Our Worship

At St. Matthew’s, we use the Anglican Book of Common Prayer for all our services.  The following is adapted from the website of the Prayer Book Society of Canada (http://prayerbook.ca/the-prayer-book):

The Book of Common Prayer has been called “the priceless possession of the Anglican Church”.  Around the world, the BCP is known wherever the Anglican Church took root. Versions of the BCP (or simply “the Prayer Book”) are used in over fifty countries and have been translated into 150 languages.  In Canada alone, it is available in French, Inuktitut, Mohawk and Cree, as well as in English. The 1962 Canadian version of the BCP is still the official prayer book of the Anglican Church of Canada although no longer widely used.

Why so much interest in a book?  The reason is that the Book of Common Prayer, refined in the crucible of the Reformation in England, is a system of Christian devotion almost without peer.  The first Book of Common Prayer was compiled in 1549.  …  The aim of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer and his collaborators was to streamline and condense the Latin service books of the medieval Church, and to produce in English a simple, convenient and comprehensive volume as an authoritative guide for priest and people – hence the name “Book of Common Prayer”.  They did not wish … to discard the liturgical heritage of the western Church and start afresh, but to prune away later accretions and to produce a book of worship that would reflect more clearly the Christianity of the Bible and the early Church.

The result was a book of scrupulous fidelity to the teaching of the original undivided Church and to Holy Scripture.  It remains the standard of doctrine and worship of almost the whole of the worldwide Anglican Communion to this day.  It is also a book of matchless beauty of language, which has nourished countless generations of Anglicans spiritually and devotionally.  The Prayer Book has come to be recognized as a liturgical classic, and is widely admired by Christians of other denominations.