Bidding-prayer

Bidding-prayer, a form of exhortation, always concluding with the Lord's Prayer, enjoined by the 55th canon of the Anglican Church, in 1603, to be used before all sermons and homilies. Except in cathedrals and the university churches, it is now seldom used. The term is from the Anglo-Saxon biddan, 'to pray,' so that 'bidding-prayer' is really pleonastic. The form is of extreme antiquity, and we have a similar one in the Apostolical Constitutions. It was anciently used for the communicants or believers after the dismissal of the catechumens, and was pronounced by the deacon, each petition beginning with the words, 'Let us pray for,' &c., and the people responding at the end of each with 'Kyrie Eleison,' or some such words. There is another very ancient example in the Ambrosian Liturgy; and St Chrysostom alludes to such a form in one of his sermons. It must have been, and even now in its abridged shape still is, very impressive, allowing each individual to supply from his own thoughts special cases of necessity under the different heads. These Bidding-prayers have some resemblance to the Litany and the Prayer for the Church Militant, now used in the Anglican Church.