Practice Resurrection: reading Cranmer's Easter Day collect with Thomas Aquinas and Wendell Berry

Almighty God, who through thine only-begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life: We humbly beseech thee, that as by thy special grace preventing us thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by thy continual help we may bring the same to good effect; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Perhaps it is the case that it appears to be not the most inspiring or compelling of Cranmer's collects. The collect of Easter Day does, however, have deep roots and a rich theological resonance.

The opening phrase - Almighty God, who through thine only-begotten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death, and opened unto us the gate of everlasting life - echoes the opening of the collect in the Gelasian Sacramentary for Easter Day:

Deus, qui per Unigenitum tuum aeternitatis nobis aditum, devicta morte, reserasti ...

With Cranmer's collect, then, we greet Easter Day with words of prayer used by Latin Christians on the feast of feasts since the late 5th century.

The full collect is that used in pre-Reformation rites and retained in the Tridentine rite (and the Latin BCP 1560):

Deus, qui hodiérna die per Unigénítum tuum, æternitátis nobis áditum, devícta morte reserásti: vota nostra, quæ præveniéndo aspíras, étiam adjuvándo proséquere ...

Here again, Cranmer's collect is an expression of the great Latin theological tradition and its joy in the Lord's Resurrection.

Similarly, the collect grounds the Latin tradition's Augustinian understanding of prevenient grace in the mystery of Easter. In the words of Thomas Aquinas:

Now there are five effects of grace in us: of these, the first is, to heal the soul; the second, to desire good; the third, to carry into effect the good proposed; the fourth, to persevere in good; the fifth, to reach glory. And hence grace, inasmuch as it causes the first effect in us, is called prevenient with respect to the second, and inasmuch as it causes the second, it is called subsequent with respect to the first effect. And as one effect is posterior to this effect, and prior to that, so may grace be called prevenient and subsequent on account of the same effect viewed relatively to divers others. And this is what Augustine says (De Natura et Gratia xxxi): "It is prevenient, inasmuch as it heals, and subsequent, inasmuch as, being healed, we are strengthened; it is prevenient, inasmuch as we are called, and subsequent, inasmuch as we are glorified" - Summa Theologiae I/II.111.3

How this is related to the Easter mystery is set forth in a recurring theme in Rowan Williams:

Before anybody gets to the empty tomb, God is already up 'by break of day'.

"It is prevenient, inasmuch as it heals": such is the Resurrection. God is always there before us, so much so that we could never "set up the hidden camera in the garden on Easter eve and find out what really happened" (God with Us). Our need of prevenient grace is absolute. Without it, there is only that which is oriented towards death. Whenever we reach the tomb, God is there first, calling light out of darkness, life out of death.

As with the Resurrection, so with the living out of the Resurrection in our lives:

as by thy special grace preventing us,
thou dost put into our minds good desires ...

If Cranmer's Easter Day collects seems quite boring at this point, distinctly ordinary, this is precisely how it should be. For it is in the boring and the ordinary that the Resurrection is lived out. As the Epistle of Easter Day states:

Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Money and sex, greed and lust: in such very ordinary, earthy experiences is the Resurrection to be lived out, brought to "good effect".

It is as with the manifesto of Wendell Berry's 'Mad Farmer Liberation Front':

Plant sequoias ... Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold ... Listen to carrion ... Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable ... Go with your love to the fields.

In such ordinary acts, experiences, and joys - "good desires" brought to "good effect" - says the Mad Farmer, we "Practice resurrection". And this is the central petition of Cranmer's translation of the traditional collect for Easter Day: that we might, by grace, in the ordinary things of this life, practice Resurrection.

(The painting is Sri Rao, 'Amber Fields', 2018.)

Why I support the ordination of women: a High Church reflection

A number of commenters on this blog have asked about my occasional expressions of support for the ordination of women to all three orders. With some hesitation, I have decided to post a summary of my own views on this matter. The hesitation is because I have sought on this blog to focus on issues and themes which can unify those who identify with or have respect (grudging or otherwise!) for what we might term 'classical' Anglicanism (the Anglicanism of the Formularies and - yes - of the Old High Church tradition). Some oppose the ordination of women (and I have friends and colleagues who do so, Anglo-Catholic, High Church, and Reformed Evangelical). Some of us support it (again, friends and colleagues covering a wide range of theological traditions). Below, I have organised my thinking around 5 points (needless to say, no reference to Dort is implied). 1. The Declaration for Subscription required of clergy in the Church of Ireland states: (6) I promise to submit ...

How the Old High tradition continued

Charles Gore's 1914 letter to the clergy of his diocese, ' The Basis of Anglican Fellowship ', can be regarded as a classical expression of the Prayer Book Catholic tradition. A key part of the letter - entitled 'Romanizing in the Church of England' - addressed the "Catholic movement", questioning beliefs and practices within it which tended to "a position which makes it very difficult for its extremer representatives to give an intelligible reason why they are not Roman Catholics". Gore provides the outlines of an alternative account and experience of catholicity within Anglicanism, defined by three characteristics. What is particularly interesting about these characteristics is their continuity with the older High Church tradition. Indeed, the central characteristic as set out by Gore was integral to High Church claims over centuries: To accept the Anglican position as valid, in any sense, is to appeal behind the Pope and the authority of t...

1928 practices and the 1979 book: unthinking conservatism or popular piety?

Those responsible for Earth & Altar - a new blog emanating from a group within TEC - are to be congratulated for an excellent contribution to wider Anglican discussion and debate. The commitment to "an expansively conceived credal orthodoxy as fully compatible with LGBTQ inclusion, gender equality, and racial justice" is an important part of a wider retrieval of creedal orthodoxy within what we might call the post-liberal generation. It is in this spirit that I want to respond to a recent post on the site by Andrew McGowan , Dean of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and Professor of Anglican Studies at Yale Divinity School. Against the background of another round of "ill-defined" liturgical revision in TEC, he understandably urges that a fuller reception of the 1979 BCP should occur before further reforms. In doing so, however, he takes aim at what he describes as "clinging to the ritual structures of 1928" while using the text of 1979. We ...

laudable Practice

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