Praise, bounty, and rest on All Hallows' Eve

The most natural testimonies of our rejoicings in God are first his praises set forth with cheerful alacrity of mind, secondly our comfort and delight expressed by a charitable largeness of somewhat more than common bounty, thirdly sequestration from ordinary labours, the toils and cares whereof are not meet to be companions of such gladness. Festival solemnity therefore is nothing but the due mixture as it were of these three elements, praise, and bounty, and rest - Of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity V.70.2

Hooker's words are a reminder that festivity requires cultural and social expression alongside the liturgical. His description of this as "natural" points to our creation as cultural and social beings, alongside our vocation as liturgical beings. Festivity which fails to embrace the cultural and social fails to address fundamental aspects of our nature. This being so, there is a missional imperative for the Church to foster and nurture the cultural hinterland which surrounds many feast days. Dismissing these as cultural hang-overs of Christendom and taking a perverse sectarian delight in liturgical celebrations standing aloof from cultural activity inevitably results in a desiccated experience of the festivals.

And so it is right that All Hallows' Eve is marked by what Hooker terms bounty and rest - or what the Book of Sports (that great Anglican defence of festivity) described as "honest mirth". The days of Autumn are growing shorter and colder, most trees are now bereft of leaves, and the landscape is preparing for the stillness of the time come. It is "natural" to hold festival at this time of the year, to experience joy and light amidst gathering darkness and coldness. The vision glorious of All Saints' Day is thus more fully experienced, the liturgical celebration spilling over into cultural and social experience even as the beatific vision enjoyed now by the Saints will embrace and gather up all aspects of our being.

This too is seen in spooky costumes of Hallow'een. As The High Church Puritan has said, this is "a satirical pageant; a mockery of long defeated foes". In words from Luther used by C.S. Lewis at the outset of The Screwtape Letters:

The best way to drive out the devil, if he will not yield to texts of Scripture, is to jeer and flout him, for he cannot bear scorn.

Similarly, the bounty of Autumn, represented by the pumpkins and apples which abound at this season, has an iconic significance of the fullness of life which is set before us in the Communion of Saints, a fullness and plentitude to be experienced in body and soul, the "unspeakable joys" of the collect for All Saints.

To deny the festivities of All Hallows' Eve is not to somehow focus on the liturgical celebration of All Saints' Day. Rather, it is to deny the light, goodness, and joy which tomorrow's liturgy celebrates: it is to seek to confine it, when its very purpose is to overflow into all aspects of our cultural and social life, and there to lighten our darkness.

Let us, then, enjoy the festivities of All Hallows' Eve, the bounty and mirth, knowing that they flow from and return to the Light's abode, to the celestial Salem.

(The painting is Debbie Criswell, 'October Moon - Folk Art Autumn Landscape'.)

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

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