Reviewed by Dean Kate Moorehead Carroll in August 2024 Bookstore Newsletter
"As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of the Book of Common Prayer, we find ourselves sometimes hungry for new words. After all, it was about fifty years between the 1928 Prayer Book and the BCP 1979. Language shifts, changes and grows obsolete.
One area of the Eucharistic liturgy that has always had flexibility is the Prayers of the People. Though the BCP does offer seven forms, it also encourages the people and clergy to write their own prayers and/or to add in the current events and crises that call for our focus. Hear our Prayer is a well written plethora of options for fresh prayers of the people. Each Sunday of the liturgical year has a new option, with graceful verbiage. Each Prayers of the People remains faithful to the structural integrity recommended by the BCP, but the words are alive.
I encourage every parish to purchase at least one copy, and then use it!"
A collection of fresh, inspiring Prayers of the People that connect to the Sunday lectionary.
The needs of the church change from week to week, and the Prayers of the People should change with them. Hear Our Prayer features Prayers of the People that connect to the themes of the readings for each Sunday and principal feast in the Revised Common Lectionary. Originally crafted for the Subversive Undercroft podcast, hosted by Jon White and Lisa Graves, the prayers are contemporary, inclusive, and deeply relevant.
Based on the pattern for the Prayers of the People in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer, the prayers in this volume retain the familiarity of liturgical tradition, while offering a call to action to congregations in the present. Suggestions for customizing each prayer for the needs of individual worshipping communities appear throughout the book, and a concluding section includes prayers that respond to current events such as natural disasters, mass shootings, and elections.
