laudable Practice

At Ante-Communion on Good Friday, 3.4.26 Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-10 [1] “Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.” [2] It was a day of sharp contrasts in Jerusalem on that first Good Friday. In the heart of the city was the ancient Temple. It had stood for half a millennium, a sacred place of prayer and sacrifice unto the God of Israel. Because of its holiness, Gentiles were not permitted to enter the Temple. Outside the city walls, however, at the Place of the Skull [3], there was nothing sacred. This was the place of bloody execution. Here the Gentiles reigned; here the pagan empire of Rome imposed its will by brute force. In the Temple, prayers were reverently uttered to Adonai, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.  At the Place of the Skull, it was the voice of mockery which was heard from bystanders. And when the Crucified One speaks, it is to say ‘I am thirsty’ - an echo of the desper...

In his Good Friday 1718 sermon, ' Of Glorying in the Cross of Christ ', preached at St. James' Chapel, Francis Atterbury - then Bishop of Rochester - addressed the relationship of the Holy Communion to the Cross. The sermon is suggestive of the 18th century Church of England practice of administering the holy Sacrament on Good Friday .  Mindful that Atterbury was a representative of the High Church tradition, the (thoroughly Protestant) sacramental teaching he here sets forth was commonplace across the Church of England, a sign of the ' unity and accord ' of 18th century Anglicanism. While it would come to be condemned by the Tractarians and their successors as an unacceptably 'low' eucharistic theology, Atterbury demonstrates how it could give rise to a warm and vibrant sacramental piety.  The sermon is an example of how the language of 'symbols' and 'remembrance' - the standard eucharistic discourse of 18th century Anglicanism - should not ...

O Lord, save the King ... Endue him plenteously with heavenly gifts ... We beseech thee also to save and defend all Christian Kings, Princes, and Governors; and especially Charles our King ; that under him we may be godly and quietly governed ... It was, over centuries, a characteristic of Anglican liturgy. We regularly - daily at Morning and Evening Prayer, and weekly in the Prayer for the Church Militant - prayed for the King. It was understood to be so integral to the Book of Common Prayer that, at the foundation of the American republic, the prayers for the monarch were transferred to the President : O Lord, our heavenly Father, the high and mighty Ruler of the universe, who dost from thy throne behold all the dwellers upon earth; Most heartily we beseech thee, with thy favour to behold and bless thy servant The President of the United States, and all others in authority; and so replenish them with the grace of thy Holy Spirit, that they may always incline to thy will, and walk in ...

Some are put away, because the great excess and multitude of them hath so increased in these latter days, that the burden of them was intolerable; whereof Saint Augustine in his time complained, that they were grown to such a number that the estate of Christian people was in worse case concerning that matter, than were the Jews. And he counselled that such yoke and burden should be taken away, as time would serve quietly to do it. But what would Saint Augustine have said, if he had seen the Ceremonies of late days used among us; whereunto the multitude used in his time was not to be compared?  Quoting Cranmer's ' On Ceremonies ' during Holy Week might be seen as somewhat provocative. Anglican liturgies during this week, after all, now tend towards a multitude of ceremonies. My purpose in this post, however, is not to be provocative, nor to critique those who value the many various ceremonies of Holy Week (palm procession, foot washing and altar stripping, veneration of the ...

Preparing to read the Commandments at the Holy Communion on this Monday of Holy Week, I turned to Taylor's discourse on the Decalogue in The Great Exemplar . Here Taylor - referencing Clement of Alexandria, a favourite in his works -  sets forth the place of the Commandments in the Christian moral vision, as the way that is fulfilled in "Christian charity". This is the context for the saying of the Commandments in the Holy Communion, the way that is to taken up "in the mystical body of thy Son, which is the blessed company of all faithful people", who "continue in that holy fellowship, and do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in". St. Clement of Alexandria saith, the Pharisees' righteousness consisted in the not doing evil, and that Christ superadded this also, that we must do the contrary, good, and so exceed the Pharisaical measure ...  But the balance in  which the Judge of quick and dead weighs Chris tians is, not only t...

Today we conclude our Lenten readings from Jeremy Taylor's The Worthy Communicant (1667). We do so with Taylor again emphasising both the significance and effectiveness of the duty of self-examination before receiving the holy Sacrament. Our self-examination is to be thorough and searching. It is the very fact that this is, for Taylor, the fundamental discipline regarding the Sacrament which means that we cannot judge others who come to the Sacrament, for we are called to not judge others but only ourselves, instead exercising grace and mercy to others: I do not say that persons unprepared may come, for they ought not; and if they do, they die for it: but I say, if they will come, it is at their peril, and to no man's prejudice, but their own, if they be plainly and severely admonished of their duty and their danger; and, therefore, that every man must judge of his own case, with very great severity and fear, even then when the guides of souls must judge with more gentleness, ...