laudable Practice

All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Prophet, saying, Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass ... And a very great multitude spread their garments in the way; others cut down branches from the trees, and strawed them in the way. And the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; Blessed is he that cometh in the Name of the Lord; Hosanna in the Highest. From the Gospel for Advent Sunday , Matthew 21:1-13 From this passage it appears that religion hath its joys: a prophet calleth us to exult and shout: and often as this holy season returneth, the Church secondeth the call. Her services dispel the gloom of melancholy, and put gladness into the hearts of all her children. They are wonderfully calculated to renew good impressions in our minds, to increase our faith, to invigorate our hope, to blow up the sacred fires of...

In the United States such remnants as Anglican poetry and piety were largely squashed with the revolution - George Grant English-Speaking Justice (1974). It may seem rather inappropriate to quote Grant as friends in the United States celebrate Thanksgiving.  Grant's contention is that a 'thicker' vision of the common good "which transcended the simply contractual" - such as that embodied in an Anglican vision of society - was excluded from the social and cultural order of the United States from the outset. But was it so?  Was the United States merely Lockeanism writ large? Perhaps surprisingly, the Loyalist cleric Jonathan Boucher suggests otherwise.  He dedicated his 1797 collection of sermons , preached amidst the turmoil before and during the Revolutionary War, to none other than George Washington.  Boucher approvingly quotes Washington's Farewell Address as president, describing it as a "decided protest against the fundamental maxim of mode...

In his 1820 Notes on the Book of Common Prayer, Richard Mant - quoting from a range of late 17th and 18th century Anglican sources - emphasises the efficacy of "The Absolution or Remission of sins ... pronounced by the Priest alone" at Mattins and Evensong. The penitent, having been thus humbled for his sins, doth now deserve and need some comfort. And since our Lord hath endued his ambassadors with the ministry of reconciliation, 2 Cor. v. 18, they can never have a more proper occasion to exercise it than now ... Jesus came to unloose these bonds, Isa. lxi. 1; and actually did so to divers, when he was upon earth, and left this power to his apostles and their successors, when he went to heaven; and this unloosing men from the bond of their sin is that, which we properly call "absolution," and it is a necessary and most comfortable part of the priest's office - Dean Comber A Companion to the Temple: The Morning and Evening Prayer (1676). The absolution ...

... an old English custom. Thus did a Canadian cleric in 1866 refer to the practice of turning East during the saying or singing of the Creed.  Such a description may explain the hostility towards the practice, outside of the expected neo-Puritan circles.  After all, a custom particular to the post-Reformation ecclesia Anglicana sits very uncomfortably with those who desired Anglican liturgical revision to meekly conform to bland post-Vatican II Roman norms.  That the practice is, however, rooted within how the Common Prayer tradition of the ecclesia Anglicana .  Richard Mant's 1820 Notes on the BCP quote both Thomas Bisse (d.1731) and Archbishop Secker defending turning East during the Creed.  Bisse describes the practice as "proper and significant", while Secker notes of it "many do".  Similarly,   John Jebb in his 1843  The Choral Service of the United Church of England and Ireland: Being an Enquiry into the Liturgical System of th...

It may take us years of reading the text, of letting it marinate in our memories, to bring us to the pivotal insight that leads us to pursue anew wisdom. That’s why we listen to the same Scriptures, pray the same collects, listen to the same eucharistic prayer year after year after year. Words from Timothy P. O'Malley's recent Covenant post ' Reading Contemplatively '. It is suggestive of a defining characteristic - and one of the most fundamental strengths - of the Prayer Book tradition: unchanging texts.  Contemporary Anglican liturgy, by contrast, embodies 'choice', the premier virtue of the contemporary social and economic order.  'Choice' has been a leading cause of the undermining of cultural, economic, and social common ground, the fracturing of common life, a fracturing which the Churches have often lamented. We are about to enter the season of Advent.  The CofE's Times and Seasons provisions for Advent give us 3 different introduct...

So, why is it called Stir-up Sunday? The answer lies in the Book of Common Prayer, where the collect of the day for the Sunday before Advent reads: 'Stir-up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.' So said the Daily Telegraph today.  The National Trust does not make the connection with the Prayer Book collect, but recognises the link with Advent and Christmas by inviting people to "kick off the festive season" and "Celebrate Stir Up Sunday with the National Trust". In other words, it remains the case that Stir-up Sunday has a resonance in popular culture, a sense that it begins a festive cycle, that it orients us towards Christmas.  This alone should give us pause for thought when considering how contemporary Anglican liturgy has imported 'Christ the King' and displaced Stir-up Sunday. ...

In his  Whitsunday sermon 1619 , "preached before the King's Majesty", Lancelot Andrewes equated the pronouncements on predestination by Calvinist school-authors with the authority claimed by the See of Rome: I speak it for this, that even some that are far enough from Rome, yet with their new perspective they think they perceive all God's secret decrees, the number and order of them clearly; are indeed too bold and too busy with them. Luther said well that every one of us hath by nature a Pope in his belly, and thinks he perceives great matters. Even they that believe it not of Rome, are easily brought to believe it of themselves. This comparison with papal pretensions exemplifies how avant-garde Conformists regarded those advocating a definition of predestination beyond the terms of Article XVII as threatening the peace and unity of the ecclesia Anglicana , being "too bold and too busy". It is important to note how Andrewes explicitly gives voice...

On this day in 1595, John Whitgift, Archbishop of Canterbury, issued the Lambeth Articles .  Responding to a debate within Cambridge University regarding predestination, the Lambeth Articles - while moderated from their draft form by Whitgift - affirmed what was identified as a Calvinist account of predestination. We do, however, need to pause at this point.  Those within the ecclesia Anglicana opposed to the Lambeth Articles did not reject Article XVII's account of the doctrine of predestination.  In fact, we can go further than that.  John Overall , a leading critic of the Lambeth Articles, declared that "St. Austin‘s Opinion is true".  He demonstrated a characteristically Augustinian concern regarding the doctrine: That Grace may not be thought to be the necessary Consequence of Free-will, but that all our Vertue and Strength, in pious Affections and good Works, of Faith as well as Perseverance, is owing, not to the uncertain co-operation of Man’s Fre...

In a recent 'Poet's Corner' column in the Church Times , Malcolm Guite - priest-poet and Girton College chaplain - explored the relationship between the celebration of Apple Day at the college, and the first Choral Evensong of the academic year: But it was when I told them how the service itself had been created, how Cranmer had skilfully taken the two monastic offices of vespers and compline, and grafted them together into this new variety of liturgy; how he had pruned away the repetitions, let the light of translation in on the readings, and allowed the whole to flourish and bear fruit for future generations, that I suddenly felt a link with our earlier Apple Day festivities.  Here, too, was a sturdy old English variety, adorned with early fruit (for we sang Tallis as our introit) and late beauty (our anthem was by Elgar); and here were our students, sampling in chapel, as they had done in hall, something they might otherwise never have known. In the parallels wi...

Then shall be sung or said the Apostles' Creed. This rubric at Mattins and Evensong in the Prayer Book tradition introduces the text which moves the liturgy from attending to Scripture to prayer: from the Apostles' Creed we move to the Lord's Prayer.  In his Enchiridion of Faith, Hope, and Love , Augustine's comments on the relationship between these two texts provides an account of how we might perceive their relationship in Mattins and Evensong: For you have the Creed and the Lord's Prayer. What can be briefer to hear or to read? What easier to commit to memory? When, as the result of sin the human race was groaning under a heavy load of misery, and was in urgent need of the divine compassion, one of the prophets, anticipating the time of God's grace, declared: "And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered". Hence the Lord's Prayer. But the apostle, when, for the purpose of commending thi...

Arrange to meet with the Papal Nuncio and hand over the keys. That would seem to be the obvious course of action for Ely Cathedral after its tweet concerning the 1539 dissolution of the monastery at Ely.  After all, if it was the case that "[c]enturies of prayer & tradition were disrupted and destroyed", what exactly has been going on in Ely Cathedral in the centuries since 1539? Of course, such a view might come as something of a surprise to Robert Steward , last prior of the monastery at Ely and first dean of the cathedral: in his own person he embodied continuity as monastery became cathedral.  It is also worth noting that Steward, who conformed under the reign of Mary, remained dean through her reign. Despite Mary submitting her realm to Rome, there was no restoration of monastic institutions or lands.  The dissolution of the monasteries, obviously, had much to do with a grubby dispute over power, wealth, and greed.  The grubby dispute, however, was...

On this anniversary of the consecration of Samuel Seabury, words from his second charge to the clergy of Connecticut, in 1786.  Seabury here articulates the Old High Church opposition to both Deism and Enthusiasm, indicating what would be a key characteristic of the Anglican/Episcopal vocation in the first century (and beyond) of the Great Republic: Deism, with its necessary consequence - no religion at all, or rather adverseness to all religion, if I am rightly informed, has within a few years, made great advances in the United States. Other causes may have concurred; but I cannot help thinking, that the wild, ill-founded and inconsistent schemes of religion, and systems of divinity, which have obtained in the world - I fear I may say, particularly in this country - have opened the way for the progress of infidelity. People of sober reason and common sense may hence be tempted to think, that Reason and Religion can never be reconciled. They too who have been beguiled into a b...

The Society of St. Nicholas Ferrar is a new initiative emerging from within The Episcopal Church to encourage the praying of the Daily Office.  Any initiative with this aim is surely to be welcome.  And, in a particular way, Ferrar and his community at Little Gidding embodied this gift and vocation of Anglicanism, to pray the Office in a domestic, 'secular' context.  As Martin Thornton said of the Book of Common Prayer, it was "designed for an integrated, united community, predominantly lay", breathing "a sane 'domestic' spirit".  Also to be generally welcomed is that the praying of the Office will "conform to the rubrics of the current prayerbook of the Member's province".  Generally welcomed because some contemporary Anglican versions of Morning and Evening Prayer have abandoned the Cranmerian format, with its emphasis on unchanging texts, monthly Psalter, two weighty Scripture readings, Apostles' Creed, and classical colle...

For our Bishop, and for all the clergy and people, let us pray to the Lord.  Lord, have mercy - The Prayers of the People, Form I, TEC BCP 1979 . Strengthen N our bishop and all your Church in the service of Christ, that those who confess your name may be united in your truth, live together in your love, and reveal your glory in the world - Forms of Intercession 1, Common Worship . Lord of your people: strengthen your Church in all the world ... renew the life of this diocese ... bless ... our bishop, and build us up in faith and love - Forms of Intercession Two, CofI BCP 2004 . There is a quite striking contrast between petitions for the Church in the intercessions of most contemporary Anglican Eucharistic rites, and the Prayer for the Church Militant in the Prayer Book tradition (1662, Ireland 1926, PECUSA 1928, Scotland 1929, Canada 1962). Such contemporary intercessions reflect the rather new emphasis on the diocese as the fundamental ecclesiological unit, what...

When I see a little church environed with trees, how many things are there which mine eye discerneth not.  The labour of them which in ancient ages builded it ... its protection by laws, its subjection to kings, its relation to bishops, its usefulness and convenience for the entertainment of Christians, the divine service, the office of ministry, solemn assemblies, praises and thanksgivings, for the sake of which it was permitted, is governed, standeth and flourisheth. Perhaps when I look upon it, it is desolate and empty almost like a heap of stones, none of these things appearing to the eyes which nevertheless are the spiritual beauties which adorn and clothe it.  The uses, relations, services and ends being the spiritual and invisible things that make any material to be of worth. He who cannot see the invisible cannot enjoy nor value temples.  But he that seeth them may esteem them all to be his own and wonder at the divine bounty for giving them so richly. Tho...

When someone enters the moment of sacrifice, throwing away what is most precious, even life itself, then we encounter the supreme moment of gift.  This is an act in which the I appears completely.  It is also a revelation.  In sacrifice and renunciation the I makes of its own being a gift, and thereby shows us that being is a gift.  In the moment of sacrifice people come face to face with God, who is present too in those places where sorrow has left its mark or 'prayer has been valid'. We should not be so surprised, therefore, if God is so rarely encountered now.  The consumer culture is one without sacrifices; easy entertainment distracts us from our metaphysical loneliness ... It is inevitable, therefore, that moments of sacred awe should be rare among us - Roger Scruton, The Face of God (2012). Scruton's words come to mind as we prepare for Remembrance Sunday.  Throughout the United Kingdom, a culture now routinely described as thoroughly secula...