laudable Practice

... when the intransigently weird discloses itself and overturns our safe presumptions, how can we cope with it? The question was posed in an excellent recent Earth & Altar article addressing experiences of the eerie.  It is, of course, an appropriate time of year to ask this question.  It is not only the proximity of All Hallow's Eve.  We are entering into a liminal time of year, a season haunted by intimations of mortality, as "the year's midnight" approaches, as the leaves fall, and darkness comes in late afternoon. As the Earth & Altar article notes, we can be "haunted by all manner of phantasmic stories, both the overtly paranormal as well as the more banal sorts of spiritual darkness which choke our faith, hope, and love". Rather than merely dismiss this as 'superstition', "Anglicanism from its beginning has dealt with the anxieties and fears of parishioners with earnestness", providing "practices which viscerally link ...

As Hallowtide approaches, extracts from three Restoration and Revolution era sermons (respectively, 1661 , a 1669 funeral sermon, and  1699 ) for All Saints' Day, indicating how the feast continued to be observed by Anglicans in the decades after 1660 and how a lively understanding of the Communion of Saints persisted: This is a time of uniting; this day's Solemnity calls for it: the Church now commemorating that grand Union betwixt Heaven and Earth, in the Unity and Community of All-Saints ... Angels themselves, though we know not of what Original Extraction, before, or above us; yet, as the same Author elsewhere saith, acknowledge ... there is Consanguinity betwixt them and us. And Origen affirms, Heaven and Earth are a Kin (as it were) and the Kindred this day commemorated ... Which several Openings in Heaven (as aforesaid) to receive and take in Earth: and holy combinations on Earth, Earth (as it were) mixing with Heaven, me thinks should much encourage us to the ready emb...

Poetry is the person of faith's native language ... No other language could possibly begin to do justice to these inspiriting, daunting mysteries of reality itself - Mark Oakley, The Splash of Words: Believing in Poetry (2016). What does it mean to celebrate All Saints' Day?  What is the purpose of Cranmer's classic collect for the feast? Must Anglicans look elsewhere for a piety to draw out the riches of this feast?  Answers to these questions, we might propose, are to be found in the words of poets in the Anglican tradition.  It is they who hold before us the "daunting mysteries of reality" embodied in our "one communion and fellowship" with the Saints in glory.  It is they who explore what it is, in Cranmer's wonderful phrase, for us to be "knit together" with the Saints.  And it is they who show us the rich fare to be enjoyed in the Anglican tradition. So, as Hallowtide draws near, let us listen to poets in the Anglican tradition and ...

As Hallowtide draws near, words on the solemnity from Robert Nelson's A Companion to the Feasts and Fasts of the Church of England (1703), a reminder of the rich piety that could surround the Communion of Saints and All Saints' Day in 18th century Anglicanism.  Nelson's work reached its 36th edition by 1827, an indication of the popularity of the work throughout the long 18th century. Q. What seems to be the Design of the Church in instituting this Festival?  A. To honour God in his Saints. It being through the Assistance of his Grace that they were made conformable to his Will in this Life, and through the Bounty of the same gracious Lord, that his free Gifts are crowned with Happiness in the other ... Q. What Communion have the Saints here below with the Saints above?  A. Those upon Earth are called Fellow Citizens with the Saints, and of the Household of God, of the same Family with those in Heaven. We bless God for them, rejoice at their Bliss, give Thanks for their ...

Words from Taylor which could serve as a commentary on the collect for All Saints' Day , "who hast knit together thine elect in one communion and fellowship": But when good men pray with one heart and in a holy assembly, that is, holy in their desires, lawful in their authority, though the persons be of different complexions, then the prayer flies up to God like the hymns of a choir of angels; for God, - that made body and soul to be one man, and God and man to be one Christ; and three persons are one God, and His praises are sung to Him by choirs, and the persons are joined in orders, and the orders into hierarchies, and all that God might be served by unions and communities, - loves that His church should imitate the concords of heaven, and the unions of God, and that every good man should promote the interests of his prayers by joining in the communion of saints, in the unions of obedience and charity with the powers that God and the laws have ordained. From Taylor...

Bramhall (Bishop of Derry 1634-61, Archbishop of Armagh 1661-63) in his Protestant Ordinations Defended , on how the " two functions, of consecrating, and remitting sin" are conferred in the rite of the Churches of England and Ireland for the Ordering of Priests: Protestants do intend to confer them both, so far as either Christ did confer them, or the blessed Apostles execute them ... He who saith, "Take thou authority to exercise the office of a Priest in the Church of God" (as the Protestant consecrators do), doth intend all things requisite to the Priestly function, and amongst the rest, to offer a representative Sacrifice, to commemorate and to apply the Sacrifice which Christ made upon the Cross ...  He who saith, "Whose sins thou dost remit they are remitted, whose sins thou dost retain are retained" (which are the very words used in the Protestants' Form of Ordination ), surely intends to confer a power to remit sins. We acknowledge, that he w...

From Richard Warner's   The Sermon on the mount; in five discourses  (1840) - five sermons preached "on several successive Sunday afternoons" - a statement of why faith must bear fruit in love: the seat of true religion, is in the heart: where repentance for past sin: Faith in the only Saviour: the spirit of holiness: and the gospel grace of brotherly love; for ever dwell - unseen, indeed, by mortal eye, and visible only to the all seeing eye of God - but - made manifest to man, outwardly, and beautifully; in the substantial form of acts of repentance; faith: hope: and charity - in tokens of sorrow for numberless demerits: in a zealous exercise of "good works": and in earnest longings, desires, and strivings, to imitate, towards our brethren in the flesh, (though in an infinitely less degree) the unfathomable; unbounded; and impartial, mercy, compassion, and love, of "our Father which is in Heaven" - the most glorious of his eternal attributes: and (to...

The Prayer Book Office has been the principle means of grace for Anglican Christians since the break with Rome - Oikodomeo .  I have previously referred to this phrase from Oikodomeo but it is certainly worthy of further comment as it helps to deliver past generations of Anglicans from - to use a term of the Marxist historian E.P. Thompson - the " enormous condescension of posterity ".  Rather than viewing Sunday Mattins, the mainstay of Anglican public worship from the 16th to the mid-20th century, as a form of deep spiritual impoverishment, Oikodomeo rightly identifies it as a "principle means of grace". In what way was it a "means of grace"? How did Sunday Mattins sustain a vibrant Anglican piety over centuries? If we consider the various constituent parts of the liturgy of Mattins and their meaning, we perhaps can begin to identify how Sunday Mattins functioned as a "means of grace". As laudable Practice has pointed out in the past , th...

He was 'the Lord of hosts', and He is still what He was, but He loves to be called the 'God of peace'; because He was terrible in that, but He is delighted in this. His mercy is His glory, and His glory is the light of heaven. His mercy is the life of the creation, and it fills all the earth; and His mercy is a sea too, and it fills all the abysses of the deep: it hath given us promises for supply of whatsoever we need, and relieves us in all our fears and in all the evils that we suffer. His mercies are more than we can tell, and they are more than we can feel; for all the world in the abyss of the divine mercies is like a man diving into the bottom of the sea, over whose head the waters run insensibly and unperceived, and yet the weight is vast, and the sum of them is unmeasurable; and the man is not pressed with the burden, nor confounded with numbers: and no observation is able to recount, no sense sufficient to perceive, no memory large enough to retain, no underst...

An Anglican should sound like a reformed Catholic Christian, grounded in the genuinely humanist implications of the Bible and the writings of the church Fathers. Someone committed to an authentic local and rooted expression of a universal faith. Someone with a strong sense of the integral unity of reason, scripture, and tradition. Of the unity, also, of artistic expression with care for nature and metaphysical vision. John Milbank, Emeritus Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of Nottingham - Church Times 1st October 2021. John Milbank's words were in response to a Church Times request for "concise suggestions ... about what an Anglican sounded like".  Note, not a definition of doctrine (a debate for another time), more a description of ethos. I confess that I think Milbank has done so in a superb and deeply evocative manner.    Reading the description over the past week, I was particularly struck how it brings to mind what it...

Our being bishops jure divino , by divine right, takes nothing from the king's right or power over us. For though our office be from God and Christ immediately, yet we may not exercise that power, either of order or jurisdiction, but as God hath appointed us, that is, not in his Majesty's or any Christian king's kingdoms, but by and under the power of the king given us so to do.  And were this a good argument against us, as bishops, it must needs be good against priests and ministers too, for themselves grant that their calling is jure divino , by divine right; and yet I hope they will not say that to be priests and ministers is against the king, or any his royal prerogative s - Archbishop Laud in Star Chamber , 1637. I never claimed the King's Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction, as incident to my Episcopal or Archiepiscopal Office in this Kingdom: Nor did I ever deny, that the exercise of my Jurisdiction was derived from the Crown of England. But that which I have said, and...

From Richard Warner's   The Sermon on the mount; in five discourses  (1840) - five sermons preached "on several successive Sunday afternoons" - an example of how Warner applies the Beatitudes to the ordinary duties and relationships of his parishioners: "Blessed are the meek" - those who control and extinguish the fierce passions, and unchristian dispositions of a fallen nature; who regulate their tempers; and bridle their tongues, from uttering irritating; abusive; censorious; unkind; false; or profane language - "for they shall inherit the earth" - for such mild and peaceable Christians, "shall see good days", even in this world of sin and sorrow: they shall find protectors and friends: enjoy tranquillity and peace: and either escape from those evils, in which the violent, and passionate, quarrelsome, malicious, and envious, are constantly involving themselves and others; or, shall at least, be supported under such evils; by the solid comfo...

This is not a post concerning Traditionis custodes .   That is a matter for Roman Catholic friends to discuss and debate.  When reading some contributions to this debate, however, I was struck by the following statement from an insightful article in the Church Life Journal : Many traditionalist Catholics see this liturgical bomb exploding with some very dangerous theological and ecclesio-political shrapnel. Normally North American or European, they see the curtailing or elimination of the pre-conciliar liturgy as a threat to carefully curated socio-cultural traditionalist havens (parishes, schools, social networks, online communities), where the putative rot of “modernity” or “the culture” and the errors or even heresies rampant in the post-conciliar Catholic Church can be held at bay, ideally to be eventually reversed. Whether or not this accurately describes Roman Catholic communities using the 1962 Missal is for others to determine.  It does, however, rightly ide...

Taylor on how Christian simplicity blesses social and communal life: Nothing is easier than simplicity and ingenuity: it is open and ready without trouble and artificial cares, fit for communities and the proper virtue of men, the necessary appendage of useful speech, without which language were given to men as nails and teeth to lions, for nothing but to do mischief. It is a rare instrument of institution, and a certain token of courage; the companion of goodness and a noble mind; the preserver of friendship, the band of society, the security of merchants, and the blessing of trade; it prevents infinite of quarrels and appeals to judges, and suffers none of the evils of jealousy. Men by simplicity converse as do the angels; they do their own work, and secure their proper interest, and serve the public, and do glory to God. But hypocrites, and liars, and dissemblers, spread darkness over the face of affairs, and make men, like the blind, to walk softly and timorously; and crafty men, l...

On this Canadian Thanksgiving Day, laudable Practice gives thanks for three places which embody the particular gifts and vocation of Canadian Anglicanism. Firstly, St. Paul's, Halifax , Nova Scotia.  It is the oldest Anglican place of worship in Canada, established in 1749.  It became the cathedral for Charles Inglis (whose father was a rector in the Church of Ireland) when he was consecrated Bishop of Nova Scotia in 1787, the first Anglican Cathedral outside the British Isles.  St. Paul's, in other words, is a sign of the enduring presence of Anglicanism in Canada over centuries, of how Anglicanism has become a feature of the landscape, communities, and culture of Canada. The fact that St. Paul's is also the burial place for Inglis  symbolises the historic national and communal vocation of Canadian Anglicanism.  The great Canadian Anglican philosopher George Grant's emphasis on how the Loyalist tradition - of which Inglis was a leading representative - shaped ...

"Morning and Evening Prayer from the Anglican prayer book tradition." That is how the Ordinariate's new Divine Worship: Daily Office is being advertised.  And, indeed, there is some merit in this, as Oikodomeo has said in an excellent review: DWDO is an ecumenical gift and compliment to the Anglican Communion. The Prayer Book Office has been the principle means of grace for Anglican Christians since the break with Rome. That Rome now not only acknowledges this but encourages this prayer is a celebration of the Anglican gift to the church catholic. Anglicanism is a means to holiness, a gift of grace.  What does give me pause, however, is related to Oikodomeo's entirely correct observation that Mattins and Evensong were "the principle means of grace for Anglican Christians" over centuries.  Part of the reason for this was the fact that these offices included Confession and Absolution.  To put in more explicit terms, the grace of Absolution was experienced i...

From Richard Warner's   The Sermon on the mount; in five discourses (1840) - five sermons preached "on several successive Sunday afternoons" - from the first sermon, a clear statement of the Scriptural teaching that "the practice of the precepts of the Gospel" is "a condition of everlasting salvation": Fully convinced, myself, of the high duty incumbent upon the Ministers of the Gospel, of not "shunning to declare" unto their hearers, "the whole counsel of God": deeply feeling (I humbly trust,) the responsibility which rests upon the Preacher of God's word, of "keeping himself pure from the blood of all men", by rightly dividing the word of truth, "and holding up moral righteousness", - (or the practice of the precepts of the Gospel, embodied in a life of piety, virtue, sobriety, honesty, and brotherly love,) as well as Faith, to the solemn attention of his congregation - assured in my conscience, that, with...