laudable Practice

...  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...

On this Christmas Eve, we turn to Bishop Bull's sermon ' The blessed Virgin's low and exalted Condition ' on the text Luke 1:48-49 - "For He hath regarded the low estate of His handmaiden; for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed. For He that is mighty hath done for me great things; and holy is His name". Bull declares "that both it [i.e. the text] and the whole Magnificat, or song of the blessed Virgin, is applicable to, and may be made use of by, all true Christians".  There is something of an echo here of Bede's statement that the use of the Magnificat at Evening Prayer is a "meditating upon the incarnation". Even more significantly, Bull is also following Augustine : it means more for Mary to have been a disciple of Christ than to have been the mother of Christ. It means more for her, an altogether greater blessing, to have been Christ's disciple than to have been Christ's mother. There is, then, s...

Continuing with extracts from a sermon by Bishop Bull (d.1710) entitled ' The Blessed Virgin's low and exalted condition ', on the text Luke 1:48-49, we see how Bull defends the use of the Magnificat at Evening Prayer - a practice Hooker also had to defend against the same objections - by emphasising that the canticle rejoices in "our common salvation", the salvation we share with the Blessed Virgin. This is a particularly significant emphasis, rather beautifully expounding what it means to say or sing the Magnificat at Evening Prayer and powerfully reminding us that Our Lord's Mother does not stand apart from that "common salvation": In a word, the Son of God, therefore, honoured the blessed Virgin so far, as in and from her to become man, that He might advance human nature, by assuming it into the unity of His divine Person; and that being born of her, He might procure, not only hers, but our common salvation. So that every one of us may sing the M...

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 Magnificat at Evensong.  It was first spoken by the Virgin Mary, when her cousin Elizabeth addressed her as the mother of our Saviour ... It begins with a general thanksgiving: and praises God, for his peculiar mercies vouchsafed to the mother of our Lord: for all his goodness, and loving kindness, displayed in the acts of his general providence; and more especially for the redemption of the world, promised to the patriarchs, and now on the eve of being fulfilled, by the birth of the Messiah. In the person of Christ, the types and predictions of the law, and the prophets, were accomplished. The recitation therefore of this hymn, with propriety succeeds the first Lesson, which is taken out of the books of the Old Testament. So early as the beginning of the sixth century, Magnificat was sung in the daily service of the w...

As we enter into mid-Advent, the 1662 Kalendar today quietly commemorates the Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a black letter day.  A quiet commemoration not only reflects the silence of Scripture on the matter, it also coheres with our observance of Advent.  Awaiting the Advent of the Lord - the One "which was, and is, and is to come" - we do so after the manner of the Prophet, "in quietness" (Isaiah 30:15), and of the Apostle, "with quietness" (I Thessalonians 3:12).  Just as the conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary occurred in a quietness not recorded in Scripture, so we too wait quietly during the days of Advent, as we "inwardly digest" the "blessed hope" of the Scriptures in company with Israel and the Church across long centuries. Today's liturgy in the classical Prayer Book tradition carries neither collect nor readings for the Conception.  The psalms, readings, and collects of this second week in Advent continue.  T...