laudable Practice

In The Great Exemplar , following his 'Considerations Upon the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple', Jeremy Taylor appropriately offers a discourse 'Of Meditation'. This reflects, of course, the faithful, prayerful waiting of Simeon and Anna, and also how the Gospel of the feast tells that the Blessed Virgin and Saint Joseph "marvelled at those things which were spoken" of the Christ Child.  Taylor says of this, "and treasured them in their hearts; and they became matter of devotion and mental prayer, or meditation". Likewise, Taylor's urging that "meditation is the duty of all", echoes his earlier description of Simeon and Anna: "of diverse sexes, and like piety, Simeon and Anna, the one who lived an active and secular, the other a retired and contemplative life".  Today's feast, therefore, is, for Taylor, an invitation to meditation, to a prayerful dwelling upon the life of Christ - in which "the greatest mysteries ...

In Section V of The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament (1654), we continue to see Taylor quote extensively from theologians of the Christian East and point to the liturgies of the Eastern Churches. The opening paragraph of this Section quotes from Cyril of Alexandria and Theodoret, to demonstrate the reality of the bread and wine in the Eucharist: St. Cyril of Alexandria; "called bread his flesh." Theodoret saith that "to the body he gave the name of the symbol, and to the symbol the name of his body. The pairing is, of course, interesting, as Theodoret challenged Cyril's Christology. This in itself is suggestive of how Taylor generously viewed the Christian East as embracing both Chalcedonian and non-Chalcedonian theologians and churches. Another extract from Theodoret - "In the exhibition of the mysteries he called bread his body, and the mixture in the chalice he called blood" - appears, as do words from the Byzantine John M...

Continuing with extracts from John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), we consider  the second Lord's Prayer at Matins and Evensong: When it was repeated in the beginning of the service, it was more particularly applied for the confirmation of our pardon, and absolution. Here it has respect to the following prayers, which we have reason to presume will be more acceptable on its account. And if on the former occasion we did not offer any petition with suitable earnestness, we have now an opportunity of compensating for the omission, by asking with greater fervency, what was too slightly passed over before. The reasons Shepherd provides for this second offering of the Lord's Prayer are useful reminders of why the practice has value.  The first and second Lord's Prayer at Matins and Evensong have different functions, with this second use framing the offering of prayer and intercession at this s...

It has been disputed whether Paintings were tolerated or prohibited by the Rules of the Church of England? With these words, Thomas Wilson, Prebendary of Westminster, continued in the Introduction to The Ornaments of Churches Considered, With a Particular View to the Late Decoration of the Parish Church of St. Margaret Westminster (1761) to address the controversy described in the title, surrounding the plan to install a stained glass depiction of the Lord's crucifixion. Referring to the Injunctions , issued at the outset of Elizabeth's reign, and to the 1559 Articles of Visitation , Wilson set forth an interpretation of these documents which had been defended not only by Laudians but also in Jacobean Conformist thought . In other words, here was a well-established historical interpretation which saw in the Church of England the stance of James VI/I , "I am no Iconomachus, I quarrel not the making of Images, either for public decoration, or for men’s private uses": B...

At the Parish Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, 28.1.24 Mark 1:21-28 “Just then there was in their synagogue a man with an unclean spirit, and he cried out, ‘What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are, the Holy One of God.’ But Jesus rebuked him, saying, ‘Be quiet and come out of him!’” It is in the very opening chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Mark.   It is the first act of the public ministry of Jesus in Mark's Gospel. It is a scene which must be understood by the author of Mark’s Gospel to reveal something fundamental about the meaning and purpose of Jesus Christ; something of the meaning and purpose of Christian faith. And that can be rather embarrassing for us.   We are, after all, talking about an evil, 'unclean' spirit. And this spirit’s claim that it is not alone: “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us?”. And Jesus casting out this evil spirit. ...

In Section IV of The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament (1654), Taylor continues to invoke the teachings of the Greek Fathers and practice of the Eastern Churches. Addressing the matter of how consecration of the holy Eucharist is effected, Taylor points to the East against the late Latin and Tridentine view that the Words of Institution are "wholly called 'words of consecration'": The Greek church universally taught, that the consecration was made by the prayers of the ministering man Justin Martyr calls it "nourishment made eucharistical by prayer;" and Origen calls it "bread made a body, a holy thing by prayer;" so Damascene, "by the invocation and illumination of the Holy Ghost," "they are changed into the body and blood of Christ." But for the Greek church the case is evident and confessed.  Having called upon Greek Fathers to support the view that it is the whole Eucharistic prayer that is cons...

This week's extract from John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796) considers the Kyries - the Lesser Litany - before the second Lord's Prayer at Matins and Evensong. Shepherd described these Kyries as "a most pathetic address to each person of the Trinity" ('pathetic' was defined by Samuel Johnson's dictionary as "affecting the passions; passionate; moving") and praised the reformers for "their wisdom in retaining this ancient form of supplication, but at the same time translating it into English". He roots their use in the daily office in a canon of the second council of Vaison (539AD) in southern Gaul, adopting the practice from Byzantine usage in the East and in the churches of Italy (which then followed Byzantine practice): The second council of Vaison observes, that in the East, and the provinces of Italy, an useful and agreeable custom prevailed of ...