Tag Archives: Book of Common Prayer

Of Books and more and yet more …

13 Friday Nov 2020

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When it comes to buying books, as my other half would affirm, I am a one-woman ‘keep independent bookshops open’ dynamo. As most of what I want is secondhand, and as an affectionado of the usual internet sources (I use Amazon only when I have no alternative), I can usually keep within budget, but birthdays and Christmas are easy for family and friends – a booklist is provided. So when I say I am not in favour of more books, it is clear I must be referring to something other than my habit.

When I first went to church as a girl, the Rector was a firm “Book of Common Prayer” man. It came as something of a shock when I first encountered the mysteries of the Alternative Service Book. I liked Rite B, mainly because of the resonances with the BCP, but really couldn’y quite greet it with enthusiasm. But it was what was on offer, and being a good girl, I got on with it. Language mattered, but if this was the language my church wanted to use, best get on with it. What mattered more was who I encountered in the Eucharist.

I found the advent of Common Worship a change for the better, but still preferred to go to eight o’clock services where BCP was in use. I got used to Common Worship, and use it in my personal devotions, but there is a good deal of leeway given as to how one conststructs Communon Services, which I know some priests find a creative opportunity and others a “challenge’, but not ina good way. At last count, examining the Rector’s shelves, there were eight different books. At what point is enough, enough? For me, as for others, it’s time for well, frankly, a Book of Common Prayer.

There’s no reason why a revised single volume could not have modern and traditional language versions as the 2000 Common Worship has. I think the American Episcopal Church has a single volume, and maybe Audre could enlighten me?

This isn’t a call for some sort of liturgical reform, this is hardly the most important issue at the moment, but I think Cranmer got it right – a single Book of Common Prayer which we can carry with us and whose language infuses our own was a good idea in his day – it remains one. There are, I have discovered, situations in which you can have too many books.

Lex orandi, lex credendi

30 Sunday Aug 2020

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Or, in the vulgar tongue, “the law of what is prayed is the law of what is to be believed” – in short, your liturgy expresses your theology. Which is by way of an introduction to the third of my little pieces on the Book of Common Prayer.

It’s a commonplace (which is why I and so many use it, commonplaces are good) to say that the Church of England, and by extension the Anglican Communion, has no doctrine of its own. Of course it doesn’t. What we hold is in common with the “one Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church” we affirm our membership of in the Creed. Getting into discussions with those who don’t agree that we are does no good. I respect their conviction and ask merely that they respect mine and that of millions of others like me.

There is no Luther or Calvin in Anglicanism, neither do we have a Magisterium as the Roman Catholics do. (My apologies to those who find the adjective objectionable, but in the English language as spoken by the English, it’s the easiest way to express my meaning). If I say the decisive influence for Anglicanism was Cranmer, that’s not because he expressed some wonderful theological insights, it is because he is the father of the Book of Common Prayer. Since the BCP was for so many years the definitive version of the Anglican way of prayer, and thus belief, it is worth dwelling for a moment on Cranmer’s work.

What did he do? First, Cranmer selected, arranged, and in some cases composed, the prayers we still pray to this day. Second, he drew up the rubrics which stipulate permissible variations in prayers and practice. Finally, he drew up the lectionary which sets out what portions of Scripture are to be read in Church throughout the liturgical year. To this might be added the fact that his original 1549 Prayer Book was in effect experimental in that it reflected reaction in the parishes to earlier versions. That, in itself, reflects one main feature of Anglicanism, which has been called the “English ethos.” Like it or not, and those with a fondness for strict order and logic won’t, there is an assumption that consensus and comprehensiveness are good ways of running things. It’s one reason we have tended to avoid civil wars since the seventeenth century. The second aspect is a tendency to pragmatism. We’re not hot on speculative approaches to the human condition. It is surely only of England that anyone could say that its Socialist Party owed more to Methodism than to Marx!

The 1549 BCP was a perfect example of pragmatic consensus. There were those who wanted to continue the ways of the (reforming) medieval church, taking their lead from Rome, and there were those who wanted to transform things in a major manner as in Geneva, and what we got from Cranmer was a sensible compromise. There was no speculative theological discussion of salvation of doctrine or dogma, there was the practical matter of how people would worship from week to week.

The downside of this is plain. Things change, a national church interacts with the culture within which it embedded, and it can be easy and pragmatic (which is why it has been done so often) not to update expressions of our common tradition in ways which make them more comprehensible to new generations, which then tends to lead to bitter arguments when change cannot be avoided.

What is clear though is that for Cranmer and therefore Anglicanism, God is worshipped primarily in terms of his love, grace and mercy. If we look at some of the Collects, this shines through. Take the Collect for today, the 12th Sunday after Trinity:

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who art always more ready to hear than we are to pray, and art wont to give more than either we desire or deserve: Pour down upon us the abundance of thy mercy; forgiving us those things whereof our conscience is afraid, and giving us those good things which we are not worthy to ask, but through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, thy Son, our Lord. Amen.

This theme, the mercy of God, occurs again and again in our Collects, and is often linked to God’s forgiveness of sin. The first example of this is the earliest, which is the Collect Cranmer composed for the BCP of 1549 for the first Sunday in Advent:

Almighty God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light …

We see the same emphasis here for the fourth Sunday in Lent:

Grant, we beseech Thee, Almighty God, that we, who for our evil deeds do worthily deserve to be punished, by the comfort of Thy grace may mercifully be relieved; through our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

God’s mercy and grace are brought together in the forgiveness for sinners. The doctrine of God revealed in our worship is not that of a distant being unconcerned with human pain, or a mighty Lord whose merit we might just be able to win if we behave ourselves, but a God who is near to us, loves us, cares for us and will hear our prayers.

It is this emphasis on God’s love which I first met in the BCP which infuses my own faith. It is expressed to perfection in the Collect for Palm Sunday:

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who, of thy tender love towards mankind, hast sent thy Son, our Saviour Jesus Christ, to take upon him our flesh, and to suffer death upon the cross, that all mankind should follow the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant, that we may both follow the example of his patience, and also be made partakers of his resurrection; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

If we look at what Cranmer did to the Latin original, we see he added the phrase “of thy tender love”, and he removed the petition that “we might merit to be partakers of his resurrection”, and substituted a petition that we might “follow” Christ’s “example.” This was at the heart of the Reformers’ concerns. There can be no question of Grace being “merited,” or “earned.” The grace and mercy of God are given lavishly and freely as expressions of his love, they are not rewards to be extracted from him in some way by our actions.

What is prayed is what is believed. What I pray in the BCP is what I believe.

[Renewed thanks to C451 for help here. JH].

 

More on the Book of Common Prayer

28 Friday Aug 2020

Posted by in Anglicanism, Catholic Tradition, Church/State, Faith, St John

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[My thanks to C451 for his help on the history of this, JH].

One of the many consequences of the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 following the demise of Cromwell’s commonwealth was that the Church of England was restored to its position as the Established Church. In an effort to secure as much support as possible, Charles II summoned twelve bishops and twelve Puritan ministers to a conference at the Savoy Palace in 1661. The idea was to see how wide the bounds of Communion might be. It was good timing. The Bishops, after the experience of Cromwell, had learned something of where intransigence might lead, and the Puritans might, without him, be about to learn the same lesson.

The Book of Common Prayer had not been revised since 1604. It had been banned in 1645 and suppressed during the Commonwealth. The hopes that it might be possible to find a revised form of the Book which would command support from the Puritans were generally dashed; their breach of Elizabeth I’s wise injunction not to ‘make windows into men’s souls,’ ensured that. The Bishops would not agree to a Minister having the right to say who could and who could not receive Communion, nor would they agree to his having the right to refuse to baptise a child; the Church was either national, or it was sectarian. The sectaries went their way.

The Bishops took their stand on precedent:

“If we do not observe that golden rule of the venerable Council of Nice[a], ‘Let ancient customs prevail,’ till reason plainly requires the contrary, we shall give offence to sober Christians by a causeless departure from Catholic usage, and a greater advantage to enemies of our Church, than our brethren, I hope, would willingly grant.”

And they went on:

“It was the wisdom of our Reformers to draw up such a Liturgy as neither Romanist nor Protestant could justly except against.” For preserving of the Churches’ peace we know no better nor more efficacious way than our set Liturgy; there being no such way to keep us from schism, as to speak all the same thing, according to the Apostle. This experience of former and latter times hath taught us; when the Liturgy was duly observed we lived in peace; since that was laid aside there hath been as many modes and fashions of public worship as fancies.”

On 20 December 1661 the (fifth) revised Book of Common Prayer was approved by the Convocations of Canterbury and York and annexed to the Bill of Uniformity, which was passed by Parliament and received Royal Assent on 19 May 1662. There were few significant changes since 1604. On the whole, that settled things until the nineteenth century, which is not to say there were not the usual discussions among the learned and the interested (which two parties even sometimes coincided).

It is not often stressed that one of the most fervent defenders of the BCP was that great and good man, John Keble. The third of the Tracts for the Times, written by none other than Newman, argued that those who thought like him and Keble should petition the bishops to resist changes in the BCP being demanded by men like the famous headmaster of Rugby, Thomas Arnold. In the 1850s what was then called the “Broad Church” formed an association to press for changes in the BCP, but despite a series of bills tabled in the Lords, they got nowhere.

Inevitably the issue got caught up in the wider controversy over “Ritualism,” with those opposed to what they called the “Romanising tendencies” of the Oxford Movement. What was clear was that there were many in the Church who wished to keep it comprehensive, and in the words of one set of commentators:

“If, therefore, the Church of England is to remain the National Establishment of a free country, room must be found within it, as far as is consistent with general conformity ‘in such matters as may be deemed essential’.”

In 1872 the Archbishop of Canterbury managed to guide a short reform through the Convocations and Parliament sanctioned the changes, which were largely to do with making the services shorter. Its critics said that it would lead to chaos and accused Tait of what we would call “dumbing down”; truly there is nothing new under the sun!

The experience was not a happy one, and the issue would rumble on until the 1920s when a serious attempt at Prayer Book revision, complete with a new Book, was proposed – but the attempt to get it through Parliament failed – but as that is one of C451’s hobbies, I shall stop there.

But what I hope this little excursus shows is that the Prayer Book has always been the focus of how Anglicans pray, a topic to which I want to return. On the one side its adherents have consistently rejected attempts to de-sacrilise our Liturgy and refused to water down the sacramental elements in it. On the other, they have resisted attempts to go the whole road to Rome route. It can be argued that in not using the Prayer Book as much, our Church lost something in terms of coherence, but that’s another argument for one more learned than myself.

I’ll finish simply by saying that it remains, for me, at the centre of my private devotions, but I also use “Common Worship” which I also find helpful. Anything that allows me to join millions of others in worshipping the Triune God is most welcome.

Book of Common Prayer

24 Monday Aug 2020

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Yesterday’s online service from the Church of England was just marvellous! It was from the Book of Common Prayer, and the Rev. Fergus Butler-Gallie not only did it to perfection, he gave a marvellous sermon! For anyone who thought that the BCP was stuffy, or only for older people (okay, in my later 30s, but NOT old) take a look-see.

Now, I’m not one of those who go on about liturgy, as regulars will know. Brought up on versions of the ghastly Alternative Service books on the late 80s and early 90s, I welcomed “Common Worship” and I use it for Morning and Evening prayer in private devotion. But I do love a BCP Mattins on Sunday, and, when I can get it, as BCP Communion service. Watching the Rev. Fergus yesterday reminded me why I love it so much. The short answer is that I love it for the same reason I love the Church of England – it is a defining part of me and the culture I inhabit.

Brought up in Wales, I was a member of the Church of Wales, and therefroe very much not part of the establishment; nonconformists, as my father called them, were the norm. It was only when I went to university in England and to chapel at College that I began to realise how important the BCP was to me. We’d used it in my local church and it seeped into my consciousness. To this day, in private devotions, I slip into the BCP general confession. I have indeed ‘erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep’, and ‘followed the devices and desires of my own heart,’ so the words are not worn smooth with use, they mean what they have always meant for me.

Being brought up Anglican in Wales was in some sense to define myself as part of something bigger than my homeland, much as I loved it. Being half-Welsh and half-German, the Church gave me a cultural home which I cherished and still do. I am part of a world-wide Communion, but I am also linked, historically, to a Church which somehow has managed to reconcile so many differing opinions into one place. I suspect the loss of the regular use of the BCP was not helpful to the Church, but as usual, it managed to keep it and I see signs that it is used more often. One of our churches here uses it regularly for Mattins, and I do tend to slope off in its direction whenever possible.

It provides a living link with the past. It isn’t that I can’t appreciate a Latin Mass (I used to attend one from time to time when I was at College), but it is not mine. I feel no historic link with it, whereas I do with the BCP. Cranmer’s language is so beautiful. I feel instinctively that is how you talk to God, you don’t address him like he’s the postman. I am sure God doesn’t mind, it’s one of those weird things I mind on his behalf.

As I repeat the well-used phrases of the BCP, I feel myself in timeless communion with generations of Anglicans past, present and future. It evokes for me a sense of belonging and yes, comfort. Maybe there are bold and brave souls who do not need comfort in their religion, but I am neither of those things. Heavy laden, I go unto him and lay my yoke on his shoulders and find rest. He told me to, I do as I am told, and lo and behold, his promise is fulfilled.

Yes, I know history is complex and I am more than familiar with the arguments about the Reformation and the Church, and with the arguments that Rome has formally never accepted Anglican orders. But I am not quite sure it matters what Rome has said when its practice shows what its Popes really think. There’s a part of me that does not care at all, as my view of Rome is rather that of Anglo-Catholics and Orthodox, which is that historically it deserves respect, but its claim to universal jurisdiction are just that, its claims. It isn’t, after all, as though anyone watching the Catholic culture wars. can be under any illusion that it is a unified communion. But in that, it is like my own church. But it is not my church, though I wish it nothing but good.

I cross the threshold of my Anglican church with that feeling of being where I am meant to be, being home. So thank you Rev. Fergus and all those who produced the lovely service yesterday – I adored it!

 

Within reach

29 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by in Anglicanism, Audre, Faith

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I have a little book here; I’ve had it for some years now and its age is starting to show. It’s got highlighted lines, brief notes, question marks, bits of paper with notes stuffed between the pages. It’s really quite a mess and the leather binding, which looked sad when it was new, is not quite living up to its promise of beauty over age. But it’s one of my favorite books and maybe some day, my kids will come across it and enjoy it because it’s all beat up and Mom made notes in it. I like that thought.

I had it out this morning, looking for something in particular. It is a rich resource and once again, I think of the genius that put it together. It seems every occasion in life is mentioned here and its words can be applied, in some manner, to most of life. Quite a dandy little book.

This is what I was looking for this morning:

For Our Country
Almighty God, who hast given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of thy favour and glad to do thy will. Bless our land with honorable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogancy, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to thy law, we may show forth thy praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in thee to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (1928 BCP)

I think our English cousins use the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. I’ve never seen one but I hope it’s as full of good, solid, every day prayer as our 1928 BCP. Ours has corporate prayer, private prayer, family prayer, and national prayer. Prayers for the sick and dying, prayers for women in childbirth. There are prayers for ‘fine weather’, prayers for times of calamity and war, prayers for travelers by land, sea, and air. The other thing I love about it is that it retains a lot of the ‘English’ English (you know what I mean – the language of the King James Bible and the different spelling of words; favour instead of favor, for example).

Yes, I know the controversy – after the Reformation, the Book of Common Prayer had changes made and someone once said our 1928 is “schizophrenic” because, in the rubrics, the person is referred to as priest or minister; it can’t quite seem to decide if its Anglican or Protestant. I’m laughing to myself because, frankly, I don’t care. I love my little book. It’s always within reach.

Dead Trees, Sentinels, and the Sea

14 Saturday Feb 2015

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OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI do want to thank Chalcedon for his most interesting account of how he came to cross the Tiber. I also recall that when I came first here, I was joining Jessica in her encampment on Mt. Nebo, it seems like yesterday but it also seems like another lifetime.

There is no huge lesson here, other than to trust in the Lord. But I have had a couple of very hard weeks, where I wasn’t sure that I or my faith would survive. Yes, I know that sounds melodramatic but one of the things I have learned is that our spirit controls our body more than we like to admit.

In my post on my journey, here, our old friend David B. Monier-Williams commented, “NEO, I was as others were aware that you had a very special relationship with Jessica. I’m so glad for you that it was so spiritually fruitful.” He’s almost right, it is very special but it is not in the past tense, it never will be in this lifetime, and may well go beyond the grave as well.

You see, when I have problems in my life one of the places I turn for comfort is in Jess’ posts, and they have never failed me. In addition, so often we trigger things in each other, and they show up in posts here and on NEO. One of those instances comforted me this week.

In a post called Dead trees of Covehithe, Jess told us about a holiday she had taken with her sister, to a place I had frankly never heard of. Here is a bit of her description

Travelling down a long and winding road in pursuit of a striking church tower, we found ourselves faced with no more road.We parked by the Church with the great tower, which at first sight was totally ruinous, but on closer sight had, within impressive and massive ruined choirs, a tiny church which was still in use. This was Covehithe – another of the many victims of coastal erosion – once a flourishing town, now a hamlet with twenty people living there.

As we walked along the deserted road towards it end, we could see that it simply stopped – a barrier between us and the crumbling cliffs. A long trail to the left led us along a cliff path which had great holes gouged out of it by the sea. The skyline was dotted with dead trees – killed by the salt-winds coming in from the sea, and as we looked back to the ruins of the magnificent church and to the side at the decaying cliffs surrendering to the assaults of the sea, I thought myself in a landscape which exemplified decay and dying; even in high summer, the trees were dead – a stark silhouette against the darkening sky.

Jessica often triggers feelings in me (No, not those, although she is young and beautiful) 🙂 This passage set me in a mystical mood that I have never felt before or since. I made this comment

I see the trees, dearest friend, the same way you do but, I also see them standing as sentinel, even in death for a civilization that was, and may be again, which is echoed in the remnant church, built long ago itself, in the ruins of the more magnificent that went before.

Much despair there but, also there is hope for the future where men still worship where they have for more than a 1000 years, amidst the ruins, waiting for the glory to return.

And as often happens between us, she picked up on what i said, and extended it into a later post called Faith without a hope?. Where she said this

A last stand, the sentinels outlined against the darkening sky; an air, perhaps, of something that once was and has been again, and is now going? For there is, at Covehithe and Dunwich, evidence of Roman occupation, and how was it, I wonder, for those Roman Britons as the legions melted away and the sea raiders came? With the Romans went a sort of civilisation which would not come again for centuries.

[…]

The image of the once and future king is a powerful one, and part of the Arthurian legend. If there was an Arthur, he was most likely to have been one of the last of the Romans, using Roman cavalry tactics to slow down the advance of the Saxons, and like so many of his kind, he retreated into the fastnesses of Wales where the remnants of the Britons kept their faith and their guard for the long years when their country was the prey of invaders. Arthur, real or not, represented the need to believe that the old civilisation had not gone down without a fight, and that all it had represented could rise again.

The Once and Future King. That is indeed a powerful image for all of us cousins, implying as it does that in the end all will be set right, and it also speaks to us as Christians as we remember that our murdered and Risen King will return in Glory. As Dame Julian said, “All will be well, and all manner of things will be well.”

I said then that I thought there was still one more metaphor in regards to the church built in the ruins of the great church. This week as I worked through my problem, I came to understand that as well. All things wax and wane, and change is inevitable. But while our great dreams may crash and burn, like that great church, a more realistic set can be found in that tiny church in the rubble, although the slime and the moss remind us that much sweat and many tears are involved as well. But as the sea continues its inexorable advance at Covehithe it reminds us that as the Book of Common Prayer has it:

[…] in sure and certain hope of the Resurrection unto eternal life, through our Lord Jesus Christ; at whose coming in glorious majesty to judge the world, the sea shall give up her dead;

Blake Morrison has written a poem about Covehithe as well, which was featured recently in The Guardian.

The tides go in and out
But the cliffs are stuck in reverse:
Back across the fields they creep,
to the graves of Covehithe church.

From church to beach
Was once a hike.
Today it’s just a stroll.
Soon it’ll be a stone’s throw.

And that path we took
Along the cliffs has itself been taken,
By winter storms.
The wheat’s living on the edge.

What’s to be done?
I blame the dead
in their grassy mounds,

the sailors and fishermen

longing to be back at sea
who since they can’t get up
and stride down to the beach
entice the sea to come to them.

My problem? It was solved when I remembered my duty, instead of my wishes.

Lectionaries and Catechesis

20 Sunday Jul 2014

Posted by in Anglicanism, Bible, Faith, Homilies, Lutheranism

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The Chancel of the Valparaiso University Chapel, including the Christus Rex

The Chancel of the Valparaiso University Chapel, including the Christus Rex

Doesn’t seem like a natural pairing does it? But maybe it is. Let’s look around a bit.

One of the things that came out of Vatican II was the vernacular Mass (personally, I think that was overdue but, don’t shoot me yet). Part of that was that the Lectionary was revised after something like a thousand years. The reading from the Old Testament came in after being gone for a very long time. In addition, a three year system was adopted to let each Gospel be taught, St. John being used during Eastertide, and for some fill-in during St. Mark’s year, his Gospel is somewhat shorter, of course.

Why am I, a Lutheran writing about this? There are a couple of reasons, the first is that this echoed around our liturgical churches (we have always paid much attention to what our Catholic brothers and sisters do!) and this was adopted in the Lutheran, Episcopalian, and Methodist churches, and probably others as well. That is why so often, if more than one of us write on the lesson of the day, it is usually the same lesson.

The other reason is that I am basing this off a paper written and delivered as a workshop at the Liturgical Institute, at Valpo this spring. If you don’t happen to know, Valpo is short for Valparaiso University which is affiliated with the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod. Parenthetically, both of my sisters were Valpo Alumni, and one of them worked for many years in Church Relations at Valpo.

Many years ago, I read somewhere about how a preacher set up his sermons, in my recollection it was a pre-civil war American preacher, although that is unimportant. His design was a five point plan:

  1. Tell ’em what the subject is
  2. Tell ’em what you’re going to tell them
  3. Tell ’em.
  4. Tell ’em what you told them
  5. Tell ’em again what you told them.

That tracks pretty well for me in learning from a lecture. I need repetition in comprehending the spoken word, visual aids do help. But I, like many in my generation, do my best comprehension in reading, and that is still true for me. I doubt I’m the only one.

What does that have to do with the Lectionary? This, the old Catholic form, still used with the Tridentine Mass, now often called an Extraordinary Rite, was based on a one year cycle. (so were the historic Lutheran ones). So instead of hearing the same thing every year, now we get it every four years. One of the problems we all have is that basic Bible literacy is down, in all our churches. How’s that work?

Maybe this: Non multa sed multum. Not many, but much

Funny though, just when we thought it was dead and buried, the old lectionary makes something of a comeback, although many thought it far from perfect. It had deficiencies, of course.

Luther himself once complained that the epistles seemed to have been selected by a lover of works, and that all the good gospel sections in Paul’s writings had been given short shrift. It’s been famously noted that in the old series we never ever heard John 3:16, nor the account of the Prodigal Son.

There are voices, as we here all know that the Tridentine should be the standard again, and there are also those that want to go back to the experiments in the 50s on the Tridentine in the vernacular language.

The Anglicans have a continuing movement to return to earlier versions of The Book of Common Prayer. That version is very nearly a twin of the old Lutheran one.

The Orthodox have a Western Rite that is Liturgy of St. Gregory following the Tridentine mass with Orthodox adaptations, and using the one year lectionary.

And in the Lutheran church, especially the Missouri Synod, we are seeing a small movement to gently revise the one year  Lectionary, which the lectionary committee has made fully equal to the three year.

Early in the process the Lectionary Committee said

[…] the decision was made to recover and retain the “historic” lectionary, as used by Luther and subsequent generations of Lutherans and as included in The Lutheran Hymnal.

For these, and perhaps other reasons

  • We are an historic Church and acknowledge the value of what has been handed down to us.
  • It is important to recognize the value of repetition. Given the increasing lack of biblical literacy within our society and even within the Church, there may be a need in the future for a one-year lectionary, with its annual repetition of key biblical texts.
  • The one-year lectionary is unique in that there are a number of older resources that support it, including hymnody, sermons by Luther and others, etc.

The other thing that strikes me, is especially for Lutherans and Anglicans, it ties us back to our historic resources, both spoken, such as Luther’s sermons, but also musical, such as the Bach cantatas, and our great hymns which were written to fit that lectionary. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have this back on the First Sunday of Advent, where it belongs

But I think the greatest part would be if our congregations Biblical literacy could be improved.

 

More at Weedons Blog: Diachronic vs. Synchronic Unity and Lectionary.