Within reach

29 Wednesday Jul 2020

Posted by audremyers in Anglicanism, Audre, Faith

Tags

BCP

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

Posted by NEO in Faith

≈ 13 Comments

Tags

Anglican Communion, Book of Common Prayer, T. H. White, The Once and Future King

I 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 NEO in Anglicanism, Bible, Faith, Homilies, Lutheranism

≈ 25 Comments

Tags

Book of Common Prayer, Luther, Lutheran, Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod, Lutheranism, Martin Luther, Old Testament, Tridentine Mass, Valparaiso University

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:

Tell ’em what the subject is
Tell ’em what you’re going to tell them
Tell ’em.
Tell ’em what you told them
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