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Minor Feast Day: Cornelius the Centurion

Today’s commemoration in our calendar is Saint Cornelius the Centurion, whose story is recorded in Acts 10.  He was a devout believer in God, but a Gentile.  He kept regular “hours” of prayer, and during one of these he received an angelic vision affirming his devotion and almsgiving, that these have risen as “a memorial before God.”  As a Gentile, he was separated from God under the Old/Mosaic Covenant, but as he would soon find out, there is a New Covenant that was available to him.

He wasn’t the first Gentile to convert, but he was basically the first Gentile that an Apostle sought out, preached to, and baptized.  Acts 10 is sometimes nicknamed “the Gentile Pentecost,” as the Holy Spirit powerfully fell upon the household of Cornelius in the same way that he fell upon the Samaritans in chapter 8 and the Jews in chapter 2.

Like some of the other holy days we’ve noted in the past few weeks, Cornelius’ commemoration is particularly on-point for the Epiphany season.  Indeed, we need only look two days behind us, to Candlemas, to be reminded of the great Epiphany promise in Christ: to be a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of [God’s] people Israel.  The light of the Gospel, through the angelic vision and the preaching St. Peter, shone in the household of Cornelius, and he and his family and servants – his entire household – were baptized into the Body of Christ.

If you, or someone you know, are typically skeptical of observing saints’ days, especially the longer list of optional commemorations, keep examples like this in mind.  It’s more than just about the man Cornelius.  It’s about the light of the Gospel advancing into new territory.  It’s about celebrating the fruit of faithful preaching and obedience to God.  It’s about affirming the honest search for God.  It’s about giving flesh and bones, real life stories, to the great theological topics and truths highlighted in the liturgical calendar year.

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The Presentation / Purification / Candlemas

February 2nd is the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple, also known as The Purification of Mary, or Candlemas for short.  I thought I’d take up some of the liturgical tid-bits that characterize the celebration of that day, and point out something of how they inform us of the Christian Faith, and biblical interpretation.

There are three primary worship services in Western liturgical tradition: Morning Prayer (or Mattins), the Mass (or Communion or Eucharist), and Evening Prayer (or Vespers).  Although they are normally held throughout the day in that order, the Communion service is the “principle” celebration of the day; that means that the scripture readings in that service are usually the most significant ones for the given holiday, and the readings in the Office are supplementary.  Also, what exactly the readings are, and how many of them exist, will vary between different specific traditions.  Older Anglican Prayer Books differ slightly from newer ones, and Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox liturgies also have slightly different choices in many cases, but over all the similarities tend to outweigh the differences.  With that in mind, let’s dive in!

The Collect

The “Collect of the Day” is a prayer that is meant to collect together the theme(s) of the day from the Scripture readings.  Looking at how this is done in a given Collect can reveal the theological, devotional, or practical emphases that the tradition is putting forth.  Here is one Collect for the feast of the Presentation:

Almighty and everlasting God, we humbly pray that, as your only-begotten Son was this day presented in the temple in the substance of our flesh, so we may be presented to you with pure and clean hearts by Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

This focuses on the historical event (Jesus’ presentation in the Temple) and draws a spiritual analogy to the end product of our salvation: the Day we are all made completely holy in Christ such that he may present us to the Father as adopted members of the household of God.  It also points out that Jesus was in “our flesh,” providing an emphasis on the incarnation and the exchange that takes place: God entered into our humanity so that we can enter into His divinity.

Morning Prayer readings

One Old Testament reading that some of the classic Prayer Books set forth for the Office of Morning Prayer is Exodus 13:1-16.  This makes for a great first reading on this holiday because it gives the Old Testament Law of Moses background for what’s going on with Jesus and his family.  In the wake of the Passover (Exodus 12), God instructs Moses that by destroying all the firstborn males in Egypt except for those households protected by the blood of the Passover Lamb, all firstborn males in Israel now belong to Him.  Therefore they must be redeemed (or bought back) after they are born.  It’s like a first-fruit offering, except because children are not to be sacrificed, they are to be paid for instead.  (Interestingly, it’s the same concept as an indulgence – a debt is owed, but another form of payment is accepted.)

This is what Mary and Joseph were doing in the Temple with 40-day-year-old Jesus; they were obeying this law going back to the time of the Exodus.

Holy Communion readings

Across the board, the Gospel reading for this holiday is Luke 2:22-40, as that is the account of the event on which this holiday is based.  There we find the story of Jesus’ family in the Temple, Simeon recognizing Jesus and singing his prophetic song (or Canticle), and Anna the prophetess recognizing Jesus and sharing the good news of His arrival as well.

The Old Testament reading often included here (including our 2019 Prayer Book) is Malachi 3:1-5.  Much of that passage provides material for the preaching of St. John the Baptist, which inevitably draws the participant in the liturgy back to the season of Advent.  For there we heard for one or two Sundays about John and his preaching, and the accompanying Advent theme of the future return of Christ for the final judgement echoes in this reading too.  But most importantly, the very first verse here says “suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple.”  Obviously this has multiple fulfillments, as Jesus visits the Temple many times in his life and significant things take place at several of those visits.  But this is his first arrival in the Temple, and there are two people there (Simeon and Anna) who had been seeking him there.

Other readings

An Epistle reading found in some Daily Office lectionaries is Galatians 4:1-7.  There we find a theme mentioned briefly in the Collect – our own becoming sons of God.  It also mentions the dynamic of moving from being bound to the Law to being adopted as sons.  Jesus himself, it says, was “born of a woman, born under law,” which this holiday describes.  So the sharing of Christ in our humanity leads to our sharing in his divinity, because “since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”

One reading often used at the end of the day is Haggai 2:1-9.  This prophetic writing speaks of the newly-build second temple and its inferiority to the original built under King Solomon.  And yet, God promises that it will be greater in glory, for “in this place I will grant peace.”  This promise is empty and void throughout Old Testament history; it is not until Jesus arrives there that God’s presence actually ever even enters the Temple again!  As the Christian goes through Evening Prayer and sees this promise of peace at the end of the Old Testament lesson, he or she will be drawn back in memory to the Gospel reading earlier, specifically the words of Simeon: “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word.”  Haggai’s words are directly answered by Simeon in Luke’s Gospel book!

The Canticle of Simeon

Let’s stick with Simeon’s song for a moment here.  It’s Luke 2:29-32, specifically, and is actually used throughout the entire year as a canticle (prayer-song) in the Daily Office.  Traditionally it’s a canticle appointed for Compline, the bedtime office of prayer.  In that context, it is read by Christians sort of in union with Simeon with our approaching bedtime as a picture of our eventual death (as Simeon had been promised that would not die until he’d seen the Savior).  In Anglican practice, the Canticle of Simeon is also used in Evening Prayer, but the end-of-day/end-of-life context and effect is the same.  My point is that a regular participant in the liturgy will be intimately familiar with the Canticle of Simeon.  As a result, hearing it in the liturgy for this particular holiday will have an interesting effect.

Two major promises stand out in the Canticle of Simeon: Christ will be a light to enlighten the Gentiles, and will be a light to be the glory of Israel.  The theme of light coming into the world is echoed throughout the seasons of Advent (Romans 13:12’s armor of light), Christmas (John 1:9’s light coming into the world), and Epiphany (Isaiah 60’s light shining upon the nations).  So as this holiday wraps up the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany cycle, the theme of light is brought to the foreground and celebrated quite visually.

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The Blessing of Candles

This holiday’s nickname is Candlemas, because of the tradition of blessing candles on this day.  All the candles to be used in the Church for the coming year are gathered up to be blessed for their sacred purpose.  Additionally, other candles are blessed and distributed to the people to carry in procession and to take home.  This is a physical enactment of what we learn from Simeon – Christ is the light of the world for all nations, including ourselves!  One can also find in the Gospel books the words of Christ, “you are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14 and following).

Light does many things.  It drives out darkness and exposes what’s hidden.  Thus, the blessings spoken over the candles include both penitential aspects as God’s people repent of their sins, and apotropaic aspects as demonic spirits are to flee from the light of Christ.  The Scriptures do attest, after all, that the darkness has not overcome it (John 1:5).  So, by receiving candles and lighting them, we participants in the liturgy are given physical reinforcement to the words and teachings of Scripture that we are God’s adopted children, receiving Christ the light of the world promised in ages past by the Prophets.  And we receive this not just as some abstract teaching, but as historically linked to real events that actually happened.  Christ the Light of the World is not just a spiritual reality that occurs in our hearts, but is grounded in the real arrival of the real Christ child in the real (though now long-gone) Temple.  And with all that in place we are pointed to look ahead to the Day we each are presented in the heavenly temple to our heavenly Father by our adoptive brother, Christ Himself.

This post, apart some new edits, was originally published on my blog Leorningcnihtes boc, on 3 February 2016.

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Canticle of the Martyred

For perhaps the first century of the life of the 1662 Prayer Book, January 30th was a national holiday (literally, holy day) with its own special liturgical observances.  Morning Prayer, the Communion, and Evening Prayer each had their own unique edits for this day.  The commemoration appointed was for the Martyrdom of King Charles I at the hands of the Puritan Parliament that went on to outlaw the Prayer Book and suppress the office of bishops, in addition to temporarily ending the monarchy in England.  This holy day, with its special liturgies, was eventually removed from the Prayer Book, I suppose it was a bit too nationalistic.

Check it out for yourself, if you have the time; it’s very interesting!  But let’s just glean a couple things from this defunct holy day to see what we can learn about the potential in Anglican liturgy for special occasions.

Observation #1 – the Anglican Church called for prayer and fasting

Stereotypically we think of appointed fast days as a Roman Catholic or East Orthodox practice.  Yet the Church of England does have a tradition of such days also.  Most Fridays, technically, were intended as such.  And January 30th was, for a time, an additional day of fasting.  Here is the introductory text in the 1662 Prayer Book for this day:

A FORM of PRAYER with FASTING, to be used yearly upon the Thirtieth Day of January, being the Day of the Martyrdom of the Blessed King CHARLES the First; to implore the Mercy of God, that neither the Guilt of that sacred and innocent Blood, nor those other sins, by which God was provoked to deliver up both us and our King into the hands of cruel and unreasonable men, may at any time hereafter be visited upon us, or our posterity.

¶ If this Day shall happen to be a Sunday, this Form of Prayer shall be used, and the Fast kept, the next Day following. And upon the Lord’s Day next before the Day to be kept, at Morning Prayer, immediately after the Nicene Creed, Notice shall be given for the due observation of the said Day.

While the intersection of State and Church might be a bit too much for our palate today, the idea that the Church can call for a day of fasting and prayer is clear.  There are occasions in the life of a country or region when special prayer and fasting can (and should) be called for.  However one feels about the appropriateness or execution of this particular example, it nonetheless stands as an example of how we might go about such an occasion.  It substitutes a number of prayers, lessons, and canticles for the usual ones appointed, giving the liturgy of the day a different flavor and emphasis without breaking from the ordinary flow of worship.

Let’s zoom in on just one of those liturgical changes from the old January 30th material.

Observation #2 – the Invitatory Canticle

“¶ Instead of Venite Exultemus, the Hymn following shall be said or sung; one Verse by the Priest, another by the Clerk and people.”  To translate it from the 17th century language to that of the ESV Bible…

Righteous are you, O LORD, and right are your rules.
You have been righteous in all that has come upon us,
for you have dealt faithfully and we have acted wickedly.
But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled,
my steps had nearly slipped.
For I was envious of the arrogant
when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.
The kings of the earth set themselves,
and the rulers take counsel together,
against the LORD and against his Anointed.
They conspire with one accord; against you they make a covenant.
For I hear the whispering of many, terror on every side,
as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life.
Speaking against me with lying tongues,
they encircle me with words of hate, and attack me without cause.
Even my close friend in whom I trusted, who ate my bread,
has lifted his heel against me.
They repay me evil for good; my soul is bereft.
Those who watch for my life consult together and say, “God has
forsaken him; pursue and seize him, for there is none to deliver him.”
The breath of our nostrils, the LORD’s anointed,
was captured in their pits, of whom we said,
“Under his shadow we shall live among the nations.”
Foe and enemy enter the gates of Jerusalem, saying,
“When will he die, and his name perish?”
“A deadly thing is poured out on him;
he will not rise again from where he lies.”
Malicious witnesses rise up; they ask me of things that I do not know.
This was for the sins of her prophets
and the iniquities of her priests,
who shed in the midst of her the blood of the righteous.
Let my soul come not into their council;
O my glory, be not joined to their company.
For in their anger they killed men.
The man of your right hand,
the son of man whom you have made strong for yourself!
In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died,
and their departure was thought to be an affliction.
We fools! We thought that his life was madness
and that his end was without honor; but he is at peace.
For though in the sight of men he was punished,
his hope is full of immortality.
Has he not been numbered among the sons of God,
and his lot among the saints?
O LORD, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance:
do good to Zion in your good pleasure.
Accept atonement, O LORD, for your people Israel,
whom you have redeemed,
and do not set the guilt of innocent blood in the midst
of your people Israel, so that their blood guilt be atoned for.
Do not sweep my soul away with sinners,
nor my life with bloodthirsty men.
Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation,
and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness.
For you are not a God who delights in wickedness;
evil may not dwell with you.
You destroy those who speak lies;
the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.
How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors!
Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself,
you despise them as phantoms.
Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty!
Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations!
Righteous are you, O LORD, and right are your rules.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son: and to the Holy Spirit;
As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be; world without end. Amen.

This is a fantastic Canticle, working together a wide range of verses from throughout the Bible.  The old Prayer Book even had the courtesy of giving us all the references:

Ps. 119:137, Neh. 9:33, Ps. 73:2-3, 2:2, 83:5, 31:13, 109:2b-3, 41:9, 35:12, 71:10b-11,
Lam. 4:20, 4:12, Ps. 41:5b, 41:8, 35:11, Lam. 4:13, Gen. 49:6, 80:17, Wis. 3:2, 5:4b, 3:3b, 3:4, 5:5, Ps. 94:1, 51:18a, Deut. 21:8, Ps. 26:9, 51:14, 5:4, 5:6, 73:19, 73:20, Rev. 15:3b,
and Ps. 119:137.

Although this Canticle is officially defunct, the style of its arrangement has been copied in later developments, perhaps most notably for Remembrance Day in the Church of England, which has its own special liturgies with unique Canticles and so forth.

I heartily recommend reviving this Canticle for appropriate occasions.  If you’re not as big a fan of observing the martyrdom of Charles I, then perhaps you can use it for the commemoration of a different martyr.  We have no shortage of martyrs in our calendar of commemorations, after all!

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The Double-Duty Collect

The up-and-coming 2019 Prayer Book appoints this Collect for the third Sunday after the Epiphany, and thus for this week in the Daily Office:

Give us grace, O Lord, to answer readily the call of our Savior Jesus Christ and proclaim to all people the Good News of his salvation, that we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

This Collect does double duty; it comes back for “World Mission Sunday,” which the calendar recommends for the penultimate Sunday before Lent (though authorizes for any Sunday in Epiphanytide between the first and last).  I’ve mentioned here before my preference to omit the World Mission Sunday option, but let’s take a look at this Collect.

As far as I’m aware, this Collect originated with the 1979 Prayer Book; it certainly has no previous life in the historic prayer book calendar tradition.  It is one of the several “mission-themed” Collects that comprise the Epiphany season in the modern liturgical calendar.  Arguably it is a favorite of the mission themed Collects, since it was selected for the World Mission Sunday option, too.

It begins with a rare switching of order – the petition precedes the address: “Give us grace” before “O God.”  Some Collects have a longer address than others; this is one of the shortest.  In fact, not only is the address brief, but the petition is brief too.  It is the third part of this collect (the purpose) that occupies the majority of its verbiage.  We pray for grace “to answer readily the call” and to “proclaim to all people”, so that “we and the whole world may perceive the glory of his marvelous works.”

It’s not an unusual thing to pray for the mission of the church.  Making it personal (“give us grace, O God…”) is a good step up from that.  And taking it further to describe the purpose of such missional prayer – that all may glory in the marvelous works of God – sets before us a sort of destination.  We don’t pursue evangelism and missions for the sake of “saving souls”, as it were, but so that all may see God.  One of the challenges of stirring up the call to evangelism and outreach is the trap of self-aggrandizement: “look how successful we are because of all the people we’re reaching for Christ!”  Keeping the purpose of evangelism and mission firmly fixed upon the glory God, not ourselves, is a helpful reminder indeed.

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Book Review: the 1928 BCP

Welcome to Saturday Book Review time!  On most of the Saturdays this year we’re 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’s entry is the 1928 Common Prayer book.  This is the standard Prayer Book for Anglican traditionalists in the United States of America.  It is the third American prayer book; the first was ratified in 1789, and the second in 1892.  I’ve never looked at those books before so I cannot speak about the changes from one to the next.  But a note about the American Prayer Book tradition is worth making, before we proceed.

It is sometimes perceived that the American Prayer Books are direct descendants of the English 1662 Prayer Book.  This is not entirely true; the American liturgical tradition has two parents: the liturgy of the Church of England and the liturgy of the Scottish Episcopal Church.  The reason for this is oddly specific: in the English Ordinal, when a new bishop is consecrated he swears allegiance to the reigning monarch as Supreme Governor of the Church.  The newly-independent USA, with its now-independent church province, obviously could not have bishops under oath to the crown, so when it came to obtaining bishops in the proper manner (with the laying on of hands by other bishops), the Americans had to turn to Scotland.  In Scotland, the State Church is presbyterian, so the Anglican/Episcopal tradition there was a “free church”.  They were able to ordain the first bishop for the USA, and in deference to that role, the subsequent American Prayer Book took on several features of the Scottish liturgy.

All that to say, there are a few differences in the American liturgy that might be hard to explain if you only look at the English 1662 book and its predecessors.

On the whole, however, the 1928 Prayer Book is recognizably the same religion, the same tradition, as previous prayer books.  If you compare the table of contents, for example, they’re nearly identical.

As you look through its pages, something different pops up almost immediately: the Daily Office Lectionary in the 1928 book is based on the liturgical year instead of the ordinary calendar year.  The majority of the Bible is still covered, though less than in the original books.  The books are still read sequentially much of the time, but there’s also a considerable amount of skipping around the Bible at the changing of the seasons.  There’s something appropriate, for example, about reading Jeremiah “the weeping prophet” during the season of Lent.  Another feature of this lectionary that was probably new to the tradition in 1928 is the fact that for most of the year, the Old Testament lessons for Morning and Evening Prayer are not linked.  Originally, reading through a book, you’d read (for example) Genesis 1 in the morning, Genesis 2 in the evening, 3 the next morning, 4 the next evening, as so on.  But for most of this daily lectionary, the morning and evening lessons are going through different books.  The 2019 Prayer Book’s daily lectionary is adopting that feature too.

Along with a noteworthy Daily Office Lectionary comes a noteworthy Daily Office.  When you compare the 1928 with the English books, you find that this book has shortened and diversified somewhat.  The “lesser litany” or “preces & responses” following the Lord’s Prayer is abbreviated in the Morning; the Nicene Creed is authorized instead of the Apostles’ Creed, if desired; the Opening Sentences of Scripture now included seasonal options.

But it is the Communion service that perhaps catches the most attention here.  If you’re used to the 1662 or 1979 traditions, the 1928 prayer of consecration will strike you as surprisingly long.  The priest is up at the altar going through the prayer for the whole state of Christ’s Church, then the great thanksgiving, preface, consecration, and a whole host of other prayers before everyone receives Communion.  If you take all the prayers in the 1662 and rearrange them, you’ve got almost the whole 1928 canon; just a couple bits and pieces are added, in comparison.  From the perspective of the 1979 book’s Rite II, the format is mostly familiar but doubled in length.

The controversy of this book when it was new, as I understand, was that it was influenced by the Oxford Movement, and the Communion liturgy thus was more “high church” friendly than before.  I haven’t compared it to its two American predecessors, so I can’t comment on that.  But it is noteworthy that most of the 1928 Prayer Book users today seem to be high church parishes and/or Anglo-Catholics.  And when the 2019 Prayer Book took up the 1928-like prayers via 1979’s Rite I, the low-church push-back was such that the Liturgical Task Force committee added rubrics for adapting it to the 1662 order.

So if high/low churchmanship is a sticking point for you, it’s possible that your opinion of the 1928 Prayer Book will soar or suffer, accordingly.

The ratings in short:

Accessibility: 4/5
A couple more options are in this book compared to the 1662, but it’s balanced out with a little format streamlining.  As with other older books, the typeface and overall appearance is not terribly familiar to the modern eye, which may bias the newcomer with a sense of “foreignness” at first.

Devotional Usefulness: 4/5
Compared to the 1662, I find the Daily Office slightly less edifying here, but the Communion liturgy (with a few extra sets of Collects & Lessons) slightly more edifying.  The comments about the 1662’s language style and lack of missional emphasis apply here also.

Reference Value: 4/5
If you’re an American Anglican, this is and important book to know; and if you’re also a clergyman you should probably own a copy.  The 1928 book represents the last of the historic American Prayer Books, and thus serves as a sort of baseline for liturgical development today.  Familiarity with this book, like the 1662, is very helpful for understanding the background and traditional intention of current liturgical developments such as the 2019 book.

Although my preferences are mixed, if for some reason I absolutely had to choose only one prayer book to use for the rest of my life and ministry, to the exclusion of all others, it would probably be this one.  There are things it lacks that I like to have available (sacramental confession, an Easter Vigil liturgy, imposition of ashes for Ash Wednesday), but it works.  I would have liked to see more of this book in the 2019 than we we’re ending up with.  I don’t see this as the ideal prayer book, but it’s one of the best!

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Praying in light of St. Paul’s Conversion

Today is the feast of the Conversion of Saint Paul, one of the wonderfully-Epiphany-appropriate holy days of the church year.  When you look at our Collect of the Day (yesterday at Evening Prayer and today at both offices, plus the Communion if you’re able to attend one) you’re looking at a prayer that hardly changed a bit in centuries.  Here it is from 1662:

O God, who, through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Saint Paul, hast caused the light of the Gospel to shine throughout the world: Grant, we beseech thee, that we, having his wonderful conversion in remembrance, may shew forth our thankfulness unto thee for the same, by following the holy doctrine which he taught; through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

The only changes are of spelling and grammatical construction, such that it flows better for the modern reader.  So today, let’s look at what the Collect says and prays, rather than compare and contrast old and new traditions.

The Address

God has “caused the light of the Gospel to shine throughout the world,” and he has accomplished this “through the preaching of the blessed Apostle Saint Paul.”  In our modern evangelical culture which is very focused on the ongoing work of missions and evangelism it may strike us as a bit odd to see such a triumphalist attitude in our prayers.  But it is a worthwhile reminder: thanks to the efforts of Saint Paul and the other Apostles, the Gospel really has spread all over the world.  It’s also worth noting the method mentioned – preaching.  If the Gospel is to continue to advance around the world, we must continue to preach it.

The Request

This, too, may feel like an odd prayer at first.  It is a prayer that we could “show forth our thankfulness.”  Compare it to the General Thanksgiving in the Daily Office, however… it is a prayer for an active thankfulness.  Our thankfulness is:

  1. rooted in remembering Paul’s conversion,
  2. directed towards God,
  3. and expressed by following Paul’s doctrine or teaching.

The first is in recognition of the holy day.  The second is a reminder that we worship and glorify God alone; we aren’t thanking the departed Saints directly.  The third is a recognition of Paul (and other Saints’) contribution to the present Christian life, namely, their teachings.

The Epiphany

When you read the Scripture lessons for this holy day, multiple epiphany connections can be drawn.  The dazzling appearance of the risen Christ was a literal “light to the world”, or at least to Paul (then Saul).  The prayer of Ananias shed the blinding scales from Paul’s eyes, giving him new vision – literally, an epiphany.  The subsequent Gospel preaching of Paul across the Mediterranean world was a light to the nations.

Happy holy day!

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This Morning: Resurrection

This morning  our Old Testament and New Testament lessons, which have been independently walking through the books of Genesis and John, step onto the same subject for a brief moment: resurrection.

Genesis 22 is the story of Abraham and Isaac, the father offering his son on an altar, though not having to go through with the actual spilling of blood.  As the anonymous New Testament author explains it,

Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.”  He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back (Hebrews 11:17-19).

Thus Genesis 22 is a sort of prototype resurrection story, prefiguring the Cross of Christ, and we usually hear it read in the Good Friday liturgy.

The New Testament lesson from John 11 is the story of the resurrection of Lazarus.  This is one of the lessons offered in our Burial Office due to its prominent place as a vivid and explicit example of the resurrection power of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Not only does he perform a miraculous resurrection of a man four days dead, but he also speaks of his own inherent life – that Jesus himself is resurrection, he himself is life.

Obviously, it is a plain coincidence that these two lessons are read together today.  The nature of a Daily Office Lectionary is to read through the Bible in sequential bits, not to try to connect the dots between Scripture (that is the function of a traditional Communion lectionary, which our modern ones unfortunately only do half the time).  Nevertheless, the co-incidence of explicit resurrection themes in Genesis 22 and John 11:1-44 is refreshing and noteworthy.  You might even want to grab an Easter-appropriate Canticle in place of the Te Deum… instead of saying Surge illuminare (#2) how about Cantemus Domino (#5), Dignus es (#6), or Cantate Domino (#7, Psalm 98)!

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A Canticle for Epiphanytide: Surge illuminare

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

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

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

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

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

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

Posted on by Fr. Brench

The Baptism of our Lord

Tomorrow, the majority of Christians across the world will be celebrating the Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ.  As we discussed earlier this week the Baptism of Jesus was originally simply a part of the Epiphany Day, but in the modern version of the Epiphany season has been placed on the first Sunday so we’ll all be sure of celebrating it, at the expense of the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple.

One of the handy things about the story of Christ’s baptism is the fact that three of the four Gospels relate it, and it’s the same three books that the revised common lectionaries highlight each year: Matthew, Mark, and Luke.  Mark’s telling of the baptism of Jesus (which we heard last year) is extremely short; it’s hardly more than a single verse, giving little context for the preacher to deal with the event itself, and perhaps therefore turning to other theological connections to the event as brought up in the other readings.  This year, however, is from Luke’s Gospel, which tells us something of the ministry of John the Baptist and more details of the event of the baptism itself.

A few misunderstandings about the baptism of John sometimes float around in popular artwork or teaching.  The mode of this baptism is not related – whether Jesus was fully immersed in the river or simply stood in it and had water poured on his head.  The Holy Spirit descended in the appearance of a dove after Jesus came out of the river, not (necessarily) the moment after he emerged from being fully immersed.  And this baptism was not even Christian baptism, either.  As Acts 19 notes, those who only received the baptism of John had to be baptized again in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as Jesus instructed.

The way this Sunday is observed in the lectionary, depending upon how you look at it, either creates some liturgical tension, or adds theological richness.  The tension lies in the fact that the readings from Acts 10 and Isaiah 42 emphasize the baptism of Jesus as a “missional” moment, instead of making it out to be an epiphany of Jesus to be God, as the traditional epiphany season would have done.  But if the reader and the preacher keeps the epiphany theme in mind, then the emphasis on mission – a light to the nations – can be seen as an enrichment to the traditional focus of Epiphanytide.

Oh, and, as usual, don’t forget to start the use of tomorrow’s Collect at Evening Prayer tonight!

Eternal Father, who at the baptism of Jesus revealed him to be your Son, anointing him with the Holy Spirit: grant to us, who are born again by water and the Spirit, that we may be faithful to our calling as your adopted children; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.  Amen.

Posted on by Fr. Brench · 8 Comments

The Epiphany Season (modern)

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

#1: The First Sunday after the Epiphany

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

#2: The Second Sunday after the Epiphany

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

#3: The Epistles throughout the Season

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

#4: The Gospels throughout the Season

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

#5: The Second-Last Sunday

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

#6: The Last Sunday

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