laudable Practice

Rogationtide. It is a time, surely, for the Benedicite at Morning Prayer. In his 1805 An Exposition of the Book of Common Prayer according to the use of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America , the New Jersey PECUSA cleric Andrew Fowler offered an effective summary of well-established 18th century Church of England commentary on the place and use of the Benedicite in the Prayer Book .  It is worth noting the 1786 proposed PECUSA revision - which provoked a critical response from the bishops of the Church of England - did not include the Benedicite. This was probably influenced by the 1689 Liturgy of Comprehension, albeit that the latter, unlike the 1786 proposals, provided Psalm 148 as a replacement for the Benedicite. It is probable that its restoration in 1789 was to reassure the bishops of the Church of England that PECUSA was not seeking radical reform of the Prayer Book. We can be grateful, then, that the Benedicite was restored to the PECUSA Prayer ...

...  thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree - Romans 11:24. On Monday coming, Holocaust Memorial Day, I will open my Book of Common Prayer to say Morning Prayer, as we recollect the deep horror and vile evil of the Shoah. After the first lesson, I will say the Benedicite, from the text in the Apocrypha now appropriately known as 'The Song of the Three Jews' - the praises uttered by Ananias, Azarias, and Misael in the fiery furnace: O all ye Works of the Lord, bless ye the Lord : praise him, and magnify him for ever ... O let Israel bless the Lord : praise him, and magnify him for ever. It brings to mind those who repeated the Shema Yisrael and declared the praises of Adonai even in the face of the unspeakable evil of the death camps. The God of Abraham is to be ever praised, even when thick darkness gathers, when deep injustice appears to reign, when death approaches. To pray the Benedi...

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 consider the alternative canticle after the first reading, the Benedicite. Shepherd points to the evidence for its widespread use in East and West: the fourth council of Toledo enjoined it to be used in the Spanish churches, alleging as a reason, that it was sung all over the world. St. Chrysostom had before made the same observation, describing this as a hymn every where sung throughout the world, and which would continue to be sung by latest posterity. In the Gallic Lectionary, it is appointed to be sung after the reading of the Prophets, much in the same manner, as it is here ordered to be said or sung after the reading of the first Lesson.  While noting that patristic writers disagreed on the status of the text - "Ruffinus maintains against Jerome, that it is a portion of Holy Writ" - Shepherd, as with his earlier di...

Amongst the days when the Benedicite should be used in place of Te Deum at Morning Prayer, Rogationtide must surely be included.  Surveying commentaries on the Prayer Book over the centuries, it is consistently recognised that the Benedicite is particularly appropriate when we are rejoicing in the natural world.  Sparrow's Rationale (first published in 1655) states: [when the lessons] set before us the wonderful handy-work of God in any of the Creatures ... Then it will be very seasonable to return this Song. Comber's A Companion to the Temple and the Closet (1676) similarly declares that Benedicite is "always proper to be used" when reflecting on the created order: it is always proper to be used after the History of the Creation ... And then we may in this Form learn the order of God's works, for the method is exact, and beginning with the Heavens and the hosts thereof descends to the air, the Earth and Sea reckoning up all the furniture of them; and concluding...