laudable Practice

...  thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree - Romans 11:24. On Monday coming, Holocaust Memorial Day, I will open my Book of Common Prayer to say Morning Prayer, as we recollect the deep horror and vile evil of the Shoah. After the first lesson, I will say the Benedicite, from the text in the Apocrypha now appropriately known as 'The Song of the Three Jews' - the praises uttered by Ananias, Azarias, and Misael in the fiery furnace: O all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord : praise him, and magnify him for ever ... O let Israel bless the Lord : praise him, and magnify him for ever. It brings to mind those who repeated the Shema Yisrael and declared the praises of Adonai even in the face of the unspeakable evil of the death camps. The God of Abraham is to be ever praised, even when thick darkness gathers, when deep injustice appears to reign, when death approaches. To pray the Benedi...

The whole of the hymn, however, having been uttered upon a peculiar occasion, and under extraordinary circumstances, and the latter part being addressed to the infant Baptist in particular, and referring solely to his immediate office, it is seldom read after the second Lesson. In its place therefore with the greatest propriety, we generally use the hundredth psalm, called Jubilate Deo. So said John Shepherd, in his 1796 A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England , of the Benedictus . Secker, in his mid-18th century Six Sermons on the Liturgy of the Church of England , admitted that "we use the more frequently" the Jubilate rather than the Benedictus.  Part of the reason for this was precisely because the Benedictus "was uttered on the birth of John the Baptist", necessitating this note from Secker: The people, in repeating it, should remember, that the words, "And thou, Child, shalt be called the Prophet of ...