Skip to main content

"For our better coming to the feast": Mark Frank on Advent as preparation for Christmas

Throughout these "days of holy Advent", laudable Practice has considered Advent observance in the Church of England between the Restoration and the Revolution, and its roots in the Advent observance of the Caroline era and through the Interregnum.  As the season draws to a close, we finish with words from an Advent Sunday sermon by Mark Frank, probably preached in the Caroline years and published in 1672, providing guidance to Restoration clergy.  Frank here exemplifies the common understanding in the Caroline and Restoration eras of Advent as a preparation for the celebration of Christmas. While contemporary liturgies routinely downplay or disapprove of this emphasis, it has both a liturgical and pastoral rationale.  

Frank's sermon is based on the Prayer Book Gospel for Advent Sunday, St. Matthew's account of the Lord's entry into Jerusalem: "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".

Tis the business, both Text and Time, the words in hand, the days in hand, the days of holy Advent are to teach us, to sing Hosanna's to our Saviour, to bless God for his coming, to bless him for his coming, all his comings, all his ways of coming to us; to bless his day that is a coming, whence all his other comings come: to bless him in the highest, with heart and tongue, and hand, to the highest we can go, that he may also bless us for it in the highest.

That it might be done the better, Holy Church has design'd four Sundays to prepare us for it, wherein to tune our pipes, and fit our instruments and voices to sing Hosanna in the right key, the highest pitch, to praise God as is fitting for Christs coming.

A business sure well worth the doing, and some good time for it worth the observing, if we either think him worth it, that is here spoke of as coming, or his coming worth it. Indeed the coming in the Text is not the coming of that Feast that is now a coming, but it is one of the ways prescribed by the Church for our better coming to the Feast, by preparing with these multitudes some boughs and branches, some Hosannas and Benedictus, some provision of holy thoughts and divine affections for it ...

And we have the multitudes before, and the multitudes that follow, all Patriarchs before rejoicing with Father Abraham at his day, and all the Fathers since; all that went before or follow'd since his coming, former and later Christians for our example. They all in their several Generations thought fit yearly to remember it, and so long, even four Advent Sundays together, to prepare the multitudes and people for it.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

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 ...
25 comments
Read more

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...
19 comments
Read more

1928 practices and the 1979 book: unthinking conservatism or popular piety?

Those responsible for Earth & Altar - a new blog emanating from a group within TEC - are to be congratulated for an excellent contribution to wider Anglican discussion and debate. The commitment to "an expansively conceived credal orthodoxy as fully compatible with LGBTQ inclusion, gender equality, and racial justice" is an important part of a wider retrieval of creedal orthodoxy within what we might call the post-liberal generation. It is in this spirit that I want to respond to a recent post on the site by Andrew McGowan , Dean of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale and Professor of Anglican Studies at Yale Divinity School.  Against the background of another round of "ill-defined" liturgical revision in TEC, he understandably urges that a fuller reception of the 1979 BCP should occur before further reforms. In doing so, however, he takes aim at what he describes as "clinging to the ritual structures of 1928" while using the text of 1979.  We ...
2 comments
Read more