Mattins, Evensong, and Richard Hooker's architecture of participation

Paul Anthony Dominiak's Richard Hooker: The Architecture of Participation (2020) is, quite simply, superb. One significant feature of the work is the way in which it reveals Hooker's defence in Book V of the Prayer Book liturgy and ceremonies as flowing from and dependent upon the rich participatory vision he sets out in Books I-IV:

Book Five aims to show that the Elizabethan Prayer Book engenders 'true religion' and cultivates the Philonic virtue of 'godliness', with benefits for the here and now in political terms of order, but also preparing believers for their final union with God (p.62);

Hooker argues that the established liturgy affords 'mutuall conference and as it were commerce to be had betwene God and us', creatively crafting appropriate 'holie desires' which lead believers both to know and also to love God in sacramental union with Christ (p.127).

What has particularly struck me is that while Baptism and Eucharist are, as Dominiak points out, key to the liturgical embodiment of the participatory vision, there are also significant references in Hooker which point to a participatory understanding of Mattins and Evensong.

For example, Hooker's emphasis that "God's nature is also co-identical with the 'good'", affirming "the integral goodness of all creation", with "good" understood "in terms of participatory being" is seen particularly in his statement that "there can be no goodness desired which proceedeth not from God himself" (I.5.2). It is, of course, difficult to read this without thinking of the Second Collect at Evening Prayer:

O God, from whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all just works do proceed.

We might suggest that it is somewhat unlikely that Hooker was not aware of his words echoing those of this collect. Likewise, there also be the case that Hooker is reflecting words from the Second Collect, for Peace, at Mattins:

O God, who art the author of peace and lover of concord.

In other words, these unchanging prayers at Mattins and Evensong both give expression to the participatory vision. This is even more evident when we consider that The Grace - added to the conclusion of Morning and Evening Prayer in 1662 - is a key text in Hooker's exposition in Book V of "The union or participation which is between Christ and the Church of Christ in this present world". This, as Dominiak notes, is Hooker's "only real definition of participation", which "root the notion in the Trinity and our share in divine life through Christ":

For this cause the Apostle wisheth to the Church of Corinth the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the holy Ghost. Which three St Peter comprehendeth in one, the 'participation of divine nature' (V.56.7).

Regarding 2 Peter 1:4, the classic text of participatory theologies, as a summary of The Grace provides a compelling reading of this conclusion to Prayer Book daily Mattins and Evensong. We end our reading of Scripture, our praise and prayers, with a petition that they would bear fruit in a deepened participation in the divine nature.

As such, and while acknowledging that Dominiak does not suggest this, we could invoke Hooker to point to the rich theology underpinning Mattins and Evensong, and how these offices function not merely as pragmatic vehicles for prayer and praise, but as a means of sustaining us in and drawing us deeper into "The union or participation which is between Christ and the Church of Christ in this present world".

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...

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