayers for the Church, for the unity of God's people, for missions, for those to be admitted into Holy Orders, and for the increase of the ministry turn from civil order to ecclesial need. They ask not only for institutional strength, but for truth, peace, purification, reform, reunion, missionary zeal, and faithful ministry.

O gracious Father, we humbly beseech thee for thy holy Catholic Church; that thou wouldst be pleased to fill it with all truth, in all peace. Where it is corrupt, purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in anything it is amiss, reform it.

This is a concise Anglican theology of reform within catholicity. The Church is called holy and catholic, yet the prayer freely admits corruption, error, defect, need, and division. The answer sought is not novelty for its own sake, but purification, direction, reform, establishment, provision, and reunion for the sake of Christ who died, rose again, and lives to intercede.

The prayer for unity makes the biblical source explicit:

There is but one Body and one Spirit, and one hope of our calling, one Lord, one Faith, one Baptism, one God and Father of us all.

The BCP does not treat unity as mere institutional management or polite sentiment. It prays for unity "in one holy bond of truth and peace, of faith and charity." Truth and charity belong together. This is consistent with the Prayer Book's wider pattern: the Church confesses one faith in the Creeds, hears Scripture publicly, receives sacraments in order, and prays for peace without surrendering doctrine.

The mission prayers extend this ecclesial concern to the nations. One of them echoes St. Paul's preaching at Athens by confessing that God "hast made of one blood all nations of men." The prayer then asks that all people may seek God, that the nations be brought into his fold, that the Spirit be poured out, and that the kingdom be hastened. Mission is therefore neither cultural ambition nor private enthusiasm; it is the Church's public petition that the Gospel be known among all peoples.

Providence, harvest, and bodily need

The section gives sustained attention to created life. Prayers for fruitful seasons, rain, fair weather, dearth and famine, and related thanksgivings assume that weather, harvest, labor, and bodily sustenance belong before God. This is not a pre-modern embarrassment in the Prayer Book; it is part of biblical dependence.

Almighty God, who hast blessed the earth that it should be fruitful and bring forth whatsoever is needful for the life of man, and hast commanded us to work with quietness, and eat our own bread; Bless the labours of the husbandman, and grant such seasonable weather that we may gather in the fruits of the earth.

The prayer connects creation, labor, and providence. God blesses the earth; human beings work with quietness; harvest is received with rejoicing in God's goodness. This language recalls both Genesis's account of fruitful creation and St. Paul's command that Christians work quietly and eat their own bread.

The prayer for rain makes the connection to Christ's teaching explicit:

O God, heavenly Father, who by thy Son Jesus Christ hast promised to all those who seek thy kingdom, and the righteousness thereof, all things necessary to their bodily sustenance; Send us, we beseech thee, in this our necessity, such moderate rain and showers.

The petition does not ask for abundance detached from discipleship. It appeals to the promise attached to seeking first the kingdom and righteousness of God. Bodily sustenance is prayed for, but under the rule of Christ. This is typical Prayer Book theology: created goods are genuinely good, yet they are received in dependence, repentance, and thanksgiving.

The famine prayer is more penitential. It confesses that scarcity and dearth are "most justly" suffered for sins, while still asking that they be mercifully turned into plenty. The result is not a mechanical explanation of every disaster, but a liturgical habit of humility. The Church may ask for temporal relief without ceasing to confess sin and seek mercy.

War, calamity, and public danger

The prayers for war and tumults, calamity, the Army, the Navy, Memorial Days, and related thanksgivings bring public danger into the same theological frame. The Church asks for protection, courage, peace, and deliverance, but does so before God as the supreme Governor and judge.

Almighty God, the supreme Governor of all things, whose power no creature is able to resist, to whom it belongeth justly to punish sinners, and to be merciful to those who truly repent; Save and deliver us, we humbly beseech thee, from the hands of our enemies.

This prayer refuses two reductions. It does not treat war as merely political, because it confesses divine government, sin, repentance, mercy, and deliverance. It also does not baptize human violence without qualification, because the people pray as sinners who need mercy. Victory is sought so that God may be glorified, not so that the nation may glory in itself.

The brief prayer in time of calamity is deliberately simple:

O God, merciful and compassionate, who art ever ready to hear the prayers of those who put their trust in thee; Graciously hearken to us who call upon thee, and grant us thy help in this our need.

Its economy is pastorally important. Not every crisis needs elaborate interpretation. The Church names God as merciful and compassionate, calls upon him, and asks for help. In parish use this prayer can stand beside the Litany's petitions for deliverance from plague, famine, battle, murder, sudden death, and all adversity.

Thanksgiving and holy living

The thanksgivings in this section answer the prayers. They include thanksgivings for harvest, childbirth, rain, fair weather, plenty, deliverance from enemies, restored public peace, and recovery from sickness. They show that Anglican intercession should end in gratitude and amendment of life, not merely in relief.

Most gracious God, by whose knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew; We yield thee unfeigned thanks and praise for the return of seed-time and harvest, for the increase of the ground and the gathering in of the fruits thereof, and for all the other blessings of thy merciful providence bestowed upon this nation and people.

Thanksgiving here is doctrinal. Harvest is not credited to luck, technique, or national strength alone, but to God's merciful providence. Yet gratitude is not only verbal. The same thanksgiving asks for a "just sense" of these mercies such as may appear in humble, holy, and obedient walking before God.

This is the same moral logic found in the General Thanksgiving:

Give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful; and that we show forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives.

Prayer Book thanksgiving is therefore not sentimental recollection. It is eucharistic in the broad sense of giving thanks to God, and ascetical in the sense that gratitude should reshape conduct. The worshipper gives thanks for creation, preservation, temporal deliverance, and above all redemption in Christ, then asks to live accordingly.

Anglican theological significance

Prayers and Thanksgivings shows the reformed catholic character of the 1928 BCP in a practical register. It is catholic because it teaches the Church to pray for the whole range of public and bodily life: rulers, courts, councils, ministers, missions, harvest, weather, calamity, war, childbirth, sickness, and peace. It is reformed because those prayers are governed by Scripture, repentance, providence, Christ's mediation, and the Word of God rather than by superstition or merely ceremonial habit.

The section also clarifies Anglican teaching on common prayer. The Church does not improvise every public need from scratch, nor does it leave public need outside worship. Authorized forms discipline emotion, protect doctrine, and give congregations words they can pray together. This is especially important in crisis, when fear, anger, or partisan instinct can easily dominate public speech.

For traditional Anglican and Reformed Episcopal readers, these prayers are a useful school of applied theology. They show how the Prayer Book connects doctrine to ordinary life: God rules creation and nations; Christ is the one Mediator; the Holy Ghost guides the Church; sin requires repentance; temporal mercies require thanksgiving; and public prayer should seek truth, peace, justice, unity, and holy living.

Use in worship and teaching

In worship, the prayers may be inserted according to the opening rubric, especially in Morning or Evening Prayer, before the Prayer for all Conditions of Men, before a concluding thanksgiving or blessing, or before the Grace. They are particularly fitting for legislative sessions, civic services, courts and public officials, diocesan or general conventions, Rogation days, drought, excessive rain, famine, war, public calamity, military remembrance, harvest thanksgiving, childbirth, recovery from sickness, and restored peace.

In teaching, the section is best explained by grouping the prayers rather than treating them as disconnected forms. Civil prayers teach public authority under God; Church prayers teach truth, peace, reform, unity, mission, and ministry; weather and harvest prayers teach providence and dependence; calamity and war prayers teach repentance and trust; thanksgivings teach gratitude that becomes holy living.

Prayers and Thanksgivings belongs with related 1928 BCP topics such as Morning Prayer (1928 BCP), Evening Prayer (1928 BCP), The Litany (1928 BCP), A Penitential Office for Ash Wednesday (1928 BCP), Rogation Days (1928 BCP), Thanksgiving Day Proper (1928 BCP), Forms of Prayer to be Used in Families (1928 BCP), Common Prayer and Anglican Unity, Scripture in the 1928 BCP, and Prayer Book Spirituality.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Morning Prayer (1928 BCP)
• Evening Prayer (1928 BCP)
• The Litany (1928 BCP)
• Rogation Days (1928 BCP)
• Thanksgiving Day Proper (1928 BCP)
• Forms of Prayer to be Used in Families (1928 BCP)
• Common Prayer and Anglican Unity
• Scripture in the 1928 BCP
• Prayer Book Spirituality

External Links

• Prayers and Thanksgivings in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer
• The 1928 Book of Common Prayer