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Psalm 119 in pieces

The 119th Psalm is, as I’m sure you know, the longest in the Psalter by far.  It’s so long that it has (probably?) never been appointed to be sung or said all the way through in a liturgical setting.  Private recitation and devotion, is another matter.  Thomas Cranmer’s monthly cycle of Psalms splits it over a few days, starting on the evening of the 24th day.

As you will find in most Bibles, Psalm 119 has 22 sections.  These sections are noted in the Prayer Books also; four are grouped together in the evenings and five are grouped together in the mornings.  These groups come from the structure of the original Hebrew poetry: an acrostic.  The acrostic is actually a fairly common poetic structure in the Hebrew Bible: it’s a simple matter of beginning each successive line with the next letter of the alphabet.  A handful of Psalms are acrostics, each chapter of the book of Lamentations is a sort of acrostic (well, chapter five is an anti-acrostic, but we’ll check that out later), and the occasional bit of prophetic writing also uses this device.  Psalm 119, however, does this to the extreme: it has eight lines (verses) beginning with the first letter (aleph), then eight beginning with the second letter (beth), and so on, all the way through the alphabet.  Obviously this effect is lost in translation, but many Bibles (and most if not all Prayer Books) note these eight-verse groupings.

One result of the acrostic structure is that the Psalm doesn’t have another organizing principle or logical flow.  It’s a series of meditations on God’s law and commands (etc.), with little sense of progression from one section to the next.  In that regard it’s like some of our modern songs (Christian or otherwise), dwelling on ideas, topics or feelings, but not developing a logical structure for the lyrics.  This means that, in the context of the liturgy, we can fruitfully deal with each section of Psalm 119 as if it were its own psalm, without missing much context.

In medieval and early Prayer Book tradition, therefore, it was appointed that the worshiping congregation place the Glory be to the Father at the end of each section of Psalm 119.  Today, Prayer Books tend to be ambiguous – we can either say that end the end of the whole Psalmody section of the Daily Office or at the end of each Psalm.  But be it known here that if you opt for the latter option, which was the way of the early Prayer Books, you may even do so with each eight-verse section of Psalm 119.

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Follow-up: obscure Christmas songs

Near the beginning of the month, I made the wacky suggestion that in order to get through the massive pile of Christmas hymns and carols in most Anglican hymnals, you could sing a different one every day all the way until the feast of the Presentation (February 2nd).  Well, as that date approaches, why don’t we check in on one of the lesser-known Christmas songs lurking in the hymnals.

And by “lesser-known”, I’m referring to common American use.  If you know and love this hymn, don’t be offended; be proud you know it!

From heaven high I come to you was written by Martin Luther in 1535; he may have written the tune also which bears this song’s name, Vom Himmel Hoch.  You can hear the piano part on YouTube (though the text translation will be a little different).

Despite how most arrangements like to shorten things, this hymn could have seven verses.  The first three are in the voice of the angels.

From heaven high I come to you: I bring you tidings good and new;
Good tidings of great joy I Bring; Thereof will I both say and sing:

For you a little child is born Of God’s own chosen maid this morn,
A fair and tender baby bright, To be your joy and your delight.

Lo, he is Christ the Lord indeed, Our God, to guide you in your need;
And he will be your Savior, strong To cleanse you from all sin and wrong.

Like the Gloria in Excelsis, these words proclaim the saving purposes of God in Jesus Christ.  But unlike the Gloria, the hymn then continues with another three verses of application.  The voice of the angels is now the voice of the heart, exhorting one another.

Now let us all right merry be, And with the shepherds go to see
God’s own dear Son within the stall, His gift, bestowed upon us all.

Mark well, my heart; look well, mine eyes; Who is it in the manger lies?
What child is this, so young and fair?  It is my Jesus lieth there.

Ah, dearest Jesus, be my guest; Soft be the bed where thou wilt rest,
A little shrine within my heart, That thou and I may never part.

The pious desire to worship the newborn Savior at his manger leads to an invitation – may Jesus come into our own home.  Let us make a bed, a shrine, within our hearts to care for and cherish the Savior forever.  Evangelical culture often speaks of “inviting Jesus into your heart” and “putting Jesus on the throne of your life.”  This hymn does exactly that, with poetry, grace, solemnity, and joy.

The final verse is a doxology:

Praise God above on his high throne, Who giveth us his only Son.
The angel hosts rejoice in bliss To chant a glad New Year like this.  Amen.

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A Canticle for Epiphanytide: Surge illuminare

In the “Supplemental Canticles” document which will be appended to the Daily Office in our new Prayer Book, Canticle #2 is marked “especially suitable for use during the season after Epiphany.”  Well, now we’re there, so let’s look at how to make use of this Canticle.

Throughout the history of Western liturgy, there can be found many Psalms and Canticles that get special treatment and use in various offices and rites.  The early Prayer Books were generally simple and minimalist about them, but still allowed a couple options in most cases.  If you trace the continuity of the Prayer Book Daily Office from its monastic predecessor, some basic principles can be drawn.  Most importantly:

  • The three Gospel Canticles (Benedictus, Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis) are said daily: morning (matins), evening (vespers), and night (compline).
  • The Te Deum is said on Sundays and feast days.

So, when looking at the Canticles of the Daily Office in current Prayer Book tradition, the usual best practice is to keep the Benedictus in the Morning and the Magnificat in the Evening, and replace the Te Deum or the Nunc Dimittis.  For these “seasonal” Canticles in our present list, it is the recommendation of this Customary to use most of them on weekdays in place of the Te Deum.  Perhaps, starting this week, you can try out Surge illuminare as the first Canticle in Morning Prayer?

What’s especially neat about this canticle in particular is that it was the Old Testament reading back on the Day of the Epiphany (January 6th), so to have parts of it as a Canticle in the subsequent season is to maintain a thematic and textual link to where this whole section of the calendar began.

Arise, shine, for your light has come, *
and the glory of the Lord has dawned upon you.

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Looking Ahead: two Friday Feasts

Happy Friday!  Happy Epiphanytide!  It’s unusual to have such a long beginning to the Epiphany season, having a whole week between the Day (January 6th) and the first Sunday.  It’s as if the wise men are staying to party with the holy family extra long this year 🙂

As we look ahead at the next few weeks, a succession of major feast days await us.  The two remaining this month are both on Fridays: the Confession of Saint Peter on the 18th and the Conversion of Saint Paul on the 25th.  The former was not in the historic prayer books, but now adorns our modern calendar.  If your church has a regular Friday worship service, these two holidays stand as special opportunities to celebrate the work of the Gospel in the New Testament as well as to flesh out the Epiphany season even further.

For, although we don’t know the dates of the original events – when Peter declared “you are the Christ, the son of the living God”, and when Paul encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus – it is appropriate that we celebrate these critical gospel moments during the Epiphany season.  Both of these holidays celebrate epiphanies, revelations, or showings of who Jesus is.  They fit right in to the season’s traditional overarching theme.

Eight days after that will be February 2nd, a Saturday, when the feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple and the Purification of Mary is observed.  That is the 40th day after Christmas, matching the event being 40 days after the birth of Jesus.  We’ll hear more about that when it draws near, but it’s good to mark one’s calendar ahead of time so these major holidays of the church year don’t surprise us when they arrive.

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The Epiphany Season (modern)

Yesterday we looked at the historic Anglican calendar for the Epiphany season.  Now let’s take a look at what the ACNA calendar has for us this year.  There are six parts to this summary: the First Sunday, the Second Sunday, the Epistles throughout the season, the Gospels throughout the season, Mission Sunday, and the Last Sunday.

#1: The First Sunday after the Epiphany

Since the post-Vatican-2 revisions to the liturgical calendar, the first Sunday is about the Baptism of Christ.  All three years of the cycle recount the story to us, taken from Matthew, Mark, and Luke, year by year.  This year (Year C) is Luke’s Gospel’s year.  The Collect and all the lessons revolve around the Baptism of Christ, and is rich with teaching and preaching and devotional material: insight into the Trinity, revealing the divinity of Christ, insight into the Old/New Covenants, contemplation on the origins of Christian Baptism, considering the call to Christian mission.

#2: The Second Sunday after the Epiphany

The Gospel lesson on the 2nd Sunday is taken from John chapters 1 and 2.  Years A and B are from chapter 1, dealing with the gathering of Jesus’ first disciples from John the Baptist.  Year C is the story of the Wedding at Cana, which was also the traditional Gospel lesson for this Sunday.  The first two years, therefore, play into the “mission” orientation of the modern Epiphany season, while the third year (this year) reflects more of the original epiphany-as-revealing theme for the season.

#3: The Epistles throughout the Season

From the 2nd Sunday through the 8th, in all three years, the Epistle lessons highlight much of 1 Corinthians and a little of 2 Corinthians.  This is done brilliantly, breaking the book into three logical sections: chapters 1-4 in Year A, chapters 6-9 (with a little of 2 Corinthians) in Year B, and chapters 12-15 in Year C.  As far as I’m aware, this has nothing to do with the Epiphany season as such.  Rather, it is functioning like the modern Trinitytide season by focusing on mostly-sequential readings week by week through the epistles and gospels.  The book of 1 Corinthians is long enough and rich enough that it takes up the Epiphanytide Sundays in all three years.  The downside of this is that if your preacher decides to preach through this epistle, people are not likely to remember where they left off the year before.

#4: The Gospels throughout the Season

As mentioned above, the bulk of the modern Epiphany season simply walks through the early part of the Gospel books: Matthew 4-6 in Year A, Mark 1-2 in Year B, and Luke 4-6 in Year C.  The lectionary is carefully designed such that where you leave off at the end of the Epiphany season is where you’ll pick up after Trinity Sunday.  In that spirit, the Roman Catholics refer to Epiphanytide and Trinitytide both as “Ordinary Time”… the latter is merely the continuation of the former.  In other words, the two green seasons have no thematic or theological character of their own in the modern calendar, but are instead devoted to the sequential and systematic reading of the New Testament Epistles and Gospels.  This is where the Revised Common Lectionary (in its several versions) is basically trying to act like the Daily Office lectionary, for better or worse.

#5: The Second-Last Sunday

New to the ACNA Prayer Book is the invention of “Mission Sunday” or “World Mission Sunday”.  Technically, the rubrics admit that this is an optional observance, and may actually be placed on any Sunday in Epiphanytide excluding the First and Last.  The Collect for (World) Mission Sunday is actually the same one as Epiphany III, and the Gospel lessons are all evangelism themed: Matthew 9:35-38 in Year A, Matthew 28:16-20 in Year B, and John 20:19-31 in Year C.  All of these Gospel lessons, as well as most (if not all?) of the other lessons, can be found elsewhere in the lectionary.  Therefore, with neither a unique collect nor unique lessons, it is my opinion that Mission Sunday is redundant in the liturgical calendar, and thus it is the recommendation of this Customary that Mission Sunday be left unused, unless the second-last Sunday happens to be Epiphany III, in which case you might as well go for it because the Collect is the same either way.  Instead, consider using Mission Sunday on a weekday?

#6: The Last Sunday

The length of the Epiphany season varies from year to year because its beginning is fixed by the simple calendar (January 6th) while its ending is determined by the lunar calendar (how the date of Easter is determined, and therefore the seasons before and after Easter).  When Easter is later, as is the case this year, Epiphanytide is longer and Trinitytide is shorter.  The traditional calendar had a three-Sunday buffer zone between Epiphanytide and Lent, but the modern calendar just has one Sunday: the Last Sunday before Lent.  Despite the fact that the bulk of the Epiphany season is based on sequential readings and not on any epiphany theme, the Last Sunday sees a return to the epiphany theme by focusing on the Transfiguration of Christ.  Although the Transfiguration already has its own holiday (August 6th), the Last Sunday between Epiphany and Lent takes that event and gives it a different spin, noting it as a final revealing of Christ’s divine glory before he descends the mountain and heads for Jerusalem where he will soon suffer and die.  For all the complaints one might raise against the modern calendar and lectionary, the function of this last Sunday is brilliantly devised.  Simply comparing its Collect with that for Transfiguration Day is a fruitful devotional study in itself.

 

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The Epiphany Season (Traditional)

From the traditional calendar to the modern, the Epiphany season is the one that probably has undergone the largest transformation.  Although the majority of us are using the modern calendar, it’s helpful sometimes to look at how things used to be.  It may be that some echoes can be found of the old in the new.

7

After the three-fold Epiphany Day followed a series of Sundays each with their own epiphany, or showing, of Jesus to be God.

  1. Luke 2:41 (The Finding of Jesus in the Temple) with Romans 12:1-5
  2. John 2 (Wedding at Cana) with Romans 12:6-16
  3. Matthew 8 (Healing of the Leper and the Centurion’s Servant) with Romans 12:16-21
  4. Matthew 8:23-34 (Calming the Storm and Exorcising Legion) with Romans 13:1-7
  5. Matthew 13:24 (Parable of the Wheat and the Tares) with Colossians 3:12-17
  6. Matthew 24:23 (Sign of the Coming of the Son of Man) with 1 John 3:1-8

There were fewer Epiphany Sundays in the old calendar because there was a three-week transition period between Epiphanytide and Lent… we’ll explore that when we get there.  Suffice it to observe here that the theme of the Epiphany – revealing Jesus to be God – continues for three to six weeks after the Epiphany Day itself.  Although the modern calendar does not intentionally pursue this theme in its lectionary, it is still a theme that preacher and reader alike can watch for throughout this season of the church year, allowing the “principle feast” of the Epiphany to light our way through this section of the calendar before moving on to the penitential pastures of Lent.

If you have a regular weekday Communion service, pulling up these traditional Epiphany Sundays might be a great idea.  With the exception of the 2nd Sunday this year (Year C of the 3-year cycle), there’ll be no overlap between the old and new at all.

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How can I become a “liturgy expert”?

I do not think of myself as a liturgy expert.  I often have questions that crop up, prompting me to seek out answers from a book on my shelf or a contact on Facebook.  But I have learned that I’ve spent enough time with the liturgy of the Anglican tradition – the Prayer Books – that I know “more than the average bear” about this stuff, and am in a position to help others learn about it.

It must be admitted that liturgy became a passion of mine during my ordination discernment process.  I was somewhat interested beforehand, but as I entered into the ministry it became my most prominent area of study and inquiry.  Certainly, having a passion for something can help one to learn a lot about it.  But there are tangible ways that you, too, can build up your comfort level with and knowledge of the Anglican Prayer Book tradition.

  1. Get to know one Prayer Book really well.  Before you branch out and examine the history and compare & contrast different books, settle in with one volume and edition.  I found that having a strong anchor first enables more fruitful exploration of other Prayer Books later on.  In my case it was the 1979 book (traditionalists, please don’t grimace too much!).  I dug around its pages, read its rubrics, physically used it at regular Communion services and in the Daily Office both alone and with others.  When someone died, I prayed and read the burial rites.  When someone was planning a wedding, I studied the marriage rite.  I used its psalter and lectionaries.  I tried out the different rites and options for the Office; and when I became a priest, I tried out most of the Communion rites too.  This familiarity with a particular Prayer Book gave me a place to stand from which to explore other liturgies.
  2. Physically use a Prayer Book on a regular basis.  This is part of point one, but needs to be mentioned separately.  If you’re mainly using an online version of the Daily Office like Mission St. Clare or legereme, then there’s a lot you’re missing.  You’re not necessarily seeing all the rubrics. The options and choices within the liturgy are being made for you.  The Psalms and lessons are provided to you without any page-flipping or book-switching.  If you only ever use a printed bulletin at the Communion service, same deal: you may be getting used to some Prayer Book content, but not the Prayer Book itself.  A missal (or reusable booklet for multiple worship services) can alleviate this loss a little bit, but not completely.  Physically bring the appropriate Prayer Book to church, and follow along in its pages.
  3. Choose an historic Prayer Book as your “second choice”.  Once you’re well-grounded in one book (which for most of my readers will either be the 1979 book or the still-finishing 2019 book), then it’s time to put a second foot in our history.  Obviously there are multiple choices, but I would recommend two possibilities: the American 1928 or the English 1662.  Between the two, I most recommend the 1662, as it is said to be the “standard” of Anglican liturgy worldwide.  All national variants trace their history back to (and through) the 1662.  It may not be perfect, but it’s a sure and certain standard.
    Follow its Sunday lectionary – read those Collects & lessons before or after church each week.  Try out its Daily Office from time to time, perhaps even take a year to use its daily lectionary.  Study its Communion service and trace the different shape that results from the prayers in their unique arrangement.  Consider (and ask others) what the significance is of the many variances between its order and the American order we’re familiar with today.
  4. Check out lots of books!  With one foot in a contemporary book that you regularly and actively use, and the other foot firmly planted in the historical tradition of Anglican liturgy, you’ll then be ready to wade into the surprisingly-deep river of Anglican liturgical texts out there.  Perhaps now the differences between 1549 and 1552 will stand out more than what you “heard about” in a seminary class somewhere.  The English proposed book from the 1920’s, their Alternative Service Book from 1980, and Common Worship from 2000 may now provide a more coherent thread of liturgical experimentation and exploration.  The African liturgy books will have more context, as will the myriads of proposed Prayer Books by the various American churches before GAFCON called for the creation of the ACNA.

This will also benefit your ministry too.

Sometimes people accuse us “liturgy nerds” of having our heads too buried in books.  We spend more time obsessing over the forms of worship than we do caring for the flock, supposedly.  But in truth, someone who is truly invested in the liturgy is actually strengthening his ability to minister to others.  Just as familiarity with the Bible helps us to bring the Word of God into the lives of others, so too does familiarity with the Prayer Book help us to bring the prayers of the church into the lives of others.  A well-seasoned Bible verse can be a real help to a person in spiritual need, and the ability to give them the reference so they look it up again later is a real gift to them!  Similarly, the right Collect, Canticle, or Psalm can be a real comfort or inspiration, and the ability to show them where to find it in the Prayer Book for revisiting will also be a valuable gift.

Sure, being a liturgy nerd just for the sake of being a liturgy nerd isn’t going to be of much use to anyone.  No passion, when undirected, is of any good, really.  But if you want to grow in the Anglican spiritual and pastoral tradition, deepening your understanding of and appreciation for the liturgy is one of the best things you can do.

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All those extra Christmas Carols

If you’ve got an Anglican hymn book such the Episcopalian 1940 hymnal or the Book of Common Praise 2017, you may have noticed that there are about sixteen gajillion Christmas songs in there.  Okay, between 50 and 60.  Still, that’s too many to sing in 12 short days, unlike most seasons in which the number of hymns are easily confined to the Sundays of their time of year.  On top of that, many churches have a tendency to stick with the seasonal songs their members know best, and repeat a core repertoire every year… not to mention those who who add in contemporary songs.

But hymnals exist for a very good reason: analogous to the Prayer Book, they serve to provide us with a set of authorized-and-approved words by which we may worship God and ourselves be edified in return.  With scores of Christmas songs available to us but untouched, who knows what we might be missing out on!

To that end I would suggest that one way to explore the lengthy Christmas section of a hymnal would be to appoint one or two hymns each day to the Daily Office or other regular devotions on your own.  With over fifty songs for this little season, and accounting for an Epiphany section beginning on January 6th, you can stretch Christmas an entire 40 days to its final wrap-up holy day of the year: The Presentation of our Lord in the Temple and the Purification of Mary (February 2nd).

Eventually this Customary will have a sample “hymnal in a year” plan but for now feel free to try out some of these principles on your own!

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Christmas & December Psalms

Merry Christmas!

If you’re reading this on Christmas morning… well, props to you for being a liturgy nerd I guess.  And I’ll keep this short so you get back to whatever you’re “supposed to be doing” at this time.

In the 1662 Prayer Book, Christmas Day is one of the six days in the year that gets its own Psalms Appointed, interrupting the 30-day cycle.

Morning Prayer: 19, 45, and 85
Evening Prayer: 89, 110, 132

If at all possible, I strongly encourage you to replace the “Day 25” Psalms with these.  It’ll make the Offices a little bit longer, but you will find they are festively appropriate for the birth of our Lord.

And, in case you’re concerned that this means you’ll have to skip the Psalms for the 25th Day of the month, fear not!  Because December has 31 days in it, you can pick up with Day 25 on the 26th, Day 26 on the 27th, and so forth such that you finish the Psalms at the end of the month.  If you can stand being “off a day” for a week, I highly recommend it.

Anyway, go have a merry Christmas.

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Looking Ahead: the Christmas Day options

Christmas is just a few days away, as you all are undoubtedly aware.  If you’re a liturgical planner for your congregation, chances are the big decisions have already been made.  If you’ve got family plans, chances are they’ve already been worked out.  In either case, perhaps there are still last-minute details to sift through – isn’t that always the way?

But perhaps there is still some room to consider the rhythm of worship through Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  It is my preference, and the practice of this Customary, to start with a “maximalist” approach: assume that every option in the Prayer Book is to be used; individuals can then use that big picture to work out how it can be reduced and enacted in their own contexts.

Service #1: Evening Prayer on December 24th

Following ancient Jewish (as well as Christian liturgical) tradition, the holiday begins on the evening before.  Christmas, therefore, begins with Evening Prayer.  The ACNA lessons that evening are Song of Songs 1 and Luke 22:1-38.  That Old Testament lesson is an interesting choice, for reading the love poems coinciding with Christmas lends an allegorical interpretive aid: as we celebrate the spousal love described in the Song, we also celebrate the divine love of God that led to his incarnation as one of us.  The New Testament reading is just part of the sequential reading through Luke at the end of the year.  The Collect for Christmas Eve is:

O God, you have caused this holy night to shine with the brightness of the true Light: Grant that we, who have known the mystery of that Light on earth, may also enjoy him perfectly in heaven; where with you and the Holy Spirit he lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

This will be used at the following Communion service too.

Service #2: Evening Communion (or Vigil) on December 24th

Earlier drafts of our liturgy (I think following the style of the 1979 book) called this option Christmas Day I, but the most recent updates have gotten more specific: this is Christmas Eve with its own Collect and lessons.  The Collect is shared above.  The lessons are Isaiah 9:1-7, Psalm 96, Titus 2:11-14, and Luke 2:1-14(15-20).  The parentheses refer to an optional lengthening of the reading.  Just as the angels appeared to the shepherds at night, and the birth of Christ seemed to happen overnight, so we get the Bible’s primary nativity narrative in the evening, or vigil, service.  Traditionally this would be a late-night service, after when Evening Prayer would normally be said, making it analogous in function to the Easter Vigil.

Service #3: Sunrise Communion on December 25th

Just as many churches have a sunrise service for Easter, the following collect and lessons are the Prayer Book’s option for a sunrise Christmas service.  This may be an “impossible” idea for families with children, who want to rush to the tree first thing in the morning.  But it’s worth noting that some traditions, particularly across the pond, left the Christmas day gift-opening festivities until after Christmas lunch or dinner, making an early morning service actually preferable.  The lessons for this service are Isiah 62:6-12, Psalm 97, Titus 3:4-7, and Luke 2:(1-14)15-20.  The Gospel is the same as the night before, basically for the same reason; but the the Old Testament & Psalm and Epistle lessons are different.  There are so many excellent Old Testament lessons for Christmas, the variety is just worth celebrating.  This Epistle (Titus 3) is found shortly after last night’s epistle (Titus 2), so there’s a sort of sequential logic to that as well.  The Collect for this day is:

Almighty God, you have given your only-begotten Son to take our nature upon him, and to be born [this day] of a pure virgin: Grant that we, who have been born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with you and the same Spirit be honor and glory, now and for ever. Amen.

Service #4: Morning Prayer

Now the duplications start coming in.  The lessons at Morning Prayer are Isaiah 9:1-8 (the same as the Christmas Eve Communion service, plus a verse) and Revelation 17 (just part of the sequential reading of the month).  It’s more than a little unfortunate that chapter 17 is one of the more unpleasant chapters in Revelation; we’re stuck reading about the Whore of Babylon on Christmas morning.  I suppose you could redeem this unpleasant oversight with the observation that the precious baby Jesus came into the world precisely to deal with such evils.  Still, not a very festive reading… oh well.

Service #5: the Principle Communion

By “principle” I mean “primary.”  This is the one that best matches the historic Prayer Book lectionary, and therefore ought to be the one that a church uses if there’s only one Communion service on Christmas Day.  The lessons are Isaiah 52:7-12, Psalm 98, Hebrews 1:1-12, and John 1:1-18.  You’ll note that the three Communion services (the night before the sunrise, and the principle) make use of sequential psalms: 96, 97, and 98.  These are very festive psalms and lend themselves to celebrations of all sorts.  The non-liturgical Christian today may be surprised at the choice of John 1 for the Christmas Gospel: what about the delightful nativity story of Jesus and his family in Bethlehem?  The answer is theological.  John 1 tells us of Jesus’ true origins; his eternal divine pre-existence with the Father.  Hebrews 1 backs this up, and provides another observation of Christ’s incarnation in human history.  Where the Vigil and the Sunrise services capture the drama of Christmas, this Principle service captures the substance of Christmas.

Service #6: Evening Prayer on December 25th

Christmas Day ends with Evening Prayer, where the lessons are to be Song of Songs 2 and Luke 2:1-14.  This is another instance of duplication – we’ll already have heard this Gospel lesson at the Vigil and/or Sunrise Communion services.  I guess this way, if you don’t make it to any Communion service and only say the Office at home, you’ll at least get the nativity story here.

Applying this to your personal or family context

Ultimately, a Customary cannot tell you how to “take the liturgy” home, exactly.  Nor can I, as a writer, dole out universal advice on what works best for you.  Families with children have one situation, empty-nesters have another.  Some people travel and will be on the road at typical prayer times.  Some people have lots of church services to go to and others will have none.  You’ve got to work with the situation you’ve got.

In the case of my tiny congregation, all we’ve got is the Evening Prayer service on Christmas Eve.  Knowing that we won’t be offering any Communion service to attend, I’ve planned for the New Testament lesson (Luke 22) to be changed to Luke 2:1-20.  Song of Songs 1 will be staying.

As you look at how to handle your personal and/or family devotions, consider what your church will be celebrating together.  Plan your worship at home in conjunction with the corporate liturgy, so that you can have as rich a celebration of Christmas as possible!

And yet, the liturgical context for celebrating Christmas is even bigger: there’s still the following Sunday to consider! But I’ll save that for another entry on another day.  In the meantime, have a blessed final couple days of Advent.