This week I complete the series on the broad topic of liturgical worship as practices in the Anglican tradition and turn to another topic concerning the content and purpose of this site and the AIC in general.
Traditional Anglicans around the world use different versions of the Book of Common Prayer, first produced in the United Kingdom in 1549 A.D. and used for the Whitsunday service in that same year. Here in the United States, most parishes use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, which is now in the public domain, having been published more than 95 years ago. In earlier editons I have commented on several virtues of that volume. In this final post, I stress one final characteristic of worship using the BCP. That characteristic touches upon the very nature of liturgical worship. Worship, in its most essential form, as noted earlier, relies of the words and phrases based upon Scripture; the “corporate” nature of such worship, that is, it is a service in which the members of the congregation have met together to worship in a manner which ties together the words spoken by the celebrant and the responses or simultaneous reading of the text. In other words, traditional worship is a joint action which is more than the sum of the individual voices. The historical record shows that this form of worship has been used since the first centuries of the Church Universal. What makes it unique is the spirit of humility in which mankind speaks and sings toward its merciful Creator, acknowledging the supremacy of the Almighty and the absolute dependence of the created upon their Creator for their ultimate salvation. Thank you.
From the three-part Kyrie Eleison:
Lord, have mercy upon us.
Christ, have mercy upon us.
Lord, have mercy upon us.
Over the last 15 years or more, this site has offered access to traditional understanding of the nature of humankind and its relationship with its Creator. These teachings are offered in several formats. For those who prefer printed materials, the AIC Bookstore offers a unique collection of prayer, reading and study materials, including a separate illustrated volume, with commentary, on each of the four Gospels, The Acts of the Apostles and Revelation and an illustrated volume on the seasons of Christmas and Easter; two versions of the Psalms; instructional books on personal prayer and other volumes. The purpose of these volumes is to make traditional teaching available at reasonable prices. Special category books including the 1928 BCP, a hymnal of traditional songs and hymns, a collection of prayers for use by the laity; and other special books, including Layman’s Lexicon, with definitions of over 340 liturgical and theological words and phrase, and a cookbook.
For those who prefer to learn by listening, we offer MP3 podcasts of traditional teachings for all the Sundays and seasons on the Church Calendar. These are available using from the Podcast Archive page. In additional, there are podcast homilies for each of these occasions, linked from the Podcast Homilies page.
For those who prefer visual resources, many of these same materials are available in video form for all the seasons on the Anglican worship calendar, including complete series for the Saints Days & Holy Days based on the 1928 BCP list of sixteen saints days plus a separate series on more than 30 Christians saints from other worship traditions as well as more saints from the Anglican tradition whose feast days are not found in the 1928 BCP. These are linked from the Digital Library page. As noted above, an MP3 version of the same material is available on the Podcast Archive page. These are arranged in the order of the Church calendar.
Please note that all these resources are also reached using the links found at the top and bottom of the Home and Welcome pages. Except for the bookstore publications, all these materials are available on demand free of charge. Throughout the books and the video series, we have included examples of Christian art across the ages, including mosaics, frescoes, altarpieces, paintings, etchings, lithographs and icons from both the Western and Eastern Church traditions.
Thank you for your interest and support. Glory be to God for all things! Amen!
Anglican Internet Church 
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