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Evening Hymn: The day thou gavest

Evening Prayer used to be a a much more common feature of Anglican worship than it is today.  You can tell just by looking at old hymnals (such as the Episcopalian hymnal of 1940) and observing that there are far more Evening hymns than Morning hymns.  And several of the Evening hymns in the Anglican repertoire are absolute gems of English hymnody!  If you’re an American under the age of 50, or new to the Anglican tradition at any age, chances are you’ve hardly ever heard any of these beauties before.

There are two points in our Evening Prayer liturgy where inserting a hymn comes most naturally.  The first place is after the Invitatory: the Phos hilaron has a rubric above it saying “The following or some other suitable hymn or Psalm may be sung or said.”  Because the Phos hilaron itself is a new addition to the Prayer Book (only dating back to 1979) we are well within our traditional rights to sing something else in its place.  The second spot in the liturgy is after the three Collects: “Here may be sung a hymn or anthem”.  This is the most traditional placement for a hymn, and is a great way to break up the formal collects of the liturgy and the additional intercessions and thanksgivings that may follow.

Might I recommend, this evening, one of the best of the best?  The day thou gavest is a beautiful hymn, both musically and lyrically, reflecting upon the practical and theological meaning of the end of the daytime, awareness of the cycle of daily prayer across the globe, and the subsequent unity of Christ’s Church.

Check it out on YouTube if you want to hear it first, grab the lyrics online, or pick up any Anglican hymnal and sing or read it at Evening Prayer tonight!

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A Minor Saint: Alfred the Great

The Prayer Book tradition has always included “black letter days”, that is, commemorations listed in a calendar of various saints of old.  They are distinct from the Major Feast Days: those each have their own Collect and Lessons in the Prayer Book, at least one special reading in the Daily Office, and are expected to be observed by all.  The commemorations in the calendar, variously called “lesser feasts” or “minor saints days”, however, are optional.  The early Prayer Books didn’t even contain resources by which these days could be observed in the liturgy, they were simply points of reference and remembrance.

As time has passed, standard resources for the observance of these lesser feasts have come together.  Typically, the idea is to have a small selection of Collects and Lessons for different types or categories of saints (one for Bishops, one for Martyrs, one for Monastics, etc.).  Over time, however, more and more of the minor saints received unique sets of Collects and Lessons.  The Episcopal Church, USA, ended up with many of these in its volume, Lesser Feasts and Fasts.  So far, it seems that the ACNA is moving back toward the simpler approach by providing 9 thematic Collects and Lessons for these minor saints days.

Let’s say you want to observe today’s commemoration, King Alfred the Great, at a Friday Eucharist service.  He is known for his work in fixing up the church in his realm, and renewing Anglo-Saxon society, so the categories Reformer of the Church and Renewer of Society both fit, as well as the generic “Of Any Commemoration” options.  The Collects are the end of this document, and the Lessons at the end of this.

As an aside, if you want the new Prayer Book to print the Collects and Lessons together to cut down on unnecessary page-flipping, please join my cause and send them an email! liturgytaskforce@anglicanchurch.net

Or, if you want to make use of what the Episcopalians came up with a little over ten years ago:

O Sovereign Lord, you brought your servant Alfred to a troubled throne that he might establish peace in a ravaged land and revive learning and the arts among the people: Awake in us also a keen desire to increase our understanding while we are in this world, and an eager longing to reach that endless life where all will be made clear; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Wisdom 6:1–3,9–12,24–25 (wisdom literature about wise kings and rulers)

Psalm 21:1–7 (a king who trusts in God) or 112:1–9 (the blessedness of the righteous)

Luke 6:43–49 (good and evil fruit; wise and foolish builders)

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Communion without Communion

One of the realities of modern church life is that the vast majority of us only open our doors for public worship on Sunday mornings.  A lot of churches have mid-week programs, sometimes even worship services, but it takes a great deal of searching, nation-wide, to find a church that actually offers the full pattern of Prayer Book worship: daily Morning and Evening Prayer, and Holy Communion every Sunday and major feast day listed in the Prayer Book.  It would take a radical, serious, and long-term effort to restore the ancient rhythm of Christian worship to the public space of our church buildings.

Instead, the Daily Office is commonly perceived and treated as a family or private devotion.  Indeed, the Office can work that way – the English Reformers intentionally simplified precisely so anyone literate could pray it!  And although the Office is grossly underused today, it is at least available wherever a Prayer Book is to be found.

What is less accessible is the service of Holy Communion.  You need a priest or bishop to preside and celebrate the sacrament.  Oh, actually, you could just have a Deacon lead the service and distribute pre-consecrated bread and wine.  Wait, no, even a licensed lay minister can do that.  Ah, but even that requires planning, resources, and trickiest of all, an open place to gather and people to gather.  The majority of us simply do not have access to a Communion service on most major feast days throughout the year.  What to do?

Consider taking a page from historical Anglican practice: Antecommunion.  First of all, make sure you don’t pronounce it so it sounds like “anti-communion.”  This ante-Communion, that is, the Service of Holy Communion before the actual celebration of Communion.  If you don’t have a church to go to, offering the primary liturgy of the holy day, you can read the first “half” of it yourself!  Let’s look at how to do that:

First, grab one of the Communion services from the ACNA website.  The Collects for the Christian Year and the Sunday, Holy Day, Commemorations Lectionary are further down the page.  Today is the feast of St. James of Jerusalem, so find his Collect & lessons.  Grab a Bible, and you’ve got everything you need.  The order of service will look basically like this:

  • Acclamation: “Worthy is the Lord our God…”
  • The Collect for Purity
  • The Summary of the Law & The Kyrie
  • The Gloria in excelsis
  • The Collect of the Day
  • The Lessons (Acts 15:12-22a, Psalm 1, 1 Corinthians 15:1-11, Matthew 13:54-58)
  • Instead of a sermon, perhaps you can spend a minute in quiet reflection on the lessons… maybe look at some study notes if your Bible has them.
  • The Nicene Creed
  • The Prayers of the People
  • Confession of Sin
  • If you’re not a priest you shouldn’t declare the Absolution, and if you are a priest but praying this on your own, it might seem inappropriate to absolve a non-existent gathering, so perhaps use the Prayer for Forgiveness from the Daily Office.
  • Wrap up with a blessing from the Office and/or a Dismissal from the end of the Communion service.

Side note: if you’re using a classical Prayer Book, this works almost the same way.  Conclude with the Words of Comfort after the Confession, and either add a Blessing from the end of the Daily Office, or, if you’ve got the 1662 in hand, there are a few Collects provided at the end of the Communion service to say in place of the Communion prayers for this very scenario.

If you’re a priest, this is an excellent way to deepen your Eucharistic devotion at the altar even when you’re unable to celebrate Communion on a given day.

But for anyone, this is a marvelous devotional opportunity, one of the best ways to strengthen your roots in our common life of worship if your church isn’t open that day, and also a really good Bible Study opportunity, as a feast day’s readings usually speak together with one voice more clearly than the average Sunday morning’s lessons.

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The Song of the Three Young Men

Happy Saturday!  As you pray through Morning Prayer today, consider changing up the first canticle if you don’t normally do so.  The Te Deum is of course a beautiful hymn of the Early Church, but sometimes it’s edifying to dip into some of the other Canticles the Prayer Book has to offer.

Canticle #10 in the ACNA book, Benedicite, omnia opera Domini, is noted to be “especially suitable for use on Saturday.  Since today is not a special commemoration, why not shift this marvelous canticle in the place of the Te Deum this morning?

The Benedicite is a simplified text drawn from the Song of the Three Young Men, attributed to Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael in the fiery furnace in the middle of Daniel 3.  The full text is one of the “Additions to Daniel” in the Greek Old Testament, and is therefore useful “for example of life and instruction of manners” as the Articles of Religion say.  Therefore, as a worship text, it is as close to the Psalms as possible without actually being numbered among them.  With the Church’s addition of the Triune name of God at the end of the Canticle, it is a wonderful expression of praise, drawing all of creation into the eternal song, much like Psalm 148.  Enjoy it!

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Reading Pace

A major feature of any liturgy is reading.  Appointed readers read Scripture lessons, a Deacon (or Priest) reads a Gospel lesson at the Communion service, everyone reads prayers and Creeds together.  Sometimes it’s like a dialogue, going back and forth between the minister and the people; sometimes it’s a block reading, like everyone reading a Confession together.  One of the issues that can crop up is the pacing of these readings.

On his or her own, sometimes a reader gets nervous.  This is perfectly understandable, and experience and practice works wonders here.  But it must be cautioned that a nervous or inexperienced reader can rush through the words, tripping over or slurring them together.  Or sometimes the opposite – the gravity of reading the Word of God overwhelms them such that they end up reading it very slowly.  Public readings ought to be read at a natural pace, such that the commas, semicolons, and periods are all clear and distinct.  We want the reading to have some dramatic weight, but we don’t want to overdo it, William Shatner style:

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The same applies to congregation readings.  Be it a Psalm, a Collect, Creed, or other prayer or reading, the people need to go at a natural pace.

If we read too fast together, the issues are many:

  • people could run out of breath
  • there’s no time to think about or process what you’re actually saying
  • it communicates a lack of care, value, or import to the words
  • visitors unfamiliar with the liturgy will feel swamped and overwhelmed

Similarly, reading too slowly can mask the overall coherence of the reading or prayer.

If your congregation has a pacing problem, it’s really upon the leaders to fix it.  The clergy or other ministers who lead the various services need to set the pace, even instruct the congregation to speed up or slow down.  Reading and praying together is a spiritual exercise requiring practice and intentionality.  Western culture sometimes makes this difficult for us – we don’t want to end up like the Borg from Star Trek, we don’t want to lose our individuality, we easily mistrust corporate liturgical action and prefer “personal” and “relational” things.  So for many people these acts of common prayer and common reading is a lost art that has to be re-learned.  Let’s not beat people over the head with this, but we do need to be aware that actual training, practice, and learning is involved!

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Halfway through the month…

We’re about halfway through the month now.  How are you keeping up with the monthly Psalter?  Now that it’s the 15th, we’re at Psalms 75-77 this morning and the massive Psalm 78 this evening.

If you’re making a special point of praying all the Psalms this month and catching up on the backlog if you miss an Office, consider making use of Midday Prayer and Compline.  Although they have their own recommended Psalms, there’s no shame in swapping out those for the Morning & Evening Psalms that you missed!  You could even plan ahead – if you know you’ll be out and busy one evening, you could shift over some of those evening Psalms into the Midday Office and perhaps save some for Compline at bedtime.

This evening, though, you’ve got Psalm 78 to contend with – the longest Psalm that is read in one go.  If you feel the need to break it up, the first 39 verses comprise a decent unit of the Psalm, and verse 40 to the end is a good second “half.”  It’s an historical psalm, to a large extent, so the overlapping stories of those two halves are mutually informative, so it doesn’t “ruin” the experience of Psalm 78 if you divide it in two that way.  Like any other portion of Scripture, there is merit both in experiencing it in smaller pieces as well as in its entirety.

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Additional / Occasional Prayers & Thanksgivings

Prayer Books have always contained a section of extra collects and prayers on various subjects.  Most of the historic Prayer Books have placed them after the Morning Office, with the intention that they be used as additions to the Office.

The 1979 Prayer Book (and presumably the 2019 book also) did something different.  On the plus side, the collection of additional prayers and thanksgivings was vastly expanded and indexed for ease of use.  On the negative side, they were placed as a sort of appendix towards the very back of the book such that there was no clear implication that they are meant to enrich and expand the Daily Office.

Since Saturday is a common day of rest for many, for families to gather, to enjoy the outdoors, perhaps this is a good opportunity to use prayers #26-30, for the Natural Order!  You can find the full list of Occasion Prayers and Thanksgivings here.  Or, here are the prayers concerning the natural order:

26. For Joy in God’s Creation

O heavenly Father, you have filled the world with beauty: Open our eyes to behold your gracious hand in all your works; that, rejoicing in your whole creation, we may learn to serve you with gladness; for the sake of him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

27. For Stewardship of Creation

O merciful Creator, your hand is open wide to satisfy the needs of every living creature: Make us always thankful for your loving providence; and grant that we, remembering the account that we must one day give, may be faithful stewards of your good gifts; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

28. For the Harvest of Lands and Waters

O gracious Father, you open your hand and fill all living things with plenteousness: Bless the lands and waters, and multiply the harvests of the world; send forth your Spirit, and renew the face of the earth; show your loving-kindness, that our land may yield its increase; and save us from selfish use of what you provide, that men and women everywhere may give you thanks; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Or the Collects assigned for Rogation Days

29. For Rain

O God, our heavenly Father, by your Son Jesus Christ you have promised to those who seek your kingdom and its righteousness all things necessary to sustain their life: Send us, we pray, in this time of need, such moderate rain and showers, that we may receive the fruits of the earth, to our comfort and to your honor; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

30. In Time of Scarcity and Famine

O God, our heavenly Father, whose blessed Son taught us to seek our daily bread from you: Behold the affliction of your people, and send us swift aid in our time of necessity. Increase the fruits of the earth by your heavenly benediction; and grant that we, receiving your gifts with thankful hearts, may use them to your glory and the relief of those in need; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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A Special Pastoral-Liturgical Opportunity

A month from today is 11/11 – Veteran’s Day in the USA, Remembrance Day in several other countries; originally Armistice Day, commemorating the end of the Great War (WW1) in 1918.  This year is the centenary of the Armistice and the institution of this multi-national state holiday.  And it falls on a Sunday!

Normally state holidays like this do not take precedence over the regular Sunday Propers (Collect & Lessons), though in England, I believe Remembrance Day is big enough to observe on Sunday.  Given the special timing of this particular November 11th, however, it struck this small-church Vicar as an opportune moment to break the usual rules of precedence in our Calendar and plan to celebrate Armistice Day on Sunday 11/11.  And yes, I got my Bishop’s permission to do this!

If you have veterans in your congregation, as I do, this could be a very special opportunity to honor and minister to them.  That’s why this article is entitled a “special pastoral-liturgical opportunity.”  How can you implement this in your church?  Let us count the ways:

  1. Go all-out and use the Collect & Lessons for Remembrance/Veteran’s/Memorial Day (copied below).
  2. Reference poetry contemporary with the War such as Dulce et Decorum est or For the fallen.
  3. Reference the origin of Veteran’s Day in the USA.
  4. Include hymns such as the second stanza of I vow to thee my country, or Faith of our fathers! or God bless our native land or In Christ there is no East or West or O God of earth and altar or even Silent Night (referencing the Christmas Day Armistice of 1914, and providing a haunting double meaning to the phrase “sleep in heavenly peace”).
  5. Browse the Church of England’s vast collection of resources surrounding their observance of this day for other bits and bobs you might incorporate locally.

There are so many directions this observance can go: the noble call of patriotic service to one’s country, the devastating idolatry of nationalism run wild, commemorating the departed (not unlike All Soul’s Day back on November 2nd), praying for our current service-men and -women and veterans.  For sure, do what makes sense for your congregation!  But it strikes me as a very special opportunity to seize.

Collect and Lessons in Texts for Common Prayer

O King and Judge of the nations: We remember before you with grateful hearts the men and women of our armed forces, who in the day of decision ventured much for the liberties we now enjoy; grant that we may not rest until all the people of this land share the benefits of true freedom and gladly accept its disciplines; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, now and forever.  Amen.

Wisdom 3:1-9, Psalm 121, Revelation 7:9-17, John 11:21-27 or 15:12-17

NOTE: the reading from Revelation is also an option for All Saints’ Day, so if you go for this commemoration be aware that you might end up with the same Epistle lesson twice in a row unless you plan carefully.

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In a rush?

In a rush today?  Not sure you’ve “got time” for the Daily Office?

One unconventional way you could shorten the Office, without sacrificing too much of its mainstay ingredients, is to shift some of the daily Psalms into the position of the Canticles.  For example, this morning you would pray Psalm 38, read the OT lesson, then pray Psalm 39 as the 1st Canticle; then read the NT lesson, then pray Psalm 40 as the 2nd Canticle.  In the evening you’d pray Psalm 41 before the lessons, and Psalms 42 and 43 as the Canticles.

The benefits of this little cheat are that that you keep up with the monthly Psalms and retain the rhythm of “read, respond; read, respond” that characterizes the center of the liturgy in the Anglican tradition.  Obviously, the downside is that you lose the usual canticles.  But if you’re praying the Office in full more often than not, then the loss of those relatively-static features is not as great as missing some of the month’s Psalms.

Don’t forget, also, in the rubrics of Texts for Common Prayer, we are permitted to skip the Confession and the Apostles’ Creed, provided they are said once per day!  So if your morning gets out of hand, take advantage of the new book’s leniency and give yourself a break in the morning; just be sure to put all the pieces back together at Evening Prayer 😉

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Forgot the Great Litany?

Don’t forget it’s Friday, one of the traditional days of the week for saying the Great Litany after the Collects in Morning Prayer!

Did you already say Morning Prayer without the Litany?  That’s alright, consider praying the Litany at the end of Midday Prayer instead!  There’s a handy spot near the end of that Office which says “other intercessions and thanksgivings may be offered.”  Why not pray the entire Litany and Supplication at that point?  It could be a great spiritual boost and refocus for the middle of your day.