laudable Practice

Over the Christmas season, I was interested in references, on The Lutheran Neoplatonist , the substack of a priest in the Church of Norway, to seasonal Norwegian customs. The first was in a homily for what the Book of Common Prayer terms The Sunday after Christmas Day, or what contemporary Anglican liturgies tend to describe as The First Sunday of Christmas. The Lutheran Neoplatonist , however, pointed to the Norwegian term : what we call “Romjulssøndag” ... in the Church of Norway. Romjul (lit. “space Christmas”) refers to the days of Christmas between Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.  Something of this is probably reflected in the experience of many Anglican churches in these Islands and North America on The Sunday after Christmas Day. A smaller congregation after the large congregations for carol services and Christmas Day; perhaps simple congregational carols and less choral music; and the main liturgy of the day rather more modest than Midnight Mass. We might, then, regard Th...

Reflecting on the suggestion made in the post on Epiphany Eve, that Anglican piety particularly rejoices in the Epiphany as the feast of grace fulfilling, not destroying, nature, of nature ordered towards grace, I turn to Jeremy Taylor's meditation on the Magi in The Great Exemplar : As it was an unsearchable wisdom, so it was an unmeasurable grace of Providence and dispensation which God did exhibit to those wise men, to them, as to all men, disposing the ministeries of his grace sweetly, and by proportion to the capacities of the person suscipient. For God called the Gentiles by such means as their customs and learning had made prompt and easy. For these magi were great philosophers and astronomers; and therefore God sent a miraculous star to invite and lead them to anew and more glorious light, the lights of grace and glory. And God so blessed them in following the star, to which their innocent curiosity and national customs were apt to lead them, that their custom was changed t...

On Epiphany 1813, William White, Bishop of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and Presiding Bishop of PECUSA, preached in Christ Church, Philadelphia. The sermon addressed the newly-established Society for the Advancement of Christianity in Pennsylvania, founded by White in the previous year to support the creation of Episcopal churches in the state.  What is striking about the sermon is how it is defined by what White terms "the festival of this day". Remembering that White is regarded as an exemplar of the low church tradition in PECUSA, and that there was little, if any, high church influence in Pennsylvania, the sermons points to how the feast of the Epiphany was meaningfully observed in pre-1833 Anglicanism: It has been often remarked concerning the calling of the Gentiles, that the great event became distinct a prophecy, in proportion as the time of its accomplishment drew near. The truth of this is especially evident in the text. The ...

Richard Gardyner's 1639 Epiphany sermon , preached in Christ Church, Oxford, was in many ways, an exemplary Laudian discourse. Gardyner , who won praise from James I/VI for an oration delivered on behalf of the University of Oxford, was appointed a canon of Christ Church in 1629 and a chaplain to Charles I in 1630. His 1639 Epiphany sermon set forth a traditional piety associated with the feast, saw in the Magi a model of Laudian reverence "before the Altar", and evoked traditional Marian Epiphany iconography . The sermon also demonstrated how Laudians were promoting an attractive alternative soteriology to a rather rigid expression of Calvinistic scholasticism. As Gardyner expounded in the sermon, the feast of the Epiphany was particularly suited to giving voice to this alternative vision, with natural theology, reason, and a natural piety used by the Triune God to draw the Magi to the Incarnate Word: I will not affirme, as some doe, that the holy Spirit himselfe assum...

At the early Eucharist of Christmas Day, 2025 Luke 2:7 [1] “Beloved in Christ, be it this Christmastide our care and delight to hear again the message of the angels, and in heart and mind to go even unto Bethlehem and see this thing which is come to pass …” [2]. They are words heard each year at the beginning of the service of Nine Lessons and Carols, in the days before Christmas Day. It is a call echoed in our carols. In the words of ‘O come, all ye faithful':  “See how the shepherds, Summoned to His cradle, Leaving their flocks, draw nigh with lowly fear; We too will thither bend our joyful footsteps” [3]. And in the quietness and stillness of this Christmas morning, this is what we do.  As Saint Luke’s account of the Lord’s nativity is read; as we confess in the Creed, “For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary and was made man”; as we come to the holy Sacrament, there to partake of Him … We ‘in heart and mind...

On Christmas Day 1710, Francis Atterbury's preached his ' Sermon on the Incarnation of our Lord '. The sermon set forth why the "Doctrine of the Day" brought forth festive joy, as we share in the in praises of the angelic host: All Thanks and Praise therefore be given given to him, that our Tongues can possibly express, or our Hearts conceive! Abraham, at a mighty Distance, and upon a very Dim and Imperfect View of it, rejoiced to see this Day:  The Angels, who themselves had no Interest in this Deliverance, yet were highly pleased with the Prospect of those Blessings it derived on their Fellow-creature, Man; and therefore sang that Hymn on this Occasion, which the Evangelist has Glory be to God on High, on Earth Peace, Good-will towards Men. And shall not We, for whose Sake this Peace was sent on Earth, and to whom all this Good-will was meant, shall not We also give Glory to God on high, and rejoice before him with Reverence? Surely this is News, at which (as Is...