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Common Prayer Day, August 24th, marks 350 years of the 1662 prayer book

The Anglican Bible and Book Society joins its voice with that of The Secker Society in encouraging Anglicans around the world to mark “Common Prayer Day” on August 24, 2012. Common Prayer Day commemorates the 350th anniversary of the publication of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer in England.

This is a historic occasion that should not pass unnoticed. The Secker Society’s Common Prayer Day Initiative recommends that parishes celebrate the heritage of the prayer book with special services. The 1662 prayer book was first used on St. Bartholomew’s Day, which occurs August 24th.

On behalf of the Anglican Bible and Book Society, I encourage you to honor this day in your parish. If you are unable to have a special service on Friday, the 24th, please consider another day this year for such a commemoration. At the least, take time to remind your parishioners of the significance of the event of the publication of the English prayer book in 1662. The Common Prayer Day website provides a downloadable version of Evening Prayer that can be used by congregations or individuals in marking this day.

Bishop John Henry Hobart’s commentary on the church year

This entry is part 1 of 43 in the series Hobart's Commentary on the Church Year

In his A Companion for the Book of Common Prayer, Containing an Explanation of the Service (1859), Bishop John Henry Hobart, the third bishop of New York, included an outline of the church year. He addressed each season and holy day of the church calendar as outlined in the Book of Common Prayer. His brief commentaries on the calendar are useful for understanding the seasonal feasts and fasts, and for understanding the background of the appointed readings from the lectionary.

This book has long been out of print, though it can be procured from sellers of used books. In order to provide brief notes of educational and devotional instruction, the Society will be publishing here on its website Bishop Hobart’s commentary on the church year. Each item will be published on the day beginning the season or on the respective holy day, covering the entire church year. We hope these snippets of information will be enlightening for Anglicans and non-Anglicans alike.

Bishop Hobart’s commentary includes a few footnotes. Where we have found them to be important for the understanding of his particular remarks, we have included them; when we have found them to address marginal matters not explicitly necessary for understanding his comments, we have omitted them.

As we are only now publishing the series, we begin with the Sundays after the Epiphany and will continue until we have finished next year on the feast of Epiphany.

Give Us This Day: A daily devotional for deeper reading

Many Christians today read through the Bible as if it were an instruction manual for piecing together buyer-assembled particle board furniture. Some of it is obvious, and some of it is confusing. We plod along through each book, chapter by chapter, not always understanding, but somehow forcing things together to look like the item pictured on the box. However, when it comes to following Christ, we should do more than haphazardly throw together our understanding of Scripture because doing so will lead to an uncertain life—though, on the outside, it looks to others like the picture of the thing on the box, that preconceived idea of how Christians are supposed to act and think.

How can we better read and meditate on the Bible so that we have a better understanding of God’s precepts? One way practiced since early Christianity is that of lectio divina, or “divine reading”.

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