There was once a time that if you walked into an Episcopal Church on a Sunday morning, you would arrive at a service of Morning Prayer. For decades, the primary weekly liturgy every Sunday was the office of Morning Prayer from the prayer book. Many Anglican churches celebrated Holy Communion only one Sunday a month. This was particularly true in rural parishes that shared a single priest.

This practice changed with the 1979 Book of Common Prayer (BCP) which recognized the Holy Eucharist “as the principal act of Christian worship on the Lord’s Day” (BCP p. 13).  However, Morning Prayer remains in our prayer book as a regular service appointed for worship in the Church. Morning Prayer, Noonday Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Compline comprise the “Daily Office” in our prayer book. The Daily Office is rooted in ancient tradition going back to the Jewish pattern of prayer which formed the basis of the Christian monastic Daily Office, with its prayers or “hours” at seven times in each day.  Thomas Cranmer’s revision of the Daily Office for the first English Prayer Book (1549) reduced the number of services to two, one for morning (Matins) and one for evening (Evensong or vespers). In the second English Prayer Book (1552), the morning service was given its present name, Morning Prayer.

I recently attended a gathering of clergy serving small churches, hosted by the Diocese of Western North Carolina. The Rev. Canon Augusta Anderson encouraged us to consider holding Morning Prayer on the four “fifth Sundays” of 2025. This liturgical substitution would provide priests in smaller churches with an additional tool to help manage demanding workloads. This would be especially beneficial for those of us who are part-time clergy, for whom sermon writing inevitably encroaches on our designated days off.

One of the aspects I particularly appreciate about Morning Prayer is that may be conducted by lay persons with or without any clergy involvement. The prayer book notes that “in the Daily Office, the term “Officiant” is used to denote the person, clerical or lay, who leads the Office” (BCP p. 74).  Reclaiming public worship for the laity was a reformation idea that prayer was not to be done for the people but by the people. This Sunday, March 30th, presents an opportunity for our community to embrace something new—a service featuring psalms, canticles, readings, and prayers that is, in fact, deeply rooted in tradition.

Peace and blessings,

Tracey