As we have occasionally changed the form of the Eucharistic prayer, the form of the prayers of the people, the Gloria, the Sanctus, the form of the Creed, and even the sung version of the traditional Lord’s Prayer, we will for a season use the Lord’s Prayer in its contemporary form at the 11:00 AM service. Changes in these elements are small changes in spiritual disciplines that maintain the overall framework of our worship but that may prompt and open up new areas of spiritual growth.
The contemporary form of the Lord’s Prayer that we will use can be found in the daily offices and Rite II Eucharist liturgies of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer. Its most proximate origin is in the late 1960's work of the ecumenical International Consultation on English Texts and the 1970 publication Prayers We Have in Common: Agreed Liturgical Texts. Happy 56th birthday, contemporary form. In part, this form of the prayer comes from the movement of the Roman Catholic Church from a Latin mass to the mass in the language of the people. In part, this form of the prayer is an updating to the contemporary language used by Anglicans and Protestants in their everyday lives. Scholar Marion Hatchett gives as example the change from “thou” to “you.” While “thou” may seem to carry greater reverence, in sixteenth century English, thou was a familiar second person personal pronoun used for intimate relations, for friends, and for God. For those who knew themselves to be children of God, God was thou. For moderns, the equivalent word is “you.”
Our use of the contemporary form does not change the original because there is no original to change. While that may sound strange, consider that the Lord’s Prayer appears in both Matthew and Luke, but those are not identical. Which is original? Early texts of Luke’s version also differ. In either case, the Greek texts of Matthew and Luke would be translations of either Aramaic or Hebrew, the languages of the Lord. The 1789 American Book of Common Prayer changed “which art in heaven” to “who are in heaven,” “in earth” to “on earth,” and “them that trespass” to “those who trespass.” And that familiar doxology beginning “For thine is the Kingdom,” was added to the English Book of Common Prayer 1662, being brought over from the 1637 Scottish Prayer Book.
What we have with the contemporary form is not change so much as updating - like we have with the Rite II offices and Eucharistic prayers.
Grace and peace be with you always,
Fr. Bill+