Many liturgical resources treat the stately, yet tender, bidding prayer at the beginning of a traditional service of Christmas lessons and carols as if it were something beyond change. Yet, as I have noted in previous posts, it was new and innovative when Dean Eric Milner-White wrote it in 1918 for the first Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s College, Cambridge. While its basic frame and cadence have remained unchanged, it has also seen several significant variations over the decades, including amid the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 when “the isolated” were first remembered in the prayer and the petition for health made more prominent.

Dean Stephen Cherry and his staff have retained the changes they made in 2020 in the subsequent years, and this year they have responded to global conflicts, especially that between Israel and Hamas, with two changes additional changes. One of these is the most substantial addition to the prayer in its history.

The first change is a small one, “the hated,” have been added to a list of group who suffer, the phrase now reads “the abused, the exploited, the hated, and the oppressed.”

Much more dramatically, a whole new sentence inviting prayer for victims of war has been added:

And let us hold in our hearts all those who,
even as we are gathered here,
endure the deprivations and travails of war,
praying that the story of the Christ-child may draw them closer to the nearness of God’s love,
and offer new hope in the gospel of peace and loving-kindness.

This addition of fifty-three words extends the prayer by one-sixth of its previous length.

Of course the war in Gaza is not the only armed conflict troubling the earth this Christmas. The war in Ukraine frequently gains front-page headlines in Britain as well. But the war in Ukraine was taking place last Christmas and no change was made to the prayer. The pairing of the addition of prayers for the hated with the prayers for those suffering from war also reflects the rise in antisemitism and anti-Arab sentiment in many places.

Since its debut just a little over a month after the armistice of World War I, the prayer’s key hallmarks have been its opening petition for peace and its closing petition to remember the departed, who of course include the victims of war. Within this frame, the prayer at King’s has always been mindful of its particular situation: It asks for prayers in a chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary, in a college established by Henry VI, and in the city and university of Cambridge. Thus, modifying the prayer to the particular concerns of this Christmastide is entirely fitting.

Those who seek to shape their Christmas services after the example of King’s do well when they do not simply offer “The Bidding Prayer” as written in their prayer books, but customize it to their situation. Of course, the length of the prayer must be considered. The addition at King’s this year is equivalent to making a six-stanza hymn into a seven-stanza one. It may not be for everyone. Also what happens this Christmastide in most churches is already set, but this year’s move at King’s is a good example to keep in mind for the future.

The full service leaflet of this year’s Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols at King’s is available here. The service will be broadcast on Christmas Eve at 3 p.m. GMT, 9 a.m. Central Standard Time on BBC Radio 4 and many public radio stations in the U.S. Afterwards it will be available for a month on the BBC website.

The text of this year’s prayer follows:

Beloved in Christ, be it this Christmas Eve our care and delight to prepare ourselves to hear again the message of the angels;
in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem and see
this thing which is come to pass, and the Babe lying in a manger.

Let us read and mark in Holy Scripture the tale of the loving purposes of God from the first days of our disobedience unto the glorious Redemption brought us by this Holy Child;
and let us make this Chapel, dedicated to Mary,
his most blessed Mother,
glad with our carols of praise:

But first let us pray for the needs of his whole world; for peace and health over all the earth;
for unity and goodwill within the Church he
came to build,
and especially in the dominions of our
sovereign lord King Charles,
within this University and City of Cambridge, and in the two royal and religious Foundations of
King Henry VI, here and at Eton:

And because this of all things would rejoice his heart, let us at this time remember in his name the
poor and the helpless,
the cold and the hungry,
the abused, the exploited, the hated, and the oppressed;
the sick in body and in mind and them that mourn; the isolated, the lonely and the unloved;
the elderly and the little children;
all who know not the Lord Jesus,
or who love him not,
or who by sin have grieved his heart of love.

And let us hold in our hearts all those who,
even as we are gathered here,
endure the deprivations and travails of war,
praying that the story of the Christ-child may draw them closer to the nearness of God’s love,
and offer new hope in the gospel of peace and loving-kindness.

Lastly, let us remember before God all those who rejoice with us,
but upon another shore and in a greater light, that multitude which no man can number, whose hope was in the Word made flesh,
and with whom,
in this Lord Jesus,
we for evermore are one.

These prayers and praises let us humbly offer up to the throne of heaven,
in the words which Christ himself hath taught us:

Corrected: December 19, 2024.