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I'm just going to put this out there: the Bidding Prayer in the Book of Occasional Services leaves a lot to be desired.

The one read at St. John's College, Cambridge, however, is spot on. You can listen to the service this week from the BBC.

Labels: Advent, Book of Occasional Services, prayer, St John's (Cambridge)

Today (St. George's Day) in the Anglican Cycle of Prayer we pray for "Royal Perculiars [sic] Chapels Royal, Religious Peculiars, and Westminster Abbey".

What's a Royal Peculiar, you ask?

A Royal Peculiar (or Royal Peculier) is a place of worship that falls directly under the jurisdiction of the British monarch, rather than a diocese.

It dates to Anglo-Saxon times when a church could ally itself with the monarch and therefore not be subject to the bishopric of the area. Later it embodied the relationship between the Norman and Plantagenet Kings and the English church.

Every good Anglican should know this.

A Royal Pipedreams peculiarity: It seems to me that the third selection on this week's episode of Pipedreams was not a Fantasia on MADRID, but rather KINGSFOLD (it starts at about 26:00 into the program). This is a little strange since host Michael Barone introduces this selection by referring to the ubiquity of hymn tunes in organist-composed music and saying "I expect some of you might recognize this one". Barone himself either does not recognize it, or is confused about its name.

A royal explanation? It was Spain's King Phillip II who moved the Spanish capital to Madrid. Previously, ruling families held court in Toledo and Zargoza. It is said that Phillip folded these the power of these other two capitals into Madrid, the "doblez del rey" or "king's fold".

MADRID is included in the Presbyterian Hymnal at 150: "Come, Christians, Join to Sing".

Labels: Anglicanism, hymn, prayer

Merton Monday, the second Monday of every month on Sinden.org, features an excerpt from the writing of Thomas Merton:

Praise is cheap today. Everything is praised. Soap, beer, toothpaste, clothing, mouthwash, movie stars, all the latest gadgets which are supposed to make life more comfortable--everything is contantly being "praised." Praise is now so overdone that everybody is sick of it . . .

Are there no superlatives left for God? They have all been wasted on foods and quack medicines. There is no word left to express our adoration of Him who alone is Holy, who alone is Lord.

So we go to Him and ask help and to get out of being punished, and to mumble that we need a better job, more money, more of the things that are praised by the advertisements. And we wonder why our prayer is so often dead--gaining its only life, borrowing its only urgency from the fact that we need these things so badly.

Merton, Thomas. Praying the Psalms, Collegeville, Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1956.

Labels: praise, prayer, Psalms, Thomas Merton