Occasional Services

In addition to services that take place regularly, every day or every week, the Book of Common Prayer includes a number of “occasional” services, which are conducted when circumstances call for them. This chapter describes the Prayer Book’s provisions for these services—its three rites of Ordination; the wedding service, formally called the Solemnization of Matrimony; the initiation rite of Baptism and the closely related service of Confirmation; and liturgies used at the Visitation of the Sick and the Burial of the Dead—as well as other related texts. The discussion points out some of the theological issues and emphases that have been inseparable from these ad hoc liturgies.