Prayers for Lambeth 2008

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Book of prayers by Anglican women and girls to focus on MDGs

Quick, call Christopher Johnson! It's the MDGs [peace be upon them] now in prayer book form.

From EpiscopalLife Online [boldface mine]:

While worldwide attention is focused on discord and divisions within the Anglican Communion, Anglican women and girls are uniting to make their voices heard on issues of poverty and women's empowerment, express the power and depth of their faith, and to reveal their connections across cultural and economic differences, by contributing to a new book of women's prayers, with a foreword to be written by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori.

Following on the popularity of Women's Uncommon Prayers: Our Lives Revealed, Nurtured, Celebrated, this all-new collection of prayers, with its multicultural global reach, will be organized according to themes of the Millennium Development Goals. Prayers will show the connections between the global concerns of women and girls and their personal lives. . .

Other general editors for the project are Abagail Nelson, vice president for programs at Episcopal Relief and Development; the Rev. K. Jeanne Person, co-author of Where You Go, I Shall: Gleanings from the Stories of Biblical Widows; and Dr. Jenny Te Paa, Ahorangi (Dean) of Te Rau Kahikatea, the College of St. John the Evangelist in Auckland, New Zealand, and a well-known leader in the Anglican Communion.

An international editorial board of clergy and lay women and girls, representing national and cultural heritages within the Anglican Communion, will review prayers for inclusion in the book. Among those serving on the editorial board is Phoebe Griswold, founder of Anglican Women's Empowerment (AWE) and wife of Frank Griswold, former presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.

The new book will debut in May 2009.

Editors say that the book will reveal how Anglican women are envisioning a way forward for the welfare of creation, including within the Anglican Communion itself. "At a time when a small cabal of male leaders are insisting on dividing the Anglican Communion over issues of human sexuality," said Dr Te Paa, "Anglican women are offering a way forward. We are committed to prayer, to the unity of the Anglican Communion around Christ's table, and to a common mission that leads to the full flourishing of all people."

Each chapter of the book will focus on one of the eight Millennium Development Goals. The MDGs, which were agreed to by all member states of the United Nations, form a blueprint for radically improving the lives of the world's poor. . .

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2008 Anglican Use Conference

From Taylor Marshall at Canterbury Tales [boldface mine]:

2008 Anglican Use Conference
Thursday, July 10 - Saturday, July 12, 2008
San Antonio, Texas

In this annual conference organized by the Anglican Use Society, representatives of the several Catholic parishes of the Pastoral Provision will gather, together with interested Anglican clergy and lay people. This year's conference will be hosted by Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Church in San Antonio.

The theme of this year's conference is The First 25 Years of the Anglican Usage of the Roman Rite: Unity in Diversity in the Catholic Church.

Guest speakers will include The Most Reverend John Myers, Archbishop of Newark and the Ecclesiastical Delegate for the Pastoral Provision; The Reverend Christopher G. Phillips, Pastor of Our Lady of the Atonement Catholic Church; and Dr. Jeffrey N. Steenson, formerly the bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of the Rio Grande, and recent convert to the Catholic Church.

The registration fee is $90.00 per person. Click here for registration form. . .

Read it all.

"Gratitude, concern, and opportunity"

From the Prayer Book Society, a paper on the Book of Common Prayer and the Anglican Communion Network:

In negative terms, the Council of The Anglican Communion Network rejected the Formularies of The Episcopal Church as they stood before the revolution of 1976-1979; but in positive terms the same Council accepted the present Formularies of the Church of England and of other Provinces of the Anglican Communion (e.g., Nigeria and Uganda).

Put another way, the same Council did not choose to commit to the American tradition of Common Prayer (set forth in the editions of the BCP 1789, 1892 & 1928), but went behind them to the Formularies as they were for the Thirteen Colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, before the break with the Crown and the creation of the USA.

Thereby the same Council may have sought to avoid all the guilt and shame involved in the rejection of the 1789-1928 Formularies by General Convention in 1976-1979, a rejection confirmed by all subsequent Conventions and Diocesan Conventions to the present. The Council sought to make a new start by re-adopting the Formularies of the old Colonial period, the same Formularies which are those of the Church of England and of many Anglican Provinces worldwide. . .

. . . Thus we anticipate seeing very soon a variety of moves from within The Anglican Communion Network towards the practical adoption and use of the Formularies of 1662 both for worship and for ordination services, as well as for doctrinal standards and moral principles. . .