[This] is that book for all occasions, that word for all seasons called the Book of Common Prayer. It may be none too common now, and was exceptional even when first recited, yet it still speaks to each of us when each of us most needs to be spoken to. Amen.
So what was your favorite part of the royal wedding?
Yes, we know, we weren’t going to watch all that royal folderol, either. Not us. Not us republicans, revolutionaries, no longer fighting for the rights of Englishmen but striding like a new, liberated and liberating breed on the face of the Earth: Americans. What has all that pomp and circumstance got to do with us any more?
And yet, from the first blare of the bugles and the click-clack of horses pulling the royal carriage, from the first view of Westminster Abbey and Big Ben, something stirred throughout thewhole English-speaking world-wherever Shakespeare and the King James Bible and, yes, the Book of Common Prayer are still read. And wherever the old words can still break through the cloudbank called modernity. And all eyes turned once again to that sceptered isle, that royal throne of kings. The sun shone again.
Goodness, what a beautifully written editorial!!!
Well done! But Wills is not the Prince of Wales… yet. And the 1979 BCP which, I’m guessing, was used at the funeral referred to embodies the rejection of a lot of the orthodoxy that is expressed in older versions of the Prayer Book.
[blockquote] The sight and sound of it all reminded us, and, let’s hope, the world that this is a people who knows how to stand alone when it must-and did just that when no other would defy the tyrant.
[/blockquote]
Except of course when they WERE the tyrants.
[blockquote]
Oh Erin must we leave you, driven by a tyrant’s hand,
Must we seek a mother’s blessing from a strange and distant land,
Where the cruel cross of England will never more be seen,
And where, please God, we’ll live and die
Still wearin’ of the green. [/blockquote]
Personally, I was mowing the lawn.
Ian+,
No, the service was primarily from the 1662 prayerbook with some of the 1928 revisions. At least, that’s what I’ve seen reported.
Found it. It’s called the Series One service. Here’s the link:
http://www.churchofengland.org/prayer-worship/worship/texts/1928/series-one-form-of-solemnization-of-matrimony.aspx