On November 6, St. Mary’s began offering an additional daily office Zoom service: Morning Prayer Fridays at 9:30 AM.
This daily office service will be using the resource Enriching Our Worship I. This supplemental liturgical material was prepared by the Standing Liturgical Commission of the Episcopal Church.
St. Mary’s has long had a value of providing alternative worship opportunities to those who want and need it. A core focus of this value has been inclusive language.
Enriching Our Worship is not intended to supplant the Book of Common Prayer, but rather, as its preface states, to provide additional resources to assist worshiping communities who want to expand the language, images, and metaphors used in worship.
“Expanding our vocabulary of prayer and the ways in which we name the Holy One bears witness to the fact that the mystery of God transcends all categories of knowing, including those of masculine and feminine.”
In addition, the daily appointed Psalm in this Friday daily office service will be taken from The Saint Helena Psalter. This inclusive language translation was made by Episcopalian nuns from the Order of Saint Helena, and provides elegant and beautiful alternative language for our beloved psalms.
The general shape of the new service is the same as Morning Prayer service found in the Book of Common Prayer, with different expressions, grounded in scripture, for similar meaning.
For example, here is an opening sentence from the Book of Common Prayer for Morning Prayer “Occasions of Thanksgiving”: Give thanks to the Lord, and call upon his Name, make known his deeds among the peoples. (Psalm 105:1)
Enriching Our Worship offers this sentence of thanksgiving, with comparable but more inclusive language: We give you thanks, O God, we give you thanks, calling upon your Name and declaring all your wonderful deeds.” (Psalm 75:1)
This new Friday Morning Prayer service will be led by lay people as well as by clergy. A service bulletin will be provided weekly. The Zoom link for the service will be in the Tuesday St. Mary’s email announcements. All are welcome!
Questions? Email christine@saint-marys.org
