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The January 1st Feast

Happy feast of the Holy Name and Circumcision of Christ!
(What, did you expect to see “happy new year”?  This is a liturgy blog, not a social calendar!)

For many people, today’s commemoration might seem a bit strange.  Why are celebrating the “holy name” of Jesus?  Is this day like those over-emotive worship songs that repeat endlessly about how precious is it to say the name “Jeezus” over and over again for five minutes?  Is this something more “catholicky”, where we silently meditate on the sacred name of Jesus in a mood of affected piety?

First of all, it’s probably helpful to observe that this feast day might better be termed the Naming of Jesus.  The Gospel lesson at today’s Communion service is Luke 2:15-21, in which Jesus is circumcised and given the name Jesus.  This takes place on the eighth day, according to the Law of Moses, which (in case you haven’t noticed yet) is literally today.  On the 8th day of Christmas, Jesus got circumcised and named.

Second of all, it should be further noted that until 1979, the Anglican tradition called this day the Circumcision of Christ – making that rite the primary feature of the day, and his name/naming secondary.  Unlike the 1979 Prayer Book, though, our Collect still acknowledges the old emphasis alongside the new:

Almighty God, your blessed Son fulfilled the covenant of circumcision for our sake, and was given the Name that is above every name: Give us grace faithfully to bear his Name, and to worship him with pure hearts according to the New Covenant; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

This double focus, as you can see, is expressed well in our Collect.  To honor and bear the name of Jesus, and to join with Christ in the New Covenant because he has fulfilled the Old, are both concepts close to the heart of the Christian faith.  But it’s also worth looking back at what used to be…. this is the original Prayer Book Collect for today:

Almighty God, who madest thy blessed Son to be circumcised, and obedient to the law for man: Grant us the true circumcision of the Spirit; that, our hearts, and all our members, being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts, we may in all things obey thy blessed will; through the same thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Notice, free to be more specific, how this Collect draws us to covenant faithfulness, or obedience.  To worship God “with pure hearts” in the new Collect is an accurate summary, but when you take the time to pray about “being mortified from all worldly and carnal lusts”, you get a better picture of what such “pure hearts” actually look like.

All this besides, Jesus’ keeping of the Law is what proves his innocence, his sinlessness, and thus what sets the rest of the Gospel in motion.  If he wasn’t bound to the Law, his obedience to it would not have the significance that it had.

Along those lines, if you deign to pray the Great Litany today, perhaps this is a good opportunity to re-write one phrase back to its original form.  Near the beginning when it says “by your holy nativity and submission to the Law” feel free to pray what this petition originally said: “by your holy nativity and circumcision“.  This may not be the most popular part of the Gospel and Nativity story, but it’s one of the many moments of key importance, hence its place among the great feasts of the church year.

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Happy Holidays: Saint John

Happy Holidays!

No, I’m not being politically correct, I’m being liturgically correct.  The end of December is a rapid-fire collection of major holy days: Saint Thomas on the 21st, Christmas on the 25th, St. Stephen yesterday, St. John today, and the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem tomorrow.

december

Just as, at the principle Communion service on Christmas Day, we read from the Gospel of John about the Light that was coming into the world, so at today’s Communion service do we see the light of Christ in the reading from John’s epistle – the Church is called to “walk in the light” (1 John 1).  Using the Old Testament story of Moses preparing to see God’s glory, this holiday reminds us that John, as one of the Apostles, saw Jesus face to face, and learned from him for three years as one of his closest friends.  This didn’t make John perfect (for in the Gospel [John 21:9b-25] it’s pointed out that John would still die someday), but it did make him a powerful witness and teacher of the faith.  Today’s Psalm (92) describes the kind of man that John became: a righteous man who bore fruit even to old age.  This holiday reminds us to sit at the feet of St. John and listen to his witness of our Savior, Christ Jesus.

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Happy Holidays: Saint Stephen

Happy Holidays!

No, I’m not being politically correct, I’m being liturgically correct.  The end of December is a rapid-fire collection of major holy days: Saint Thomas on the 21st, Christmas on the 25th, St. Stephen today, St. John tomorrow, and the Holy Innocents of Bethlehem on the 28th.

december

It feels odd, at first, to celebrate and remember a martyr the day after Christmas.  It’s a sobering reminder, on one hand, that the life Christ calls us into still involves persecution and suffering and even death.  In today’s Gospel (Matthew 23:29-39 at the Communion service), Jesus observes that such righteous suffering has happened before and will continue to happen (as demonstrated with Stephen in the book of the Acts).  Today’s Collect brings some of Stephen’s final visions and words to us as a prayer that we can all share: may we all “behold the glory that shall be revealed” and “learn to love and bless our persecutors.”  Yesterday’s Christmas collect (which would traditionally be repeated today and for the next several days) points out that Christ took on our human nature – he became like us.  Today’s lessons remind us that it’s a mutual exchange: we too, like Christ, are called to a life of potential suffering and death, with the glory of eternal life beyond it.

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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: I doubt you’ll remember…

I doubt you’ll remember this ahead of time, but a week from today, December 21st, is the feast of Saint Thomas.  This is a major feast day in the calendar that very easily sneaks up on us.  Here we are, going through Advent, preparing for Christmas which is just three days away, and suddenly everything goes on hold for a day to celebrate the Apostle Thomas.  We’re more used to hearing about him on the heels on Easter, in the famous story of his doubting the resurrection until he too gets to be an eyewitness.

The Roman Catholic Church (and I think also the modern calendar for the Church of England) has dealt with this issue of placement and attention by shuffling Thomas’ feast day to early July, where he only has to compete with the adjacent Independence Day in the USA; a much easier “holiday conflict” to resolve than this.  But in the American Prayer Book tradition, we’ve always kept St. Thomas Day on its historic date.

One way that we can capitalize on this traditional date is by observing that the 21st is usually the Winter Solstice (in the Northern hemisphere) – it’s the shortest day and longest night of the year.  Thomas, likewise, was in the darkness of doubt the longest of the apostles.  All of them doubted the resurrection, and refused to believe until they saw evidence, but Thomas was absent for Jesus’ dinner visit that first Easter evening and had to wait for the following Sunday to see him for himself.  The match-up of darkened faith and darkened daylight gives December 21st a sort of fittingness to the celebration of Saint Thomas.

This even fits into part of the Advent theme, in which we are praying for the return of Christ, striving to “keep watch” – to keep our lamps burning, as it were.  The Collect that starts (and traditionally accompanies throughout) the season exhorts to “put on the armor of light.”  Even with Christmas Day rushing toward us at tilt-neck speed, let us remember to celebrate the Apostle Thomas next week.  His story of wavering-but-confirmed faith, paired with the turn of the natural season from darkness toward light and the liturgical season of bearing light for Christ, can make for a wonderful occasion of spiritual refreshment in the midst of what is for many the busiest time of year.

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The Scripture Collect

The Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent is sometimes nicknamed “the Scripture Collect” for obvious reasons:

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your Holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

One of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s originals, this Collect has a beautiful and intelligent list of verbs noting a progression of the individual’s interaction with Sacred Scripture: first hear, then read, then mark, then learn, and finally inwardly digest them.  This, I believe, seems to be what most people latch on to when they uplift this Collect as one of their favorites.  But what follows is particularly important; we pray for this venerable interaction with the Bible so that “we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life“.  This may not stick as well in memory, but it’s very important to consider.  As it turns out, that part of the Collect is a paraphrase of Romans 15:4, which says:

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.

And this is no random reference; the Epistle lesson for the 2nd Advent Sunday was Romans 15:4-13, until the modern calendars of the 1970’s onward took over.  Though even still, we do have that scripture lesson appointed for the Epistle in Year A of the lectionary’s three-year cycle.  That is why it’s a very good thing that we’ve got this Collect back on Advent II.  I say “back” because the Episcopalian Prayer Book of 1979 (as well as some of the recent calendar revisions in the Church of England) shuffled this Collect off to a spot typically somewhere in November, a couple weeks before Advent begins.  There, it was just a nice prayer.  Here, it is relevant to the season and directly references the Epistle reading (one year out of three).

Unless you attend a traditional parish that uses the historic calendar and lessons and therefore already heard it, take a few minutes to read Romans 15:4-13.  Not only does its first verse echo the Collect, but the rest of the text continues to speak of hope, trust, and peace, as well as make a couple fantastic Old Testament references including “the root of Jesse” – one of the famous Advent & Christmas texts.  It will be well worth your time and devotion!

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A Canticle for Advent: Magna et mirabilia

An interesting feature of our Prayer Book, like the 1979 book, is that the number of Canticles for Morning and Evening Prayer is noticeably expanded.  The Prayer Books have always offered choices, if originally only a Psalm as an alternative for each Canticle.  But as the centuries went by, more options got thrown in, and now we’ve got quite a bunch.  But, unlike the 1979 book, it looks like ours will be placed in a collection after the Office so as not to interrupt the page-turning flow of the liturgy.  This seems to me like a smart move.

If you, like me, are interested in making use of the various options of our Prayer Book in a sensible and orderly way, consider Advent a good opportunity to make use of Canticle 1, Magna et mirabilia.  Taken from Revelation 15, this brief canticle praise God as the great King of all creation.  A rubric rightly observes that it is “especially suitable for use in Advent and Easter.”  I would recommend appointing this Canticle in place of the Te Deum on Monday through Saturday mornings during Advent.  It gives the Morning Office an extra Advent flair, as well as providing a shorter option than the lengthy Te Deum.

Prayer Book traditionalists might shake their heads at this advice, pointing out that the Te Deum ought to be said daily, and the use of alternative Canticles should rarely, if ever, be done.  To that I would observe that in the monastic offices, from which the Prayer Book tradition was born, the Te Deum was only said on Sundays, and even then possibly only on feast days.  (I’m not intimately familiar with the tradition; I just know it wasn’t daily).  So if you want to make use of the fancy optional extra canticles in the new Prayer Book, this is one part of how to implement it.

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Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday is an occasional theme on social media – religious or otherwise, people sometimes make a point of posting something online some sort of expression of thanksgiving each Thursday.  It’s a healthy way to live one’s life, and, of course, a key biblical aspect of the Christian life.

Naturally, the liturgy has a prominent place for thanksgiving.  In Morning and Evening Prayer, giving thanks is near the end of the Office, as if the culmination of the service.  The “General Thanksgiving” prayer is fantastic: it’s meaty, it’s biblical, it’s thorough, it’s even exhortative in the way it reminds us how to live thankfully.  The Communion Service also has a high place for giving thanks – the word Eucharist means “good grace” or (more loosely) “thanksgiving.”  The Communion Prayers are prefaced with thanksgiving, and the Post-Communion Prayer is also one of thanksgiving.

So maybe it’s a good idea to bring “Thankful Thursday” into your prayer life, too.  Our Prayer Book comes with a large collection of Occasional Prayers, the last section of which are thanksgivings.  Why not pull these out and add them to the Daily Office today?  This is especially wise for Evening Prayer, when you’ll have the opportunity to look back on your day and give specific thanks for the blessings of the day that is past.

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Tomorrow is Saint Nicholas!

Tomorrow, December 6th, is the commemoration of Saint Nicholas, Bishop of Myra – the man who would be Santa.  I know a number of Christians who embrace “the Santa thing” at Christmas, and a number who utterly refuse to expose their children to “the Santa lie.”  Some see it as a fun exercise of Christian imagination, some see it as a betrayal of trust and potential buzzkill for real faith.  And of course there’s the materialism issue around Christmas presents, too.

One of the older traditions, stemming from the story of Saint Nicholas himself, is for children to leave their shoes by the window (or by the fireplace, or under the Christmas tree) into which Saint Nicholas may put some coins overnight.  Depending on the locality and the century, this might be done on Christmas Eve, or tonight: the eve of Saint Nicholas Day!  If you’ve got children, this might be a fun way to entertain that childish Christmas joy a couple weeks early.  And depending upon their age, chocolate coins might go over better than real ones.

Whatever you do or don’t do, it is worth giving consideration to the original Saint Nicholas.  He was a faithful bishop in every way: he cared for the poor, especially children, in his diocese.  He defended the faith, attending the Council of Nicea and (at least in legend) gave Arius the heretic a fantastic punch up the bracket for his false teachings about the nature of Christ.  He was also martyred, in the end.  American imaginative culture has built up quite a story for Santa Claus, much of which is quite fun, but the drift from Saint Nicholas is obviously quite large.  It can’t hurt to spend some time tonight or tomorrow rediscovering this excellent Saint of old who has inspired so much creative love for children, all these centuries later!

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The Renewed Coverdale Psalter!

Great news, everyone, the committees have finished updating the classic Prayer Book psalter, translated by Miles Coverdale, into contemporary English!  If you’re not up to speed with what this is all about….

  • The latest report from the Liturgy Task Force (top of page 2) summarizes the background of this particular project.
  • The Texts for Common Prayer page now has a pdf and Word document form of the Psalter.

Let’s grab a sampling from this evening’s psalms – Psalm 22.  Here are verses 6-8 in three translations, for comparison.

Original Coverdale:

6 But as for me, I am a worm, and no man; * a very scorn of men, and the outcast of the people.
7 All they that see me laugh me to scorn; * they shoot out their lips, and shake their heads, saying,
8 He trusted in the Lord, that he would deliver him; * let him deliver him, if he will have him.

Renewed Coverdale:

6 But as for me, I am a worm, and no man, * scorned by all, and the outcast of the people.
7 All those who see me laugh me to scorn; * they curl their lips, and shake their heads, saying,
8 “He trusted in God, that he would deliver him; * let him deliver him, if he will have him.”

English Standard Version (ESV)

6 But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock me; they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;
8 “He trusts in the Lord; let him deliver him; let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”

Beauty and taste are fickle things, easily subject to individual whim and preference, so I’m not going to hazard any sweeping statements here.  But what I can observe is that,

  1. The Renewed Coverdale looks like it’s doing a good job of sticking closely to the vocabulary and sentence structure of the original, modernizing it only gently.
  2. The ESV has a tendency to be too literal, so to speak, in the Psalms.  “they make mouths at me” is probably a more precise rendition of the Hebrew than “they curl/shoot out their lips”, but the latter is actually something the reader can visualize and understand.
  3. Modern translations use quotation marks in the Psalms when a different voice chimes in, and it will be helpful to have them brought into our Psalter, as this example demonstrates.

I have already printed out the Psalter and begun to use them in the Daily Office.  I’m hoping the excitement of trying out this newly-completed draft will help me keep up with the offices more regularly this season, and I heartily encourage all of you to do the same.  One of the beautiful treasures of our Prayer Book tradition is our classic Coverdale Psalter, and this re-translation of them is making them easily accessible to the modern reader.  I suspect this will be one of the best features of the 2019 Prayer Book.