Wee Bookie

” Booklets printed for Scottish nonjuring Episcopalians that contained the liturgy of the table portion of the eucharistic rite. The first (1722) reproduced that of the 1637 Scottish BCP. Its eucharistic prayer contained elements from the eucharistic prayer of the 1549 BCP that were missing in later English Prayer Books. Significant changes were made in later printings. In 1735 a prayer of oblation, “which we now offer unto thee,” was inserted. Bishop Thomas Rattray's reconstruction The Ancient Liturgy of the Church of Jerusalem (1744) led to the invocation of the Holy Spirit upon the elements being moved to a West Syrian position-following the anamnesis rather than preceding the institution narrative-in a 1755 printing. In the 1764 “Wee Bookie” the epiclesis was abbreviated and reworded, “that they may become the body and blood of thy most dearly beloved Son,” and the eucharistic prayer was linked to the Sanctus by the insertion of “All glory be to thee.” The first American Prayer Book picked up this phrase. Its prayer, however, was based on the 1755 “Wee Bookie” with its fuller form of epiclesis, except that “may be to us the body and blood of thy most dearly beloved Son” was omitted.