Light Lenten Dinner and Progrm
Hosted by the ECW - Episcopal Church Women
Wednesday, Aprl 9, 20255:30 PM
Christ Church Parish Hall
56 Christchurch Lane Chapel
Saluda, VA 23149
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During the first five weeks of Lent, the Rev. Dr. Robert W. Prichard, our priest associate, will be offering reflections on the Book of Common Prayer (1979) following the weekly Lenten dinners on Wednesdays at 5:30 P M. In each session, Bob will look back on the 16th century editions of the Book of Common Prayer (1549, 1552, 1559) that provided the basis for a continuing prayer book tradition and reflect on the ways in which the current prayer book edition of 1979 reshaped that tradition. Bob, who served as the secretary of the Joint Committee on Prayer Book, Liturgy, and Music at the Episcopal Church’s General Conventions of 2015 and 2018, will also share his thoughts on the ways in which the prayer book is being supplemented and revised in the 21st century.
Please join us for the Lenten dinner and for the education presentation that will follow. Individual topics will include:
April 9. Confession. The vision of the editors of the first Book of Common Prayer of 1549 stepped back from the late medieval understanding of sin and repentance as a pastoral matter to be handled in private with a priest. The first prayer book followed a different path, adding confession and absolution to the regular public services of the church. They eliminated the expectation that private confession was needed for reception of the Eucharist, though they allowed for private confession as an option for those with a troubled conscience and those facing death. They did not, however, provide any liturgical form for it. The 1979 prayer book is the first American Prayer Book to reintroduced a set rite for private confession. In the past three decades, the Episcopal Church has offered supplemental materials intended to expand our understanding of that for which we should seek forgiveness.
