Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth (1928 BCP)

From AnglicanWiki
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth (1928 BCP) is the office in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer "commonly called the Churching of Women." It gives public thanks for a mother's preservation through childbirth, places recovery and family life within the Church's common prayer, and directs gratitude toward God rather than toward private sentiment alone.

The rite is brief, but it is not marginal. It shows how the Prayer Book carries Christian prayer into the household and the body: marriage, childbirth, sickness, death, and domestic devotion are all given ordered words before God. The mother comes not to undergo a new sacrament, but to return thanks in the congregation for mercy received and to ask that both mother and child may live under God's will and blessing.

Prayer Book Placement

The office stands after Matrimony (1928 BCP) and before the sick and burial offices among the Occasional Offices (1928 BCP). That sequence is pastoral: the Prayer Book moves from marriage to childbirth, sickness, Communion of the sick, burial, and household prayer. Childbirth is therefore treated neither as a merely private event nor as a separate sacrament, but as an occasion for thanksgiving before God.

The opening rubric permits either the full service or only the concluding thanksgiving, as printed among the Occasional Prayers and Thanksgivings, to be used at the minister's discretion.[1] This gives a fixed Anglican form while allowing pastoral judgment about the mother's health, parish custom, and the circumstances of the family.

Churching of Women

The traditional name "Churching of Women" should be read through the actual text of the 1928 rite. Its emphasis is thanksgiving for preservation, not a doctrine that childbirth has made the mother morally unclean. The woman comes to church "at the usual time after her delivery" and kneels in a convenient place according to custom or episcopal direction.[2]

Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God, of his goodness, to give you safe deliverance, and to preserve you in the great danger of Child-birth; you shall therefore give hearty thanks unto God, and say,

[3]

The sentence names childbirth as "great danger" and receives safe delivery as divine mercy. The rite is realistic about bodily peril while directing gratitude into ordered common prayer.

Psalm 116 and Deliverance

The appointed hymn is Psalm 116, Dilexi, quoniam. In the office, the psalm's language of answered prayer and deliverance becomes the mother's public thanksgiving.

My delight is in the Lord; because he hath heard the voice of my prayer; Because he hath inclined his ear unto me; therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.

[4]

The same psalm moves from deliverance to vowed thanksgiving in the congregation. The mother returns thanks in the courts of the Lord's house rather than only in private feeling.

What reward shall I give unto the Lord for all the benefits that he hath done unto me? I will receive the cup of salvation, and call upon the Name of the Lord.

[5]

This connects the rite to the wider Prayer Book use of the Psalter. The same biblical speech that forms the Daily Office (1928 BCP) is placed into an occasional office for childbirth and recovery.

Suffrages and Trust

After the psalm, the office uses the Lord's Prayer and short versicles. If the service is used with Morning or Evening Prayer, the Lord's Prayer may be omitted to avoid duplication.[6]

Minister. O Lord, save this woman thy servant; Answer. Who putteth her trust in thee.

[7]

The language of trust is central. The rite does not deny weakness, pain, or danger; it confesses dependence upon God and asks continued preservation.

Thanksgiving Collect

The central collect gives thanks for preservation through childbirth and asks that the mother's restored life be lived in obedience and hope.

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.

[8]

The collect does not end with survival alone. It asks that the mother may live faithfully according to God's will and finally share everlasting glory.[9]

Child Prayer

The optional prayer for the child extends the thanksgiving from preservation to formation in grace.

Grant, we beseech thee, O heavenly Father, that the child of this thy servant may daily increase in wisdom and stature.

[10]

This echo of Luke's description of the child Jesus keeps the prayer from being only biological or sentimental. The child's growth is sought as growth before God: wisdom, stature, love, service, and final joy. The mother gives thanks for deliverance, and the Church prays that the new life entrusted to the household may be formed toward holiness.

Scripture and Childbirth

The office's explicit biblical center is Psalm 116, but its theology also belongs with the wider scriptural pattern of travail, deliverance, and joy. Christ himself uses childbirth as an image of sorrow turned into joy:

A woman when she is in travail hath sorrow, because her hour is come.

[11]

Read with Psalm 116, this gives the office a Christian shape: danger and pain are not denied, but mercy received calls forth thanksgiving. The rite avoids both romanticizing childbirth and treating it as merely medical. It teaches the mother and congregation to confess providence, vulnerability, and joy together.

Offerings and Communion

The final rubric directs offerings to the relief of distressed women in child-bed and says that, if there is a Communion, it is convenient that the mother receive Holy Communion.[12]

This ending prevents the rite from closing in on the individual household. Thanksgiving becomes mercy toward other mothers in danger, and it is naturally related to the sacramental fellowship of the altar.

Pastoral and Theological Use

In parish teaching, the office should be explained from its own prayers: deliverance from danger, thanksgiving in the congregation, trust in God, holy living, charity to distressed women, and the Christian formation of the child.

The office also belongs with Matrimony (1928 BCP), Baptism (1928 BCP), and family prayer. It assumes that childbirth is part of a larger Christian vocation in which the household is ordered by prayer, charity, sacramental communion, and hope of everlasting glory.

See Also

External Links

References

  1. ↑ 1928 Book of Common Prayer, The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, p. 303; Prayers and Thanksgivings, p. 47.
  2. ↑ 1928 Book of Common Prayer, The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, p. 303.
  3. ↑ 1928 Book of Common Prayer, The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, p. 304.
  4. ↑ 1928 Book of Common Prayer, The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, p. 304; Psalm 116:1-2.
  5. ↑ 1928 Book of Common Prayer, The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, p. 304; Psalm 116:12-13.
  6. ↑ 1928 Book of Common Prayer, The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, p. 304.
  7. ↑ 1928 Book of Common Prayer, The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, p. 304.
  8. ↑ 1928 Book of Common Prayer, The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, p. 305.
  9. ↑ 1928 Book of Common Prayer, The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, p. 305.
  10. ↑ 1928 Book of Common Prayer, The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, p. 305; Luke 2:52.
  11. ↑ John 16:21, Authorized Version.
  12. ↑ 1928 Book of Common Prayer, The Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth, p. 305.
Retrieved from "https://www.anglicanwiki.org/index.php?title=Thanksgiving_of_Women_after_Child-birth_(1928_BCP)&oldid=2244"