Thanksgiving for the Birth or Adoption of a Child

Bishop Eric Menees

Greetings Brothers and Sisters,    I pray that you’re all well and staying healthy and safe. Whoever it was who prayed the ironic blessing, “May you live in interesting times,” should be taken out to the wood shed because we are certainly living in interesting times.  That being said, know that I am praying for you as we walk together through the pandemic, wild fires, social and economic upheaval. More importantly know that the Lord is by our side every step of the way!  With last week’s Bishop’s Note, we finished our study of the Rite of Holy Matrimony from the 2019 Book of Common Prayer. This week we’ll go from holy matrimony to the second service in the Pastoral Rites section, Thanksgiving for the Birth or Adoption of a Child. Before we get into the individual parts of the service we should discuss the rite in general and its place in the Book of Common Prayer. It’s very intentional that the 2019 BCP Pastoral Rites section is laid out the way it is. These pastoral rites are focused on supporting families.  Naturally, it begins with the Rite of Holy Matrimony (the beginning of a family,) and ends with the Rite for the Burial of the Dead. The service of Thanksgiving for the Birth or Adoption of a Child is thus placed after Holy Matrimony emphasizing that a couple joined in Holy Matrimony is the ideal environment for a child’s birth and development. While many are not familiar with this service, the roots of this rite go back to long before the birth of Jesus and to the rite of purification that every Jewish woman went through forty days after the birth of a child. These rites are described in Exodus 13 & Leviticus 12 and specifically laid out for St. Mary and our Lord in Luke 2:22-38. Anglicanism’s first Book of Common Prayer in 1549 referred to this as the Purification of Women, the 1892 and previous American BCPs referred to it as the Churching of Women, and in the 1928 BCP this service was referred to as Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth.  Using the term “purification” may unsettle some today, making it sound like women were unclean and therefore should be forbidden from entering churches, but that was never the case. St. Gregory in the 6th century said that nothing like that occurs in childbirth and that women should never be separated from the church. Purification was used as the name because this was a continuation of the Jewish rite.  We have to keep in mind that for most of human history, child birth was very dangerous and often deadly. Many things we take for granted like anesthesia, cesarean sections, and antibiotics are only a little over 100 years old. Many births ended up with the death of either the child or the mother. More than being about ritual purity, this service was a great thanksgiving to God that the mother and child were still alive and safe. It was for that reason that this service was usually held after a period of enforced rest and recuperation for the mother to welcome her and her child into the church. It may not be as dangerous today, but child birth and adoption are still occasions in which great thanks needs to be given to God. The birth of a child is truly a miracle, and it’s only proper that even before baptism a child’s birth and raising up in a Christian family is begun with prayer. I pray you all have a blessed week!