laudable Practice

On previous occasions, laudable Practice has noted both Jeremy Taylor's critique of the indicative form of absolution ('I absolve thee') and how this was reflected in 18th century High Church caution regarding this form of absolution in the BCP's Visitation of the Sick, as seen in the comments of Secker and others. One of Taylor's most famous works, Holy Dying (1651), demonstrates his desire for a form of absolution in private confession after the declaratory and precatory forms: Then let the sick man be called to rehearse the articles of his faith; or, if he be so weak he cannot, let him (if he have not before done it) be called to say Amen when they are recited, or to give some testimony of his faith and confident assent to them. After which it is proper (if the person be in capacity) that the minister examine him, and invite him to confession, and all the parts of repentance, according to the foregoing rules; after which he may pray the prayer of absolution. O...

This series of short Lenten reflections on penitence in the Prayer Book concludes with a prayer from the Burial of the Dead in the Church of Ireland Book of Common Prayer 1926. Fittingly for these days of late Lent, the prayer is the collect for Easter Even, placed alongside a prayer for the bereaved after the reading from Scripture. It ensures that as we gather at the grave and confront our mortality, we hear the call to penitence. Grant, O Lord, that as we are baptized into the death of thy blessed Son our Saviour Jesus Christ ... In the Passion of the Lord, death has been swallowed up in victory. In the words of the Apostle: "For if we have been planted together in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection". In the face of death we are recalled to our baptism, the sign of our participation in the death and resurrection of Christ: living out this gift, in penitence and faith, we are conformed to the Lord's death that we might share...

Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins, and are in love and charity with your neighbours, and intend to lead a new life, following the commandments of God, and walking from henceforth in his holy ways ... As we approach the holy Sacrament, we are again reminded - as in the Litany - that we are called to "true repentance". Not passing regret. Not momentary guilt. Rather, we are to "truly and earnestly repent". In the words of the Catechism, answering "What is required of them who come to the Lord's Supper?": "To examine themselves, whether they repent them truly of their former sins, stedfastly purposing to lead a new life". and are in love and charity with your neighbours ... It is a beautiful, evocative Prayer Book phrase. The repetition of "love and charity" emphasises what must be the nature of our relationships, rooted in Our Lord's summary of the Law.  As for the first exhortation in the Holy Communion decla...

Almighty and most merciful Father, We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep, We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts, We have offended against thy holy laws ... The general Confession at Morning and Evening Prayer opens by invoking our "most merciful Father", placing us alongside the Prodigal - ashamed, hungry, journeying back from the far country, utterly reliant on the Father's grace in Christ: And he arose, and came to his father. But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him. 'Almighty' does not contradict this. In fact, it assures us that this love and mercy flows eternally from our "most merciful Father". In the words of Article XVII, this "is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort". We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep ... It is a phrase deeply rooted in the scriptures of the Old and New T...

Today begins a Lenten series of short reflections on penitential material in the Book of Common Prayer 1662/1926. We begin with the opening words of the Exhortation at Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer: Dearly beloved brethren, the Scripture moveth us in sundry places to acknowledge and confess our manifold sins and wickedness; and that we should not dissemble nor cloke them before the face of Almighty God our heavenly Father; but confess them with an humble, lowly, penitent, and obedient heart; to the end that we may obtain forgiveness of the same, by his infinite goodness and mercy. It is a gentle invitation. "Dearly beloved brethren" - not the Baptist's "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?". No, the Exhortation invites us to repentance gently, graciously, after the manner of Our Lord, in fulfillment of the Prophet's words: A bruised reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not quench. The same gentle invit...

One of the greatest glories of Morning Prayer in Ireland is the Canticle Urbs Fortitudinis ('We have a strong city', based on Isaiah XXVI v.1).  It is a comment which captures the wisdom of the Irish Prayer Book tradition: cautious, very modest reform of 1662, with gentle enrichments (Harvest Thanksgiving, Saint Patrick's Day, The Form for the Consecration of a Churches and Churchyard, The Order for the Publick Institution of a Minister to a Cure) that go with the grain of, rather than disrupting, the rhythms of Cranmerian liturgy. Amongst those gentle enrichments, pride of place goes to the Urbs Fortitudinis, an alternative to the Te Deum and Benedicite as the first canticle at Morning Prayer. It has been a favourite in the Church of Ireland over the century since its introduction in the revision of 1926 . This popularity is at least partly explained by a native pride in the Urbs. It also perhaps due to the Urbs resonating in the context of the political uncertainties whi...