BCP Reflections

By Joel Reinhardt. This essay won the second prize in a competition organized by the PBSC Ottawa Branch in 2012 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Canadian BCP and the 350th anniversary of the 1662 English BCP.

The Revd. Gordon Maitland, PBSC National Chairman, wrote this article for the PBSC Newsletter in 2012, describing two moving services of BCP Evensong that he had attended within the space of one week, in widely differing time zones and settings.

By Elliot Rossiter. This essay won the first prize in a competition organized by the PBSC Ottawa Branch in 2012 to mark the 50th anniversary of the Canadian BCP and the 350th anniversary of the 1662 English BCP.

Bishop Stephen Andrews writes about his experience at one of the “Cranmer Conferences” for young adults, which the PBSC promoted and helped to organize and which were held annually from 2006 to 2011.

Desmond Scotchmer, a past National Chairman of the PBSC, offers a meditation upon the Prayer of Humble Access, explaining it as “a prayer of searching, uncompromising spiritual purity and power”.

Former Archbishop of Canterbury the Rt. Revd. Dr. Rowan Williams reflects upon the echoing sequences of words built up in the Prayer Book by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer so as to express again and again “our amazement at God’s free forgiveness”.

Desmond Scotchmer, a past National Chairman of the PBSC, meditates upon the cycle of Advent collects and lections in the Book of Common Prayer.

In this article the Revd. David Burrows, then rector of St. Olave’s Church in Toronto, offers some humorously individual but striking remarks from his perspective as a police chaplain as to why he appreciates the BCP.

Although this address was delivered by the Revd. Kevin Holsapple of Bangor, Maine to the Eastern Newfoundland Branch of the Society back in 1995, it still resonates with down-to-earth wisdom, insight and humour.

This book was produced in 1989 by the Association for Common Prayer, to encourage a renewed appreciation of the spiritual richness of the Prayer Book. It contains reflections on the services in the BCP, written by various members of the Association.