laudable Practice

Not the bleak speak of mobile messages, The soft chime of synthesised reminders, Not texts, not pagers, data packages, Not satnav or locators ever find us As surely, soundly, deeply as these bells That sound and find and call us all at once - from Malcolm Guite, ' New Year's Day: Church Bells '. New Year's Day, we are often told in ecclesiastical circles, is 'secular'.  The Church's 'new year', we might be told, begins in Advent (actually, it doesn't - Advent marks the beginning of a new liturgical cycle).  The world may think it is New Year's Day, but the Church knows better: it's the feast of the Circumcision of Christ (traditional in the West) or Mary, Mother of God (the recent innovation in the Roman rite).  And, of course, some might remind us that 1st January as New Year is supposedly a recent observance, with Lady Day being preferred as more traditional.  So let secular culture get on with celebrating their New Year....

Hail, thou that art highly favoured - Luke 1:28, Authorized Version. While classical Anglican reflection on the role of the Blessed Virgin Mary has been characterised by an Augustinian reserve and reticence , this should not be interpreted as a cold, aloof rejection of a Marian presence in the devotional life.  Perhaps one of the most significant expressions of a warm Marian devotion in the classical Anglican form has been on the lips of very many during the past few weeks: And through all His wondrous childhood He would honor and obey, Love and watch the lowly maiden, In whose gentle arms He lay . ' Once in Royal David's City ' emerged from within the Old High Church tradition in the Church of Ireland.  While both the hymn's author, Cecil Frances Alexander , and her husband, William Alexander - later Bishop of Derry and Raphoe and Archbishop of Armagh - had links with Tractarianism, their son's Foreword to the father's memoirs points to a househol...

Turn to the collect, epistle and gospel for Christmas Day in any Book of Common Prayer in the classical Prayer Book tradition (1662, Ireland 1926, PECUSA 1928, Canada 1962), and you will see that it is immediately followed by the collects and readings appointed for St Stephen's Day, St John the Evangelist's Day, and Holy Innocents' Day. This is an ancient pattern.  It is seen, for example, in the Gelasian Sacramentary .  In other words, this ordering within liturgical books dates back to one of the oldest texts used in the worship of the churches of the Latin West. Now contrast this with most contemporary Anglican liturgical books.  TEC's BCP 1979 , Canada's Book of Alternative Services , England's Common Worship , Ireland's BCP 2004 : all of these place the collects for St Stephen, St John and the Holy Innocents apart from the Christmastide provision.  The collects for these feast days are placed at the year's end of the collects for saints's ...

From Lancelot Andrewes's Christmas sermon of 1623 , on the text "That in the dispensations of the fulness of times, He might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in Heaven and which are on earth even in Him", Ephesians 1:10 . But this I may, that the Christian world hath ever observed divers good congruities of this feast with this text ... The text is of gathering, and that falls fit with the season, and giveth us great cause to admire the high wisdom of God in the dispensation of seasons; that now at this season, when we gather nothing, when nothing grows to be gathered, there should be a gathering yet and a great one; no, the greatest gathering that ever was or will be; and so by that means, the poorest and emptiest season in nature become the fullest and richest in grace.  Now we do ourselves in effect express as much as this comes to. For we also make it a season of gathering together, of neighbourly meetings a...

O God who makest us glad with the yearly remembrance of the birth of thine only Son, Jesus Christ; Grant, that as we joyfully receive him for our Redeemer, so we may with sure confidence behold him when he shall come to be our Judge, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. The Church of Ireland BCP 1926 , PECUSA BCP 1928 and Canadian BCP 1962 offer this collect for use on Christmas Day.  When there are two celebrations of the Holy Communion, the collect (with accompanying readings) "may be used at the first".  The collect is also offered in the English Prayer Book as Proposed in 1928 , for Christmas Eve.  It was a restoration of the 1549 provision "At the First Communion", the collect itself being that of 1549. Procter and Frere note that this 1549 collect was a translation of the collect for the Mass of the Vigil in pre-Reformation Latin rites.  As with the majority of Prayer Book collects , it is rooted in th...

What did Calvin think of Christmas?  Historian Bruce Gordon makes a good case that Calvin himself was no ecclesiastical Grinch, unlike his followers.  He quotes Calvin writing to fellow Reformer Johannes Haller in Bern: " I have pursued the moderate course of keeping Christ’s birth-day".  Gordon states that this "moderate course" referred to Calvin's belief that the observance of such feast days was a matter of adiaphora.   So, it is straightforward .  Calvin - despite the actions of later Calvinists - was no Grinch: Calvin sought to reclaim Christmas as a celebration of Christ’s Nativity, a defining moment for Christians, without making the festival binding on the faithful. At the same time, his intention was to purge the holiday of the excesses of public exuberance traditionally associated with both the feast The Book of Common Prayer, then, was merely following Calvin in its retention of Christmas. Straightforward indeed.  But wrong...

The old liturgy has St Thomas coming just before Christmas ... We are walking in the vicinity of old St Thomas's Day and of the shortest day of the year - Ronald Bylthe, 'Failing Light', from Out of the Valley: Another Year at Wormingford . Advent is ending.  Christmas is now but five days away.  Surely the liturgical revisionists are correct, moving St Thomas from the awkward, odd date of 21st December to the long days of July (with the perhaps surprising exception of TEC's BCP 1979).  Can late Advent really be a time to celebrate St Thomas the Apostle? Yes, it is a neat and tidy revision.  It appears to be rational.  It surely is functional. It is, however, a thoroughly one-dimensional product of liturgical revision, depriving the Church of layers of meaning associated with celebrating St Thomas in the closing days of Advent. In the very darkest day of the year, the traditional calendar celebrates the Apostle who in the darkness of the upper room b...

At the conclusion of his Wendell Berry and the Given Life , Ragan Sutterfield (an Episcopal priest) includes an interview with Berry.  Sutterfield asks: For someone reading your work, daydreaming of country life while on his lunch break in downtown Chicago, what would be the first advice you would offer for him to reclaim his life as a creature? What Berry doesn't but could say is 'keep the Ember Days'.  In contemporary Anglican calendars the Ember Days - when they are actually mentioned - have a quite narrow focus on "prayer for those ordained or preparing for ordination" (the CofI BCP 2004).  The 1662 and other traditional Calendars, however, retained a deeper understanding of the purpose of these days.  Firstly, they were included alongside other "Days of Fasting, or Abstinence".  Secondly, they were referred to as "The Ember-days at the Four Seasons".  They are, in other words, days of prayer and penitence to mark the passage of t...

Following on from yesterday's post , it is interesting to note that in his A Rationale upon the Book of Common Prayer, Sparrow* makes no reference at all to Gaudete Sunday .  This is significant because he does acknowledge Laetare Sunday in Lent , using the phrase 'Refreshment Sunday': This is called Dominica Refectionis . For the Gospel tells us of Christs miraculous feeding and satisfying the hungry souls, that hunger after him and his doctrine: and the Epistle tells us of a Ierusalem which is above, which is free, and a joyous place, to which, we as children, are heirs. Thus holy Church mixes joy and comfort without sorrows and afflictions . This willingness to continue to regard Lent IV as Laetare, but refusing to ascribe any Gaudete theme to Advent III, would certainly suggest a recognition that Cranmer's re-ordering of the lectionary for the Sundays in Advent has abandoned Gaudete for other priorities.  Sparrow, therefore, instead points to the Su...

I admit that the title is a tad provocative.  This post is not a condemnation of Gaudete Sunday .  Rather, it seeks to reflect on the rationale for its absence from trad Anglican liturgy, and the coherence of that rationale. That Gaudete Sunday was intentionally removed by Cranmer is clear.  While he retained the traditional epistles of the Sundays in Advent, he exchanged the epistle readings for Advent III and IV .  Thus, Philippians 4:4-7 - "Rejoice in the Lord always: and again I say, Rejoice" - became the epistle of Advent IV.  Alongside this, while 1549 did provide an introit, it was not the traditional Gaudete introit.  This had been a combination of words from the epistle with Psalm 84.  In its place Cranmer simply had Psalm 4. Cranmer's removal of Gaudete Sunday from Advent is only emphasised when we considered that his provision for Laetare Sunday - Lent IV - retained the traditional collect, epistle and gospel. While Cranmer did ...

This coming Sunday, 16th December, is a Black Letter day in the BCP 1662 Calendar: O Sapientia , the first of the Advent antiphons .  Its inclusion in the Calendar, together with many other Black Letter days, dates to 1561.  What is the significance of this day being commemorated in the Prayer Book Calendar? In face of Puritan critiques of the Black Letter days, the bishops of the Church of England at the Restoration defended their inclusion in the Calendar: [they] are left in the Calendar, not that they should be so [as red letter days] kept as holy days, but they are useful for the preservation of their memories and for other reasons, as for leases, law days, etc . Let us begin with the second of these reasons.  The Black Letter days mark time.  The inclusion of O Sapientia in the Calendar reminds us that we are now in the depths of Advent.  Advent is quickly passing.  The festive season draws nigh.  O Sapientia , then, is a call to the...

One significant aspect of Caroline Divine Mark Frank's Advent sermons is the emphasis on Advent as a season of preparation for receiving the Sacrament at Christmas.  "The days of holy Advent", he says in his sermon for Advent I , "is one of the ways prescribed by the Church for our better coming to the Feast". A sense of the focus in the next sermons is given when he points to Advent setting before us the One who has come in the Incarnation, will come in Judgement, and "He that cometh still ... in His sacraments". In the sermon for Advent II , this is made explicit with reference to Christmas Communion.  Advent provides "great days of preparation": It is not many more days ... to the coming of His flesh and blood in the Holy Sacrament unto us. We are expecting and hoping for it, and it is fit we should be preparing for it. The same language of preparation is found in the sermon for Advent IV , "a fit preparation, thought b...

From Mark Frank's sermon for the Second Sunday in Advent , on Mark 1:3, "Prepare you the way of the Lord, make His paths straight".  Frank here sets before us a powerful description of the Anglican understanding of the pastoral nature of the ministry of the priest - in the words of the Ordinal, "Messengers, Watchmen, and Stewards of the Lord" - as a foretaste of the Advent of the Lord: The ministers of the Gospel, they come first; they have the greatest share with St. John Baptist, to go before the face of the Lord to prepare His way. But how? To give knowledge of salvation , says old Zacharias, to His people for the remission of sins ; or somewhat more, even to give remission too, to give absolution; so to absolve them, is some part at least of the minister's share; but to baptize also with the Baptist, and to consecrate with Christ Himself, is to prepare His ways too, to make way for Him. To raise the valleys: to comfort the dejected,...

Do read Samuel L. Bray's Covenant article on the "neglected gem" of the provision for the Old Testament lessons on Sunday Mattins in the BCP 1662.  (He is referring not to the table in current editions of 1662, dating from 1871, but the original table, shared with 1559 .  That said, many - albeit not all - of the insights in the article equally apply.) Bray stresses not just the quantity of Old Testament Scripture read in this lectionary - which is itself significant - but also its "definite logic". That logic, he says, is quite different to that of the traditional Western Eucharistic lectionary retained by the BCP, in which Epistle and Gospel "inhabited the seasons", drawing us year after year to the Christological centre.  Similarly, a different logic is at work in the daily office lectionary, "readings in course through nearly the entirety of the Holy Scriptures and large swathes of the deuterocanonical books". Bray gives a good sum...

Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen. A common feature of much recent Anglican liturgical revision has been to remove Cranmer's collect for the Second Sunday in Advent out of the season.  So, for example, in the Church of England's Common Worship it is the collect for the last Sunday after Trinity and before the 'Sundays before Advent', while in the Church of Ireland's BCP 2004 it is the collect of the 'Fifth Sunday before Advent'*. This is similar to the approach in TEC's BCP 1979, where the collect is given for Proper 28, "the Sunday closest to November 16". Clearly those undertaking liturgical revision determined that Cranme...

In the 1662 Calendar, the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a Black Letter day, with no liturgical provision.  In the Proposed Book of 1928 , it is a Lesser Feast, with a collect but no readings.  In the Scottish Prayer Book 1929 , it is placed under "For Various Occasions", apart from major holy days and saints' days, and shares a collect and readings with the Nativity.  In the Canadian BCP 1962, it is a "lesser commemoration" in the Calendar , sharing the collect and readings " For the Blessed Virgin Mary " with other lesser Marian commemorations. There is pronounced Anglican reticence regarding the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, a reticence which reflects a patristic reserve before the sanctity of the Mother of the Redeemer.  In the words of St Augustine: Now with the exception of the holy Virgin Mary in regard to whom, out of respect for the Lord, I do not propose to have a single question raised on the subject of sin ... to r...