Mattins, Scripture, and the Christological centre

... this means that Anglican prayer in accord with the BCP’s arrangement of Scripture arrives at an understanding that the Church has been inducted into Israel’s praise - she has been “grafted in,” as St. Paul’s metaphor has it (Rom. 11:17); she is piggybacking on those who have preceded her in tasting the Lord’s mercies.

Wesley Hill's post yesterday on Covenant is a great exploration of how the reading of Scripture at Mattins in the BCP tradition is "inescapably, and wonderfully, theological". Hill points to how the context established by the praying of the Venite, the Psalter, and Gloria Patri embodies the Pauline "grafted in".

... the BCP is pressuring those Anglicans (and other Christians) who make use of its arrangement of Scripture to recognize that the God of the Psalter is not other than the God who has made himself known as Father, Son, and Spirit; and, vice versa, that the God who is triune is one Lord because he is not other than the God of the Psalter.

Alongside Hill's focus on Venite and Psalter, we might also consider how Mattins and Evensong shape our reading of Scripture through the use of the canticles after the readings. The Te Deum following the Old Testament reading at Mattins quite powerfully proclaims that Yahweh of prophets, priests and kings is the Triune God whose revelation is fulfilled in the mystery of incarnation, cross, resurrection and ascension of Jesus Christ. The alternative canticle, the Benedicite, offers another example of Hill's theme, with the praises of Israel becoming the praises of the Church. At Evensong, the Magnificat combines both of these elements. In praying the Song of the Blessed Virgin Mary, we rejoice that the hope of Israel - "Abraham and his seed" - is fulfilled in the Incarnate Word.

The canticles following the New Testament reading no less dramatically draw us to behold the fullness of the mystery of the revelation in Jesus Christ. The Benedictus at Mattins rejoices that "the dayspring from on high hath visited us", the Nunc Dimittis that we have beheld "a light to lighten the Gentiles". Both canticles, then, draw the Church to the confession of the Creed as response to attending to Scripture, witnessing to the Christological centre of the Scriptures of the Old and New Covenant.

As Hill states, the richness of this theological reading of Scripture embodied in Mattins and Evensong is a gift of the Anglican tradition:

it’s high time we - appropriately chastened and reticent Anglicans that we are - held our theological heads high and recalled with confidence that our beloved BCP takes us, every morning, right to the heart of the most vital and serious of theological issues that the Church has ever had to render a verdict on.

This, of course, was central to Cranmer's intention in revising the Daily Office:

... intending thereby, that the Clergy, and especially such as were Ministers in the congregation, should (by often reading, and meditation in God's word) be stirred up to godliness themselves, and be more able to exhort others by wholesome doctrine, and to confute them that were adversaries to the truth; and further, that the people (by daily hearing of holy Scripture read in the Church) might continually profit more and more in the knowledge of God, and be the more inflamed with the love of his true Religion.

Cherishing Mattins and Evensong is not merely a matter of liturgical style - it is a means of renewing the Church's attention to Scripture, drawing us to behold the Christological centre of the Old and New Covenants.

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...

'Whether the Lutheran Churches have right Ordinations and perfect succession of Bishops': Jeremy Taylor, 'Episcopacy Asserted', and Lutheran orders

Amidst the bitter controversies over episcopacy in the Three Kingdoms during the early 1640s, controversies which had become war in Scotland in 1637 and then in England in 1642, Jeremy Taylor wrote his Laudian defence of episcopal order, The Sacred Order and Offices of Episcopacy Asserted and Maintained . He proposed in this work that the non-episcopal Reformed churches could have had episcopally-ordered clergy: Those good people might have had order from the bishops of England or the Lutheran churches, if at least they thought our churches catholic and Christian. Leaving aside the reality that, for example, French Protestants would have been placed in an invidious political position if they had done as Taylor proposed, it is the reference to "the Lutheran churches" which is significant. To begin with, a large portion of the Lutheran churches - those in the German lands - were governed by a system of superintendency. It is almost inconceivable that Taylor was not aware of th...

laudable Practice

Search This Blog