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Learning the Daily Office – part 3 of 12

So you’ve heard about the Daily Office, specifically the Anglican tradition of daily prayer and scripture reading, and you want to enter into this beautiful and formative tradition?  Great, grab a prayer book and go!  Except, maybe someone already said that and you don’t know where to start… or worse, you did try it and it was just too much?  The length of the Office was overwhelming and the contents too complicated to navigate when you’ve got no experience with liturgy.  We understand, we’ve all been at that place before!  Some just don’t remember it as well as others.

Diving into the full Prayer Book life of worship doesn’t work for everyone; sometimes you have to work your way up toward that discipline, adding one piece at a time as you grow comfortable with each feature and learn how to “do” them all.  This post series is basically a twelve-step program to help you advance in the life of disciplined prayer from zero to super-Anglican.  The pace is up to you – the goal of this sort of spiritual discipline is consistency, not “how much” you do.

Step One: Pray a Psalm followed by the Lord’s Prayer.
Step Two: Add a Scripture Reading

Step Three: Add more Psalms and Lessons

If all’s going well, your twice-daily round of praying a psalm and reading a scripture lesson has increased your appetite for both.  Individuals may well find more comfort and affinity with one of those over the other, but as you grow into the Daily Office tradition there’s still more of both to add.  When you’re consistently covering one Psalm and Lesson each morning and evening, it’s time to add a second Lesson and additional Psalms to each Office.  You will be reading all the Lessons in the Daily Office Lectionary, and it’s probably time also to upgrade from the 60-day Psalter to the Anglican standard monthly psalter.

The monthly psalter is outlined in a table that is provided on page 735, just before the Daily Office Lectionary begins, but the Psalms themselves are also in the Prayer Book, on starting on page 270.  If you weren’t before, it’s time to start using the Prayer Book Psalter.  Even though you’re reading from a Bible, there are a few reasons to prefer the Prayer Book for the Psalms:

  1. The Prayer Book Psalter clearly marks out where the psalms for each Office begin (every morning and evening for each day of the month, read sequentially).
  2. The Prayer Book Psalter translation is intentionally poetic and beautiful, which cannot be said about any mainstream Bible translation.  The ESV or NASB may be the best translations for study, but we’re here to pray the psalms, not analyze them.  (Not that you can’t study the psalms of course, it’s just that the Office is time of prayer.)
  3. Using the Prayer Book is a useful skill that you will be developing bit by bit from here on.

Logistically, what you probably want to do at this point is different from how the Office in its full form will work.  Ultimately, all these Psalms will be prayed in a row before the Lessons, and there will be different things after each reading.  But for now, start in the psalms for the morning and evening and save the last one or two to pray between the two Lessons, or perhaps after both Lessons.

The point of interspersing the Psalms with the Lessons is to provide a little distance between the two readings.  In the Daily Office Lectionary the readings are just moving sequentially through the Bible independently of one another, so by stopping to pray a Psalm after the first lesson you “clear your mind” a little bit before reading the next lesson.  You don’t want to conflate them in your head and attempt to link them together artifically; that’s not how a Daily lectionary works.  Taking a moment to pray a Psalm after each Lesson also helps keep your reading in a context of prayer, cutting down on the “study” mentality and enhancing the “worship” mentality.  Again, this is not to say that studying the Bible is bad, but that such should not interrupt the course of worship.  At most, make a highlight or note in your Bible or on a book mark so you can return to it when the prayer time is concluded.

Summary

Your Morning & Evening Offices are now looking like this:

  1. Psalm(s) to pray
  2. Old Testament Lesson (occasionally the first lesson is from the NT instead)
  3. Psalm to pray
  4. New Testament Lesson
  5. Psalm to pray (maybe)
  6. The Lord’s Prayer

The length of time to do all this is probably about five minutes, maybe as many as ten if the readings are particularly long and you’re reading them out loud.   Same with the Psalms – praying them means reading them aloud – and sometimes they can be a little lengthy too.

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Planning Prayers & Readings Review 1/27

On Monday, most weeks these days, we’re looking at the liturgical schedule to highlight the propers, prayers and scripture readings, that we’re holding in common according to the 2019 Prayer Book.

Communion Propers

Yesterday was the 3rd Sunday of Epiphany, so the first traditional prayer book option for a weekday Eucharist is to repeat yesterday’s Collect and Lessons.  Another good option would be to use the traditional Collect and Lessons for Epiphany 3, which deal with the healing of a leper and an epileptic.  Because of the missional tone that the modern lectionary brings to the fore in this season, good second choice for a weekday Eucharist is For the Mission of the Church, noted on page 733, using the propers for World Mission Sunday.

On Thursday the 30th, one of our commemorations is for King Charles I, who was martyred in 1649.  The 1662 Prayer Book actually had a special set of liturgical material for his commemoration initially – I’m not sure when it was removed.  In line with that particular honor, it is the recommendation of the Saint Aelfric Customary to treat his commemoration as a de facto holy day.  Read a Collect for his day as the Collect of the Day at the Offices, and if there’s a eucharist service that, observe his commemoration!

Apart from that, some other commemorations to consider are Sts. Lydia, Dorcas, and Phoebe on Monday the 27th, St. Thomas Aquinas on Tuesday, and St. Brigid of Kildare on Saturday.

And make sure ready ready for the feast of The Presentation on Sunday!

Readings Review

Last week: Genesis 19-24, John 9-13, Jeremiah 18-24, 1 Corinthians 3-9
This week: Genesis 25-31, John 13-16, Jeremiah 25-31, 1 Corinthians 10-15:34

The chapters we’re reading from John’s Gospel this week are the “Upper Room Discourse” – the final teachings of our Lord before his crucifixion.  Much of it is about the then-future gift of the Holy Spirit, earning these chapters a prominent role as the Gospel readings at the Sunday Communion services in the later weeks of Eastertide as Pentecost approaches.  But also keep in mind the signs/glory demarcation of this book.  Last week finished up the first “half” of the book focusing on the signs that point to the glory of Christ, and now we’re in the half of the book that focuses on the glory of Christ being revealed.  These teachings from the upper room are among the most theologically significant statements we have from our Lord – much of what we know and say about the Trinity, the two natures of Christ, the relationship between the Father and the Son, the person of the Holy Spirit, come from chapters 14-17.  So while reading these chapters leading up to Pentecost and Trinity Sunday give us one level of emphasis and help uncover one stratum of meaning, there is plenty more to pick up here outside of that context, such as now.

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Preparing for Candlemas

Coming up in a couple weeks is one of those lovely opportunities to celebrate one of the Holy Days, or “red letter days” with the whole church on a Sunday: the feast of the Presentation of our Lord, or, the Purification of Mary.  It’s on February 2nd, which is about two Sundays away now.

First of all, if you need to freshen up your memory on the meaning and significance of this holiday, click here for my introduction from a previous year.  There you’ll get a run-down of several scripture readings, a collect, and a canticle that are associated with this celebration.

For many 1979-prayer-book-users, it is a hard adjustment realizing that we are “allowed” to celebrate holy days like this on Sundays.  It cannot be emphasized enough that before 1979 it was universal practice to observe holy days that land on Sundays outside of Lent/Easter/Pentecost, and Advent.  Be glad to reclaim another piece of our heritage!  Plus, holy days like these also help “break up” the predictability of the Sundays of the year somewhat, providing moments of something different.

Although in the case of this feast day, it’s not really that much of an interruption, because the Presentation of Christ in the Temple has strong connections to Christmas and Epiphany.  February 2nd is “the 40th day of Christmas“, matching the timing of the historical presentation in the Temple; and one of the key lines in the Gospel story of this holiday identifies Jesus as “a light to lighten the gentiles”, playing perfectly into one of the themes of Epiphanytide.  So it would really be a crying shame not to observe this day a couple Sundays from now.

One of the “extra things” that make this holiday stand out is the tradition of blessing candles for the church and the congregation.  There is a brief rite for this in A Manual for Priests in the American Church which I have adapted to our contemporary-language prayer book style, below.  Note that this is from a book that assumes a high churchmanship which many of you who read this may not be prepared (or even desirous) to implement.  But the ceremonial can always be simplified for your context, should you choose to do something like this at the beginning of the liturgy.

The Blessing and Distribution of Candles on February 2

 This ancient blessing, symbolic of Christ the True Light of the world, should take place immediately before the principle Mass on the Feast of the Purification of Mary (Presentation of Christ).  In many places it is customary to bless the year’s supply of candles together with the candles which are to be given to the people at this service.

The candles to be blessed and distributed are usually placed at the Epistle side of the Sanctuary, near the Altar.  The Altar should be vested in white.  The Priest who is to celebrate, vested in amice, alb, girdle, white stole and cope (if no cope is available the chasuble may be worn), having arrived at the Altar, goes to the Epistle side.  Without turning to the people, he begins the office of blessing, singing or saying:

The Lord be with you.
And with your spirit.
Let us pray.

Almighty and everlasting God, who as on this day did present your only-begotten Son in your holy temple to be received in the arms of blessed Simeon: We humbly entreat your mercy, that you would condescend to +bless, +hallow, and kindle with the light of your heavenly benediction these candles which we your servants desire to receive and to carry, lighted in honor of your holy Name.  By offering them to you, our Lord and God, may we be inflamed with the fire of your love, and made worthy to be presented in the holy temple of your glory; through the same your Son Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, lives and reigns, one God, world without end.  Amen.

Then the Priest [after putting incense into the thurible and blessing it] will thrice sprinkle the candles with holy water, saying once only,

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

[Then he censes them thrice.]

If another Priest is present, he gives a candle to the celebrant, who does not kneel.

Other clergy and acolytes receive their candles kneeling at the footpace; the people kneel at the Altar Rail.

During the distribution it is customary to sing the Nunc Dimittis, in the following manner:

Antiphon: A light to lighten the Gentiles: and the glory of your people Israel.

Lord, now let your servant depart in peace * according to your word.

Antiphon.

For my eyes have seen * your salvation,

Antiphon.

Which you have prepared * before the face of all people;

Antiphon.

To be a light to lighten the Gentiles * and to be the glory of your people Israel.

Antiphon.

Glory to the Father, and to the Son * and to the Holy Spirit;

Antiphon.

As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be * world without end.

Antiphon.

When all have received their candles, and returned to their places, the candles which the people are carrying should be lighted.  The light may be given by acolytes or ushers.

 As soon as the anthem is finished, the Priest shall sing or say:  Let us pray.

We beseech you, O Lord, mercifully to hear the prayers of your people; and grant that by this service which year by year we offer to you, we may, in the light of your grace, attain to the hidden things of your glory; through Christ our Lord.  Amen.

Then the Procession is formed.  [And first the Priest puts incense in the censer and blesses it.]  Turning to the people, he sings,

Let us go forth in peace.
In the Name of Christ. Amen.

During the Procession, all carry lighted candles, and appropriate hymns and anthems should be sung.  The Procession ended, the Priest lays aside his cope, and puts on the chasuble for the Mass of the feast.  It is an ancient custom for all to hold lighted candles during the reading of the Gospel, and from the Consecration to the Communion.

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Learning the Daily Office – part 2 of 12

So you’ve heard about the Daily Office, specifically the Anglican tradition of daily prayer and scripture reading, and you want to enter into this beautiful and formative tradition?  Great, grab a prayer book and go!  Except, maybe someone already said that and you don’t know where to start… or worse, you did try it and it was just too much?  The length of the Office was overwhelming and the contents too complicated to navigate when you’ve got no experience with liturgy.  We understand, we’ve all been at that place before!  Some just don’t remember it as well as others.

Diving into the full Prayer Book life of worship doesn’t work for everyone; sometimes you have to work your way up toward that discipline, adding one piece at a time as you grow comfortable with each feature and learn how to “do” them all.  This post series is basically a twelve-step program to help you advance in the life of disciplined prayer from zero to super-Anglican.  The pace is up to you – the goal of this sort of spiritual discipline is consistency, not “how much” you do.

Step One: Pray a Psalm followed by the Lord’s Prayer.

Step Two: Add a Scripture Reading

With the daily rounds of psalm-praying every morning and evening in place, it is time to start reading the Bible too.  The Evangelical mentality may balk at this order – why not start with bible-readings and then add prayers?  This can be answered in a couple different ways:

  1. The Psalms are from the Bible, as is the Lord’s Prayer, so Step One was already completely biblical.
  2. Historically, most people didn’t learn to read, so Bible-reading was never really an option; instead they relied on what they could memorize – psalms to sing!
  3. The daily office is, first, a discipline of prayer.  We need to focus on the prayer before we move on to include “study”.

So once your psalm-praying is consistently in place, it’s time to put in a Lesson (a reading from the Bible) between that Psalm and the Lord’s Prayer.  Since you’re working toward the daily office tradition, you should start with a part of the Daily Office Lectionary.  Pick one reading “track” for Morning Prayer and one for Evening Prayer and stick to them.  It’d be best to make sure that one is Old Testament and the other is New Testament.  Eventually you’ll be reading from both the OT and the NT in both morning and evening, but you’re pacing yourself.  Get used to one reading first.  Depending upon your background and experience you may find some of our Lessons (especially from the Old Testament) to be rather longer than you’re used to.

You may be tempted, as you read, to look up what individual words mean, or who individual people are, or whatnot.  Resist such interruptions.  Finish the reading, round it off with the Lord’s Prayer to complete the Office, and then go look things up if you need to.  The Daily Office is not a Bible Study, it’s a time of devotion and prayer; the reading of Scripture in the Office is not (historically) followed up by an expository sermon, preaching usually lands in a different liturgical context.  Rather, these scripture lessons are first for exposure and second for familiarity.  If you endeavor to study everything you read, from the very start of your devotional-reading journey, then you may get lost in the details and end up swamped and discouraged.  Receive what you understand and pass along by what you don’t understand.  It may be that you will find the answer to your question in the next chapter, or in another part of the Bible.  Honestly it takes a couple read-throughs of the Bible to begin to develop a memorable sense of its scope and contents, so it isn’t fair to put too much pressure on yourself too soon.

Summary

It’s only step two and you’ve already got an identifiable “Office of Prayer” in place: pray a psalm, read a scripture lesson, and close with the Lord’s Prayer.  In a sense, everything that follows from here is an expansion upon this basic kernel.

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Planning Prayers & Readings Review 1/20

On Monday, most weeks these days, we’re looking at the liturgical schedule to highlight the propers, prayers and scripture readings, that we’re holding in common according to the 2019 Prayer Book.

Communion Propers

Yesterday was the 2nd Sunday of Epiphany, so the first traditional prayer book option for a weekday Eucharist is to repeat yesterday’s Collect and Lessons.  Another good option would be to use the traditional Collect and Lessons for Epiphany 2, which deal with the wedding at Cana.  Because of the missional tone that the modern lectionary brings to the fore in this season, good second choice for a weekday Eucharist is For the Mission of the Church, noted on page 733, using the propers for World Mission Sunday.

And, of course, Saturday is a major feast day, so be sure to observe the Conversion of St. Paul – the Collect for that Day beginning at Evening Prayer on Friday, and carrying through Saturday evening.

Apart from that, some commemorations to consider are St. Fabian today (Monday the 20th), St. Agnes tomorrow, and St. Vincent of Saragossa on Wednesday the 22nd.

Readings Review

Last week: Genesis 12-18, John 6-8, Jeremiah 11-17, 1 Thessalonians 4-5, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians 1-2
This week: Genesis 19-24, John 9-13, Jeremiah 18-24, 1 Corinthians 3-9

Special reading for the Conversion of St. Paul on Saturday morning: Acts 9:1-22.  This is not one of the lessons appointed for the Communion service that day, but it is similar – the reading in the place of the Epistle is Acts 26:9-21, which is one of St. Paul’s re-tellings of his conversion on the road to Damascus, whereas the morning’s reading from Acts 9 is the initial account of that event in this book.

Our readings from John’s Gospel complete the “Book of Signs”, or, the first half of the book.  For the most part this is a forward-looking section of the book, anticipating the “glorification” of Jesus which is to take place on the Cross.  If you search this book for the words glory and glorify and glorification you’ll find a massive concentration of them in chapter 12, where the book makes its turning point – “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified!”  The last supper follows, and does his final discourse before his arrest, trials, suffering, and death.  That is the “Book of Glory” where all the “signs” finally pay off.

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Learning the Daily Office – part 1 of 12

So you’ve heard about the Daily Office, specifically the Anglican tradition of daily prayer and scripture reading, and you want to enter into this beautiful and formative tradition?  Great, grab a prayer book and go!  Except, maybe someone already said that and you don’t know where to start… or worse, you did try it and it was just too much?  The length of the Office was overwhelming and the contents too complicated to navigate when you’ve got no experience with liturgy.  We understand, we’ve all been at that place before!  Some just don’t remember it as well as others.

Diving into the full Prayer Book life of worship doesn’t work for everyone; sometimes you have to work your way up toward that discipline, adding one piece at a time as you grow comfortable with each feature and learn how to “do” them all.  This post series is basically a twelve-step program to help you advance in the life of disciplined prayer from zero to super-Anglican.  The pace is up to you – the goal of this sort of spiritual discipline is consistency, not “how much” you do.

Step One: Pray a Psalm followed by the Lord’s Prayer.

Every morning and evening do two things: pray one Psalm (or perhaps part of one, if it’s really long), and follow it up with the Lord’s Prayer.  If you’ve been a Christian for a while, you’ve probably memorized the latter, but if you haven’t, use it in the 2019 Prayer Book on page 21.  The Lord’s Prayer was taught by Jesus (hence the name the Lord’s prayer), and is a pretty straight-forward thing to pray.  There is much about it that can be studied deeply, analyzing its words and structure, just like any other biblical text, but it’s also just readily understandable and easy to pray as your own prayer.

What may be more challenging is praying the psalms.  While this is a basic spiritual practice going back thousands of years, it is a tragically lost art for many (if not most) Protestant Christians today.  People “know” that the psalms are song-prayers, but actually praying them is a foreign concept.  If we are to be faithful to the Scriptures, though, we must pray the psalms, rather than simply read or study them. They were written to be prayed, individually and corporately, so failure to do so is failure to receive the authoritative scriptures in their fullness.

So how does one learn to pray the psalms?

  1. Read the Psalm(s) out loud.
  2. Once you’re used to the content of the Psalm(s) in question, imagine you and Jesus are reading them together.
  3. Imagine you and Jesus are reading them together to God the Father.
  4. Imagine you and Jesus and the entire Church are reading them together to God the Father.

The key realizations that will click over time (not necessarily in this order) are:

  1. that sometimes the content of the psalm will give voice to the cry of your own heart and sometimes it will not
  2. that there are many “voices” in the Psalms, and if it isn’t yours personally it may be those of Jesus, or of the Church, or of the martyrs, etc.
  3. that the psalms are incredibly influential in the writing of many other prayers, collects, suffrages, litanies, and so forth.

Perhaps even your own extemporaneous prayers will start to use psalm-like language; but remember the goal is not memorization. If some of that happens along the way, that’s awesome. But the goal is to be familiar with the psalms so they can work through your heart as you read them, not just process their information like in a bible study.

As for which psalms to pray, it may be best to start out with following the “60 Day Psalter” provided in our Daily Office Lectionary on pages 738-763.  For sake of getting used to this practice, I’d recommend you invest in using the Prayer Book’s psalter, but we’ll revisit that subject later.

Summary

So if you’re learning the Daily Office from scratch, start by praying a Psalm (out loud!) every morning and evening, followed by the Lord’s Prayer.  Then, if you have other requests or thanksgivings to offer to God, add them in your own words.

It may take a while to get used to praying the psalms, so make sure you’re comfortable with this before moving on to Step Two.

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Planning Prayers & Readings Review 1/13

On Monday, most weeks these days, we’re looking at the liturgical schedule to highlight the propers, prayers and scripture readings, that we’re holding in common according to the 2019 Prayer Book.

Communion Propers

Yesterday was the 1st Sunday of Epiphany, so the first traditional prayer book option for a weekday Eucharist is to repeat yesterday’s Collect and Lessons (dealing with the baptism of our Lord).  Another good option would be to use the traditional Collect and Lessons for Epiphany 1, which deal with the finding of Jesus in the Temple.  Because of the missional tone that the modern lectionary brings to the fore in this season, good second choice for a weekday Eucharist is For the Mission of the Church, noted on page 733, using the propers for World Mission Sunday.

And, of course, Saturday is a major feast day, so be sure to observe the Confession of St. Peter – the Collect for that Day beginning at Evening Prayer on Friday, and carrying through Saturday evening.

Apart from that, a commemoration definitely worth noting are St. Anthony on Friday the 17th.  Consider also St. Kentigern on Tuesday the 14th.

Readings Review

Last week: Genesis 5-11, John 3:22-6:21, Jeremiah 4-10, Galatians 5-6, 1 Thess. 1-4:12

This week: Genesis 12-18, John 6-8, Jeremiah 11-17, 1 Thessalonians 4-5, 2 Thessalonians, 1 Corinthians 1-2

Special reading for the Confession of St. Peter on Saturday morning: Matthew 16:13-20.  This is a clone of the Gospel lesson for the communion service that day, albeit with one extra verse, providing us the raison d’etre for this holy day.

The changeover from last week to this week with regards to the readings from Genesis is that before we were dealing with ancient history of almost legendary or pre-historic quality, and now we are stepping into the story of Abraham.  The book of Genesis is organized into ten “origin stories”, subtly given a ten-fold prologue to the exposition of the Mosaic Law and Covenant in the book of Exodus, which itself centers around a famous group of ten.  If you’re not familiar with the Genesis Ten, feel free to pull up an overview.  The focus switches to Terah (and primarily his son Abraham) part-way through chapter 11 and remains with him into chapter 25, so we’ll have just over two weeks with the Abrahammic Sagas, as some like to call them.

The importance of Abraham in the Christian faith cannot be overstated.  While there are indeed many references to the Law of Moses in the New Testament, those references are a mixed bag of positive and negative iterations of keeping the Old Covenant.  Ultimately, while we have much to learn from what God revealed through Moses, our ancient-historical identity as Christians largely bypasses him and links us straight back to Abraham.  Abraham, as we read last week in Galatians, is the father of all the faithful, both circumcised and uncircumcised.  We are blessed through him and his offspring (Jesus), not through Moses and his law.  So take a good look at the interactions between Abraham and the Lord.  He indeed has a journey of growth in working knowledge and trusting faith, but in the end God lays a foundation with him upon which even we, today, are built.

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Filling in the Blanks: Tobit

The Daily Office Lectionary exists to get us through the majority of the Bible in a year, and the one in our 2019 Prayer Book is one of the best on that account.  But it still has some gaps.  That is why I created a Midday Prayer Lectionary, to “fill in the blanks” where the Daily Office has left something out.  We’ll have a few of these entries scattered throughout the year to highlight a few of these opportunities.

Now that we’ve finished the book Wisdom which had been left off at the end of December, let’s move on to one of the Ecclesiastical Books that is completely omitted in the 2019 Daily Lectionary: Tobit.  Tobit was one of the books read in full in the original daily lectionaries… possibly every Prayer Book lectionary until this one, I haven’t checked them all.  At the very least it’s a shame that we’ve lost the truly excellent prophecy of the gospel in Tobit 14.

Unlike the story in the book of Judith, Tobit does not have any noteworthy historical anachronisms to challenge its setting and context.  Where Judith has to be read purely as a morality tale, mixing together different stories of biblical heroes (heroines, specifically), Tobit is more readily understood as a story of some actual Israelite exiles.  Their fidelity to the Law, and God’s provision of an angel to assist them, makes for an encouraging story for God’s faithful people in any age of exile and/or disillusionment.

So if you want to make your way through this book, pull up this Customary’s Supplemental Midday Prayer Lectionary and read along!  We’ll get through all 14 chapters, with a one-day break on the 18th to celebrate the Confession of St. Peter.

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A Guide to choosing the Supplemental Canticles

One of the features of the 2019 Prayer Book that has raised eyebrows among the hard-core prayer book traditionalists, and perhaps evoked mixed reactions from those familiar with the 1979 Prayer Book also, is the section of the book called Supplemental Canticles for Worship.  Starting on page 79, after the Family Prayer and Additional Prayers, these are ten canticles that are offered for use in the Daily Office, each with a rubric recommendation of when it is “especially suitable” – Magna et mirabilia for Advent or Easter, Surge illuminare for Epiphany, and so forth.

The improvement here over against the 1979 Prayer Book is that the primary texts of the Daily Offices are not cluttered with a massive pile of Canticles to wade through.  This also gives place of preference for the historic canticles (Te Deum and Benedictus for the Morning, and Magnificat and Nunc dimittis in the Evening).  Those who want to “complicate” the Office, by drawing from a larger number of canticles, will not be overly bothered by the extra page-flip involved in doing so.

Let’s say you’re a regularly pray-er of the Office, or are getting into it now with this new prayer book.  How should you go about choosing these canticles?  When should you use them?  Which of the standard options should they replace?  To answer this question, let’s start with the “liturgical standard” of 1662.

The “original” Canticles

In Morning Prayer the first canticle was the Te Deum laudamus or Benedicite omnia opera (of which our Canticle 10 is a slightly-streamlined reduction).  The second canticle was the Benedictus, except for when it shows up as a reading at Morning Prayer or the Holy Communion; on those handful of days each year the Jubilate Deo (Psalm 100) is appointed instead.

In Evening Prayer the first canticle was the Magnificat or Cantate Domino (Psalm 98), the only stipulation being that the latter may not be used on the 19th day of the month, when that psalm is one of the regularly-appointed psalms of the day.  The second canticle was the Nunc dimittis or Deus misereatur (Psalm 67) with the same stipulation as before – no repeating the psalm on the 12th day of the month.

In our American context it is worth noting that by the time of the 1928 Prayer Book, further options had emerged.  Along with the Te Deum and the Benedicite was also offered the Benedictus es, which we find as an option alongside the Te Deum in the 2019 Prayer Book.  In Evening Prayer, alongside the Magnificat and Psalm 98 was added Psalm 92; and alongside the Nunc dimittis and Psalm 67 was added Psalm 103 (well, a portion of it).

Between this, and other similar features of the Office in the 1928 Prayer Book, and there can be seen a clear trajectory of diversification when it comes to canticle usage.

the Canticles before the Payer Book

Another factor that may guide how we go about utilizing the canticles at our disposal (in any prayer book, but especially the 2019) is how the canticles were handled in the liturgy of the hours, the Offices, before the first Prayer Book of 1549.  After all, Archbishop Cranmer didn’t just slap together a few random psalm and canticles, he was drawing from centuries of tradition and practice, simplifying what was needlessly complex and streamlining the wide sprawl of medieval monastic practice into something that all the laity could follow.

One major feature of canticle use was the trio of Gospel Canticles.  I’ve written about them before, but in a nutshell these were standard daily canticles that were (as far as I’m aware) never replaced with substitutions.  The Benedictus was said every morning, the Magnificat every evening, and Nunc dimittis every night (compline).  You can see a hint of that in the 1662 rubric concerning the Benedictus – that it should only be replaced with Psalm 100 when its text shows up in one of the readings that morning.

As for the Te Deum, I am generally aware (but not authoritatively certain) that it was appointed to be said in one of the morning Offices on Sundays and Holy Days.  This is also vaguely affirmed by the fact that, in prayer book history, it has the largest number of substitutions allowed.

the Saint Aelfric Customary – on the Canticles

Given all this, what’s our recommendation for using the canticles in the 2019 Prayer Book?  Table first, brief explanations after…

Morning Prayer

  • First Canticle
    • Te Deum laudamus (page 17) on Sundays, weekdays in Christmastide, and other Holy Days
    • Magna et mirabilia (Canticle 1) on weekdays during Advent (and perhaps the first Sunday)
    • Surge illuminare (Canticle 2) on weekdays during Epiphanytide (perhaps including Epiphany Day itself)
    • Benedictus es (page 18) on weekdays during Lent (and perhaps the first Sunday)
    • Cantemus Domino (Canticle 5) on weekdays during Eastertide
    • Dignus es (Canticle 6) on weekdays from Ascension Day through Pentecost week
    • Ecce Deus (Canticle 8) on weekdays during Trinitytide
    • Benedicite (Canticle 10) on Saturdays during Trinitytide
  • Second Canticle
    • Benedictus (page 19) except when it’s in a reading for that morning
    • Jubilate (Psalm 100, taken from the invitatory option on page 15)

Evening Prayer

  • First Canticle
    • Magnificat (page 45) except when it’s in a reading for that evening
    • Cantate Domino (Canticle 7) on those couple days a year
  • Second Canticle
    • Nunc dimittis (page 46) except for the following…
    • Quaerite Dominum (Canticle 4) on Monday through Friday during Advent
    • Kyrie Pantokrator (Canticle 3) on Monday through Friday during Lent
    • Deus misereatur (Canticle 9) on Monday through Friday during Epiphanytide and Trinitytide

Explanations

Two of the three Gospel Canticles are kept stable with almost no exceptions – the Benedictus and Magnificat only get replaced when their text will be read in a lesson at same time of day.  What the 1662 book extended to the Benedictus, we also extend here to the Magnificat.  The Nunc dimittis doesn’t receive this treatment however because it is a mainstay in Compline, which is now available in our prayer book.

Speaking of Compline, its seasonal replacements only apply “Monday through Friday.”  This is because Saturday evenings are the “Eve of” a Sunday, and thus the ‘feast day’ quality of a Sunday begins to apply, hence the retention of the Nunc dimittis on Saturday nights.  Indeed in many liturgical texts of a more Roman style, Saturday evening and night are called “Sunday I” and Sunday evening and night called “Sunday II.”  We need not complicate our liturgy with such terms, but the principles are still sound.

It falls, then, to the Te Deum to receive the largest number of substitutions, rendering that Canticle primarily a feast-day role.  Most of the seasonal substitutions note that they may be used “perhaps on the first Sunday” or something to that effect; this is for the benefit of those who hold regular Sunday Morning Prayer services and wish to utilize occasional seasonal changes while still retaining the Te Deum as the primary regular first canticle.

In order to divide the ten Supplemental Canticles across the various seasonal options, it became necessary to ignore or narrow two of their rubric recommendations: Canticle 1 we appoint in Advent only and not also Easter, and Canticle 4 we appoint in Advent instead of Lent.  But because the rubrics in question are only recommendations, there is no rule violation involved here.

Posted on by Fr. Brench · 1 Comment

Want to finish the Wisdom of Solomon?

You may have noticed that when we finished reading from Wisdom (or, in full, The Wisdom of Solomon) on December 31st, we weren’t actually finished with the book.  The lectionary just ran out of space, dropped it, and moved on with life.  This is typical of how the 2019 daily lectionary handles the Ecclesiastical Books: just highlight some of the main features of a few books and scurry along in what almost looks like embarrassment of the unique Anglican perspective on these books.

So what if you want to finish the book of Wisdom?  The Saint Aelfric Customary has an answer!  Turn to the Midday Lectionary I put together and you will find that today we pick up where December left us off, and chapter by chapter you can finish the book in Midday Prayer.  With one more interruption on January 6th for The Epiphany, you’ll finish the Wisdom of Solomon on January 10th.

Is this an ideal situation?  Not really; it’d be simpler if we, like the original daily office lectionary in the prayer book, just read it all the way through.  But with our culture the way it is, the best way to “fill the gaps” in the daily lectionary is to utilize Midday Prayer as a catch-up.  And in its own way this is actually a reasonable solution, because Midday Prayer is an extra office, not part of the historic prayer book standard; so by having a lectionary of “primary” readings for Morning & Evening Prayer and a lectionary of “supplemental” readings for Midday Prayer, we can cover literally the entire Bible in a way that actually acknowledges some sense of gradations regarding the usefulness or edifying nature of its component writings.  It’s not a perfect analogy, but it works reasonably well for what we’ve got.