laudable Practice

From a Keble sermon for the Second Sunday in Lent (in his Sermons for the Christian Year: Lent to Passiontide ), another extract which exudes Old High piety. Central to the piety and pastoral practice of the Old High tradition was an understanding of the Christian life as definitively shaped by the covenant of Baptism, the bestowal of regenerating grace in the Sacrament calling us to holiness of life and, therefore, ongoing repentance. One result of this was a caution and reserve regarding 'deathbed repentance', exemplified in Taylor's writings on the matter.  This is precisely what is seen in Keble's sermon. In typically Old High fashion, he refers to the teaching of the Catechism on Baptism: "wherein I was made a member of Christ, the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven". Here is our spiritual birthright. That we profane this gift as did Esau with his birthright undergirds the call to repentance. The gracious covenant of redeeming love in...

Each Friday of Lent, laudable Practice is presenting words from Jeremy Taylor reflecting on fundamental practices shared by the Christian traditions. Today's practice is repentance, the means of "renewing of us into our first condition". Taylor's robust understanding of repentance echoes earlier traditions of penance, such as those seen in Rowan Williams' Passions of the Soul (2024), a reflection on the Eastern penitential tradition. Williams describes the "diagnostic work" of this tradition, an "honest registering of what is actually going on in us". If this, and Taylor's words below, seem to be too robust to us, it is suggestive of how we fail to take sin seriously. (Recognition of this, by the way, seems to be contributing to a renewed appreciation for the Commination rite .) Williams' words regarding the Eastern penitential tradition are also applicable to Taylor's writing on repentance: seriously helpful in pastoral and perso...