'The materials are of divine original': the Te Deum at Matins
its excellence is surpassed by no human composition. Indeed the composition alone is human, the materials are of divine original.
The "methodical composition" of the Te Deum is in three parts:
The first part is an act of praise, or an amplified Doxology.
The second, a confession of the leading articles of the Christian faith.
The third contains intercessions for the whole church and supplications for ourselves.
The first part, the doxology, draws us into the praises given to the Triune God by the company of heaven:
This hymn not only opens to us a view of heaven, but with the evangelical prophet (Isaiah 6:3) and beloved disciple (Rev. 4:8.) it carries us thither, to behold the various orders of angels, cherubim, seraphim, and all the heavenly power ... The angels and glorified spirits see God face to face. As we behold his glory only by the eye of faith, we cannot better set forth his praise, than by giving our unfeigned assent to his revelation, and by professing our faith in him, whom the Host of Heaven worship and adore. As members of the holy Catholic church, we acknowledge the ever-blessed Trinity, the infinite majesty of the Father, the honour due to his only begotten Son, our Lord and Saviour, and the divinity and personality of the Holy Ghost, our advocate in Heaven, our comforter on earth.
The second part brings the church daily in Morning Prayer to the Christological centre:
More especially we address ourselves to our Redeemer, and as he is very God of very God, we acknowledge him to be the King of glory, a title appropriated to the Lord of Hosts alone. We declare, that he is the everlasting Son of the Father, not created as angels, nor adopted as men, but by eternal generation begotten of the Father, with whom he is coeternal and coequal. The hymn proceeds to celebrate his mercies, and with joy and thankfulness declares, that when he undertook to deliver us from death eternal, and to accomplish our redemption, he disdained not to be conceived in the womb of the Virgin Mary, to partake of the same nature, and to become subject to the same infirmities with ourselves ... By his meritorious sufferings he has procured for all true believers, admission into the kingdom of Heaven, from which they were excluded by their own sins, as well as through the transgression of their primitive father. Our blessed Redeemer, as the reward of his obedience, sits on the right hand of God. He has already, in his human nature, taken possession of the kingdom of glory in the name of all his faithful followers, and dispenses it to all that believe in him.
In his reflections on the first and second parts of the Te Deum, Shepherd provides a significant and convincing rationale for the place of this canticle in daily Morning Prayer. Moving to the often-overlooked third section - the section omitted in, for example, TEC BCP 1979 Rite Two Morning Prayer and optional in Common Worship Daily Prayer and CofI BCP 2004 Order Two - Shepherd here offers a wonderful explanation for this section and its place in the canticle:
Here our thanksgiving and confession of faith are naturally turned into prayer. Having contemplated the Saviour of the world, in his eternal glory, and in his state of humiliation, and exaltation, we intercede for all the people of God, imploring internal assistance, and everlasting salvation. We beseech him to help them with his grace, to enable them to perform their duty upon earth, and, finally by his infinite mercy, to admit them to be numbered with those departed Saints, whom he has already received into his rest, and will reward with his glory. That we may be assured of obtaining this heavenly inheritance, we entreat him to save his people from all evil, and bless his peculiar heritage, the Christian church. We beseech the shepherd of our souls to guide and direct us, whenever we err and stray, and when we stumble, and are liable to fall, to lift us up, to strengthen and support us against our spiritual adversaries ... We therefore conclude this hymn in the words of the Psalmist, expressing our hope, that we are in the number of those that trust in him, and our confidence, that we shall not eventually be ashamed, confounded, or disappointed of our hope.
As Shepherd notes, the praise of the earlier parts of the Te Deum is "naturally turned into prayer" at this point in the canticle. It is entirely fitting at the start of the day, as Matins is prayed, that such petitions should form part of the office, flowing from our praise of the Triune God and joyful confession of the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension.
Not only, then, does Shepherd urge us to rediscover the place of the Te Deum at Matins, he also draws attention to the meaning and significance of the third section of this canticle. There is much here to recommend the traditional Cranmerian pattern of the Te Deum as the usual first canticle at Morning Prayer, with - as we shall see next week - the Benedicite occasionally replacing it. Having it as the usual daily first canticle at Matins is an invitation to be rooted and grounded - day by day - in the rich Trinitarian and Christological vision of its first and second parts, with the third part prays for this rooting and grounding for the whole Church catholic.
Comments
Post a Comment