Left to right: Graham Hughes (Churchwarden), Bishop David, Patrick Gerard (Rector) and Ruth McCormack (Churchwarden).
Fr Patrick writes…
This year St Michael’s Day (29th September – Michaelmas) fell on a Sunday. The Bishop of Birmingham, the Rt Revd David Urquhart KCMG, came to St Michael’s Baddesley Clinton to help us celebrate our Patronal Festival. He led a service of Holy Communion using the CofE’s traditional prayer book: the Book of Common Prayer. One of the great strengths of the Book of Common Prayer is that the services are very standard, so it is relatively easy for a visiting minister to preside, without knowing much about local custom and practice. The service time was brought forward to 9.30am (normally it is 9.45am) to ensure that Bishop David had time to speak to parishioners after the service. He made good use of the opportunity, and photos were taken.
Afterwards Bishop David also led the 11am service of Choral Mattins at St Mary’s Lapworth. Choral Mattins is also a Book of Common Prayer service. Bishop David then attended an excellent Parish Lunch, with roast lamb! His diary appointments that day were:
8.00am – Interview for BBC Radio 4
9.30am – Patronal Festival Holy Communion at St Michael’s Baddesley Clinton
11.00am – Choral Mattins at St Mary’s Lapworth
12.30pm – Parish Lunch at the Old School, Lapworth
3.00pm – Launch “The Foundry” church plant at the new Cofton Village Hall, Cofton Hackett
6.00pm – Reopen St Michael’s Cofton Hackett after the installation of running water and gas
At one point Bishop David described this as a “quiet” day! I challenged him on that, and he admitted that it was perhaps “lovely” rather than “quiet”, because he was doing what Bishops are meant to do; visiting the parishes of the diocese.
A note about the Book of Common Prayer
Henry VIII liked his church services to be in Latin, but shortly after his death the first Book of Common Prayer was introduced by the Act of Uniformity in 1549. The idea was to make the whole Church of England worship in English, according to a standard patterns of services. For better or worse a lot of it was about making sure the king had control over church worship. The book of Common Prayer was revised in 1552, with minor revisions in 1559, 1604, and 1662. The 1662 edition came in after the 1660 Restoration. The new king, Charles II, was keen restore control his kingdom, starting with church worship. For the next few centuries all Church of England worship was according to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. An attempt to update the book in 1928 was rejected by Parliament and the 1662 edition remains the official prayer book of the Church of England to this day. However since the 1970s alternative services have also been authorised and are now widely used in the Church of England. At St Mary’s Lapworth we mainly use the alternative services from “Common Worship”, but Choral Mattins is according to the Book of Common Prayer. All the services at St Michael’s Baddesley Clinton are from the Book of Common Prayer.