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Planning Prayers & Readings Review 12/9

Planning Prayers

Although the full text hasn’t been finalized yet, I do have plans for how the Saint Aelfric Customary will recommend the implementation of most of the features in the 2019 Prayer Book.  In short, I can’t tell you why these suggestions are here yet, but if you want to order your prayers accordingly, here is the weekly guide!

Sunday 12/8

  • Morning Prayer Canticles: Te Deum laudamus and Benedictus
  • Holy Communion: Second Sunday of Advent (Year A)
  • Evening Prayer Canticles: Magnificat and Nunc dimittis

Monday 12/9

  • Morning Prayer Canticles: #1 Magna et mirabilia and Benedictus
  • Holy Communion: Second Sunday of Advent (with the traditional readings)
  • Evening Prayer Canticles: Magnificat and #4 Quaerite Dominum

Tuesday 12/10

  • Morning Prayer Canticles: #1 Magna et mirabilia and Benedictus
  • Holy Communion: Votive: of the Blessed Virgin Mary (The Annunciation)
  • Evening Prayer Canticles: Magnificat and #4 Quaerite Dominum

Wednesday 12/11

  • Morning Prayer Canticles: #1 Magna et mirabilia and Benedictus
  • Holy Communion: Votive*
  • Evening Prayer Canticles: Magnificat and #4 Quaerite Dominum

Thursday 12/12

  • Morning Prayer Canticles: #1 Magna et mirabilia and Benedictus
  • Holy Communion: Votive
  • Evening Prayer Canticles: Magnificat and #4 Quaerite Dominum

Friday 12/13

  • Morning Prayer Canticles: #1 Magna et mirabilia and Benedictus
  • Holy Communion: St. Lucy (martyr) or Votive
  • Evening Prayer Canticles: Magnificat and #4 Quaerite Dominum

Saturday 12/14

  • Morning Prayer Canticles: #1 Magna et mirabilia and Benedictus
  • Holy Communion: Votive
  • Evening Prayer: Magnificat and Nunc dimittis, Collect for Advent 2

Sunday 12/15

  • Morning Prayer Canticles: Te Deum laudamus and Benedictus
  • Holy Communion: Third Sunday of Advent (Year A)
  • Evening Prayer Canticles: Magnificat and Nunc dimittis

* A Votive is a “Various Occasion” (page 733 in the BCP 2019).  The traditional appointments are Holy Trinity on Sunday, Holy Spirit on Monday, Holy Angels on Tuesday, of the Incarnation on Wednesdays, of the Holy Eucharist on Thursdays, the Holy Cross on Fridays, and of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Saturdays.

Readings Review

Last week: Ecclus. (Sirach) 14,17,18,21,34,38-39, Acts 24-28, Isaiah 44-50, Luke 9:18-12:34
This week: Ecclus. (Sirach) 44-50, Revelation 1-6, Isaiah 51-57, Luke 12-16

We are now getting into one of the more intensely familiar sections of the book of Isaiah.  As mentioned a couple weeks ago this is where pretty much every chapter will have something familiar to the regular church-goer, especially in a liturgical tradition like ours.  The “Servant Songs” populate a few of these chapters, officially identified in 42:1-4 (two weeks ago), 49:1-6 and 50:4-7 (this past week), and the long one 52:13-53:12 (coming up this week).  Few of the messianic prophecies detail the reality of Jesus as a suffering servant as clearly as this one; it’s easy to read this now as a Christian and look back to how it’s fulfilled in Christ, but for the people of Judea and Galilee at the time this text was not high on their list of expectations regarding the coming Savior.  But of course once the gospel events took place and the apostles started committing their teachings to writing, the connection between Isaiah’s “Suffering Servant” and Christ Jesus was made abundantly clear – particularly in 1 Peter.

Meanwhile, in Morning Prayer, the skipping through Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) has ended, and now we’re going to walk through the final eight chapters in sequence, covering the great “Hall of Faith” – like in Hebrews 11 except longer.  Whatever your personal opinions of the canonical status of this book, these chapters are an insightful read, reflecting on the whole of Old Testament history, and highlighting a pre-Christian perspective on what was particularly important about these great men of old.

And, of course, let us not forget the book of Revelation.  This book is appropriate saved for the end of the year, not only because it’s at the end of the Bible, but especially because of its strong Advent themes concerning the return of Christ.  More on that later this week…!

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Book Review: The Holy Bible 1611 Fascimile Edition

Welcome to Saturday Book Review time!  On most of the Saturdays this year we’ve been looking at a liturgy-related book noting (as applicable) its accessibility, devotional usefulness, and reference value.  Or, how easy it is to read, the prayer life it engenders, and how much it can teach you.

Today we’re going a bit weird and looking at a Bible.  Not just any Bible, but the King James Version.  And not just any KJV Bible, but the 400th anniversary 1611 facsimile edition.  There are a few of these around, so the one I’m specifically dealing with here is the one from Hendrickson Publishers.  You can find others, like from Zondervan, which omit the Apocrypha/Deuterocanon, but that’s lame.  We’re Anglicans, and have all the books!

And, more importantly for the purposes of this review, this facsimile edition has the Daily Office Lectionary in it, as conformed to the then-current 1559 Prayer Book.  Looking through this lectionary is a massive education for the modern Anglican, as the history of daily lectionaries has wandered quite a bit over the centuries since.  Here’s a sample:

December

A quick run-down of what we’re looking at here…

  • The far-left column, I must admit, I haven’t figured out.
  • The second-left column is the day of the month (1-31 in this case).
  • The next column has the letters A-g in repetition, allowing you identify the day-of-the-week throughout the month without having to be year-specific.
  • The next column, labeled Kalend. at the top is the older Roman/medieval dating system.
  • The large column notes feasts and fasts: Nicholas Bish[op] on the 6th, Conc[eption] of Mary on the 8th, O Sapientia on the 16th, Fast on the 24th, Christmas on the 25th, etc.
  • The “Psalms” column tells you which day of the month’s psalms to use each day… for the majority of the year it’s identical to the actual day of the month, but there is one exception.
  • The last four columns give you the OT and NT lessons for Morning and Evening Prayer.  Here are a few samples, to help you with the typography:
    • December 1st: Esa. xiiij (Isaiah 14), Actes ii (Acts 2), Esa. xv (Isaiah 15), Hebr.7 (Hebrews 7).
    • December 21st: Pro.xxiij (Proverbs 23), xxi (Acts 21), Prou.24 (Proverbs 24), 1.John1. (1 John 1).
    • December 27th: Eccleſ.v (Ecclesiastes 5), Reuel.i. (Revelation 1), Eccle.6. (Ecclesiastes 6), Reuel.22 (Revelation 22)

As you may be able to see, here, the space-and-ink-saving pattern was not to repeat the name of the current book being read when it’s in continuity with the day above.  Christmas Day reprints Isaiah for the OT lessons because, although Isaiah was already the book being read at the time, the chapters to be read are different from the daily sequence.

You’ll also note that whole chapters were read at once.  The versification we’re used to today was invented in 1557 and first printed in 1560, which means they did not exist when the first prayer books were printed in 1549 and 1552.  The lectionary from those, continued here in 1611, therefore, could not rely on verse numbers to delineate Scripture readings!  There are a couple footnotes in this lectionary to adjust the readings’ start and end points, using phrases rather than verse numbers.

There are, of course, some typographical distinctions that make this book difficult to read at first.  The “long s”, ſ, is only used in the lectionary tables and in titles, never in the regular text of the scripture.  (And, to dispel anachronistic use, never at the end of a word.)  The letters u and v are treated as the same letter, u being in the middle of a word and v at the end of a word.  So, the phrase “leave us not” is instead printed “leaue vs not“.  You can also find the occasional typographical error, in which a u or an n is turned upside down – they’re the same “letter” from the printer’s perspective, just a matter of which-way-up-it’s placed on the printing block.

Anyway, I share this here because it’s a fantastic resource that modern Bibles sadly lack.  As American Anglicans we barely even have a functioning Bible to support our lectionaries, much less a Bible that reprints the lectionary in the front to aid our devotions with the Offices.  Considering how much arm-twisting it took just to get an ESV Bible with the additional books we need, chances are we’ll never have an ESV Bible with the full Anglican resources available.  So it’s all the more important we learn about these resources of old.

On a fun sidenote, this KJV edition is also a handy thing to have when dealing with those who insist on the KJV Bible being the only legitimate Bible, because the original KJV has the books “called apocrypha” which they dread, plus a number of footnotes to supplement the primary translation, not to mention the lectionary tying it explicitly to the Common Prayer Book tradition which such fundamentalists would also despise.  Knowing our own history, unsurprisingly, can help inoculate us against various errors of the present day.

The ratings in short:

Accessibility: 2/5
This isn’t a particularly easy edition to find; there are other similar editions out there which omit all the things that make this a genuine Anglican book.  It also takes some getting used to in terms of reading it; though it’s not as difficult as some people make it out to be.  This is, after all, Early Modern English.

Devotional Usefulness: 4/5 if Applicable
Obviously this is just a Bible with the lectionary.  You can’t pray the Office with this, or follow the Eucharistic lessons.  But as Bible-reading-plans go, this one is very simple and very strong.  It does omit significant portions of a few books, like Leviticus, Numbers, Ezekiel, and Revelation, though when you understand that the goal of a daily lectionary is common prayer, those omissions begin to make a lot more sense.

Reference Value: 4/5
Although this is a very specific snapshot of a very specific piece of Anglican liturgical history, this Bible and lectionary are very informative.  If all you’ve ever seen are the 1928 and/or 1979 Prayer Book lectionaries, you’ll look at the 2019 book’s daily lectionary and wonder what on Earth our committee was up to.  But if you look a this, the original daily lectionary, you’ll find that the 2019’s lectionary is incredibly more in step with historic Anglicanism  Indeed, the daily lectionary is one of the worst features of both the 1928 and 1979 Prayer Books due to their complicated and convoluted reading order and their decreasing coverage of scripture.

Honestly, this is a book I think most Anglicans ought to have, clergymen especially.  Try a year on this lectionary sometime, maybe even in this translation, too.  It’s honestly hard to beat.

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An Ancient Advent Hymn

There’s an Advent Hymn that I’ve wanted to point out to people for a while, and I figured I’d pull it up for you all at this blog.  It’s called Hark! a thrilling voice is sounding, and the reason why I’ve had it in mind is because it quotes the Collect for the First Sunday of Advent in its first verse.

… except, as I suddenly realized as I sat down to write about it, this hymn was written in around the 6th century.  So it’s probably not quoting the Collect as we know it.  But it’s making the same Romans 13 reference as the Collect, which means that the way we collect Scripture together to develop the themes of Advent is the way the Church has done it for over 1,500 years.  Let’s check it out.

Hark! a thrilling voice is sounding;
“Christ is nigh,” it seems to say;
“Cast away the works of darkness,
O ye children of the day.”

There it is, our “cast away the works of darkness” reference from Romans 13.  Christ is near, we are children of the day, so put on the armor of light.

Waken’d by the solemn warning;
Let the earth-bound soul arise;
Christ, her sun, all sloth dispelling,
Shines upon the morning skies.

The theme of waking up, or staying awake, is also a prominent refrain in Advent hymnody and Scripture.  Christ as the morning star, or the sun at dawn, is also a common Advent image, depicting his Return as the beginning of a new and eternal day.

Lo! the Lamb, so long-expected,
Comes with pardon down from heav’n;
Let us haste, with tears of sorrow,
One and all to be forgiv’n.

Now we’ve got an echo of “Come thou long expected Jesus” (another Advent hymn).  And this third verse also highlights something that tends to get downplayed by a number of people today: Advent is a penitential season.

So when next he comes with glory,
And the world is wrapped in fear,
May he with his mercy shield us,
And with words of love draw near.

Honor, glory, might, and blessing
To the Father and the Son,
With the everlasting Spirit,
While unending ages run.

I think it’s nice to see the same conflicting emotions from the 500’s that we have today when it comes to the subject of eternity and judgment: fear, mercy, and love.

The Trinitarian doxology in the final verse, by the way, is characteristic of ancient hymns.  It’s impressive how many subtly different ways people find to praise the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in the same 8.7.8.7 meter.

Another great thing about this hymn is that it fits anytime during Advent.  The reference to the first Sunday’s Collect makes it especially good for the first Sunday (in modern prayer book tradition, which no longer repeats that Collect throughout the season).  It also appeals well to the Collect for the 4th Sunday, so the end of the season works as well for this song as the beginning.  But apart from that, the wide sweep of classic Advent themes make this hymn great for any time in the season.

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The Blessing at Communion

The last part of the Communion service in the classical prayer books is the Blessing.  Specifically, this one (albeit with the 2019 wording)…

The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you, and remain with you always.  Amen.

Once this blessing is pronounced, people can get up and go.

Except, in the modern order, we now have an extra Dismissal that follows, and usually music as well.  But until the 1970’s (or perhaps the arrival of something like the Anglican Missal?) the Blessing marked the end of the liturgy.

I have heard it argued that the priest offering a Blessing at this point is redundant – what greater blessing could be conferred than receiving the Body and Blood of our Lord?  But there are a couple different answers.

First of all, ending a worship service with a blessing is biblical.  It is the Old Testament pattern – even though the sacrifice of animals and their oblation in the Temple and the eating of the meat was the “high point” of the Old Covenant liturgy, the priest was still to bless the people after.  It is the New Testament pattern too, in a way: St. Paul ended each of his epistles with a blessing of some sort.  It is a little ironic, though, that the blessing we use is not explicitly used as a blessing by St. Paul (cf. Philippians 4:7 – it was actually the Epistle reading a couple Sundays ago).

Secondly, the specific content of this blessing is appropriate.  In a general sense, the argument against a blessing after receiving Holy Communion does sound logical, but this objection is undermined by what this blessing calls for: that the people would be kept in the knowledge and love of God.  It is a blessing of perseverance – may the people, who have just celebrated their unity with and in Christ, always remain so.

Third, and finally, it is analogous to the Prayer of Humble Access.  If you reduce the meaning of this blessing to some sort of generic blessing, then yeah it’s lame.  Same deal with the Prayer of Humble Access: if you reduce the meaning of that prayer to some sort of generic confession, then it’s redundant and silly too.  But both of these prayers, although bearing similarities to other prayers and “functions” within the service, bring new and different lights to the table (or, from the Table in this instance).

Now, all that having been said… the 2019 Prayer Book states that

The Bishop, when present, or the Priest, gives this or an alternative blessing

But what is an “alternative blessing”?  None is supplied.  In the classical prayer books this choice didn’t exist: that blessing was the blessing.  But there is another blessing in the old prayer book tradition – the Burial Office ends with a different blessing, also found at the end of the Committal in the 2019 Prayer Book:

The God of peace, who brought again the from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight…

Notice in both blessings that these are not (strictly-speaking) prayers.  “May God ___” is a prayer, but these are more like statements (or perhaps subjunctive verbs, if I remember my grammar correctly): “God… make you perfect” and “the peace of God… keep your hearts and minds.”  Blessings are “speech-acts”, like when a minister declares a man and a woman husband and wife, or baptizes somebody.  However sacerdotal you may or may not choose to view these “sacramental rites”, the reality is that these are special acts of the Church through her ordained ministers.  Pentecostalism, especially in its Prosperity Gospel extreme versions, has yielded an unhealthy practice that is creeping into evangelicalism: “declarations” in the name of Jesus for one or another sort of blessing.  This practice is essentially usurping the special role of the ordained clergy, popularizing it for all Christians, and reducing its gravity and import often to crass hopes and dreams for health and wealth.  Be very careful what you do, or permit, along these lines in your ministry context.

One last note about the option for different blessings at the end of the Communion service.  I strongly suspect that the main reason the 2019 rubric permits an “alternative blessing” is to authorize the Seasonal Blessings that have been provided in supplemental books such as Book of Occasional Services and Common Prayer (2000).  If you are so inclined, you can peruse those materials for a variety of blessings – probably finding a unique one for every Sunday of the year.  Although modern liturgy trends seem to prefer such variety, classic Prayer Book wisdom does not support this, so I would advise priests not to deviate from the standard Prayer Book blessing very often.  Maybe grab a “solemn blessing” for Christmas Day and Easter Day; maybe use another blessing from the Bible or pre-existing tradition on other special and rare occasions; otherwise, be sure to use the standard historic blessing virtually all year.

If it’s always changing, it’ll never stick in the people’s minds, and go in one ear and out the other.  And, given the fact that the standard blessing is for our hearts and minds to kept, that would be sadly ironic indeed.

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Overview of Revelation

The Revelation (or Apocalypse) of St. John, the last book of the Christian Bible, can be rather difficult to make sense of. And when you throw into the mix the wide range of conflicting teaching on how to interpret it, things can get very complicated indeed. Since we’re just getting into this book now in the 2019 Prayer Book’s Daily Office Lectionary, here’s my overview on what this book is about and how to read it profitably.
For further reading:
* https://leorningcniht.wordpress.com/2013/10/17/how-to-read-revelation-literally/
* https://leorningcniht.wordpress.com/2013/04/30/10-thoughts-about-revelation/
* https://leorningcniht.wordpress.com/2018/09/25/the-bible-is-apocalyptic/
Subject Index:
* 00:00 Revelation/Apocalypse
* 02:46 Signs, Metaphors, and the Literal Sense
* 07:17 Examples: seven lamps, lamb that was slain, city dressed as a bride
* 12:58 Interpretive Approaches: preterist, historicist, futurist, spiritualist
* 20:18 The 1,000 Years: pre-millennial, post-millennial, amillennial
* 30:30 Concluding Summary
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Back to basics: what is liturgy?

Some of the stuff that’s ended up on this blog has been pretty specific – to a particular occasion, or exploring a particular prayer within the liturgy.  But some of the entries and articles have been more broad and general.

Perhaps the most important sentence I’ve ever written (in the context of this blog) is this:

The Prayer Book is our liturgy.

It is, not contains, our liturgy.  If you think of the Prayer Book as a book that “contains” or “has” the liturgy that we use, then the book is still just a tool, and not your companion on the way.  Anglicanism doesn’t “use” liturgy, it “follows” or “goes with” liturgy.  The first article listed below, What is liturgy? explains this in further detail.

From there, feel free to peruse some of the other basic questions of liturgy that perhaps you’ve never quite managed to put into words yet.  Not that I’ve got all the answers either, but it’s a work in progress we’ve got over here 🙂

Liturgy in general:

Practical & Procedural Advice:

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Two Post-Communion Prayers

I can just hear the traditionalists gnashing their teeth at this title.  “Two post communion prayers?  What’s wrong with your new prayer book, couldn’t you just settle on one like the good old days?”  The funny thing, in this case, is that the 1662 Prayer Book actually did have two choices of prayer after the reception of Holy Communion.  The second option is essentially what we have to this day in American Prayer Books – the “post communion prayer.”  The first option might be called a Prayer of Oblation, and American prayer books have typically placed it as part of the Prayer of Consecration.  So where the 1662 Prayer Book has a one-or-the-other-prayer situation, books like the 1928 use both, having moved one to a different spot.

In the 2019 Prayer Book, though, with our two communion rites, we end up with two different versions of the post-communion prayer.  Before preparing this write-up, I’d not yet spent any time comparing the two prayers against one another, and was pleasantly surprised at what I discovered: they are essentially the same prayer.  Check it out:

post-com

Of course there are some differences, and even the slightest difference can imply a much larger shift in emphasis and focus.  So let’s take a look at some of the variations between these.  The Prayer on the left side is the Anglican Standard Text, and, minus a couple words and one phrase trimmed out, is the same as found in the 1662 Prayer Book.  If you’re interested in that “true standard”, you can find it at the end of this entry.

The first major streamlining in the Renewed Ancient Text (right column) is where the prayer makes an aside to further explicate the nature of the Church.  “The body of your Son, and heirs of your eternal Kingdom” is made to cover for twice as much material in the Anglican Standard Text.

The next noteworthy omission is in the petition.  The first prayer asks God to assist us with his grace, while the second prayer asks God to send us out.  Both involve doing the good works according to his calling, but the former leans first on a prayer for perserverance in faith and the latter leans more on mission.  Indeed, that reference to serving as faithful witnesses of Christ is the only element of the second prayer that is truly unique to it, rather than a reduction of the other.

In short, both Post Communion Prayers in the 2019 Prayer Book are based upon the historic Post Communion Prayer.  The Anglican Standard Text is slightly shortened from the original, and the Renewed Ancient Text is even more shortened, and given a “missional” flavor toward the end.  They still ultimately communicate the same thing to us, but they do send us in slightly different directions.

– – –

ALMIGHTY and everliving God
we most heartily thank thee, for that thou dost vouchsafe to feed us,
who have duly received these holy mysteries,
with the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood
of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ;
and dost assure us thereby of thy favour and goodness towards us;
and that we are very members incorporate in the mystical Body of thy Son,
which is the blessed company of all faithful people;
and are also heirs through hope of thy everlasting kingdom,
by the merits of the most precious death and passion of thy dear Son.
And we most humbly beseech thee, O heavenly Father, so to assist us with thy grace,
that we may continue in that holy fellowship,
and do all such good works as thou hast prepared for us to walk in,
through Jesus Christ our Lord; to whom, with thee and the Holy Ghost,
be all honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

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Harvest Home (but which one?)

Perhaps my favorite Thanksgiving hymn is Come, ye thankful people, come, also known in other books as Harvest Home.  Typically when dealing with hymns and songs on this blog, I stay away from the most popular entries, since people are more likely to have learned something about them already.  But this one… well, let’s just go for it and we’ll see what happens.

This is a great Thanksgiving Hymn, picking up immediately on one of the key origins for this holiday: the end of the harvest season.  Hence the first stanza:

Come, ye thankful people, come,
Raise the song of harvest-home;
All is safely gathered in
‘Ere the winter storms begin;
God, our Maker, doth provide
For our wants to be supplied;
Come to God’s own temple, come;
Raise the song of harvest-home.

Pretty straight forward, yes?  God is the creator and supplier of all things, that time of year draws to its close, so let’s go worship and thank him.  Simple.  Almost too simple.  But the second stanza is where things start to transform:

All the world is God’s own field,
Fruit unto his praise to yield;
Wheat and tares together sown,
Unto joy or sorrow grown;
First the blade and then the ear,
Then then full corn shall appear;
Grant, O harvest Lord, that we
Wholesome grain and pure may be.

Suddenly, while keeping the same imagery, the theological meaning has completely changed!  Now the field is God’s creation, the purpose of creation is praise him, wheat and tares grow together in the church, and we are called (planted) to bear the fruit of praise and thanksgiving.  Several parables and teachings of Jesus can be seen here, both distinctly and discreetly, and whether you follow either the 2019 prayer book or the traditional prayer book Sunday lectionary, themes like these have become prominent in recent weeks.

But we’re not done yet; stanza 3 takes it to another level:

For the Lord our God shall come,
And shall take his harvest home,
From his field shall in that day
All offences purge away,
Give his angels charge at last
In the fire the tares to cast,
But the fruitful ears to store
In his garner evermore.

Woah.  The return of Christ!  Judgement day!  The angelic harvest of the church… again the same parables alluded to, but now with a distinctly Advent theme.  This song can singlehandedly transition the worshiper from late Trinity to Advent!  The 4th and final stanza turns this into a prayer:

Even so, Lord, quickly come
To thy final harvest-home;
Gather thou thy people in,
Free from sorrow, free from sin,
There, forever purified,
In thy presence to abide;
Come with all thine angels, come;
Raise the glorious harvest-home.  Amen.

“Come, Lord Jesus” is the prayer at the end of the book of Revelation, and a key theme of the season of Advent (indeed, it is the Acclamation at the beginning of the modern Communion liturgy.)

It helps a great deal that Thanksgiving Day normally lands three days before the beginning of Advent, like it does this year.  Occasionally Thanksgiving is early enough that there’s still one Sunday left before Advent, but however it works in a given year, this hymn is a fantastic end-of-the-year song to sing.  There are a handful of Thanksgiving songs that I really like, and even more available in most hymnals, so I kind of feel bad appointing it every year at the expense of the others… but you know what?  I think this one’s worth it.

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Readings Review & Planning Propers 11/25

What we’re doing on this blog on Mondays is looking back and forth at the Daily Office readings (or lessons) so we can better process together what the Scriptures are saying, and list the recommended Propers for the Communion or Antecommunion service for each day of the week.

Readings Review

Last week: Judith 11-16, Ecclus. (Sirach) 1, Acts 17-20:16, Isaiah 30-36, Luke 3-6:19
This week: Ecclus. (Sirach) 2-11, Acts 21-23, Isaiah 37-43, Luke 6:20-9:17

Special lesson for Morning Prayer on Saint Andrew’s Day: John 1:35-42

This weekend in Morning Prayer we began the book of Ecclesiasticus, the full title of which is The Wisdom of Jesus son of Sirach, often called Sirach for short.  This is a book of wisdom literature, like the book of Proverbs, but unlike that book is largely written (or compiled) by one man (whose name is in the title) and translated into Greek by his grandson.  This book even has a Preface (chapter zero, basically) which gives us a note about its translation, and that you always lose something in the process.  That in itself is a fascinating insight into the manner of self-awareness of ancient writers.  Anyway, if you’re not familiar with Sirach, check out my brief introduction to this book from last year.

Meanwhile, in Isaiah, we’re just getting into a brief historical interlude in the middle of the book, where we hear the story of some of King Hezekiah’s interactions with Isaiah.  If you have a keen memory you may recall some of this material from 2 Kings.

After that, starting with Isaiah chapter 40, we get to the second half of the book.  Some scholars think that this section of the book was written by Isaiah’s prophetic successors or disciples because it takes on a different tone and focus.  Although it may be an unnecessary stretch to assume a change in authorship, it is absolutely true that the style of the book changes.  Chapters 40-66 no longer deal so much with specific oracles and prophecies against specific nations and peoples, but take on a much broader scope.  Jerusalem, Babylon, and other important cities are still mentioned along the way, but the emphasis is not so much on what’s going to happen to them specifically so much as what’s going to happen to the whole world.  Almost every chapter from here to the end has at least a couple famous verses that the casual Bible-reader will recognize.

  • 40 = “Comfort, comfort my people…” and “They will soar on wings like eagles…”
  • 42 = “Behold, my servant, whom I uphold… I have put my Spirit upon him…”
  • 43 = “Remember not the former things… Behold, I am doing a new thing…”
  • 49 = “Can a woman forget her nursing child… yet I will not forget you.”
  • 51 = “Awake, awake, put on strength…”
  • 52 = “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news…”
  • 53 = “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief…”
  • 54 = “In righteousness you shall be established”
  • 55 = “Seek the Lord while he may be found; call upon him while he is near…”
  • 56 = “my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples”
  • 57 = “thus says the one who is high and lifted up… I dwell in the high and holy place… to revive the spirit of the lowly…”
  • 58 = “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness…”
  • 59 = “My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart…”
  • 60 = “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you”
  • 61 = “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me… to bring good news to the poor…”
  • 62 = “You shall no more be termed Forsaken… but you shall be called My Delight Is In Her…”
  • 64 = “But now, O Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, and you are our potter”
  • 65 = “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.”

Almost every one of these chapters find a home in the lectionary in Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Ash Wednesday, or near Easter…. most of the major feasts of the Christian year.  This is because, as we will see, reading through, a great deal of Isaiah’s writings point very clearly to Jesus, the New Covenant in his blood, and the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Planning Propers

This is the week of Proper 29 (or Last Sunday before Advent in the traditional calendar), so keep in mind that the historic Prayer Book default is that a mid-week Eucharist will repeat the Collect & Lessons (the propers) for yesterday.  Otherwise, we recommend…

  • Monday 11/25 = St. Catherine of Alexandria (martyr) or Votive*
  • Tuesday 11/26 = Votive
  • Wednesday 11/27 = Votive
  • Thursday 11/28 = Thanksgiving Day
  • Friday 11/29 = Votive
  • Saturday 11/30 = SAINT ANDREW

* A Votive is a “Various Occasion” (page 733 in the BCP 2019).  The traditional appointments are Holy Trinity on Sunday, Holy Spirit on Monday, Holy Angels on Tuesday, of the Incarnation on Wednesdays, of the Holy Eucharist on Thursdays, the Holy Cross on Fridays, and of the Blessed Virgin Mary on Saturdays.

Posted on by Fr. Brench

Quick Note about the last Sunday before Advent

It’s the last Sunday of the season – Advent starts in one more week!  A lot of us are probably celebrating “Christ the King Sunday” today, so I thought I’d drop a quick reminder here before we misrepresent our own tradition.  The traditional prayer for this Sunday anticipates the tone of Advent:

Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may by thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The modern prayer for this Sunday, now called “Christ the King” but perhaps more subtly and appropriately “Christ the Judge”, also prepares us for Advent quite well:

Almighty and everlasting God, whose will it is to restore all things in your well-beloved Son, the King of kings and Lord of lords: Mercifully grant that the peoples of the earth, divided and enslaved by sin, may be freed and brought together under his most gracious rule; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

If you want to know more about Christ the King as an observance, here are some links: