Continuing our Visual Tour of the St. Aelfric Chapel here, we’re looking at one of the prayer cards atop the shelf that’s next to the entrance. At this shelf-top people pick up the bulletin for the worship service and grab their books from the shelves below. But there are also a few prayer cards and other things there, picturing a sort of “company of heaven” atop the instruments of our praise, and one of these is of St. Charles the Martyr-King.

King Charles I is remembered with some controversy among some segments of the population, but to the English (Anglican) Church his memory is honorable; indeed, the 1662 Prayer Book contained a special service of mourning to be held every January 30th in recognition of his unjust execution at the order of the illegal Rump Parliament at the end of the English Civil War in 1649. An excerpt of his last words is included on one side of the card:

The Collect on the bottom-right is one of the prayers appointed in the 1662 Prayer Book for his commemoration, and is put forth by the Saint Aelfric Customary as the Collect of the Day on January 30th also. If you want your own copy of this prayer card, it can be purchased from the Seabury Society here:

WordPress tells me that I have been blogging with them for 11 years as of today. Woohoo, go me! That’s when I started leorningcnihtes boc, though; this liturgy page has been around for just over three years.

Anyway, I thought I’d share a snapshot of the research I’m doing today. It concerns the Proper Prefaces, which are read by the celebrant between the Sursum Corda and the Sanctus.

This is one of those tricky bits of the liturgy where there were some changes from 1662 to 1928, from 1928 to 1979, and from 1979 to 2019. Where our new Prayer Book typically reins in the 1979’s variety, this bit has actually been multiplied! And yet some of the Prefaces in 1979 still manage to be omitted in 2019, and others edited back to conform more closely to classical terminology. Many of our Prefaces are modern, but quite a few of them are from the Early Church, and it’s not always obvious which came from where.

Marion J. Hatchett’s Commentary on the American Prayer Book is proving a great help for the material that’s in the 1979 Prayer Book, but that doesn’t account for everything in the 2019 Prayer Book, so I’ve got some poking around to do yet. Say a prayer for me, if you would; research like this walks a fine line between terribly fascinating and terribly boring, and I want to get this done!

It’s been quiet on this blog for a while. It’s hard to make time for writing when you’re a stay-at-home parent with two children during the summer. I’ve also been shifting my writing efforts from blogging to larger projects for physical publication. This isn’t an official announcement, yet, but a teaser/preview that some exciting new things are in the works. Eventually I’ll have an online bookstore to unveil.

But it is time to get the Saint Aelfric Customary blog up and running again. I cannot promise 5 posts a week like I maintained before COVID-tide, but I am going to begin by sharing occasional (hopefully at least weekly) notes on liturgical planning. Rather than writing more studious pieces about the liturgy generally, as I did extensively for nearly two years, this will be more specific to particular examples. Tomorrow, for example, you can read about some music planning that I’m aiming for in my church, and bit of what I hope to accomplish with that. Other times I’ll make notes about how we’re acknowledging certain commemorations on Sundays, or perhaps something we do at Evening Prayer sometime.

In short, I’m back! Let’s have some (perhaps slightly geeky) fun learning about liturgy together again.

Let me just preface this with a disclaimer, since humor on the internet can be very subjective: this is a satire entry. Satire, when written correctly, is not rude and mean-spirited, but uses humor or unexpected juxtapositions to criticize an issue. Hopefully this remains in that vein.

Yesterday I offered a negative example of a prayer for putting on a face mask; today I’m offering a different kind of bad example of liturgy, this time for the removing of a face mask.

A Liturgy for the Removal of Face Masks
especially before a meal

OPENING SENTENCE

Nothing is covered up that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known. LUKE 12:2

PSALM 32:1-2

Blessed is the one whose unrighteousness is forgiven, *
and whose sin is covered.
Blessed is the one to whom the Lord imputes no sin, *
and in whose spirit there is no guile.

Glory be 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.

THE LESSON

When one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed.  Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.
2 CORINTHIANS 3:16-18a

The Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.

The officiant and people remove their face masks.

THE PRAYERS

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

O God, whose blessed Son made himself known to his disciples in the breaking of bread: Open the eyes of our faith, that we may behold him in the fullness of his redeeming work; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

May the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing through the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. ROMANS 15:13

I put this together to contrast the errors of yesterday’s prayer with a different set of errors. The first was very unorthodox in the theology it espoused, putting personal definitions over biblical definitions. This liturgy, however, is very traditional in its order and content. The problem with what I’ve put together is that it, yes, is super tacky, but that it demonstrates a lack of discernment or understanding regarding the use of prayer and scripture.

One of the popular assumptions about Anglican worship, these days, is that the “shape” of it is of primary or near-primary importance. The exact content can vary, they say, so long as the general order of things and thematic movement is basically the same. While this argument can be accepted on a limited level, particularly when comparing the Prayer Book of different Anglican provinces, or even comparing liturgies across different Christian traditions, this does not pan out in reality nearly as generously as some would claim. So I made this “liturgy” to help illustrate how wildly wrong that preference for “shape” can go.

The outline is sound: (1) Acclamation / Opening Sentence, (2) Psalm, (3) Lesson, (4) Prayer, (5) Closing Sentence / Blessing. But the content, despite being literally all quoted from the Bible or the Prayer Book, is utterly ridiculous.

The Opening Sentence and the Psalm refer to sin that are “covered up.” In the Opening Sentence, Jesus warns that he will uncover the sins of all, implying that we must live lives of repentance. In Psalm 32, God covers our sins, in the sense that he will clothe us with his righteousness. This is an awkward contrast, using the concept of “covering up sin” in two very different ways. It might make for a useful juxtaposition in a sermon, but it makes for poor liturgy. You can’t just give two opposite uses of the same word in a row like that and expect people to follow along on the first try.

The lesson, too, is atrocious. I literally just ran a search through Biblegateway for the word “veil” until I found something that I could use. The text itself refers to the “veil” of ignorance covering the eyes of those who don’t know Christ and are therefore unable to see him in the Old Testament Scriptures. You can’t simply lift a text out of the Bible and plunk it down in any old setting like this! That’s not how this works! Biblical interpretation and liturgical use must go hand-in-hand; a lesson or reading must be read in the right context or its interpretation will be twisted. As it stands here, 2 Corinthians 3 sounds like a condemnation of face masks – to wear one is to stifle our freedom! There are folks out there making claims along those lines, and, well, I feel sorry for their neighbors. But whatever your view of the “politics” of face masks during a global pandemic, it must be understood without a doubt that these verses having literally nothing to do with wearing face masks. Beware the “word search” approach to finding Bible verses that fit the subject or occasion you’ve got in mind… right interpretation of the text is vital for its right liturgical use.

The Collect and Closing Sentence, following from that, continue the theme of “sight” and “open eyes” being equated with “faith” and “believing.” There is nothing particularly offensive about this closing, but it is largely a non sequitur after the tone of what came before, and (honestly) still has nothing to do with face masks. The use of this prayer and sentence highlights another mistake that some Anglicans make with the Prayer Book: cobbling together bits and pieces from across the Book to make something new. The Prayer Book is not a cafeteria! It is not the Book of Common Prayers, but the Book of Common Prayer, full stop. We cannot treat it as a collection of resources. Rather, it is a system of whole liturgies, a complete life of worship, built in discrete blocks of worship services. Can we adapt pieces of it for private use? Absolutely. But that is not what the Prayer Book is for, primarily, and we have to be very selective and discerning about how we create our own devotions. Just like the text of the Bible, taking prayers and things out of context and putting them into new roles and situations can completely transform their interpretation.

So what have we learned here, folks?

1. The “shape” of the liturgy is not as crucial as the content of the liturgy.
2. Raw Bible quotes can be utterly meaningless if taken out context.
3. Interpretation and liturgical function belong together.
4. The Prayer Book is not a cafeteria to pick and choose from.
5. Fr. Brench has a very silly sense of humor.

There is a prayer flitting about the internet these days, “for putting on a face mask.” On the face of it (haha!) this is not necessarily a bad idea; there are several ancient “vesting prayers” said by priests and other ministers as they don their vestments before the Service of Holy Communion. And there are many other prayers and devotions that are meant to “sanctify” the ordinary actions of life. So the idea of a prayer for donning a face mask, if weird, is not in itself a bad one. However, the particular prayer getting a lot of air-time online is not a good example. Here it is:

Creator,
as I prepare to go into the world,
help me to see the sacrament
in the wearing of this cloth –
let it be “an outward sign
of an inward grace” –
a tangible and visible way
of living love for my neighbours,
as I love myself.

Christ,
since my lips will be covered,
uncover my heart,
that people would see my smile
in the crinkles around my eyes.
Since my voice may be muffled,
help me to speak clearly,
not only with my words,
but with my actions.

Holy Spirit,
as the elastic touches my ears,
remind me to listen carefully –
and full of care –
to all those I meet.
May this simple piece of cloth
be shield and banner,
and each breath that it holds,
be filled with your love.

In your Name
and in that love,
I pray.

May it be so.
May it be so.

The first problem is the treatment of the Trinity. You can see this in many liberal or progressive churches today: the Father and the Son are regularly neutered and de-personified into mere roles: Creator and Redeemer. Here, the Redeemer is at least “Christ”, but the lack of clarification that the Christ is Jesus of Nazareth, the man who was God, is a red flag. After all, in a prayer this long there should definitely be room for him. But he is carefully and intentionally omitted. And it’s worse that the Father (alone) is called “Creator” – although the orthodox faith admits no gender for God the Father, it has always put forth the first person of the Trinity as “The Father”, in line with both Old and New Testament witness. To evade this most basic label is to evade Christian orthodoxy.

The next major no-no here is the assertion of a sacramental nature to wearing a face mask. It is, indeed, an outward sign of an inward love, as we wear masks primarily to prevent ourselves from spreading COVID-19 to others, but love is not grace, at least not in the biblical sense. We are being gracious to others by wearing masks, but we certainly do not confer grace upon anyone else by any action we undertake. Grace in the theological sense is the gift of God alone. This prayer betrays a fatal lack of understanding of grace and sacramentology.

The second stanza, addressed to the nebulous Christ, contains good advice but nothing of theological substance. This is better embroidered on a cross-stitch than uttered as a prayer.

The third stanza, finally, is actually a decent prayer. It may not be in the formal voice that good liturgy strives for, but the sentiment is worthwhile.

But that ending… please don’t pray in the Name of Creator/Christ/Holy Spirit… that’s just not sound theology, liturgical or otherwise.

So, by all means, if you can take ordinary actions and bathe them in prayer, that’s fantastic. Just don’t use this prayer going around, and let us learn from the mistakes of others.