Welcome, I'm Scott, and I'm a miserable offender. If you don't know what that is, I suggest reading or listening to Us Miserable Offenders by John Koessler.
What follows here is a list of quotes and bits of scripture that relate to "Miserable Offenders" and/or common prayer in general.
But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou those, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou those who are penitent; According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord.
1928 American BCP General Confession
I do not think whether we are feeling miserable or not matters. I think it is using the word miserable in the old sense -- meaning an object of pity... The Prayer Book does not mean that we should feel miserable but that if we could see things from a sufficient height above we should all realize that we are in fact proper objects of pity.
C.S. Lewis - Miserable Offenders: An Interpretation of Prayer Book Language
But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to raise his eyes toward heaven, but was beating his chest, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner!'
Few people feel at any given moment as though they are indeed "miserable sinners," and to modern ears the phrase sounds unhealthily self-lacerating, but... the Latin original clarifies. "Miserable" is derived from miseria - the familiar liturgical phrase miserere me, Domine means "have mercy on me, Lord" - so a "miserable sinner" is simply "a sinner in need of mercy."
Alan Jacobs - The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography (2013)
O God, make speed to save us. O Lord, make haste to help us.
1979 BCP Order of Service for Noonday
The idea that I must always find my own words, that I must generate my own devotion from scratch every morning, that unless I think of new words I must be spiritually lazy or deficient - that has the all-too-familiar sign of human pride, of "doing it my way": of, yes, works-righteousness.
N.T. Wright - Simply Christian (2006)
I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
When the Book of Common Prayer calls us miserable sinners, it is both a recognition of what we are and a reminder of God’s response. Specifically, it tells us that we are those whose moral condition is so deplorable that the only remedy is the goodness and mercy of God, no matter how we may feel.
John Koessler - Us Miserable Offenders
Seven whole days, not one in seven, I will praise thee.
George Herbert - King of Glory, King of Peace
...we are weak and impotent; God is great and strong; urgently, therefore, we cry for his help. Surely this is realistic; surely this is the biblical way to pray.
J.I. Packer - For Truth, Unity, and Hope: Revaluing the Book of Common Prayer (2000)
I have come to feel that the danger of set prayers becoming rote and ritualistic is no greater than the danger of extempore prayers becoming banal and unbiblical.
In order to be 'edifying', as Cranmer intended, the Prayer Book needed not just to be understandable but to be worth understanding. He therefore based it on the Bible, so that it expresses the teaching of the Bible, often in the Bible's own words.
R.T. Beckwith - Praying with Understanding (2006)
Does that sound very gloomy? Does Christianity encourage morbid introspection? The alternative is much more morbid. Those who do not think about their own sins make up for it by thinking incessantly about the sins of others. It is healthier to think of one's own.
C.S. Lewis - Miserable Offenders: An Interpretation of Prayer Book Language
To call ourselves miserable offenders is to admit that God’s pity, shown to us in the person and work of Jesus Christ, is the only thing that can save us from our sin... When we admit that we are miserable offenders who have broken God’s laws by failing to do the things we ought to have done and doing things we ought not to have done, we position ourselves for grace.
John Koessler - Us Miserable Offenders
O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
We moderns are... so concerned that if we get help from anyone else our prayer won't be "authentic" and come from our own heart... Frankly, as Jesus pointed out, there's a lot that comes from the depths of our hearts which may be authentic but isn't very pretty.
N.T. Wright - Simply Christian (2006)
I believe there is no liturgy in the World, either in ancient or modern language, which breathes more of a solid, scriptural, rational piety, than the Common Prayer of the Church of England.
John Wesley - Preface to the Sunday Service of the Methodists in North America (1784)
"And there is no health in us." There is no hedging or qualification. It is a radical admission that we are sick, and that to find healing we must look outside ourselves.
Samuel L. Bray and Drew Nathaniel Keane - How to Use the Book of Common Prayer (2024)
The vocabulary of the prayers may occasionally seem slightly old-fashioned to modern readers, but at the same time we recognize these petitions to God as the ultimate model, emulated by Protestant and Catholic believers everywhere, of how we ought to speak in the presence of our Creator.
W.S. Peterson - Prayers from the First English Prayer Book (1998)
For sin is the great barrier to communion between God and His creatures. No act of converse with God can be profitable, much less fitting, if we have not laid bare our disobedience to His will and consciously sought reconciliation with His love.
Massey Hamilton Shepherd, Jr. - The Oxford American Prayer Book Commentary (1950)
There is some loss in the use of printed words; but there is greater gain. We have in them the accumulated wisdom and beauty of the Christian Church, the garnered excellence of many saints.
Rev. Percy Dearmer - The Story of the Prayer Book (1933)
It is true and indeed important to say that using the Prayer Book properly involves learning a language. But should this daunt us? We do not complain of having to learn the language of computers...in order to be able to use computers; why then should anyone balk at learning the language one needs in order to worship God?
J.I. Packer - For Truth, Unity, and Hope: Revaluing the Book of Common Prayer (2000)
For [Samuel Johnson], and for many who have felt themselves at the mercy of chaotic forces from within or without, the style of the prayer book has healing powers. It provides equitable balance when we ourselves have none.
Alan Jacobs - The Book of Common Prayer: A Biography (2013)
Good liturgy - other people's prayers, whether for corporate or individual use - can be, should be, a sign and means of grace, an occasion for humility (accepting that someone else has said, better than I can, what I deeply want to express) and gratitude.
N.T. Wright - Simply Christian (2006)
Grant, we beseech thee, merciful Lord, to thy faithful people pardon and peace, that they may be cleansed from all their sins, and serve thee with a quiet mind; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
1928 American BCP Collect for The Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity
Questions? Comments? misoff at proton dot me