laudable Practice

The picture is of this year's annual Lantern Service in Old North Church , Boston. The service commemorates the lighting of two lanterns in the church's steeple on 18th April 1775, leading to Paul Revere's famous midnight ride before the Battles of Lexington and Concord. In the 50 years since the bicentennial celebrations in 1976, the service has been an annual fixture. In the words of the Old North Church website: [it] recalls the lights of liberty that shone from Old North’s steeple on April 18, 1775, while reflecting on the meaning of faith, freedom, and American democracy today. The service culminates with the lighting of the church's two historic lanterns. When I looked at photographs of this year's service, what immediately struck me was this photograph. It encapsulates the 'Publick Religion' that traditionally has been part of the Anglican vocation: surplice, tippet, hood, bands - noble and modest; a historic church; a national commemoration.  It is,...

At Parish Communion and Act of Remembrance, Remembrance Sunday, 9.11.25 Luke 20:38 “He is God not of the dead, but of the living: for to him all of them are alive.” [1] On 4th August this year, I stood in Nine Elms Military Cemetery, near the village of Thelus in northern France. I was visiting the grave of my great-grandmother’s brother, Private David Henry Beattie, 1st/4th Seaforth Highlanders. David was killed in action in the Battle of Arras, on 10th April 1917 - Easter Tuesday. Standing at his grave was, for me, a personal pilgrimage of remembrance - remembering a young Irishman, born in 1891, a soldier of the Great War, who died, far from home and family, in the fields of France and Flanders. But why do we remember? Why Remembrance Sunday? Why, over a century on, do we on this day remember those who fell in the service of King and Country in the Great War? Why, in this 80th anniversary year of its end, do we remember the dead of the Second World War? We do so, fundamentally, beca...

Remembrancetide. It falls in mid-November, with the leaves fallen and the trees bare, the days shorter, another year reaching its end. A fitting season to remember.  Far from the garish, loud days of Summer, these November days encourage a sombre quietness as we recollect loss, death, grief, sacrifice. The last days of Autumn, as the dark days before Christmas draw near, encourage the modesty and restraint of our remembrance. We do not gather to celebrate victory or give expression to patriotic fervour.  The symbol of Remembrancetide is not the national flag but a little poppy - a memory of Flanders fields - pinned to our lapels. The parson, standing close to the local war memorial, is in surplice, hood, bands, tippet: fitting ecclesiastical attire, echoing the modesty and restraint which hold and still us before the sombre quiet of Remembrance.  A crowd gathers, each with the little poppy in their lapels. Quiet nods of greeting. Little, if any, talking. There is an inher...

The eve of the 80th anniversary of D-Day. I was seeking words from the Anglican tradition which would suggest something of the significance of the commemoration. (And how could a victory over dark, evil tyranny not have meaning for a Christianity mindful of the apostolic call to "lead a quiet and peaceable life"?) My thoughts turned to a funeral in the parish during the past year, of a wonderful old gentleman who was a junior officer on a ship of His Majesty's Navy off the coast of Normandy on 6th June 1944. Leading prayers at the funeral, and to recollect with gratitude his naval service in a time of war, I adapted one of the prayers "to be also used in his Majesty's Navy every day", from the Forms of Prayer to be Used at Sea in the Church of Ireland BCP 1926 (the same as in BCP 1662 and PECUSA's BCP 1789 ; the Canadian BCP 1962 also contains 'Forms of Prayer to be used at Sea', retaining much of the 1662 material). It was a prayer this godly...

As the leaves fall, as the mid-November days grow shorter and colder, we observe Remembrance Sunday. The season is befitting for the observance.  There is nothing brash, loud, or glorious about late Autumn: it has an air of melancholy, of gentle decline. Intimations of mortality surround us. We will gather in the parish church, wearing our poppies. If one was seeking a symbol of nationalistic fervour, the poppy would - to say the least - be a very odd choice.  A delicate little flower, bearing no national colours. A delicate little flower which grew in foreign fields, fields which saw loss and sacrifice, not shock and awe triumphs. Names will be read out at the parish war memorial.  Sons of the parish, and one daughter, killed in the Great War and the Second World War. We still recognise some of the surnames. Whether we recognise the names or not, these are are sons and a daughter of our parish. Some will have been baptised at our font and received the holy Sacrament at o...

And Is it not enough that every year A richly laden autumn should unfold And shimmer into being leaf by leaf ... All Hallows' Eve and words from Malcolm Guite's poem for Autumn come to mind. Today we bring the season of Harvest Thanksgiving, our yearly rejoicing in "A richly laden autumn," to a close. The pumpkins, nuts, and apples which decorated our churches for the Harvest festival now decorate our homes. Pumpkin soup and apple pie sit on the table. It is one last day of rejoicing in Autumn's bounty and the Harvest season, looking back on weeks when we have delighted in the divine goodness which has, for another year, "graciously given unto us the fruits of the earth in their season". Sky and hills and woods are one, grey and dead. Hard to believe there be daffodils, That green things will happen again. At night houses shine out in cries across fields of floodwater, The cold of wet and wind like the cut of a spade in a bare hand. With All Hallow'...

On this Armistice Day, and ahead of Remembrance Sunday, words from Jeremy Taylor's The psalter of David with titles and collects according to the matter of each Psalme , published in 1647. Taylor was (as he notes in this extract) a chaplain to the Royalist forces during the war between King and Parliament.   We might note two things of significance here in Taylor's words.  Firstly, they echo a common experience, across centuries, of military chaplains ministering to soldiers in time of war: a recognition that the Psalms are particularly resonant in the face of "the miseries of Warre". Secondly, they point to the Episcopalian alternative to the Puritan psalm-singing of Cromwell's New Model Army: of the Psalter nurturing fidelity to "the King & the Church" in contrast to those who (as he also says in the preface to this work) "commenced this war against the King & the Church, first fell out with our Liturgy, and refused to joyn with us in our ...

One of the most evocative characteristics of Michaelmas, the first of the high feasts of Autumn, is how it opens before us the feasts and observances which mark this season. Standing as it does close to the beginning of Autumn, Michaelmas anticipates how this darkening time of year is filled with spiritual riches, sometimes in abundant joy, sometimes with stark recollection. Even as we celebrate Michaelmas, many parish churches in these Islands and in Canada will also be preparing to celebrate the Festival of Harvest Thanksgiving.  Michaelmas brings to mind the ministry of the angels in the eschatological harvest: "The harvest is the end of the world. And the reapers are the angels" (Matthew 13:39).  It points, in other words, to how Harvest Thanksgiving, while a joyous celebration of the order of creation, is also an icon of the order of redemption, reflected in the popular hymnody associated with Harvest: 'Then, the Church triumphant come, raise the song of harvest-home...

... a kind of matins for a culture uncertain of what it shares and of where it is going (p.148). Rachel Mann's description of Remembrance Sunday, in her Fierce Imaginings: The Great War, Ritual, Memory and God of Remembrance Sunday (2017), captures the profundity of this mid-November day.  As late Autumn gives way to Winter, Remembrance Sunday is often bleak and cold.  This contributes to the day's resonance.  It is almost as if the primeval threat and danger of Winter strips away our pretensions and boasts.  The fact of mortality hangs in the air, with the trees now bare and Autumn glory past. It is 'a kind of matins' because the morning office gathers us after sleep to focus afresh on the Permanent Things, on what is Real, with the cold mornings of November reflecting how this awakes us from our spiritual and philosophical slumbers. Remembrance Sunday is akin to this, the themes of sacrifice, love, and death piercing through the delusions and complacency of our c...

Ending this short Remembrancetide series of extracts from wartime sermons of Anglicans across the centuries, today an extract from John Strachan's sermon in York, Upper Canada, before the Legislative Council and House of Assembly, at the outset of the War of 1812.  (Strachan would, in 1839, become the first Anglican Bishop of Toronto.) Strachan's words are a powerful reminder of the obligations combatants have to the enemy and the need for Christians to mortify the spirit of war: A Christian Soldier is neither animated against his enemy by hatred nor revenge. These malignant passions have no influence on his operations, finding that gentle means have failed in bringing his enemy to reason, he confines himself to such acts of violence as shall bring him back to equitable terms of accommodation. In making war he keeps peace continually in his view, and whatever does not tend to bring it about, he conceives improper to be done. He separates the actions of his enemy from his pers...

Continuing this short Remembrancetide series of extracts from wartime sermons of Anglicans across the centuries, today an extract from a 1781 fast day sermon during the Revolutionary War.  The preacher, while a chaplain to the King and convinced of "the justice of our cause", explicitly acknowledged the evil of war, particularly when waged against those who previously shared the same allegiance.  He went on to declare that victory does not erase the cost of war: War is indisputably amongst the moſt dreadful evils that can afflict a nation; it is one of those scourges with which God chastises his sinful and rebellious creatures; an instrument of vengeance in the hands of the Almighty, wherewith he punishes the grievous sins and offences from time to time committed against him. If there be a circumstance that can render this destructive tyrant still more formidable, that can enhance his severity and double his terrors, it is doubtless that calamity in which we are ourselves...

Continuing this short Remembrancetide series of extracts from wartime sermons of Anglicans across the centuries, today words from Jonathan Boucher's sermon in Virginia celebrating the ending of the Seven Years War with the Peace of 1763. Boucher was, as future events were to clearly demonstrate, a loyal subject of "the mother country".  Such allegiance, however, did not result in a triumphalist sermon at the conclusion of the War but, rather, a lament for war and a celebration of the blessing of peace: It is no part of my purpose at present to enter into the question how far war is, or is not, lawful to Christians. Merely as a point of casuistry, it might (perhaps) after all my pains, remain with you, (as I confess is the case as to myself) undecided: but neither you nor I can for a moment entertain a doubt, that war is one of the severest calamities with which the Almighty has ever seen fit to chastise the sons of men ... I cannot avoid here remarking, that, wherever war...

During Remembrancetide this year, laudable Practice will be sharing extracts from some wartime sermons from Anglicans across the centuries.  The purpose of this exercise is to indicate the nuances, reserve, and moderation in such preaching.   Today, a Taylor sermon from his Golden Grove collection (printed in 1651).  Preached in the aftermath of Royalist defeat in the civil war - Taylor had been a chaplain to Royalist forces and was taken prisoner by Parliamentarian forces in 1645 - the sermon challenged pronouncements that the enemy was evil, that God's judgement upon the enemy was to be expected, and that God's purposes in time of war could be easily identified. This sermon was preached to the members of a household firmly committed to the defeated Royalist cause. Whoever suffer in a cause of God from the hands of cruel and unreasonable men, let them not be too forward to prognosticate evil and death to their enemies; but let them solace themselves in the assuran...

It was the most poignant photograph of this year's Remembrance-tide in the United Kingdom.  Her Majesty the Queen standing before the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Westminster Abbey , accompanied by a military aide and the Dean of Westminster.   The photograph also captured an aspect of the Anglican experience that too often provokes embarrassment amongst or downright rejection by contemporary Anglicans.  Here was Westminster Abbey, a royal church dedicated prayer at the heart of national life.  The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is a honoured focal point for the national memory.  Her Majesty herself is an anointed monarch and a faithful Anglican, whose messages at Christmas (and Easter Day past) almost certainly do more to commend the Faith than numerous episcopal statements.  The military officer accompanying her has sworn by Almighty God allegiance to her, and is ministered to padres, the majority of whom are Church of England clergy.  The photog...