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John Chrysostom

Forgive me for the re-blog instead of new content today, but it’s just been “one of those” weeks. Happy St. John Chrysostom Day!

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Saint John Chrysostom is one of the giants of early Christian leadership and teaching, essentially the Eastern Greek-speaking counterpart to the Western Latin-speaking Augustine of Hippo.  John was born in 349, after Christianity was legalized, and he lived through the last imperial persecution under the last pagan Emperor, Julian the Apostate.  Thus John’s generation saw a transition from the greatest Saints being martyrs to being ascetics, confessors, and teachers of the faith.

As an ascetic, John was happy living as a monk.  He desired a simple life, away from the temptations of power and prestige, and (serving as a model for many bishops across the world after) he continued to live as a monk even after his consecration as a bishop.  His preaching often carried strong messages about communion with Christ and holy living – two of the subjects nearest to the heart of the monastic life.  He was especially…

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The Confession at Communion

After the Prayers of the People and the Exhortation comes the general confession of sins.  As Anglicans we may take this for granted… very few evangelical churches out there have any regular confession of sin in their worship services.  And the Roman Catholics only kinda-sorta do, at best.

In the old days, there was the confiteor, a prayer of confession, said during the “Fore-Mass”, which I believe was said at the bottom of the steps before approaching the altar during the Introit, and that was the Roman Catholic pattern until the 1960’s. Pope Benedict XVI’s revisions may have brought that back a little bit, but for the most part Roman piety traditionally expected people to make their confession in private the day before coming to Mass.  The English Reformation de-emphasized private confession (though despite what some say, we never abolished it!) and favored a corporate public confession within the Communion liturgy itself.  If private confession is needed, one of the Exhortations encourages people to go make that happen before coming to Communion next week.

The confession we’ve got in the Anglican Standard Text on pages 112-113 is a modern rendition of the traditional Anglican confession prayer for this liturgy.  The confession in the Renewed Ancient Text on page 130 is the “economy class” prayer from the 1979 Prayer Book – shorter, simpler, but arguably cheap.  So we’re going to leave that prayer be, and focus on where the 2019 Prayer Book is in line with Anglican tradition, rather than out of line.

2019: Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, maker and judge of us all:
1662: Almighty God, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Maker of all things, Judge of all men:

We’ve trimmed it down a bit here, doing away with the language of “men” in favor of something more gender-neutral by contemporary standards.  We’ve exchanged the Maker of all things for the maker of us, which takes away from the cosmic scope of things.  Fortunately, there’s plenty of other imagery in this prayer, so the loss of that little detail shouldn’t make a big difference overall.

2019: We acknowledge and lament our many sins and offenses, which we have committed by thought, word, and deed, against your divine majesty, provoking most justly your righteous anger against us.
1662: We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, Which we from time to time most grievously have committed, By thought, word, and deed, Against thy Divine Majesty, Provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us.

Again our trend to streamline and trim the language down a little.  “Bewail” has become “lament”, which is conceptually is a toning down of our response to sin, but “bewail” runs the risk of sounding melodramatic today, given it’s a word that we don’t really use anywhere else anymore.  The phrase “from time to time” has been removed without replacement, largely because the implication of that phrase today is “occasionally” rather than the original sense “from moment to moment”, and that would be too unwieldy to say. Other phrases, “most grievously” and “wrath and indignation” are also simplified.  It was a common feature of English liturgical language (and likely rhetoric and poetry in general) to produce strings of pairs: “this and this, that and that”, which sometimes we keep for sake of aesthetic, but sometimes we simplify so it doesn’t get too cumbersome.

2019: We are deeply sorry for these our transgressions; the burden of them is more than we can bear.
1662: We do earnestly repent, And are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; The remembrance of them is grievous unto us; The burden of them is intolerable.

It is curious, now that I look at this closely, that in all our streamlining, “repent” is not a word we kept.  This really is the heart of the confession prayer – the previous lines lead to this statement, and the remainder of the prayer grows out from here.  The language of our sins being a “burden” though, is good to note, as it brings us to the biblical language of Christ bearing our sins for us on the Cross.  For us, sin is an “intolerable” burden, or “more than we can bear”; only Christ can bear that sin, and bear it on the Cross he did.  Thus, though the Cross is not explicitly named, the Cross remains at the heart of our confession of sin.  Yes we have this sacramental moment in the liturgy, complete with an absolution from a priest, but it is the Cross of Christ where that absolution ultimately originates.

2019: Have mercy upon us, Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father;
1662: Have mercy upon us, Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father;

Why, in the final draft of the 2019, did we bring back this full phrase?  Why not simply “Have mercy upon us, most merciful Father”?  This is an ancient piece of prayer.  The three-fold miserere (appeal for mercy) is traditionally where the priest (and people?) beat their breast three times, with the word “mercy.”  When you pray this, whether you make that gesture or not, make sure you’re saying it slowly enough that you could be striking your breast at each “mercy.”  The point is not to hurt yourself, as if this were an aggressive penitential discipline; it’s an expression of penitence and humility, which can be found mentioned throughout the biblical narrative.

2019: for your Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, forgive us all that is past; and grant that we may evermore serve and please you in newness of life, to the honor and glory of your Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord.
1662: For thy Son our Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, Forgive us all that is past; And grant that we may ever hereafter Serve and please thee In newness of life, To the honour and glory of thy Name; Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

The phrase “ever hereafter” has become “evermore”.  Otherwise, we’re praying the same way Anglicans have been praying for centuries, here.

All in all, there is an extra layer of richness and beauty, as well as theological profundity, if you dig into the classical prayer books.  What we’ve got here in the 2019 Prayer Book is the same prayer in essence, but there are a few nuances that got streamlined out of the picture.  (Whereas the confession from the “Renewed Ancient Text” is barely the faintest echo of Anglican penitential piety.)  So we can pray this with confidence that we are praying in communion with our millions of forebears, drinking of the same fountain as those great divines of centuries past.  Just, I encourage you, dip into the classical language from time to time.  It’s not just historical interest, or liturgical legacy or context, but actually an enriching worship that has inspired and informed the entire English-speaking world.

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Praying concerning 9/11

The 11th of September has been dubbed “Patriot Day” by the US government, but is popularly known simply as “9/11”, and it commemorates those who lost or gave their lives on this day back in 2001 when four airplanes were hijacked by terrorists and used as weapons against iconic American buildings.  (Those of us in Massachusetts are perhaps especially resistant to the name “Patriot Day” because we already have a state holiday called “Patriots Day” which commemorates the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, close to April 19th.)

The American Church is not required to observe this day, of course, being a minor national observance.  But although it is of lowly status compared to other national days such as Independence Day, it is a day that weighs heavily on many of our hearts.  Ask someone “where they were on September 11th” and you’ll usually get a vivid answer (provided you ask someone who’s not much younger than 30).  This being the case, it will probably “feel right” bring this into our prayer life today.  Let’s explore some possibilities.

Occasional Prayers #27 & 28 for the Peace of the World are good places to start.  #33 for our Enemies is also an important prayer to take up, lest old anger set in.  Any other prayer for the nation in that section could be appropriate for today, as we take in the scope of how 9/11 impacted civil and foreign policy, and the way we’ve looked at ourselves and the rest of the world ever since.  More generally, #40 for all sorts and conditions of men is a traditional prayer recommended for Morning Prayer, and although it is more sweeping in scope and generic in the specifics, it can be helpful for putting things in context and perspective.

If you want to make a bigger splash in your prayers today, so to speak, pray the great Litany, making sure to include the “Supplication” section at the end.  Wednesday is one of the traditional days of the week that the Litany was appointed to be said anyway, so this is definitely worth considering.

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Common Prayer, Common Thought

I don’t presume to claim that this blog & website are super popular right now.  But I do know that there are a number of regular followers and readers.  So I thought it’d be nice to devote the occasional entry to pointing beyond the confines of these pages.  For, just as we are passionate in our pursuit of common prayer, the constant goal and ideal of worshiping our Lord with one voice, we should also be passionate in our pursuit of common thought, that is, pursuing the goal and ideal of knowing God with one mind.  If theology is not common, prayer will not be common, and vice versa… that’s one of the implications of lex orandi, lex credendi.

One blog that really helped keep my post-seminary momentum going in learning about Anglicanism is The Conciliar Anglican.  Staffed almost exclusively by one priest, this blog used both prose and videos, and even some really clever memes, to communicate a number of distinctions of the Anglican tradition over against our Roman and Protestant neighbors.  He generally leaned in a high-church direction, but I don’t recall partisanship within Anglicanism being a particular interest of his.  The Conciliar Anglican ceased to update in 2016, as Fr. Mitchican went on to focus on other things.  As I understand it, he eventually poped too (that is, joined the Roman Church), so that’s kind of a bummer.  Most of his old Anglican content is still up though: https://conciliaranglican.wordpress.com/

Something that is currently active, and much larger in its scope of authorship and voice, is The North American Anglican.  It features writers from the ACNA as well as other Anglican jurisdictions, primarily in North America.  There are discourses on Anglican polity, liturgy, theology, some book reviews, and also poetry.  If a renaissance of Anglican tradition is ever going to be stirred up, it will be through the collaborative work and creativity of a site like this one.  http://northamanglican.com/  Some of the book reviews we’ve had here will eventually find their way over there, and Yours Truly is hoping to become a contributor there in other ways when life and time allow.

The churchmanship of The North American Anglican is varied; the commitment there is to classical Anglicanism, which can chafe at low-church evangelicals and high-church Anglo-Catholics alike.  If you want to see how historic Anglicanism is not just being preserved or observed but actually brought to new life, follow them on Facebook or bookmark their page or something, because they’re the real deal.  The same can be said for another website: https://forums.anglican.net/ The “Anglican Forums” is a forum page, that is, you sign up and read or participate in discussions, Q&A threads, and whatever else comes up.  It’s more about interaction with real people, and again the variety of churchmanship is remarkable.  The maintainers of the forum also have a main page – https://www.anglican.net/ – where they have re-published a bunch of important 16th and 17th century Anglican writings, such as the critical Apology for the Church of England by John Jewel, who was one of the first to make a clear case in writing why the Catholic Faith had to be Reformed, defending the integrity of the Anglican Church over against the claims of Rome.

The last page I’ll mention today is Full Homely Hours, which is more back onto the liturgy subject, but less about the church and more about the home.  There don’t seem to be a lot of brand-new posts there these days, but they’ve built up a wealth of resources in the past where they recommend crafts, decorations, family devotions, even foods, to bring the liturgical year to life.  They, too, follow a more classical Anglican tradition (meaning those of us who use the modern calendar will sadly not be on the same page as they, much of the time).  Nevertheless, it’s a great resource that can help get the liturgy into the life of the individual and family.   https://thehomelyhours.com/

Happy reading!

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Readings Review & Planning Propers 9/9

One of the things we’re doing on this blog on Mondays is look back and forth at the Daily Office readings (or lessons) so we can better process together what the Scriptures are saying.  The other thing we’re going to do on Mondays starting today is list the recommended Propers for the Communion or Antecommunion service for each day of the week.

Readings Review

Last week: 2 Samuel 19-24, 1 Chronicles 22, Ephesians 1-5:17, Jonah 3-4, Micah 1-5, Matthew 4-8:17
This week: 1 Kings 1-5, 1 Chronicles 28, Ephesians 5:18-6, Hebrews 1-6, Micah 6-7, Nahum, Habakkuk 1-2, Matthew 8:18-12:21
Special reading Saturday for Holy Cross Day: John 12:23-33

The main body of the Gospel according to St. Matthew (chapters 5-25) form a five-part cycle of Teachings & Activities.  It’s almost as if he was making a point of imitating the Torah (the five books of Moses) in the way that he compiled his gospel book.  This week’s coverage of Matthew sees us through most of the second block of the cycle: Jesus’ teachings on mission (or least relations with the world) in chapter 10, followed by feedback and opposition (from disciples and critics alike) in chapters 11 & 12.  At the end of the week we even get an example of Matthew’s signature move in citing an Old Testament prophet in the language of Jesus bringing “fulfillment” to the scriptures.

The epistle lessons in Morning Prayer also switch over the book of Hebrews this week, which is another book that leans heavily on Old Testament references.  If you’ve got a Bible with cross references in the margins or footer, this is a book where you should especially watch out, because unless you’re very familiar with the Old Testament already there are going to be a lot of strange-sounding references that you’ll need help clarifying.

Planning Propers

This is the week of Proper 18 (or 12th after Trinity 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 9/9 = Votive (of the Holy Spirit) or Constance & companions (marytrs)
  • Tuesday 9/10 = Votive (of the Holy Angels) *
  • Wednesday 9/11 = Votive (for Peace) **
  • Thursday 9/12 = Votive (of the Holy Eucharist)
  • Friday 9/13 = St. John Chrysostom (teacher of the faith)
  • Saturday 9/14 = HOLY CROSS DAY

* A Votive is a “Various Occasion” (page 733 in the BCP 2019) and label in parentheses are simply a traditional suggestion.

** This is not the traditional votive mass for a Wednesday, but seems an appropriate choice for the nation’s commemoration of September 11th.

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Book Review: Shorter Christian Prayer

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.

My first exposure to liturgical worship was when I played piano for Mass at a Roman Catholic church during my undergraduate years.  The beauty and purpose of liturgy didn’t really strike me until after I graduated, but during that time I did gradually get used to the different “style” of prayer involved and got curious enough to join a brief service of Vespers, which is akin to our Evening Prayer service except that it’s all psalmody and prayer with only one few-verse Scripture reading.  We did this ten-minute liturgy from a little red book called Shorter Christian Prayer, which is a compact and simplified version of the four-volume Liturgy of the Hours that forms the full current Roman Breviary (Daily Office).  When I graduated, I bought my own copy and used it sporadically during the summer and into my first year of seminary.

Shorter Christian Prayer was for me a gentle introduction to the discipline of daily prayer.  The Anglican Daily Office is much longer and more robust – definitely a healthier spiritual diet, but there’s a lot more to bite off.  This Roman book was like a stepping-stone on the path toward the real deal.  It features a four-week rotation of psalms, which is close to our Prayer Book period of time, except this doesn’t manage to include all 150 psalms, even with a separate Night Office included.

Functionally, this book is tricky to use; you need to use it with someone who knows what they’re doing with it first, before forging off on your own.  It’s very compact, abbreviating things as much as possible, printing the “Ordinary” (unchanging) elements in one place, the four-week-rotating elements in another section, and the seasonal “propers” in a third section.  The Morning & Evening Gospel Canticles (Benedictus and Magnificat) are printed on the inside front & back covers, respectively, for ease of access.  It all makes sense once you understand the system, but the learning curve is unpleasant.  I don’t think I ever quite used this book right when I actually used it, ca. 2008.

shorter-christian-prayer

Look at the Evening Prayer service start here.  Those opening sentences are short for: “God, come to my assistance.”  “Lord, make haste to help me.”  “Glory to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.”  “As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever.  Amen.  Alleluia.”

A hymn follows, and there’s an appendix of hymns in the back (lyrics only).  Then you get the psalms.  To decipher what you see there on pages 208-209, there is an antiphon, followed by the Psalm (123), the “Glory to the Father,” then a psalm-prayer, then you repeat the antiphon.  Then you repeat that sequence with the next psalm (124).

There is often a third psalm or canticle from elsewhere in Scripture, followed by a reading (which is barely ever more than 5 verses long).  A brief responsory follows, which is sort of like an antiphonal prayer, then the Gospel Canticle (of Mary, in Evening Prayer here), with its own antiphon again.  Then follow intercessions which are like our suffrages, wrapped up with the Lord’s Prayer, a concluding prayer, and the concluding blessing.  You can get through all this in ten minutes or less, where the Anglican Daily Office is typically twice that length at least.  And yet, the Roman office manages to be more complicated in a shorter amount of time.

Visibly, this book is attractively bound and its use of red ink for rubrics and black ink for text-to-be-read-aloud is very helpful.  The typeface and artistry smack of 1980’s weirdness, but (being largely unfamiliar with liturgy at the time) I just took it as part of its charm.

On the whole, the daily office that this book gives you is one that is complex but short, varied in its content but frequent in its repetition of said content.  You don’t get all 150 psalms but you do get a nice array of other canticles mixed in.  The liturgical seasons have a much larger impact on the office than we experience in the Anglican tradition.

The ratings in short:

Accessibility: 2/5
Unless you really know your way around liturgy in general, this book is probably too complicated to figure out how to use on your own.  I think it’s meant either 1, for priests who don’t want to have to carry the full Liturgy of the Hours volume with them, or 2, for laymen who are following along the Office in the pews and are being guided through the service.  Or perhaps, 3, for enthusiastic laymen who have already learned the Office and want to pray it on their own.

Devotional Usefulness: 2/5
It’s just the Daily Office, which is only part of your spiritual life.  And given how anemic its treatment of the Scriptures is, you’re not going to get much meat here.  The antiphons and psalm-prayers can really bring the experience of praying the psalms to life, though – it’s what woke me up to the joy and virtue of praying psalms.

Reference Value: 2/5
This is a modern version of what probably used to be a much richer and more complex liturgy in the Roman tradition.  Looking at this book probably won’t give you significant insight into the depths of Papist liturgy, so its reference value is likely pretty low.  That said, its rubrics are pretty specific (once you find them), and comparative study between this and our Prayer Books can be pretty interesting.

As a last word, I should add that apart from the Liturgy of the Hours, Roman liturgy also has an “Office of Readings” which includes more substantial readings from the Bible as well as certain Church Fathers and theologians.  I doubt it still measures up to our Daily Office Lectionary, and the post-biblical readings are undoubtedly going to be unabashedly Papist in doctrine, so we’re not going to have much use for that.  Though the idea of devotional readings from the divines of our tradition is one worth considering, albeit not in our Daily Office itself.

I am thankful for this book.  Once in a blue moon I pick it up and pray the appropriate Office from it, mostly out of nostalgia and gratitude for the role that Roman Catholic chapel played in my Christian growth.  But that’s not reason enough for me to recommend anyone else get a copy.  Only do so if you plan on some comparative-liturgical study.

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An Apt Prayer for a Friday

Since the first century, Fridays have been a day of special devotion and discipline in Christian tradition.  You can see this spelled out in the Didache – Wednesday and Friday are put forth as the two normal weekly fast days for Christians, as opposed to the Jewish Monday and Thursday.  The Prayer Book tradition receives, upholds, and passes along to us the practice of a regular Friday fast with few exceptions.  (Modern prayer books like the 2019 tend to be pretty soft on this this point, but if the 1662 is our liturgical standard, we should take note that the modern language “day of special discipline” really ought to be understood as “fast day”.)

The particular reason for Friday to be one of the regular fast days (or the primary one, as Wednesday seems to be seen as a ‘lesser’ fast than Friday) is linked to why we worship together on Sundays: as we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord on the Lord’s Day, we observe the death of our Lord with a fast on Friday.  It is the part of the weekly rhythm of the Christian spiritual life: fasting and penitence upon our Lord’s death, sabbath rest on the day of his repose, and gathering with joy to worship the risen Lord on his resurrection day.

Imagine if that’s what you thought of first when someone mentioned “the weekend”.  Wow.

Anyway, what I thought might be nice to observe together today is one of the Collects for Evening Prayer that is suggested for Fridays.  This is not one of the historic Daily Office Collects, but an addition in the 1979 Prayer Book that has been retained in the 2019.  You don’t have  to use this Collect on Fridays; the rubrics allow you to stick with the traditional two (for Peace and for Aid Against Perils) if you like.  But the prayer suggested for Friday is very appropriate for the penitential tenor of this day of the week.

A COLLECT FOR FAITH

Lord Jesus Christ, by your death you took away the sting of death: Grant to us your servants so to follow in faith where you have led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in you and wake up in your likeness; for your tender mercies’ sake.  Amen.

In the scheme of “every Sunday an Easter” and “every Friday a Good Friday”, this prayer directs us right to the death of Christ, celebrating the victory Jesus wrought thereby, referencing Hosea 13:14 and/or 1 Corinthians 15:56.  We then turn to the reality of our own death – we pray that we would die a “peaceful” (that is, prepared-for and accepting) death, faithfully following Jesus through death toward our own resurrection unto glory.  It is an eschatological prayer, looking ahead to the end of all things, through and beyond even death itself.

Is this prayer traditional?  Not strictly speaking; only 40 years of the past 470 have seen this prayer in the Office.  But is this prayer appropriate?  Absolutely.

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The celebrant may then say the Exhortation.

When was the last time you heard the Exhortation read in your church?  Or if you’re a priest, when was the last time you read the Exhortation to your flock?  Or when was the last time you read the Exhortation at all?  Do you even know what the Exhortation is?  I’ve resisted the urge to give this entry a click-bait title, but I have a sinking feeling that a lot of people are grossly unfamiliar with this uniquely Anglican feature of the Communion liturgy.

The main reason the Exhortation is almost completely gone from the modern Anglican landscape is because the 1928 Prayer Book (and other books since) almost completely buried the Exhortation.  It’s still there, and there are rubrics to direct its location within the liturgy, but the primary text of the liturgy itself makes no mention of it.  It’s a dinosaur, a relic of ages past, preserved in the liturgical appendix to appease the grumpy old traditionalists.

In the 2019 Prayer Book however both our Communion rites have this rubric between the Prayers of the People and the Confession:

The celebrant may then say the Exhortation.

You then have to turn to pages 139-40 for its suggested uses: it can be part of a special “Penitential Order” at the beginning of the Communion liturgy (for those who want the service to be more Lutheran I guess) and that it “is traditionally read on the First Sunday of Advent, the First Sunday in Lent, and Trinity Sunday.”  This is an appeal to the precedent of (at least) the 1928 Prayer Book which requires the Exhortation to be said on those three Sundays at least (though again you have to find the Exhortation and its rubrics after the conclusion of the Communion liturgy).

So what is the Exhortation?

You can read it on pages 147-8 of the 2019 Prayer Book.  Originally there were three Exhortations: one for the Communion Service itself, one for the Antecommunion when the Communion is coming up (next week or so), and another one for the second setting with a particular emphasis on calling people to receive the Sacrament when they have been “negligent to come.”  Now that weekly Communion is almost universally normalized, the latter two aren’t really useful anymore; only first remains.

If you haven’t read it yet, please do so.  Like, literally, now.  Grab your prayer book, click the link, whatever.

Read it?

Seriously, don’t think you can fool me; I may technically still be a young priest but I’m that naive anymore.

Okay, great, let’s continue.

The Exhortation as found in the 2019 Prayer Book is pretty similar to its traditional form, though you will find that it incorporates elements of all three.  (The 1979 version was re-written to emphasize a fairly liberal agenda regarding the love of God and downplaying the judgment of God, so don’t bother digging that one up anymore.)  Rather than one giant block of text it is spaced into six more readable paragraphs.

The first paragraph gets you started on the right foot: if you intend to receive Communion today, make sure you follow the scriptural mandate to approach with penitence and faith.  The benefits and dangers are great, appealing to 1 Corinthians 11.  The second paragraph continues the same line of scriptural reference, honing in on the call to “judge yourselves lest you be judged by the Lord,” including full confession and restitution as much as is possible.  The third paragraph is drawn from the “Communion is next week, guys!” speech, and that shows because it’s kind of too late to make the invitation to private confession to the priest not five minutes before the celebration of Holy Communion begins.  Nevertheless, the offer is there, and in this day of cheap grace and faux-forgiveness I think our congregations need to know that private confession to a priest is a real ministry that is available to them.

The remaining three, shorter, paragraphs, take a more cheerful tack – “above all, each of us should give humble and hearty thanks to God…. Because of his exceedingly great love for us…”  The facts of the Gospel surrounding the death and resurrection of Jesus are summarized as a show of great love, which he desires to communicate to us in “these holy mysteries” of bread and wine.  We are called to love and to joy in submitting to Christ, and that is the last word before the call to confessing our sins.

If you are familiar with the eucharistic canon of the Anglican Standard Text, or any pre-1979 prayer book, you will find several echoes of language between the Exhortation and the Communion prayers.  Because of the close similarity in language, I would highly recommend using the “Anglican Standard” instead of the “Renewed Ancient Text” whenever giving the Exhortation.

As for the dates, our rubric only recommends Advent 1, Lent 1, and Trinity Sunday.  For the most part, I’ve adhered to that pattern in my church since Advent 2013.  The freedom afforded us in this rubric, though, should not be taken as a wholesale opt-out option, but rather, to choose different Sundays or more Sundays to read the Exhortation.  People need to know why we celebrate Communion, and how to prepare for it – especially those many who have come into Anglicanism from an evangelical background where the Sacraments hardly played a role in their spiritual life at all.  I find that Advent 1 is often a low-attendance week due to post-Thanksgiving-Day travel, so sometimes I save the Exhortation for Advent 2 when they’re all back.  Sometimes Trinity Sunday also has that beginning-of-summer slump, too, so I might move the Exhortation up to Pentecost instead.  Use your freedom on this part of the liturgy responsibly, not as an excuse to be lazy.

Is it wordy?  Yes.  Can it be boring?  Yes.  Is it difficult to read if you’re not used to it?  Yes.  But don’t let that stop you.  This is a valuable piece of liturgy, and the more you expose your congregation to it, the more of it will sink in.  Use it in Sunday School or Confirmation preparation when teaching on the Sacraments!  Maybe dedicate a Maundy Thursday sermon to exposit its text; it’s basically a sermon on 1 Corinthians 11 anyway.

If you’re a priest, learn to love the Exhortation.  It is a valuable tool, ally, and resource, and it’s right there in the liturgy.  You don’t have to go full 1662-style and use it every single service, but it’s too good to let it fall into obscurity forever.

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Reading Pace, with video

Back in October I wrote a short piece about reading pace – how talking too quickly or slowly, either as a leader in the liturgy or concerning the congregation as a whole, can be the death knell of intelligible worship.  I decided it was time to re-visit that subject, not because I just had another bad experience with it, but because it was on my mind and I made a video.  The original post is repeated below.  Enjoy!

A major feature of any liturgy is reading.  Appointed readers read Scripture lessons, a Deacon (or Priest) reads a Gospel lesson at the Communion service, everyone reads prayers and Creeds together.  Sometimes it’s like a dialogue, going back and forth between the minister and the people; sometimes it’s a block reading, like everyone reading a Confession together.  One of the issues that can crop up is the pacing of these readings.

On his or her own, sometimes a reader gets nervous.  This is perfectly understandable, and experience and practice works wonders here.  But it must be cautioned that a nervous or inexperienced reader can rush through the words, tripping over or slurring them together.  Or sometimes the opposite – the gravity of reading the Word of God overwhelms them such that they end up reading it very slowly.  Public readings ought to be read at a natural pace, such that the commas, semicolons, and periods are all clear and distinct.  We want the reading to have some dramatic weight, but we don’t want to overdo it, William Shatner style:

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The same applies to congregation readings.  Be it a Psalm, a Collect, Creed, or other prayer or reading, the people need to go at a natural pace.

If we read too fast together, the issues are many:

  • people could run out of breath
  • there’s no time to think about or process what you’re actually saying
  • it communicates a lack of care, value, or import to the words
  • visitors unfamiliar with the liturgy will feel swamped and overwhelmed

Similarly, reading too slowly can mask the overall coherence of the reading or prayer.

If your congregation has a pacing problem, it’s really upon the leaders to fix it.  The clergy or other ministers who lead the various services need to set the pace, even instruct the congregation to speed up or slow down.  Reading and praying together is a spiritual exercise requiring practice and intentionality.  Western culture sometimes makes this difficult for us – we don’t want to end up like the Borg from Star Trek, we don’t want to lose our individuality, we easily mistrust corporate liturgical action and prefer “personal” and “relational” things.  So for many people these acts of common prayer and common reading is a lost art that has to be re-learned.  Let’s not beat people over the head with this, but we do need to be aware that actual training, practice, and learning is involved!

Posted on by Fr. Brench

Let’s pray Compline together tonight!

We’ve sampled every other major office in the new prayer book; it’s time for Compline.  Like Midday Prayer, Compline is a very static, or stable, piece of liturgy; it has very little about it that changes.  It does have a few options to choose from (roughly 4 psalms, 4 lessons, and 4 collects), and there are additional lessons offered as well, but on the whole this is a devotion that sees little variation.  It’s supposed to be short and simple.  In that spirit, I didn’t even chant any of the psalms this time, so you can hear (and participate in) this office in all its simplicity.

Index: Compline starts on page 57 of the 2019 Prayer Book (online text here)

  • Opening Blessing & Confession & Prayer for Forgiveness (p. 57-58)
  • Invitatory Dialogue (p. 58)
  • Psalms 31:1-6 & 91 (p. 59-60)
  • Lesson: 1 Peter 5:8-9 (p. 61)
  • The Prayers (p. 62-64)
  • Nunc Dimittis with Antiphon (p. 64-65)
  • Blessing (p. 65)