Dictionary

Words on this page

Advent

Advent means ‘coming’ and is the special four-week period leading up to Christmas. It is a time to prepare for the celebration of Jesus’s birth but also for his coming in glory at the end of time.

Anglican

Anglicans form the family of Christians closely related to the Archbishop of Canterbury. Whilst tracing their inheritance back to Christ and the earliest Christians and to the ancient Roman Catholic church, the sixteenth century Reformation was a crucial moment for Anglicanism.

Holy Communion

At Holy Communion blessed bread and wine is shared, by which we receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ. The congregation gives thanks for Jesus’ life, his death and resurrection and his continuing presence. See also Eucharist.

Lent

Lent is the six-week period leading up to Easter. It is a particular time to confess sin and to seek personal and collective renewal (a ‘springtime of the spirit’). Lent has a special focus on Jesus’s journey to the cross and prepares the Church to celebrate his resurrection.

Liturgy

Liturgy is a set form of words and action used for worship. In the Church in Wales (and many other churches) these forms follow the same pattern from one congregation to another. Most Anglican liturgies look back in some way to the Book of Common Prayer.

Prayer

Prayer sustains our human relationship with God and may involve words (formal or informal) or be silent. Prayer can involve adoration (‘I love you’), confession (‘sorry’), thanksgiving and supplication (‘please’).

Home Publications Liturgy Daily Prayer 2009

Daily Prayer 2009

Up until the 1950s, the 1662 Book of Common Prayer (1664 in Welsh) was the norm for public worship in the Church in Wales. In the 1950s, along with other Provinces in the Anglican Communion, the Church in Wales embarked on revising its liturgy, resulting eventually in the 1984 Morning and Evening Prayer Book.

However, in a world of rapid social and intellectual change in both church and society, and with new liturgical discoveries, the demand for an even more contemporary liturgy has grown. The result is this new volume of Daily Prayer which contains, as its title suggests, not only morning and evening offices but also material for midday and late evening worship, with a wealth of seasonal material. Our revised Eucharistic services of 2004 have shown that we can express worship in new forms and styles and that unity does not entail uniformity of practice. This additional book of Daily Prayer is offered in the same spirit. A church that takes mission seriously needs to ensure that its liturgy is accessible to all. Our new Eucharistic services have also shown that contemporary styles and a sense of the numinous can go together.

Christians are formed by the way they pray, and the way they pray expresses who they are. But as one writer put it ‘words are only the beginning of worship. They are transient and imperfect. They try to shape faith and kindle devotion, without claiming that they are fully adequate to the task. Only the grace of God can make up what is lacking in our faltering words.’

No prayer book can be the final word in worship, because liturgy is more than words. These services can only provide a framework to encourage worship but the important thing is the spirit in which the words are used. This book is designed to meet current needs and it is offered to the church in the hope that it might be a vehicle for offering prayer and praise to God, for ‘the church exists to offer on behalf of the world, the praise that the world has forgotten to express.’

+Barry Cambrensis

Download:

Gweddi Ddyddiol - Daily Prayer2009 ([W&E] PDF)

Daily Prayer2009 (Word)

Salmau Gweddi Ddyddiol - Psalms Daily Prayer 2009 ([W&E] PDF)

Psalms from Daily Prayer 2009 (Word)

Acknowledgements and copyright ([W&E] PDF)

ref: 1963