Prayers Ancient Made Modern (Annotated) is now available through Amazon.com.
This collection of prayers for daily use has been gathered from many sources, ancient and modern. It has historical interest, and the literary quality has been carefully considered, but the primary object is to nourish the spiritual life. As the design is to provide a brief selection for every day, in many cases a portion only of a long prayer is given, or it is condensed by omission, but alterations have been made as sparingly as possible. Fourteen centuries of prayer, aspiration, and praise unite here in one harmony of devotion.
Mary Wilder Tileston, from the Preface to Prayers Ancient and Modern
The book Prayers Ancient and Modern was also published under the title Great Souls at Prayer. Mary Wilder Tileston made a revised edition in 1928 in which she removed about a quarter of the prayers from the 1897 edition and added newer prayers. This revision is based on the 1897 edition to give preference to ancient prayers.
All the prayers in this edition have been modified, some more freely than others. Most I revised in such a way that they remain direct quotes of the originals.
In all the revision and overhauling, I tried to keep some of the language and spirit of the originals. Prayers Ancient and Modern is available and downloadable from Google Books and from Archive.org if readers wish to compare this book with the original.
In this annotated edition, a short biography or explanation of the source is given the first time that author or source appears in this book. If no annotation of author or source is given for a prayer, consult the Index of Authors. Biographies and explanations are condensed from Wikipedia, archive.org, and other sources.
Prayers Ancient Made Modern (Annotated) now has no substituted prayers. Every prayer from the 1897 edition of Prayers Ancient and Modern is now reproduced in modern English.
It has been an active year with revisions of some publications and some new publications in development. Also, ACOP’s materials are being used in an expanding circle.
New covers with a unified design were prepared for Prayers from the Ancient Celtic Church, The Antiphonary of Bangor, The New Ancient Collects. In time, the other parchment covered books will have the redesigned covers.
Some minor corrections were made to Prayers Ancient Made Modern, which is my number two seller, second only to Prayers from the Ancient Celtic Church.
The chief views continue to be from English speaking countries (U.S., U. K., Canada and Australia), but there is growing usage from the Philippines, Jordan, India, Singapore, China, South Africa, and Indonesia!
Links to A Collection of Prayers
WordPress lets me see referrers, that is, other websites that have a link to A Collection of Prayers. After search engines, the biggest referrers are a liturgy website www.liturgies.net, the Christian spirituality website www.christianity.com, followed by individual ministries, churches, and even some denominational websites.
Wartburg Watch often used prayers from A Collection of Prayers in their online worship blog. After Easter, Wartburg Watch discontinued their online worship blog since many churches offer online options.
As mentioned above, some books got new covers with a more uniform style. Prayers Ancient Made Modern received some minor corrections.
My publications have taken a more historic turn:
This year I released a translation of Summary of Christian Teaching for Young People by Veit Dietrich. The Summary… was a significant book in Lutheran history, since it was mentioned in agendas and other works since the time of the Reformation. Strangely, I could find only the first printing. Summary… is well known for the collects that accompany each Sunday’s devotional commentary. They were widely used in Scandinavian churches, and are printed in Evangelical Lutheran Hymnary (1996). To my knowledge, this is the first complete translation of the Summary into English.
The translation of another historic book is in development, The Pomeranian Church Order and Agenda is in the final stages of proofreading. As the word Agenda implies, it was a book for leading worship. It was also a book of church law for the duchy of Pomerania, which set very high standards for churches, pastors, and other church workers. I anticipate a late August 2026 release.
As always, the sale of books pays for the website and supports research.
Beyond This Website, Books and Products
The Commission on Worship of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod used psalm prayers from two of my books (Sarum and Mozarabic) for a worship conference that focused on psalms. These reproducible sheets may also be available in book form in the future. I will put up a link if and when this appears in book form.
Crossway Publishers has released their Sing! hymnal in September 2025, and they used nine prayers from my books as filler for some white spaces in their book.
The prayer anthology from Eerdmans, Prayers from the Cloud, includes my translation of the Lorica of St. Fursey.
Other devotional publishers have also contacted me about using A Collection of Prayers and some of my books as a source. Congregations of many denominations and individuals have contacted me for permission to use prayers from the website or from my books in works for public or private devotions. I am always happy to share my work–which is what A Collection of Prayers is all about.
Again, I haven’t posted many new prayers in the last year. It has been an active year with publications and with ACOP’s materials being used in an expanding circle.
Because Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei were some of last year’s top hits, I wrote a series on the Western Rite. That series will be the basis of a chapter on the Western Rite in an upcoming book on worship and faith formation.
The chief views continue to be from English speaking countries (U.S., U. K., Canada and Australia), but there is growing usage from the Philippines, India and South Africa.
Links to A Collection of Prayers
WordPress lets me see referrers, that is, other websites that have a link to A Collection of Prayers. The biggest referrers are the Christian spirituality website www.christianity.com and a liturgy website www.liturgies.net, followed by individual ministries, churches, and even some denominational websites.
The past year was more quiet on A Collection of Prayers because of commitments in my work.
In 2024 I published Prayers Ancient Made Modern through Lulu, and also made it available for free in PDF, Word and ePub formats. Because of public domain content, to publish it through Amazon, I had to make it an annotated edition. Footnotes with short biographies of the authors appear the first time that author’s prayers appear in the book. Also, all prayers from Prayers Ancient and Modern have been revised or reworked. This book is getting closer to being my best seller, sometimes equaling the sales of Prayers from the Ancient Celtic Church.
The Commission on Worship of the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod used psalm prayers from two of my books (Sarum and Mozarabic) for a worship conference that focused on psalms. These reproducible sheets may also be available in book form in the future.
Crossway Publishers is about to release their Sing! hymnal in September 2025, and they are using nine prayers from my books as filler for some white spaces in their book.
An Episcopal monastic movement, anamcharafellowship.net, contacted me about using prayers from my Celtic and Sarum books in their breviary (private publication) as part of their daily devotions and liturgy of hours.
I’ve also been contacted by Eerdmans about an upcoming prayer anthology, Prayers from the Cloud, that will also include my translation of the Lorica of St. Fursey.
Other devotional publishers have also contacted me about using A Collection of Prayers and some of my books as a source. Congregations of many denominations and individuals have contacted me for permission to use prayers from the website or from my books in works for public or private devotions. I am always happy to share my work–which is what A Collection of Prayers is all about.
