A short prayer from the opening of the communion service in the old Sarum missal.
This short prayer came near the start of the Sarum missal, the predominant Mediaeval communion service in England, just after a hymn to the Holy Ghost. It survived the cutting table of the Reformation and opened the communion service of the 1549 Prayer Book too, in an English translation of surpassing elegance and restraint.
A Prayer for the Sunday after Whit Sunday.
This prayer was set as the Collect for Trinity Sunday, one week after Pentecost or Whit Sunday, in the Sarum Use, the English service book of the Middle Ages. During the Reformation, it was translated for the Book of Common Prayer, first published in 1549, without significant alteration.
A prayer recited frequently during Great Lent in the Greek and Russian churches.
The Prayer of St Ephraim is recited with great frequency during the forty days of Lent, prior to Easter, in the Greek and Russian tradition, accompanied by deep prostrations. The translation below follows the Greek text, which differs very slightly from the Russian.
A short prayer from the Sarum Missal, for the anniversary of the death of the Blessed Virgin Mary
This prayer was appointed in the Sarum Missal, the service book of the English Church in the Middle Ages, for the Feast of the Assumption, which remembers the day on which the Virgin Mary died. The Eastern churches call this day the Dormition or Falling-Asleep of Mary. Tradition says that Mary died a natural death, surrounded by the Apostles, but three days later her body was nowhere to be found.
This short prayer appeared in the Book of Common Prayer of 1549, as a preparation for holy communion.
Much of the Book of Common Prayer of 1549 was an elegant translation of the old Sarum Use of the mediaeval English church. This prayer, appointed for the Communion Service between the Comfortable Words and the distribution of the bread and wine, was one of the new ones. It blends passages from Mark 7:28 and John 6:56 with a traditional Roman collect and the Greek Liturgy of Saint Basil. Its name comes from the Scottish Prayer Book of 1637.