A Lenten Bonus: Sarum Prayers for Lent

A practice I enjoy is saying extra prayers for Lent contained in the Sarum Missal. (My Latin is weak, so I use an English translation noted below.)  These prayers are collects for each day of Lent and the Prayers Over the People. The latter concluded masses during Lent; I use them before the Grace to conclude my daily office.

For example, Pearson’s English translation for today’s collect is (or was):

Graciously favour us, O Lord, we beseech Thee, in the fast on which we have entered; that the duties which we observe outwardly, we may also be enabled to fulfill with pure minds, though Jesus Christ our Lord.

The Prayer Over the People for today, the Friday after Ash Wednesday, is:

Guard Thy people, O Lord, and graciously cleanse them from all sin, inasmuch as no adversity will harm them if no wickedness get the dominion over them, through Jesus Christ our Lord.

I like these, not only because I am a liturgy nerd, but more importantly because they assist my prayers and help keep me from slack Lenten ruts.  And, admit it, all of us who observe Lent tend to get in those ruts.

Now you will not find these prayers in the Book of Common Prayer, and I understand that.  Cranmer sought to simplify the liturgy and to contain it in one book. (Several books were necessary in the Sarum rite.) To have a collect and a Prayer Over the People for each day of Lent would either make that one Book of Common Prayer considerably thicker or would require a second small book, not to mention make Lenten liturgy more complicated. So these prayers were among the items jettisoned by Cranmer.

But as for me, I do not at all mind carrying an additional book, my English translation of the Sarum rite, up to my chapel.  I appreciate and enjoy the medieval wisdom of extra prayers to assist people through Lent.

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NOTE: Pearson’s The Sarum Missal in English may be found online here and elsewhere.