laudable Practice

On the last days before Advent, a sharp frost fell on Jeremy Taylor country.  It provided a deeply evocative landscape in which to pray, for the last time this year, the Stir-up collect and in which to gather in the darkened parish church on Sunday evening for the Advent Procession. Frost. It is the cold Winter of Narnia. In his wonderful new book Paths in the Snow: A literary journey through 'The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe' , Jem Bloomfield notes that Narnia's everlasting Winter, under the spell of the White Witch, is an echo of the carol: Adam lay y-bounden Bounden in a bond Four thousand winter Thought he not too long. Narnia's Winter, says, Bloomfield, is "quite a precise description of Advent ... 'Always winter, but never Christmas' gets over the sense of waiting which this period involves".  And so we wait amidst the harsh frost in Jeremy Taylor country in these early days of Advent, giving voice to the ancient yearning of Israel and the Ch...

From a sermon by John Keble for The Sunday before Advent. In this rather beautiful introduction to the sermon, we can quite clearly hear the voice of the author of The Christian Year , evoking Autumn passing into Winter, on the cusp of Advent: The time just before Advent is a very serious and thoughtful season to all who take notice of time as the Church invites them. It is just the season of decay: the last leaves are falling, and the last flowers are ceasing to blow. We naturally look back and begin to consider how the weeks and months have passed, since those leaves were fresh: how many things we meant to do then, more than we have really done, how unlike in many respects the face of things now is, to what we wished and expected then. Also, we must be very blind or very thankless, if we fail at such times to notice the many mercies, more than we could expect, and very far more than we deserve, which our gracious God has continued to us: kind friends, beloved kinsmen, peaceful times...

Back in the warm days of early May, I offered a May Day meditation on Old High piety, reflecting on how "noble but bare and quiet" Georgian-style churches (illustrated with examples of some historic Episcopal churches in the United States) cohered with Cranmer's words and the theology of the Prayer Book: with modesty and reserve, quietly and decently ordering us towards "the author of peace and lover of concord". On this Advent Ember Day, I offer a related meditation, reflecting on how the Prayer Book sustains us in prayer through dark, cold December days. To illustrate this, there are photographs taken over recent days - days of sharp frost and bitter cold - at The Middle Church , in the heart of Jeremy Taylor country: a sign of prayer continued over the centuries, including cold and dark times. We turn first to Mattins, in the cold darkness of a December morning. A hard frost has settled over houses, gardens, and roads during the hours of night.  It being Adv...