Old Prayers and Holy Week
Times of great sickness and plague are nothing new, especially for Anglican Christians. At the time that Thomas Cranmer wrote the Great Litany, which includes prayers that God would spare us from dying quickly and unprepared, England was in the grips of a recurring illness called the “sweating sickness.” Historians are still not sure exactly what this sickness was, but those who died from the sweating sickness would begin sweating from a violent fever, and usually die within two to twenty-four hours. It is said that both Cardinal Wolsey and Anne Boleyn suffered from the sweating sickness, both surviving their experiences (alas, neither could survive Henry).
Watching those inside and outside of the church respond to this contemporary reminder of our mortality, I am left with a sneaking suspicion that as modern people, even Christians, we struggle to find the right ways to think and pray about what we see happening around us. I reached out to a friend of mine, who is a Priest at a 1928 BCP church in the Anglican Communion, to discuss this. He shamelessly reminded me that this is indeed the case and that I need look no further than our own Prayer Book tradition to confirm it, as they leave us with largely inadequate Collects for our situation!
Below you will find two prayers from both the 1662 and 1928 prayer books, that are most appropriate for our own situation. We do not have equivalent prayers in either the 1979 BCP or in the 2019 BCP, perhaps to our detriment. I am curious what all of you think about the theology guiding these prayers from the two older prayer books. Can you let me know by e-mail?
In Time of Great Sickness and Mortality (1928)
O MOST mighty and merciful God, in this time of grievous sickness, we flee unto thee for succour. Deliver us, we beseech thee, from our peril; give strength and skill to all those who minister to the sick; prosper the means made use of for their cure; and grant that, perceiving how frail and uncertain our life is, we may apply our hearts unto that heavenly wisdom which leadeth to eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
In the Time of Any Common Plague or Sickness (1662)
O ALMIGHTY God, who in thy wrath did send a plague upon thine own people in the wilderness, for their obstinate rebellion against Moses and Aaron; and also, in the time of King David, didst slay with the plague of Pestilence threescore and ten thousand, and yet remembering thy mercy didst save the rest; Have pity upon us miserable sinners, who now are visited with great sickness and mortality; that like as thou didst then accept of an atonement, and didst command the destroying Angel to cease from punishing, so it may now please thee to withdraw from us this plague and grievous sickness; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
A Book Recommendation for Holy Week
Fleming Rutledge’s stellar treatment of Christ’s Crucifixion, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus is on sale in its Kindle version on Amazon. The price is currently $2.99 and is normally $29.99, so I recommend scooping this one up for your Holy Week reading.
Holy Week Schedule
- We will celebrate Maundy Thursday this week by sending you the liturgy to the service for your own use, along with a meditation from Tim Smith.
- We will celebrate Good Friday with a “Seven Last Words” service, also to be sent along with music and meditations for your own use.
- We will continue with our practice of a recorded service of Morning Prayer for Easter Sunday.
As always, if you have needs of any kind, please reach out to the office or someone close to you, that we may hold you in prayer and build one another up in Christ.
Yours in Christ,
Fr. Matt