Bidding Prayer
Charles Buck Theological Dictionary [1]
It was part of the office of the deacons in the primitive church to be monitors and directors of the people in their public devotions in the church. To this end they made use of certain known forms of words, to give notice when each part of the service began. Agreeable to this ancient practice is the form "Let us pray, " repeated before several of the prayers in the English liturgy. Bishop Burnet, in his History of the Reformation, vol. 2: p. 20, has preserved the form as it was in use before the reformation, which was this:
After the preacher had named and opened his text, he called on the people to go to their prayers, telling them what they were to pray for: Ye shall pray, says he, for the king, the pope, &c. After which, all the people said their beads in a general silence, and the minister kneeled down likewise, and said his: they were to say a paternoster, ave maria, &c. and then the sermon proceeded.
Webster's Dictionary [2]
(1): The prayer before the sermon, with petitions for various specified classes of persons.
(2): The prayer for the souls of benefactors, said before the sermon.
Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature [3]
One of the offices of deacons in the early Church was to direct the people in the exercise of their public devotions. They were accustomed to use certain forms of words, to give notice when each part of the service began, and to exhort the people to join attentively. This was called by the Greeks Κηρύττειν , and by the Latins Prcedicare, which means performing the office of a Κήρυξ or Prceco. By some writers the deacons are called Ἱεροκήρυκες , the holy criers of the Church, as those who gave notice to the church or congregation to pray and join in the several parts of the service. The form, "Let us pray," repeated before several prayers in the English liturgy, is derived from this ancient practice in the Church. Burnet gives the form used before the Reformation as follows: After the preacher had named and opened his text, he called on the people to go to their prayers, and told them for what they should pray. Ye shall pray, says he, for the king, the pope, etc. After this, all the people said their beads in a general silence; and the minister also knelt down and said his. They were to say a paternoster, an ave maria, etc., and then the sermon proceeded (Burnet, Hist. of Reformation, ii, 20). Not only did the deacons call the people to pray, but they gave direction as to the particulars they were to pray for. In the apostolical constitutions we have a bidding prayer for the communicants, in which are specified upward of twenty subjects for prayer. The prayer at the commencement of the communion service, and also the litany of the Common Prayer-Book, bear a close affinity to the bidding prayers in the apostolical constitutions. The formulary which the Church of England, in the 55th canon, directs to be used, is called the bidding prayer, because in it the preacher is directed to bid the people to pray for certain specified objects.-Bingham, Orig. Eccles. bk. ii, ch. 20: § 10, and Luke 15 :ch. i, § 1; Procter on Common Prayer, p. 171; Buck, Theol. Dict. s.v.
The Nuttall Encyclopedia [4]
An exhortation to prayer in some special reference, followed by the Lord's Prayer, in which the congregation joins.
