A GODLY COMPETITION: The Common Prayer Tradition In Living Use

The Board of the Prayer Book Society of the U.S.A. firmly believes that in the new millennium there is need to help our contemporaries, especially the young, to understand and use with ease the traditional language of Common Prayer. It also believes it right to encourage the creation of prayers and hymns as part of a larger determination to encourage and experience Anglican Common Prayer as a tradition in living use. To this end, it has decided to sponsor a godly competition to encourage the revival of the production and provision of contemporary prayers and hymns in the traditional religious language found in The Book of Common Prayer and the hymnody of Isaac Watts, Charles Wesley and John Keble (to name but three).

Until the 1970s, there were constantly being printed books of prayers, collects and litanies for use alongside The Book of Common Prayer, especially for use at the end of Morning and Evening Prayer, at mid-week meetings, in family prayers and for private devotions. Also there was a continual appearance of hymns to be used in association with the services within the Prayer Book or for communal hymn-singing.

With the advent of modern liturgies and the insistence that God be addressed as “you” and that the second person singular (thou/thee) for God and man be no longer used, the publication of books of prayers and new hymns in the traditional English style of prayer gradually ceased. Since the 1970s very few have appeared.

THE GODLY COMPETITION

There will be six categories – collects, prayers, litanies, hymns, liturgies and homilies. And there will be two age-groups – those who have not yet reached their eighteenth birthday and those over eighteen years. All entries must be in English and may be submitted from any part of the world with British or American spelling. Each entrant shall make a statement to the effect that the submission is his own work.

Collects: a minimum of three in the style and of the length found in the Collects for Sundays and Holy Days in the Prayer Book. They must be connected with a season or festival of the Church Year, with a strong biblical theme, related to the Eucharistic Lectionary in the BCP 1662-1928. To supplement not replace the BCP Collects.

Prayers: a minimum of two in the style and of the length of the General Confession and the General Thanksgiving, or of the Prayers at the end of Morning and Evening Prayer. They must be connected with modern life and be in the form of petition, intercession, confession, praise or thanksgiving, or a combination of two or three of these themes.

Litanies: a minimum of one about 2/3 of the length of the Litany in the Prayer Book. It/they must be connected with modern life and may be general or specific in content.

Hymns: a minimum of two of the kind of length of the hymns found in the Episcopal Hymnal of 1940 or the English Hymnal of 1933. They must be rooted in a biblical or Christian festival theme and connected with modern life. It will be necessary to indicate what tune each one is to be sung to or to provide new music. If the latter, two persons may co-operate to produce words and music.

A Liturgy: the outline of a form of service for an important occasion not provided for in The Book of Common Prayer (e.g., Service on Cruise Ship, Service at a Youth Camp, & Graduating Service at a College or School), with any special prayers, litany, versicles and responses given in full.

Homilies: a minimum of one sermon of not more than 1,500 words on a theme of current personal, Christian, moral concern (e.g., the use of money, the nature of temperance, the place of discipline & relations with persons of other religions). Biblical quotations to be from the KJV.

The Entries must be submitted to the Prayer Book Society Office in Philadelphia no later than January 1, 2005.

Godly Competition
Prayer Book Society
P.O. Box 35220
Philadelphia, PA 19128-0220

There will be three judges who will make their report by March, 2005.

The best entries will be published in The Mandate in mid 2005 or, if there are sufficient of good quality, they will be published in a booklet.

If the judges believe that a contestant reveals a special gift for this kind of creative, godly writing, they will prepare a special note for that person offering encouragement and advice.

Contestants are advised to read, Neither Archaic Nor Obsolete: The Language of Common Prayer (2003) by Peter Toon & Louis R. Tarsitano [Edgeways Books, UK, & Prayer Book Society, USA]. Further, the following books may be found helpful in terms of indicating the kind of collects and prayers produced in the recent past.

• J.W.Suter, The Book of English Collects, 1940.


• F.B.McNutt, The Prayer Manual, 1951.


• Eric Milner-White, After the Third Collect, 1955.


• E Milner-White & G.W.Briggs, Daily Prayer, 1959.


• Frank Colquhoun, Parish Prayers, 1967


• Church of South India, Book of Common Worship (1963).


• Society of St John the Evangelist, A Manual for Priests, 1944.


• Loren Gavitt, Saint Augustine’s Prayer Book, revised edition 1967.


• W.H.Frere, Black Letter Saints’ Days, 1938.

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The Rev’d Dr. Peter Toon for the Directors of the Prayer Book Society of the U.S.A. June 2004.