Cranmerian daily wisdom

Words from a great sermon by Oikodoemo, addressing those about to be ordained priest,:

Read your bible: keep it close to you. Never go many hours without touching base with Scripture. Especially the psalms; pray them every day as Christians have always done, learn them off by heart. The psalms are a powerful weapon against the terror, because they are full of terror, and full of resurrection which is stronger.

What particularly strikes me about this exhortation is its solidly Cranmerian pedigree. One of Cranmer's intentions in reforming the Daily Office was to ensure that the full Psalter would be more regularly recited:

And furthermore, notwithstanding that the ancient Fathers have divided the Psalms into seven Portions, whereof every one was called a Nocturn: Now of late time a few of them have been daily said, and the rest utterly omitted (all such quotes in this post are from 'Concerning the Service of the Church').

Thus in BCP 1552's 'The Order Howe The Psalter is Appoynted to be Readde', it was stated:

The Psalter shalbe readde through once every Moneth.

It is a simple, practical ordering of the Psalter, which ensures that through repetition of the words of the Psalms they sink into heart, mind, and soul month by month. That the same Psalms are said on the same day of each month aids this process, ensuring that our praying of the Psalms is conformed to the shape and ordering of the Psalter.

Never go many hours without touching base with Scripture.

This is what Cranmer provided with the Offices of Morning and Evening Prayer, which "all Priests and Deacons are to say daily ... either privately or openly", reflecting what he saw as the original intent of these Offices:

For they [i.e. "the ancient Fathers"] so ordered the matter, that all the whole Bible (or the greatest part thereof) should be read over once every year; 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.

Again, a simple, practical ordering was at work, to ensure that the ordered reading of Holy Scripture was not "altered, broken, and neglected, by planting in uncertain Stories, and Legends, with multitude of Responds, Verses, vain Repetitions, Commemorations, and Synodals". Mattins and Evensong provided an office of readings for morning and evening, with the weighty readings allowing Scripture to remain close - "by often reading, and meditation" - for clergy throughout the day.

What is more, this ordered pattern of reading Scripture is conformed to the Canon. It is this "continual course of the reading of the Scripture" over the year, and as year follows year, which exposes us to the fullness of the Canon, in the story of Israel's prophets, priests, and kings; in the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God; in the apostolic proclamation to the churches.

And all this - the monthly praying of the Psalter, and "that all the whole Bible (or the greatest part thereof) should be read over once every year" - is contained with a straightforward, practical Order of daily prayer:

It is also more commodious, both for the shortness thereof, and for the plainness of the Order, and for that the Rules be few and easy.

The very "plainness of the Order" secures that focus on Psalter and Scripture readings called for in the exhortation given by Oikodoemo. Cranmerian daily wisdom, in other words, continues to have a robust and solid daily relevance for those called "to preach the Word of God, and to minister the holy Sacraments in the Congregation".

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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