laudable Practice

On this penultimate day of November, and on the cusp of Advent, we draw to a close this short series of posts meditating upon the month of the departed through the words of Jeremy Taylor. In this extract from his sermon at the 1657 funeral of Sir George Dalston, a Cumberland Royalist, Taylor turns to what are, I think, the most significant words in the Prayer Book Order of Burial : I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, From henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: Even so, saith the Spirit, for they rest from their labours. Introduced by Cranmer in BCP 1549, this remained an enduring feature of burial rites in the Prayer Book tradition. Said at the graveside immediately after the committal, it defines the quiet and gentle hope which underpins the Prayer Book's Order of Burial: the faithful departed are now at rest . No post-mortem pains await them. No urgent prayers need be offered for them. We are to carry no fears for them. They are, in Christ, at res...

Each Thanksgiving Day, laudable Practice gives thanks for an aspect of the life and history of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America. This year, we turn to the simple, modest ceremonies of early PECUSA worship.  It is, in some ways, a theme particularly appropriate for Thanksgiving Day: modest, quiet, decent ceremonies, after all, echo something of the frugal New England spirit associated with the origins of the day. There was nothing gaudy, loud, or overstated about early Episcopalian ceremonies: minister vested in surplice; kneeling to receive the Sacrament and the sign of the Cross at Baptism; the congregation appropriately kneeling, sitting, standing; a decently attired Lord's Table, with communion rails; quietly plain church buildings consecrated for divine service. In a sermon to the 1786 General Convention, meeting in Philadelphia, William White - the recently consecrated Bishop of Pennsylvania - explained why Prayer Book worship was not defined b...

The rubric introducing the general Confession at the Holy Communion states that both the minister and the communicants are to be "kneeling humbly upon their knees". As John Shepherd notes - in his A Critical and Practical Elucidation of the Book of Common Prayer, Volume II (1801) - this is one of only three places in the 1662 rite in which the priest is directed to kneel, emphasising the solemn and corporate nature of the general Confession:  During the whole time of the Priest's officiating at the Communion he is directed to kneel only thrice, at this Confession, at the Collect before the prayer for Consecration, and at the act of receiving. In every other part of the office he is to stand. This was the practice of the ancient Church, and the attitude was probably borrowed from the service of the temple, where the legal sacrifices were offered by the Priest standing. Between the legal and evangelical sacrifice there is the same correspondence that exists between the sha...

From Bishop Bull's sermon ' The Middle State of Happiness or Misery ', an extract which can function as an exposition of the quiet, trusting piety of the Prayer Book Order for the Burial of the Dead, expressed in the invocation of Revelation 14:13 at the graveside, the Lord's Prayer, and the prayer following: Almighty God, with whom do live the  spirits of them that depart hence in the Lord, and with whom the souls of the faithful, after they are delivered from the burden of the flesh, are in joy and felicity ... It is this "place of full security" that Bull sets forth, to our comfort: This discourse is matter of abundant consolation to all good men, when death approacheth them. They are sure, not only of a blessed resurrection at the last day, but of a reception into a very happy place and state in the mean time. They shall be immediately after death put in the possession of paradise, and there rejoice in the certain expectation of a crown of glory, to be bes...

This day being appointed a Fast on our Majesty’s arms against the rebel Americans, I went to Church this morning and read the Prayers appointed for the same. I had as full a congregation present as I have in an afternoon on a Sunday, very few that did not come. Parson Woodforde's diary entry for 13th December 1776 captures something of a feature of Anglican experience over the centuries: civic and national observances often attract a good congregation. Woodforde's words came to mind when recently reading a US Episcopalian critique of such civic and national observances, lamenting the large congregations that services on Independence Day and Thanksgiving Day - what TEC BCP 1979 calls 'National Days' - often attract. This, we are told, represents an enthusiasm for such observances over Christian festivals, contradicting the Christian allegiance to our heavenly homeland, not earthly nations. Against such a view, I think about the parishioners of good Parson Woodforde, gat...

November opened with All Saints' Day, rejoicing with the Communion of Saints in "those unspeakable joys, which thou hast prepared for them that unfeignedly love thee". In mid-November, in these Islands, we had the sombre, emotive observance of Remembrance Sunday. Friends in the United States have just celebrated Thanksgiving, a day with deep cultural resonance, giving thanks unto God "for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them". Next week we will be readying ourselves for Advent. For many of us this will mean the Advent Procession in the darkness of an early December evening. Christmas carol services will also be fast approaching (no matter what the online Anglican/Episcopal 'Advent Police' insist).  It is a liturgically crowded and busy time of year, with feasts and observances rich in meaning. This is precisely why I value Stir-up Sunday and do not observe the 'feast of Christ the King' on the Sunda...

In The Great Exemplar (1649), as Taylor reflects on the Lord's Passion and Death, he provides a discourse entitled 'Of Death, and the due Manner of Preparation to it'. It is appropriate reading for this month of the departed, not least for its reminder that we are always called to be prepared for our death:  And indeed, since all our life we are dying and this minute in which I now write, death divides with me, and hath got the surer part and more certain possession, it is but reasonable that we should always be doing the offices of preparation. Alongside this exhortation to holy living - the "one way of preparing to death" - Taylor also addresses the circumstances of "those days of our last visitation", what the Litany terms "the hour of death". Here he points to the three ministries "at the point of departure", appointed by the Prayer Book : prayer and spiritual counsel, absolution, and reception of the holy Sacrament. While the pr...