laudable Practice

A Twitter exchange today led to this article by Schmemann.  Included in the article was a wonderful Chrysostom quote concerning the Eucharist: He mixed Himself with us and dissolved His body in us so that we may constitute a wholeness, be a body united to the Head. This, of course, is also a repeated theme in Augustine : That bread which you can see on the altar, sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That cup, or rather what the cup contains, sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ. It was by means of these things that the Lord Christ wished to present us with his body and blood, which he shed for our sake for the forgiveness of sins. If you receive them well, you are yourselves what you receive - Sermon 227; And therefore receive and eat the body of Christ, yes, you that have become members of Christ in the body of Christ - Sermon 228b; What you receive is what you yourselves are, thanks to the grace by which you have been redee...

... touching the frequency of the Communion, the Parson celebrates it, if not duly once a month, yet at least five or six times in the year; as, at Easter, Christmasse, Whitsuntide, afore and after Harvest, and the beginning of Lent. What is a 21st century Anglican to make of George Herbert's words in The Country Parson ?  They bring to mind an old, staid order, thankfully overthrown by the Parish Communion movement and 20th century liturgical reform, restoring the dynamism of the Lord's people at the Lord's Table on the Lord's Day. However, a generation after the triumph of the Parish Communion movement, it is a time to challenge the narrative around the movement.  Parish Communion and liturgical reform have redefined the norm in Anglican worship, but this has coincided with a significant decline in attendance.  Is this decline related to the success of the Parish Communion movement?  The question is worth asking not least in light of the growing congregat...

Yesterday I referred to Eliot's essay ' Lancelot Andrewes '.  The essay is a celebration of Anglicanism's native piety, made all the more significant by Eliot describing himself in the preface as "anglo-catholic in religion".  Contrasting the literary, devotional and architectural styles of the "English Church" and Roman Catholicism, Eliot admits that Anglicanism has "no building so beautiful as the Cathedral of Modena or the basilica of St Zeno in Verona".  However, he continues: But there are those for [Wren's] City churches are as precious as any of the four hundred odd churches in Rome ... and for whom St. Paul's, in comparison with St. Peter's, is not lacking in decency. Those words, "not lacking in decency", bring to mind Roger Scruton's description of the typical Anglican parish church: The architecture is noble but bare and quiet, without the lofty aspiration of the French Gothic, or the devotiona...

It is not a reference you would expect to find in an article entitled ' Why Anglo-Catholicism appeals to Millennials ', appearing in The Catholic Herald .  The article by the Reverend Marcus Walker, Rector of St Bartholomew the Great, London, compared the similarities in the approach to worship of Anglo-catholics, charismatic evangelicals, and trad Latin Mass RCs: All three use the body physically in worship: whether crossing yourself at the elevation of the Host or following Elizabeth I’s injunction to bow at the Name of Jesus or raising your hands at a profound moment of singing, there is an acknowledgement that worship is physical as well as mental. Notice it?  That reference to Elizabeth I is somewhat surprising - and not just because it almost certainly had regular readers of The Catholic Herald quoting Regnans in Excelsis with approval.  Perhaps no less surprising is a positive reference to Elizabeth in an article written from an Anglo-catholic perspecti...

Amongst the joys of the Prayer Book tradition are those prayers and collects that, while not often used, can enrich our prayer when we either stumble upon them or reach for them on a particular occasion. And so it was for me this week with this collect: Assist us mercifully, O Lord, in these our supplications and prayers, and dispose the way of thy servants towards the attainment of everlasting salvation; that, among all the changes and chances of this mortal life, they may ever be defended by thy most gracious and ready help; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen . I was aware of the collect but, before recent days, cannot remember the last time I prayed it. On Wednesday evening, however, for some reason I instinctively turned to it at the close of an Ante-Communion. It is one of the 'Table Prayers', additional collects provided in the 1662 Holy Communion for use "when there is no Communion".  The rubric recognises the richness of these collects ...

Article 32 - Of the Marriage of Priests - may appear to be a rather unusual place to detect a rupture between Tractarianism and the Old High Church tradition.  Most Tractarian parish clergy, after all, were married.  That said, Tract XC did suggest a rather strained interpretation of the Article, suggesting that the Church "has power did she choose, to take from [clergy] this discretion, and to oblige them ... to celibacy": the very thing, of course, that Article 32 denied. The influence within Ritualist circles of a Roman model of a celibate priesthood is seen in the account given in In This Sign Conquer , a history of the Anglo-Catholic priestly fraternity, the SSC.  While the SSC, despite debates on making celibacy necessary for membership, did not take this path, a preference for celibacy is seen in the 'White Rule' (for celibate members) established by the fraternity at its outset. In his 1871 An Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles ,  Alexander Fo...

That which God doth chiefly respect in men's penitence, is their hearts - The Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity VI.6.18 It is significant that in his discussion in Book VI of the Laws of the Genevan model of lay eldership, Hooker gives over significant space to challenging the Tridentine notion of a sacrament of Penance.  As seen yesterday in Taylor's words, this reflected a conviction within the reformed ecclesia Anglicana that consistory and confessional both represented an unwarranted and imprudent intrusion into the heart - the seat of repentance - which God alone, and neither elders nor confessor, could rightly judge. We also see this emphasis in Taylor's approach in The Worthy Communicant ( chapter V.vi. ): 2. No man may be separated from the communion for any private sin, vehemently or lightly suspected. This censure must not pass, but when the crime is manifest and notorious; that is, when it is related and convict in any public assembly, civil or ec...

Wherefore, he who would communicate, ought to recall to mind the precept of the Apostle; Let a man prove himself. Now ecclesiastical usage declares that necessary proof to be, that no one, conscious to himself of mortal sin, how contrite soever he may seem to himself, ought to approach to the sacred Eucharist without previous sacramental confession - Council of Trent, Session XIII , chpt.viii ... although the absolution of the priest is the dispensation of another's bounty, yet is it not a bare ministry only, whether of announcing the Gospel, or of declaring that sins are forgiven, but is after the manner of a judicial act, whereby sentence is pronounced by the priest as by a judge - Council of Trent, Session XIV , chpt. vi If any one denieth, either that sacramental confession was instituted, or is necessary to salvation, of divine right; or saith, that the manner of confessing secretly to a priest alone, which the Church hath ever observed from the beginning, an...

In TEC BCP 1979 and Canada's Book of Alternative Services (1985) the Sundays after Epiphany stretch on until the Sunday before Lent.  Following after the liturgical reforms the Roman communion, the Gesima Sundays were suppressed.  After all, if Lent itself is a season of preparation for Easter, how is it possible to have a time of preparation for a season of preparation?  The Gesima Sundays were an untidy medieval accretion, to be dispensed with as the liturgical year was returned to a more pristine form. With the publication of the CofE's Common Worship, however, a change could be detected, a change also seen in the CofI BCP 2004.  'Sundays before Lent' appeared, beginning on the Sunday after Candlemas.  This was a partial recognition of the wisdom of the Gesima Sundays. The collects of the Fourth and Fifth Sundays before Lent have themes that can be identified with Lent - "the fraility of our nature", "the unruly wills and passions of sinful human...

W hile the details of who St Valentine was are contested, one thing is agreed upon: he was martyred and buried on February 14 at the Roman cemetery on the Via Flaminia, the ancient road from Rome to Rimini - Daily Telegraph , 14th February 2019. To celebrate this 14 February, here's everything you need to know about the history of Valentine's Day and how it came to be. While there are various Christian saints by the name of Valentine, the most famous is probably Saint Valentine of Rome - Daily Mirror , 14th February 2019. Little else is known about his life although he is thought to have defied the Emperor Claudius by performing Christian weddings, perhaps even handing out parchment hearts as a reminder of the love of God or delivering letters between jailed lovers in secret - Independent , 14th February 2019. Spouses and sweethearts will have exchanged 'Happy Valentine's Day' greetings and presents, cards will have been sent, roses given. Yes, it i...

The placing of the Litany in the books of the Prayer Book tradition is significant.  In 1662, Ireland 1926, PECUSA 1928, and Canada 1962, the Litany follows the orders for Morning and Evening Prayer.  It is bound up with Mattins and Evensong.  Even where the rubric directing its use every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday has been removed - as in PECUSA 1928 - the placing of the Litany alongside the orders for Mattins and Evensong indicates that it is to be regarded and used as a regular feature of Common Prayer. While TEC BCP 1979 retains this position for the Litany, this is rarely the case in contemporary Anglican service books.  In the CofE's Common Worship: Daily Prayer, for example, is buried away under 'Prayers', following a large number of forms of intercessions, seasonal acclamations, and smaller litanies.  Nothing marks it as a regular part of Common Prayer.  Indeed, there is no rubric directing its use on particular days.  Canada's Book of A...

From the collect for the Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany : O Lord , we beseech thee to keep thy Church and household continually in thy true religion ... This is one of three uses of 'religion' in the collects of the Prayer Book tradition, the others being in the collects of the Third Sunday after Easter and the Seventh Sunday after Trinity . It also stands alongside the use in the Prayer for Church Militant: "the maintenance of thy true religion". 'Religion' also underpins the very idea of the Book of Common Prayer, with its services so ordered that we may "be the more inflamed with the love of his true Religion" ( Concerning the Service of the Church ) and, because it is "a Religion to serve God", it therefore has "Ceremonies which do Serve to a decent Order and godly Discipline" ( Concerning Ceremonies ). And, of course, we have the Articles of Religion, given for the purposes of "avoiding of the diversities of ...

Let no Minister of a Parish introduce any Ceremony, Rites or Gestures, though with some seeming Piety and Devotion, but what are commanded by the Church, and established by Law: and let these also be wisely and usefully explicated to the people, that they may understand the reasons and measures of obedience; but let there be no more introduc'd, lest the people be burdened unnecessarily, and tempted or divided. From Jeremy Taylor's ' Rules and Advices to the Clergy of the Diocese of Down and Connor '. (See the previous post in what will be a short series, 'Jeremy Taylor against the Ritualists '.)

In the Ordering of Priests in the PECUSA BCP 1928, alongside the traditional words at the laying on of hands - 'Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest', with the dominical words from John 20:23 - an alternative formula is provided: Take thou Authority to execute the Office of a Priest in the Church of God, now committed to thee by the Imposition of our hands. And be thou a faithful Dispenser of the Word of God, and of his holy Sacraments; In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.  Such a form of words was unsuccessfully sought by low church evangelicals in United Church of England and Ireland in the 1860s.  At disestablishment, the Church of Ireland - even with a numerically significant low church, evangelical tradition - refused to permit such a change to the Ordinal. But it did happen in PECUSA, when the 1662 Ordinal was revised in 1792 .  The inclusion of this alternative fo...

The Primaveral Season begins around Candlemas.  The increasing day is now sensibly longer, and the lighter evenings begin to be remarked by the absence of candles till near six o'clock - Thomas Furly Forster, 1827, quoted in Winter: An anthology for the changing seasons , edited by Melissa Harrison. The coming of early Spring in February is caught up in the calendar of the Prayer Book tradition, with the experience of the change of season drawn into the preparation for the Church's springtime. What are the characteristics of a Prayer Book February? Feast of the Purification of St Mary the Virgin February begins with Candlemas .  The feast both looks back to Christmas and forward to the Passion.  This liminal quality is echoed in the changing of the seasons in February, as Winter gives way to Spring.  The Gospel reading for the feast gathers up this experience of the seasons, and orders it towards the mysteries of Incarnation and Passion, as our gaze moves...