confirmation- bcp

Um, so just a reminder: if you missed any of these and you're having trouble sleeping, you'll find them on the STTAEC homepage under Readings and Sermons, and they're all called confirmation by title.

There's a small slip we didn't record last week's, which is about Episcopalians and the Bible.

And uh we do have like actual videos of that from the last two years that you can watch on our YouTube page.

And a reminder: you don't have to do any of this.

It's if it's helpful, right?

Uh if you're wanting to meet the Episcopal Church, the goal of this is to meet the Episcopal Church.

And today we're gonna do the last bit of that meeting through the common prayer book.

Courtney's gonna introduce that and give us time to talk about what you'd like to specifically what you'd like the bishop to confirm in you.

Um I just want to remind you that um he moved his visitation up because his wife lives in Costa Rica, so he's going there on the 21st.

It was a gift to him to be able to not be here on the 21st.

So we'll have a session.

If you come next week at 9:15, you can meet Bishop Monterosso, and I guarantee you he's gonna ask, like, where is hope in you?

Like he always asks the hope question.

So he'll meet with everybody who wants to meet to talk about confirmation, reception, and renewal.

You don't have to come to be confirmed, received, or renewed.

So if you come at 10:30, that'll be good enough.

If you're being confirmed or received, you will get a prayer book from us with your name on it.

If you're being renewed, sorry.

We don't, we I don't know why, but maybe you already have one.

So we didn't get you one.

Now, you may not get it next week because some people told me a little later, I'm doing my best, but I'll try to have them all next week with your names on them if you're being confirmed or received.

That's the church's gift to you to help celebrate this milestone.

And you don't have to come back on the 14th, but we wanted to offer another one of these on the 14th that is really sort of open.

Somebody uh asked me two weeks ago, hey, I don't know why we do all the things we do in the service.

Like liturgically, like, why are we doing this stuff?

Or why do some people kneel and some people stand?

But you might have other questions too.

That's so it's really meant to be in two weeks from today, is meant to be like, hey, here are my other questions, and you might say, here's what the confirmation service was like for me.

I'm gonna warn you, because Bishop Monteros is gonna do most of the talking next week, probably.

Um, our practice at St.

Thomas is when the bishop laced his hands on you to confirm or receive or renew your vows, you will probably find somebody touching your shoulder.

And if you could turn around, there'll probably be 40 people who are coming to support you in your vows, and they're doing it by laying their hands on you.

And of course, 40 people can't do that without like it getting really heavy.

So sometimes there's hands on their shoulders, on their shoulders, on your shoulders.

And I just want you to be prepared for that.

The grace I want you to know is that even though Bishop Monterosso's Guatemalan, he's not going to smack you.

Um so if you've heard the bishop smack people, some do, but not him.

So there'll be no there'll be no smacking next week.

Um, any questions about like format or the scheduling?

I might be a little late next week.

Is that would that be okay if I he does the confirmation serve?

Oh, come at any time.

And look, if you come up at 10 45, we'll still confirm you, right?

I mean it's I understood that.

And and as long as you're here when he does the right, you can do it.

So if you roll in at 11, you're probably gonna be alright.

I'd encourage you to come by 10:30 if you can, but if you can't, 11 o'clock is probably your time.

Everybody has their names down, and this is all I've got everybody's names in the right bucket, I think.

I think I do.

And hey, if you look at the bulletin next week and you're like, hey, you left me out, we'll write you in and it'll happen.

Like I have found out from somebody yesterday they want to be confirmed, and it's like it's not too late.

Because it's not.

When will we do it again next year?

We get to do this once a year in our place.

And it's a gift to the bishop to wear your name tag if you have one.

Yeah, and I do want to tell you too, in addition to confirmation, we'll have a formal welcome of all new members, right?

And and so some of you will be doing both of those things.

We're just gonna ask you to come up, and there'll be a small liturgy of welcome, where the we'll welcome you to St.

Thomas and to the Episcopal Church Capital C.

And that's part of what Hecker will do.

Okay, now here we go.

All right.

Um forgot to write page number down.

Okay.

Hi everybody, happy thanks.

Hope you all had a good Thanksgiving.

Um, so I wanted to start with just why do we have a prayer book in the first place?

Um, so why have a prayer book?

Why not just pray what comes into our minds or into the clergy's minds every Sunday?

Anyone have ideas?

I know it's early.

Yeah, yeah.

It's it's even in the name, right?

So to have like shared words, right?

Shared words, shared identity.

Um that's that's part of it.

We were gonna do that.

I said the standardization in the in the sense that I think one of you had said at some point during this there are certain words that have to be said in the prior to the thing.

That makes sense.

Yeah, so yeah, so that's again like so so to have shared words and a shared identity, and we're all doing something in common together.

Um there's a few other reasons.

So um Sean talked last week a little bit about the King James Bible.

I think super interesting that the Book of Common Prayer, the first one, was published in 1549, which is like 60 years before the King James Bible.

So the King James Bible was the first English Bible, and the Book of Common Prayer predates that by 60 years, which is just bonkers to me.

Um that people didn't have English resources in their own language to participate in worship.

Um, so that's a huge, uh, you know, huge part was just to give something to people to be able to participate.

Um and then when we don't have words, the prayer book can sort of pray for us.

So I grew up in a tradition where there was uh just extemporaneous prayer, and I always felt really awkward about it.

Like, how am I supposed to come up with this?

And I always felt really put on the spot if I ever had to pray out loud.

Um so I love, I mean, I'm better at it now, and actually having spent time with the Book of Common Prayer has made me better at extemporaneous prayer.

But um, but you know, sometimes you're sad or just lost or not an English major, and you can't come up with beautiful words, and someone else has done that.

Um the another neat thing is that it's it's something that we share in common, not just in the United States, in the Episcopal Church, but in the Anglican Communion.

Um, there's you know different languages, but the same thing, and and even like Catholic Church does says a lot of the same prayers as well.

And so, like I was in Iceland and we went to the I can't remember what it's called, but the weird white church that's whatever.

And everything was in uh in Icelandic.

I couldn't understand a word, but I knew like, okay, we're doing now.

This is the confession, this is the creed, this is the Lord's Prayer, because it follows the same structure, and we're all saying something together.

This must be the creed or whatever it is.

Um, and so there's something really cool to me about on a Sunday morning, millions, if not a billion, I'm not sure what the number is, right?

Of people are doing the exact same thing you're doing that day.

Um, but it's also contextual.

So something I think is, I mean, maybe I'm a little bit of a nerd, but on on page nine is like the preface to the first American edition.

And so it was published in 1789, and so it's definitely got some we won the Revolutionary War vibes in there, um, which is kind of interesting.

And and and like I think Mike had said in when we talked about history, we weren't gonna pray for the king anymore.

Um, but it I think it's totally worth reading because it's this really, it's this really interesting sort of distillation of um we're doing something new, we're building something new, and it's got some demo some democracy vibes as well.

Um but we're not just gonna throw everything away.

We're gonna carry the tradition and adapt it to our context.

And I assume like the New Zealand prayer book has its own history, it's got like more of an emphasis on creation and earth and nature.

Um, so yeah.

Um I add two things.

Yeah.

So the New Zealand one's really interesting because it's English one page and Maori on the other page.

So it's really meant to, I mean, it's a colonial church, right?

Like the British just took over New Zealand, but then in making their own prayer book, they were like, well, the Maori were here first, right?

So like the Christian faith needs to make sense in the native tongue as well as like the colonial tongue.

So it's interesting that way, and they use some of the primal uh spiritual experience of Maori in the English bit as well.

So they kind of are meant to go alongside.

One other thing that Courtney said that um is really, really neat is when Thomas Cranmer made this prayer book, he didn't sit down and think, I'm a poet, I'm just gonna write all this up.

He toured, I mean, granted, Western Europe uh and a little bit in the East, and we've added some Orthodox prayers to it, but the prayers in here, some of them are like 1,500 plus years old.

So when we talk about common prayer, it's not just what anybody's praying on a Sunday worldwide, it's prayers Christians have prayed for 1,500 plus years.

So it's common prayer with the living and the dead.

And and then there's wisdom in that, right?

Like there's not just this feels artsy and cutting edge, it's like these words have carried people for 1,500 plus years.

So like we have humanity in common with them, and we benefit from their wisdom even in how we pray.

Yeah, thank you.

Um so what we're not gonna do over the next 20 whatever minutes is like go through the table of contents, and y'all can do that.

Um, but it's worth looking at the table of contents, and you'll see like what's where in the prayer book and the structure of it overall.

Um and you know, we could talk about the prayer book for weeks or months, right?

But what I wanted to do with our time is give you a peek or a lens to look at the prayers and the structure and what the prayer book's actually doing.

So um there's this this um, I think he's like an Oxford professor, if I'm remembering right, um, who talks about the prayer book as affective technology, which just means it's it's a it's a it's a tool that's meant to draw out certain emotions in us when we come to worship and participate in the services.

And so what I thought would be useful is to look at the Holy Eucharist, which starts on page 355, through that lens.

That makes sense.

Um and so like the Reformation wasn't just like a you know a movement, it's also about reforming our hearts and emotions and how we do worship as you know as a community.

Um and so the the prayer book was created very specifically sort of as spiritual architecture to to move us through uh an experience, not just um I don't know what, not just, but to move us through an experience, period.

Um starting with like pray, you know, um like awe and wonder and praise, and then maybe getting a little reflective and and feeling some remorse and grief, and then joy and hope and forgiveness and renewal, and sort of, you know, I keep saying sort of, but you see that uh once you see it in the Holy Eucharist, you see it in in all the different services.

So morning prayer is like setting your intention for the day.

Um, noonday prayer is like a check-in, um, evening prayer is reflecting on the day and like where you might have fallen short.

Um, and then Compline is like getting yourself tucked in bed at night with protection for you know sleep and all of that.

Um and so every service is it's not just you know, like Mike was saying, like somebody just made something up one day because it sounded nice.

There's there's a real intentionality behind it.

So starting on page 355, and like if I'm going too fast, interrupt me, whatever.

Um we we start right away with praise, right?

So yay, we're here, we're at church, hooray.

Um and like, and yay, God.

Um and then at the bottom is the the opening collect, which is we say, I think sometimes you say a slightly different version of the opening collect, right?

But no, I'll only even write one, and then the U goes to the thy, which is this you'll hear again, is the second person intimate in English.

We don't have that anymore.

U is formal.

We dropped it because of the Quakers, wanted to call everybody intimate, and we were like, uh, we're just gonna call everybody formal.

But the valveye is actually like the most intimate way to refer to somebody else.

So that's the only variant we have in our service.

When we do right one, we do the valve die.

When we do right two, it's you your.

There you go.

So do you know in Spanish or any type of Latin origin, it's the two forma and not the forma.

It's like it's actually the most intimate.

Or in German it's the do form, which you only use for like a grandmother or a parent or like your best friend.

Your school friends are still the z form, they're not like do.

So colicts are interesting.

There's colic, there's the opening colic that we say every Sunday, and then there's also colics for each Sunday, has its own collect, and there's a section in the prayer book where you can find what the collect is for that Sunday.

Um but they all follow the same structure.

So they start with like a name of God.

So this well, I'll just tell you the structure and then we'll read it.

So they start with the name of God, Almighty God, and then something about God, an attributive phrase, if you want the vocabulary words.

Um to you, all hearts are open, all desires known, and from you no secrets are hid.

So this is something about God.

Then there's like, what are we asking for?

The petition, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit.

And then why the result is that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name.

And then it all they all end with like the through Jesus Christ, like acknowledging why we're sort of here in the first place.

Um and I think sometimes I don't know, maybe it's just me, but sometimes the language of the prayer book isn't the way I speak every day, in case you can't tell.

I'm a pretty casual speaker.

Um but once I kind of understood that structure, call colics meant a lot more to me than they used to.

So the the like shorthand is you, the name of God, who, something about God, what is it gonna do um uh in order to do something, the result, and then through Jesus Christ.

So colics.

Um then there's uh sorry, oh sorry.

Um and then we go, there's praise.

I love that.

I was just saying, I love that.

I hadn't heard that, and that's really sweet.

That's really sweet.

Oh, okay, yeah.

I was like, what are they saying?

Um we love that, yeah.

Um so then there's more praise with the glory, the gloria, as it's called, some uh uh as it's called.

Um and then we get into the scripture readings, and there's gratitude throughout that, right?

So after every reading, it's thanks be to God, even if it's like and some terrible, awful thing happened, thanks be to God.

Um and then, or at the end of the gospel, praise to you, Lord Christ, glory to you, Lord Christ.

And then the sermon, just like instruction, exhortation.

And then there's we then we start to shift.

So when we get to the prayers of the people, which 359 is the placeholder for it, and I don't I you know I don't know if everyone knows this, but all the prayers of the people start on page 383, and there's six different forms.

So um that's uh that's how that works.

It's not like in line with the rest of the book you have to flip.

Um but if you go to page 383, at the very top it says sort of what the purpose of the prayers of the people are.

So like these are the things that we're thinking about: the universal church, the nation, the welfare of the world, concerns of the local community, those who suffer, and those in any trouble.

So now we're sort of we're thinking about the world, and there's like pain and grief, and um you know, we're acknowledging the places where uh you know where it's not all praise and wonderful.

Um and that leads us to the confession.

So um now it now it's about oh, the so the world is a little broken or a lot broken, and what's our role in that?

We oh shoot, we have one.

Okay, and and that's the confession.

Um but good news after the confession is the peace and and and a blessing and forgive or sorry, before that, forgiveness, right?

And a blessing and the peace, and um so so we don't stay in that uh place of grief too long.

Uh move into something better.

Hi, Cal.

Hi, sorry.

No problem.

I'm glad you're here.

We're on page 361.

I have a question.

Yeah, sorry I don't want to get too off topic, but when it comes down to like the absolute, can we do that?

Like I've always thought of it sort of as like, okay, I'm absolved, and then the service ends, and then we go back out into the world and we have that we sin and then we come back.

But like is it more of a reminder that we're always absolved of our sins, or is it kind of like the process of okay you're you're you're healed, so to speak, and then you go out into the world, you sin, and then you come back.

Does that question make sense?

I think it depends who you'd ask, and probably the answer is both, depending on like your own spiritual need.

I mean, I think the reason we talked about sacraments, we have the right of reconciliation because some people do this general thing and they're like, and I don't know if it worked.

Because, you know, sure, like, uh, we could all be better people, okay, I admit that, but like, that's not the same as saying, like, like, I had an affair with my wife, and like I don't know if I can ever get by that.

So I need to tell that to another human being who represents God.

And like the cool thing about it is there's no contingent absolution.

Like, you'll never do the confession or the rite of reconciliation and have the priest say, Yeah, no, God's not gonna let that go.

Like, you really are a dirtbag.

Like, it's this weird bit, right?

That like the absolution is promised, even if you don't really mean it.

Which is really interesting, right?

Like, like we don't ever withhold absolution from anybody, even if they say the most I mean, I may have to call like the the like the if you murdered somebody, I might be making a phone call, right?

Or if you're hurting a child, I might be making a phone call, but I'm still going to absolve you.

You're just gonna face civil charges, right?

But before God, you're gonna be absolved.

So the the question is, right, like, does God need this to make us worthy, or do we need to hear it?

Yeah, and I think that trying to remember that in the Anglican, we are trying to push back against anything that sort of hints at a transactive relationship with God.

And so even in our baptism, the on the change in the ontology, the change in being is not in me.

When I was baptized, I wasn't magically changed.

The body of Christ changed, right?

The the the the ontologic, there was a change, right?

But it was in the body of Christ.

And so we don't we don't come to confession.

Like the Christian tradition has developed a dialogue.

This is the continued dialogue, right, of the church with each other and with God.

That we are participating in.

And that dialogue has said there seems to be something that is critical for human beings on a regular basis.

You hear me say this here to lean into the imperfect reality of themselves.

Like in a world that seems to be demanding perfection, more it always has, but more and more and more.

Remember, we come from purity cults and purity cultures, right?

That you have to be pure, you have to be pure.

It says that there is something about us being able in front of everybody to say, hey, I'm not I'm not perfect, I make mistakes.

And then there's something really powerful in an incarnational theology.

Remember, incarnational theology, God makes God's self-manifest in this us, right?

In a special and unique way.

And so when we hear somebody who has been like asked by the church to stand up and remind us, right, that for something happens.

Something happens in that interaction if we avail ourselves of it.

And then what Mike is saying, and then people said, Yeah, that's really good.

And I keep saying that every Sunday, but I still seem to have this experience where I'm experiencing shame or I'm experiencing alienation or I feel like I'm unloved.

And so the church developed this extraordinary experience that is tightly contained for a very specific purpose where people can really peel open.

So I mean, I I mean I say it up there all the time that in Christianity, like at as the church, we gather differently and we don't hide ourselves from our imperfections.

But there, the, the people, the faithful have said there seems to be something about verbally confessing in some way that we're imperfect and having somebody say, and God still loves you and we love you, and you're part of this community.

So I mean I think that's why it's developed into the rhythm of the church, right?

It's it's just a part of how we gather and who we are.

But what it is not is, and and let's be honest, some of us come from traditions that do this.

Well, I haven't got my dip or my confession, so I don't get to come to the table, right?

I'm unclean, and I need to go have a transaction with God or the church so that I can get made clean, so that I can then go participate in the full abundant reality of God's beatific vision of future.

What?

Right?

Like, we don't do that.

We we don't, like, it's not it's not like a cleansing purpose to get you so that you can have communion or be part of something.

But has the church done that?

Yeah, it has.

And you know, at some point in my life that made sense.

It just doesn't now.

And maybe to add on to talk about like how this is a little more global than even us, Moses Maimonides, the Rambam of the like uh 10th century.

So he's Jewish, right?

He says if you don't confess your failings out loud, even if nobody else can hear, they can't be forgiven.

And so like we've made space that some people do that in their personal prayers at home, some people do that with a priest, but there is this really like strong thought that like what we say has power, and intoning like I didn't get that right, is very powerful.

And I think that's why we've cooked it into every Sunday.

It's also interesting that the confession is uses we, not I.

So it's like we as a community as well.

Yeah.

Um, which is you know, some days I don't, some days that's really important to me.

Like it's hard for me to, I'm kind of hard on myself, so some days that being we instead of I is like life-saving.

Yeah.

Um so so the peace, so we did the P, so there's forgiveness and the peace, and then we start the the Great Thanksgiving.

So the actual Eucharistic prayers, and there's oh gosh, six, five, four, six, four, five.

I don't know.

Five in the book of there's others, so that's then I think there's five divisions.

There are six.

There's two in right one, four in right.

There you go.

There you go.

And then there's two more in EOW.

That's what I was thinking of.

And then you can make your own up.

Yeah.

As long as you include the elements at the end that tell you you kind of like the prayers of the people, include these bits.

So, like the one we talk about uh with pelicans and ducks, it's like made up, but it includes all the elements the prayer book says we need to include.

Yeah.

Um so this first bit, this this Lord be with you, if you're still feeling kind of down, I love this because the priest will say, Lift up your hearts, which is Sersum Corda in Latin.

So this is called the Sersum Corda.

Um, and it's old, old, old.

So this is like from Isaiah and from Revelation, old, old, old, old.

Um, and I just I love that lift up your hearts bit.

Um it's right and good and a joyful thing.

So we're back to like praise, right?

Like renewal, hopefully.

Um and then you know, so the Eucharistic prayer is is a is remembering um, you know, the life and death of Jesus and God's love for us.

And there's some there's some there's a little there's some grief in there maybe, but then you get to on page 363, the hope Christ is Christ has died, bummer, Christ has risen, woo-hoo, uh Christ will come again.

So I think that's cool.

Um and then we get to the Lord's Prayer, which is sort of you know, prep us preparing to receive something during the communion.

Um and then and then the communion links to the Last Supper, obviously, which links to Passover and Exodus.

So that's another one of those timeless continuity pieces that people have been praying for thousands of years.

Um and then at the end, I mean I'm skipping a little because I really do want to give y'all time to talk about what you're doing next week.

Um, but then at the end, there's like Reggie was saying, the sort of sort of gonna go out into the world nourished and renewed with purpose.

Um thanks be to God.

And and so I hope, I don't know, it does that make sense how there's it's really pulling you through an arc of of of emotion and it's so you're experiencing the service, not just sort of saying it or or you know, it's a it's a practice and an experience.

Does that make sense?

Is that helpful?

We learned this word in seminary called praxis, P-R-A-X-I-S, because this is a theology book that's not just cognitive, it's meant to be put into practice.

So it's reflective and practical, and that's why we have that word with the X in it, right?

Like it's it's not just a tone for your intellect, it's meant to help reshape you based on theological cognition and scripture to reshape how it is we do this this work in this life.

Yeah.

Um so the so the last thing I want to say before we just open it up is just about daily prayer and daily prayer practice, because this is a a tool that can help with that as well.

Um, so during Advent, we're gonna do the daily office uh at one a different service every day, and the schedules in the e-news.

The first week we're going backward, and then after that we'll go forward.

By backward, we're doing Compline on Monday, tomorrow.

Compline at 7:15, um, evening prayer at 5, uh noonday prayer at noon, morning prayer at 7:30.

And you can zoom in or you can come in person.

I'll be here in person.

And then after this first week, we'll go in morning prayer on Monday, noonday prayer on Tuesday, et cetera.

Um, and so those services are in the beginning of the prayer book, and we'll get familiar with those.

But there's also um they're meant to be done in a group, but there's also, but you can do them alone.

And on page um, oh Complin, just kidding.

On page 136 is like daily devotions for individuals and families.

So it might be a lot to take to do prayers four times a day every day from zero to that.

Um, but here's like a an easier starting place uh and and is you know it shorter and simpler and designed to be done more independently.

Um so I commend that to you.

And then the the lectionary is on page, gosh, I should have like written page numbers down.

But the lectionary is on page the uh sorry, the lectionary is what we do on Sunday morning, but we're not doing it, it is what we use for Sunday mornings, but we're using the women's lectionary.

We talked about that last week, I think.

So different readings right now, but the Daily Office is the lectionary, is the one I wanted to point out.

It starts on page 936.

And so the first the first row is Psalms.

It's not labeled, and I always thought that was weird, but the first row is Psalms, and that little symbol, I don't know if it has a name, but the idea is that you do the Psalms on the left side in morning prayer and the Psalms on the right side in evening prayer.

Um, and you do the Old Testament reading typically in morning prayer and the New Testament and the gospel in evening prayer.

Um so so each day, if you follow the Daily Office lectionary, you'll read all the Psalms, uh not every day, but in the in the course of two years, you'll read all the Psalms multiple times.

You'll read about half of the Old Testament and almost all of the New Testament.

Um and you can peg this to the daily office.

We actually will cover the Psalter once a month.

So you'll go through the all 150 Psalms every month, and then you'll get scriptures in the daily office you'll never hear in public worship, because we decided some scriptures are difficult for the sort of the common ear.

And consider we have small children in services, so when you hear about, like, well, the Levite raping and chopping up his concubine and sending pieces throughout Israel, that could be really challenging on a Sunday morning.

I mean, I'm not really sure how it'd preach on it, other than like, wow, the world hasn't changed, and that's really sad.

But I mean, these are some tough stories.

You will get them in the Daily Office, but you won't get them on Sunday mornings if that makes sense.

Year one is odd on which famous equal is that?

So year, so we're about we just started year two, so in it it starts the advent before even numbered years is year two.

Yeah.

Um, and the advent before odd numbers years is year one.

And we're year A, there's A, B, and C years, and we're even women's lectionary year A.

She has three, she actually has four, she has a year W, but um in the RCL, the one in this, A, B, and C, and we're we've just started A today, which is usually Matthew, Mark is B, and Luke is C, and John shows up at Easter during all of them.

Yeah.

And then the only other things in the it is in the Psalter.

I sort of just learned this, so um, if you go to where it starts on page 585, you'll see it says first day morning prayer.

And so you can just go straight to the Psalter and read whatever the prayers are for the first day of the month, and it goes for 30 days.

So there's morning prayer psalms and evening prayer psalms, and if you follow that, um you'll get through them all in a month.

Or you could do morning prayer, do the morning prayer ones for one month and then do the evening prayer ones the second month.

And you'd go through all of them twice if you do that, right?

It definitely didn't um cover everything that you could cover about the book of common prayer, but I hope that was helpful and can offer one more thought on the prayer book or two more quick thoughts and then let's open it because we want to talk about what's in it for you, right?

Um if you turn to page 845.

Yeah, that was what I meant to do next.

It's called an outline of the faith, commonly called the catechism.

And there's something really, really important, like the Roman Church.

Anybody coming from the Catholic tradition?

There's something called the Catechism, and it's like a thousand pages.

I mean, it is really big, and it's called the Catechism.

And there's some form of that needs to be memorized and recited to be confirmed.

Some form.

But I want you to notice that this is an outline of the faith.

And it may not be your outline, and that's fine.

The prayer book says this is not the doctrine of the church, it's an outline.

So when you read that sin is separation from God, you might say, Well, you can't actually be separate from God because God's everywhere all the time.

So maybe sin is just when I feel like I'm separate from God.

Would that be heretical?

No, because this is an outline, not the outline.

Does that make sense?

And I will tell you all that this book for me is meant to be empowering, right?

Like the technology of putting this book into the hands of the people at the time that they did, which was like opening up the secret cabinets and handing it to the common person if you were literate.

I will say that before I was a priest, I really I tried to engage it as much as I could.

I will tell you just practically that the places that were most helpful for me was Ministration of the Sick, page 453, if you want to know, and page 460, these prayers when you are in the hospital or somebody is sick or somebody is hurting and you don't know what to do, these were really good and helpful for me, right?

Um and then also if you turn to page 810, the prayers and thanksgivings, this is a handful.

I mean, there's, you know, there's I don't know, there's what, 70, 80 something prayers in here on different topics.

And so our faithful ancestors have said, sometimes we're at a loss for words.

And so we, I mean, sometimes I used to just sit as an advent or at Lent practice, I would just read these, right?

So this was really, it was a the sick time of death, praying for the world.

This is when I started coming, this is when I started trying to make this a part of my life.

Is when I wanted to pray, I felt like, oh, I'm not praying alone when I'm reading the prayers of the ancestors.

Like I'm praying alongside somebody else.

So that's just a little practical tip on how I began to try to have this be part of my life prior to you know being a priest.

I and I love also these prayers because, as Courtney began with, sometimes I have feelings and I don't know how to articulate them.

And these prayers sometimes allow me to express myself better than I could.

Like we don't pray that any candidate wins an election.

We pray uh for sound government, that there may be peace among ourselves and a blessing to other nations of the earth.

That is so corrective to how society talks about government.

It doesn't talk about winning, it talks about like everybody winning, not what I want.

It doesn't talk about the president getting his way, it talks about the president being filled with the love of truth and righteousness.

And that's just such a powerful corrective to my impulse in prayer, which is formed by how I live every day.

When we pray for guidance, we don't ask that God, that we have certainty, we ask that we be delivered from false choices and that in God's light we see light.

Those turns of phrase to me are like very rich.

And again, like they're not peppered with like, well, Lord, we just ask you, Lord, because Lord, in your name we Lord, Lord.

Like it's like they're they're compact and they're thoughtful and they just they resonate in in new ways.

So if you're ever not sure how to pray for somebody, there's probably a prayer in here that can be a helpful resource for you.

Not that they get what you want, but that they have discernment and peace and hope, like which is better than what I want.

I just want to win.

Thank you.

I'm I totally meant to start us out with um with 58, prayer 58, which is for guidance, which is the one Mike was just referring to.

So I guess that's what happens when you get nervous.

Um great.

I think great.

And this is a great every chaplain, I I did two rotations as a hospital chaplain.

Every, I was the only Episcopal priest, every other chaplain in person in CPE would walk around with a book of common prayer.

Yeah.

No matter what their denomination, because this is kind of like known to be the book of prayers you want to have for if you want to like say something that is really like pregnant with power and beauty and holiness.

So and none of the none of the prayers are alike, and and Lord, I just pray for Sarah, who you know, she just needs you right, you know, when Sarah's standing right there, and there's this like you know, low-key burn prayers.

There's none of that.

Maybe I'm the only one who grew up on that.

Well, even jungles have a rubric, it's just father god and just, and then you but put a whole bunch of stuff inside of that.

Yeah.

That is a that is a they do have rubrics.

People do, you'll notice people do pray similarly in other traditions.

Formulaically.

Formulaically, like everybody does.

You know, these are just ours.

Yeah.

And they don't have like for you direct uh pronouns in it, they're like we, uh.

So when we're praying, we're praying together.

Which I think speaks, like Courtney said, to the commonality of this book.

And to be clear, I've met people like, well, you only pray formula, and what about personal intimate?

Well, personal intimate's great.

This is how we pray in common.

Yeah.

So when I'm with somebody else, right, I want to remember I'm with somebody else.

I'm not just praying my prayer with you in the room.

Like we're supposed to be connected in prayer because you're in the room.

And when you're not, I can use whatever words, I mean, I can always use whatever words I want, but like there's room for intimacy, but this is how we pray in common.

I hope that maybe makes sense.

Sorry if you covered this, but okay, so these are listed by numbers here.

How do I find focus?

Right after it.

Right after it.

They're just listed in order.

Sorry.

I see.

I was thrown off because not page numbers, they're prayer numbers.

And if the daily office feels big to you, because it takes time to do all four.

I'm just gonna say it takes time.

It's a com it's it's gonna take you an hour to do the daily office every day if you do it.

Especially if you do it out loud.

If you just read it silently, you're probably hurting yourself because again, Maimonides said saying stuff out loud is creative, and we come from that tradition.

So there's something really cool about reading it out loud.

But if that feels big, I just encourage you to take a tour of the prayers and just hey, like, okay, it's December 1st tomorrow.

Pray prayer one, which is for joy in God's creation.

And on Tuesday, pray prayer two for all sorts and conditions of humans.

And I think you'll be like surprised at the depth and thought of this book, even if you just did one of these prayers a day, I I think you'd find it reformative.

I'm a little confused on the Daily Office.

So if let's pretend that maybe I want to start start it uh tomorrow.

Um, what what do I do?

I'm a little confused how much what I'm doing.

So, and I'm gonna give you I'm gonna give you a really easy hack.

I love the book.

I do.

And there's an app called Forward Movement that's free.

And every day, Forward Movement has the whole thing loaded.

They do it, it's great.

You can listen to it while you're driving, so it'll read it to you, or you can read it and scroll, and they've got all the Daily Office already inserted into it.

So you like this is weird because you got to look at this, and then you gotta have a Bible next to it, and you gotta know the order of the books of the Bible, or you're gonna be going to the table of contents a lot.

They used to have a book, it was in like eight point fonts, it was like really hard, and it cost$400.

So so it's out of print.

I I I would say the forum moving app's great, but if you're looking to do this right, because we're starting year two, right?

Today, today is actually advent.

Today is day one, so you would turn to um.

It's confusing because it's year one on the left and year two on the right.

So you'd turn to to page 937, and if you really want to start, you start today with Sunday, week of Advent, and you would start with Psalms 146 and 147 in the morning, and Psalms 111, 112, 113 in the evening.

Now, if you want to start tomorrow, start with Monday and do Psalms 1, 2, and 3, and then 4 and 7.

I hope that's helpful.

But forward movement app is probably honestly easier than the book, and I love the book, but the forward movement app's great.

Yeah, can I jump in on the book?

Please.

So there's uh one called Mission St.

Clair that I've got to go.

So there's two resources I use on my travels.

Um really nice.

Uh the culture from Virginia where they coordinate with the rain.

A voice out the vendors of the written one.

And that's nice because it's kind of like an audio book.

So I did all this research on how they did it, but it was really great because he took the pre summer took the clips of the entire two sets of the office.

And then they're all loaded into a computer from a tech person from the Bay Area, which is really awesome.

And then they spliced it all together, so and it just runs, and it's awesome.

So when I travel, I can actually open the written, and this has got all the morning news, you know, public and then play the app in the background and just follow it.

It's super nice.

The book that is in print on church publishing, the father might reference the old ones out of print, the new one that is in print, they do here.

A as a whole book now, and B as a whole book, and it's about a thick as this.

And it would start.

So if you're interested, if you wanted that book, that one it starts from start.

This is tough.

This is like my pilot manuals.

This is my performance book for the airplane.

You have to know where to turn to turn to right.

Yeah.

Yeah, I just wanted to throw those three email with those three.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And maybe I can say also that like four times a day feels like a lot, but I think what Thomas Cranmer was really mindful of is what we consume consumes us.

Right?

Like we're consumed by what we consume.

And we, I'm just gonna be honest, like I make time to be consumed by a lot of things that I have no business being consumed by.

And it feels like, oh God, an hour a day to do all this is really hard, and I'm consumed by what I consume.

And that's his thought with this with this book.

The book actually thinks every Christian should be doing this every day, which is a really bold assumption, right?

I mean, it's really bold.

Because we've got busy lives.

I mean, I got kids and I want to exercise and I cook and I work and I have hobbies.

Like, where do I make the time?

It's not where do I have the time, it's what do I make the time for?

And the the the the book says we should make time for things.

Yeah.

So we yeah, so I mean, so we wanted to and we ended up using a lot of the time, but um I mean maybe this is maybe I should maybe you should take over because I'm not really sure what the question is exactly, but you're going to be either confirm, renew, or um be received into something a a week from today.

So um what do you want to confirm?

Yeah.

What do you want to be received into?

What do you want to renew?

I think that's really the question.

And hopefully Hector will ask that too.

He's just gonna ask it to like where you find hope, because that's his his catchphrase.

But really, like we want to make room for not just questions, but like this this is what I want, this is like why I want to do this.

I know that's an intimate question.

That is an intimate question.

I think I want to purple.

Hopefully.

And now we're talking about it.

Thank you.

When when I got, I'll just say when I got confirmed, I was in my twenties, and growing up, my dad was Baptist and my mom went to an Episcopal church.

And um, so I always I just had internalized this idea that I wasn't Episcopalian enough because I didn't get baptized when I was a baby.

I got baptized when I was older and I didn't know all the things, and I was, you know, at the Baptist church half the time or more than half the time.

And so when I was getting confirmed, it was like this, it meant a lot to me that I would I was I was always Episcopalian enough, and this was like not that I had by being confirmed I became Episcopalian enough, but that I'd always been enough.

I think for me, and I get to sit on the side every year, right?

So in some ways, like I'm part of this, there's just something really nice, like I get that we belong to God and we don't have to fit in, but there is a really nice moment of saying, like, ah, if I had any doubts, like I belong here.

And the bishop has like they're the institutional incarnational authority.

They don't, they're not God, but they're sort of standing in this place saying, Yes, you do, you belong here.

And like doing that publicly, I mean, I grew up, we had altar calls every week, and there was something really powerful about making a like a well, frankly, like an open decision and an open communication.

And this is like the stand-in for that.

Like, yes, like I'm confirming, like you belong here.

Like that, it speaks to identity to me to be able to like walk it every time.

Um I'm being renewed.

I have been an Episcopalian my whole entire life, and my confirmation was made at age 12, where we had to memorize the Lord's Prayer, memorize the creed, write it down, you know, and very little was learned other than just the rote things.

But through the years, I've learned a lot, you know, by being on the altar guild, being a lector, you know, I learned all about the mechanics, but I just want to stand up and say, I still want to be here.

I wish everybody, I I I honestly wish everybody would get up and get renewed, like go through a process because when I look at the history of this, and I I really like infant baptism, that's a different conversation because I think it communicates that you can literally do nothing and you receive God's grace because like infants and babies are like like worthless as far as productivity goes.

And so it's great, right?

And so, but the this confirmation developed because it's meeting a different need, right?

And that need is at what point do we take our responsibility, our ability to respond as a member of a community?

Like we take that seriously and we offer ourselves to say, I too.

And that's a rite of passage.

Like humans are dissolving rites of passage, particularly in the West.

And you are doing a rite of passage, I think, that says that I actually have an ability to respond, you know, and whatever that means to you.

Like there's no, you have to do, I mean, what it but it's saying, I want to publicly say that when I run the algorithm of my life next year, I want to take some responsibility for the mission and the ministries of the work of this place in this church in this community in the world.

And I mean, I think that that's probably worthwhile for everybody to do it.

I mean, we kind of do that in our renewable baptismal vows.

I mean, just as a like we're doing that, we're saying that, but I do love the idea that somehow we want to affirm, confirm, renew this year.

Um, and I'll be honest, in the course of my ministry, there will probably be some years in my life that I didn't want to stand up because I felt a little overwhelmed.

And sometimes I just wanted to like sit back and maybe, you know, like I needed that in my life, right?

So I mean it's it's not like you're better.

Like, I think there's a rhythm here, you know.

I think there's a rhythm where we do that, and I'm I'm grateful that all of you in some way are feeling called to hold that.

It's always like a holy moment for me to renew my ordination vows with you.

We have to do it with the bishop, like it's required that we do it every year, and I don't mind that, but like I'm meant to live my vows with you, and like it always catches me up how caught up I get when I do that.

Uh, because it's like I'm looking at these people in whom I'm supposed to do these things that I don't know that I do well, and and like making that commitment is like somehow kind of magical.

One other thing I want to tell you, every bishop does this different.

So I again Hector's not gonna slap you, but Bishop Benitas, he would have slapped you like pretty hard.

Andy did, he said the first year, and then he was quite again.

He's like, if you look at the prayers they offer, though, and I just want to hold this up to you because um my first year here, or sorry, my first, I'd been here six months when Andy came and did confirmation.

And he there's prayers for confirmation and reception and reaffirmation, and they're all different.

But Andy uses the same one for everybody, which is the Holy Spirit has already begun a good work in you, and that is so full of grace.

And I'm glad he, I mean, Hector's not gonna do that, and I don't mean he's bad.

I just hearing that as a start, he's not gonna say, like Andy didn't say, defend your servant with heavenly grace that they may continue forever, so we recognize you as a member.

Andy always says, the Holy Spirit has already begun a good work in you, even if you don't think so, or from the time you were born, or whatever.

Like the the grace of that was so powerful for me to hear as an evangelical.

Yeah.

Like the grace doesn't begin now.

The Holy Spirit already begun a good work in you, and like, and I'm here to bless that good work.

Like, that is so deeply meaningful for me on the side to hear that if you don't hear Hector say it, I want you to hear it's in there.

Hector tends to go by form because he's English as a third language, just to be honest, English is his third language, not his second.

Um, but hear that.

Like, really where this comes from is the Holy Spirit's been working good in you.

And and we just want to bless that continued work because you belong here.

You you belong.

You don't have to fit in.

You you already belong.

I have a quick question.

Please.

So we have to say something.

Yeah, the things you'll say, and if you want to see the service, right?

It it actually begins on page 413 with what everybody does.

And all that's gonna happen is I'm gonna present you all.

I'll be your presenter along with John and Courtney.

I'll present confirmation, reception, and reaffirmation.

And the bishop will ask all of you, do you reaffirm your reanunciation of evil?

Hopefully, you'll say I do.

Do you renew your commitment to Jesus Christ?

Well, I will, and with God's grace, I'll follow him as my savior and Lord.

Everybody in the room will be asked, will you support these people as they try to take this commitment seriously?

And they better all say we will.

And then we'll all redo the baptismal covenant, which is essentially the nice thing in creatures of catechism.

Act on, will you love Christ in all persons?

Will you strive for justice?

Will you persevere in resisting evil?

And when you fail, will you repent and return to the Lord?

Like that's all you got to say.

So I'll have you bring your bulletins up.

The script will be in the bulletin so you don't have to have this memorized.

And then after we do that, then the bishop will lay hands on each one of you and give you a prayer, and then we'll have a reception, and then it'll be the peace.

And then we'll all go sit down and we'll have the Eucharist, and then we'll we'll leave.

So your parts are really like I do, I do with God's help, and I will follow him as my Lord.

And then we all do the baptismal covenant, whether you're up front or in your seats, we all do that together.

Because really, we're called to say, this covenant was said when I was born, whether I remember it or not, and I'm and I'm saying it now for myself.

And if you haven't been baptized yet, you don't have to say anything now.

If that somehow didn't happen, just see Mike, and then we can have that conversation.

Because it's a reaffirmation of the baptismal vows.

So you can get receipt without having the baptism?

Is that what you say?

Technically, no, but yes, and I'll baptize you when it makes sense.

That's what I mean.

And this is interesting, our bishops don't do baptisms.

They say we should do that because we know you.

And I love that.

The thing I can't do as a priest is confirm or ordain.

So they come do that, but they they say, we're not here to baptize your people, you're there to baptize your people.

Which I really love that.

So, yeah, I've I've been to services where 70 year old people were baptized and then confirmed.

One, two, and it happens just like that baptism first, confirmation second.

That's cool.

It's it's sweet, it's really sweet.

Okay, I've got to put my dress on.

Wasn't there a coat?