The Great Thanksgiving
The Pilgrims were radical reformers of the Church. On this civic commemorative day when we stop to give thanks for God's providence according to their example, we should remember that the Church's prayer of Great Thanksgiving centers on God's one supreme provision in the sacrifice of Christ for us... which the Church commemorates by a Thanksgiving Feast.
Here is the text of the prayer of Great Thanksgiving which the Pilgrims may have used at such times, from The Second Prayer Book of Edward VI, 1552.
"ALMIGHTIE and everliving God, we most hartely thank thee, for that thou dooest vouchsafe to fede us, whiche have duely receyved these holye misteries, with the spirituall foode of the most precious body and bloud of thy sonne our saviour Jesus Christ, and doest assure us thereby of thy favoure and goodnes towarde us, and that we bee verye membres incorporate in thy mistical body, which is the blessed companie of all faythfull people, and be also heyrs, through hope, of thy everlasting kingdom, by the merites of the most precious death and Passion of thy deare sonne. We now most humbly beseche thee, O heavenly father, so to assiste us with thy grace, that we may continue in that holy felowship, and do al such good workes, as thou hast prepared for us to walk in: through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with thee and the holy ghost, be all honour and glorye, world without ende. Amen."
This blog is now officially on its Thanksgiving Break. Oh give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, and His mercy endures forever.
posted by MM at 8:13 AM
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