MOST PEOPLE who raise their voices to heaven do so spontaneously. And that is certainly an appropriate and good thing. A personal prayer book is not intended to replace the Holy Spirit’s prompting your prayers; it is something to balance your spiritual life and jump-start your prayers through the day. Prayer books are especially useful when our minds are scattered. They purposely move our concerns beyond our own immediate lives.

The prayers on these pages are taken from personal prayer books prepared by Fr. Edwin Conly (1915–1999), a priest who spent some years at Holy Cross Episcopal Church in Dallas, Texas, before becoming rector of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Nashville, Tennessee. Some people believe he performed miracles during his days in Nashville; curious things often happened when he intervened. No one is sure exactly how many curious things, since no ”inventory” was ever taken, but some were truly eyebrow-raising if not astonishing.

Miracle worker or not, he was unquestionably a holy man, and his ministry and sermons attracted a sizable number of professors and graduate students from nearby Vanderbilt University (most notably in their famous English department, but also in the departments of Germanic & Slavic Languages, French & Italian, Classics, and Philosophy, as well as the university’s medical school). In 1975, a St. Andrew’s parishioner, Vanderbilt English professor Dr. Harold Weatherby, appeared on William F. Buckley’s nationally broadcast “Firing Line” to debate proposed changes to the Episcopal Church’s Book of Common Prayer.

It should be noted that, after his retirement, Fr. Conly converted to Roman Catholicism; you’ll notice his Catholic sensibilities on some of the linked pages.

Each of his prayer books included a collection of hymns, Bible passages (including psalms), and prayers—many traditional—that he wrote out longhand and gave to some of his parishioners. No two books he penned seem to be exactly alike. Fr. Conly was not a theological innovator. He passed down the faith as it had been handed down to him. Accordingly, many of the following prayers already will be familiar to many “churched” people.

In a note that accompanied one of his prayer books he wrote:
“If these are things that do not appeal to you, remember lex orandi, lex credendi.* And so you will want to keep the notebook alive and au courant. Use a pencil to write in temporary matters like individuals you pray for, as those lists change frequently.”

The prayers included here are divided into eight sections: Meditation, Preparation, Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Intercession, Supplication (petition), and Oblation (of self to God). If you are inclined to make your own prayer book, whether handwritten or printed out, by all means add other devotional material that appeals to you and/or speaks especially to your condition. For example, you may want to include more Bible verses. The linked text featured here will serve as a useful template.

* This phrase in Latin literally means “the law of prayer (the way we worship),” and “the law of belief (what we believe).” It is sometimes written as lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi, further explicating the belief that how we worship reflects what we believe and determines how we live.

The Church has long understood that part of its role is to oversee worship, for the sake of the faithful and in obedience to the God whom it serves.

It is instructive to remember that the Church had its Eucharistic prayers 300 years before it settled on a creed and the canon of the New Testament.