'Towards the approach of natural darkness': on the Third Collect at Evensong

Continuing with extracts from John Shepherd's A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Morning and Evening Prayer of the Church of England (1796), we turn to the Third Collect at Evensong, for Aid against all Perils. Strangely, and despite noting how the other daily collects are taken from ancient Latin sacramentaries, Shepherd does not refer to this Collect being found in the Gelasian Sacramentary. Instead, in a footnote, he roots it in a prayer from the Euchologion of the Greek Church, which includes the petition "dispel all darkness from our hearts, and vouchsafe to us the sun of righteousness". The quotation in the extract below is also from this prayer:

Though their titles are different, the third collects at Morning and Evening Prayer bear a considerable resemblance to each other: and both of them are peculiarly well adapted for the situations they respectively hold. That for the morning, appears to be more immediately directed, against the dangers and temptations, to which we may be exposed, in the course of the day. In this for the evening, towards the approach of natural darkness, we beseech God, to "enlighten the eyes of our understandings, that we sleep not in our sins unto death," and to defend us from all the dangers and perils that may ensue in the night. We commit ourselves to the protection of him, who neither slumbers, nor sleeps, and to whom darkness and light are both alike.

This is another example of Shepherd beautifully capturing the meaning and attraction of these collects. Just as the Third Collect at Matin prepares us for the day that lies before us, so the Third Collect at Evensong prepares us for "the approach of natural darkness", for day's end. He draws out how this collect flows from and is underpinned by the deeply evocative language of the Psalter, as we turn towards evening. It is a description which reminds us of the richness of these daily collects at Cranmerian Morning and Evening Prayer, gathering up the beginning of day and the end of day in prayer.

Comments

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

Search This Blog