The Saint Aelfric Customary

Posted on August 10, 2019August 9, 2019 by Fr. Brench · 1 Comment

Book Review: Ceremonies of the Eucharist

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.

In my Anglican liturgy course at seminary, there were two books about the ceremonies of the Prayer Book that we were instructed to read and compare. Both dealt with the 1979 Prayer Book and presented somewhat different approaches to the liturgy. One of those books was Ceremonies of the Eucharist – A Guide to Celebration by Howard E. Galley, published in 1989. This book is very clearly and logically arranged:

Part One: Of Churches and their Furnishings (18 pages)
Part Two: Of Liturgical Ministers (22 pages)
Part Three: Of Seasons, Music, and Liturgical Practices (24 pages)
Part Four: Of Preparations for the Service (6 pages)
Part Five: The Service in Detail (63 pages)
Part Six: Synopsis of Ceremonies (40 pages)
Part Seven: The Holy Eucharist with Baptism (10 pages)
Part Eight: Celebrations with Small Congregations (4 pages)
Part Nine: Holy Communion After the Liturgy (4 pages)
Part Ten: Reservation of the Sacrament (4 pages)
Part Eleven: Holy Communion by a Deacon (4 pages)
Part Twelve: The Bishop at Parish Eucharists (16 pages)
Part Thirteen: The Bishop at Holy Baptism (8 pages)
Part Fourteen: The Ordination of Priests and Deacons (6 pages)
Part Fifteen: Appendix: Liturgical Texts (5 pages)

A handy glossary concludes the book.

As you’ll see, the largest portion of this book, by far, is a detailed walk-through of the Rite II Communion Service of the 1979 prayer book, followed by a walk-through of the actions and movements of the various ministers (priest, deacon, acolyte, and “others”).

On the whole, Galley’s approach to the liturgy is principled and measured. He is not prone to outbursts of strong and (occasionally) quirky opinion like Fr. John-Julian. He does, however, share his slight disregard for the previously-established Anglican liturgical tradition; they are both 1979 loyalists, one could say. Galley, at least, however, is aware that things have changed since the 70’s.

Because of this, Galley’s advice on ceremonial can be received with a little more confidence for the user of the 2019 prayer book. As far as the order of service is concerned, the 2019 and 1979 have very much in common, and the ceremonial of the one will usually work for the other. Because Galley usually takes his time to reflect and comment upon the liturgy, it is easier for the 21st century Anglican priest to assess what elements of his advice are worth observing versus setting aside. Galley is very much a part of the “liturgical renewal” movement that the 2019 Prayer Book has taken steps to unravel somewhat, so we cannot assume that ceremonial for the 1979 will be appropriate wholesale for us.

One specific example of ceremonial that I appreciate in this book is on page 90, in the section dealing with the Sermon:

The present Prayer Book deliberately makes no provision for a hymn (or anything else) to intrude between the gospel and the sermon. This exclusion raises serious questions about the practice, sometimes seen, of singing the opening stanzas of a hymn during the gospel procession, and the remaining stanzas after the gospel – while the procession returns and the preacher goes to the pulpit. Such a practice also does little justice to the integrity – and frequently to the sense – of the text of the hymn.

Although this is not a liturgical pet peeve of mine, this is something I have seen in a couple place, and is not a feature that I like. The sequence of lessons, culminating in the Gospel and leading to the sermon, is an ascending-by-steps into the Word of God, and having more singing between the Gospel and the Sermon interrupts that upward movement. Galley’s thoughtful rebuke of that practice is but one example of liturgical principle leading to sound ceremonial.

The ratings in short:

Accessibility: 5/5
The book is well organized, well labeled and marked, and is written in a clear style. It references page numbers in the ’79 prayer book, as well as other chapters in this book, whenever necessary. The glossary is also a helpful feature.

Devotional Usefulness: N/A
The ceremonial instructions here are comprehensive for the Communion service; the Daily Office is not in the purview of this book, though.

Reference Value: 4/5
As mentioned above, this was written specifically to explicate the 1979 Prayer Book. Much of its procedure will translate well to the 2019 Prayer Book, but you have to be attentive to his reasoning at each step of the way to make sure the actions taken in worship match the theology of worship and the proper meaning and function of the liturgy.

Posted on August 9, 2019April 27, 2020 by Fr. Brench · 3 Comments

Regular Occasional Prayers

Early this year we had a post here about making the “Occasional Prayers” in the new prayer book a regular feature of one’s recitation of the Daily Office. I won’t link you back to it though because that was built on the penultimate draft of the prayer book, and a few of those prayers have been dropped, merged, added to, and moved around, throwing the numbers off between the late 2018 draft and the 2019 final copy.

UPDATE — This order has been revised, see here: https://wordpress.com/post/saint-aelfric-customary.org/1898

Instead, I’m providing a fresh shiny new upload here of this Customary’s Order for the Occasional Prayers! Click that link to download it.

Some of the backstory to this can be found in the file – the Daily Office in the classical prayer books (before 1979) included a number of prayers and thanksgivings and collects after the Office (perhaps mainly just Morning Prayer if I recall) which were authorized-but-optional, to be added after the the required Three Collects toward the end of the Office. It’s a mixed blessing having lost that feature in modern prayer books – on one hand people it’s nice to have a larger and more comprehensive appendix of prayers to draw from, but being place so far back in the book will make them less likely to be noticed by the average prayer book user. That’s why this suggested order is put forth.

Let’s look at why this scheme is recommended the way it is.

Sunday, being the principle day of worship for the church gathered, has the section of prayers labeled At Times of Prayer and Worship as well as the prayers on Death, the Departed, and the Communion of Saints, as that is when most of the saints on earth are gathered. The assigned prayers skip around, numerically, in order to avoid prayers that are too similar from being read at the same Office.

On Monday the prayers start at the beginning of the list, covering the section For the Church. In general, the prayers for the morning are more specific and the prayers for the evening are more general or topical.

Tuesday morning covers the next section, For the Nation, again arranging the prayers so that too-similar collects aren’t prayed on the same day. Depending upon which country you hail from, certain prayers along the way will be appropriate to omit (mainly in the USA versus Canada distinction). In the evening, one day dips into the Personal Devotions list and the other starts the For Society section.

Wednesday morning is omitted, because that’s a traditional time for saying the Great Litany. The evening finishes the For Society section and begins the next section, Intercessions For Those in Need.

Thursday morning skips ahead to more of the Personal Life and Personal Devotions sections, while Thursday evening (in light of the day’s traditional Eucharistic theme) covers most of the Thanksgivings.

Friday morning (like Wednesday morning) is omitted so you can focus on the Great Litany. The evening covers the rest of the prayers For Those in Need where Wednesday left off.

Saturday covers the prayers about Creation and Family Life, as well as Personal Life and Devotion. The creation theme matches the Morning Prayer Collect recommended for Saturdays (Collect for Sabbath Rest), and the family section is chosen to match the fact that Saturday is often a “day off with the family” for much of the working world. The remaining personal devotions also serve as a sort of introspective preparation for corporate worship on the following morning.

For sake of simplicity, “Week I” should line up with odd-numbered weeks in the liturgical calendar, and “Week II” with even-numbered weeks. For example, this is the week (in modern reckoning) of Proper 13, so this week should be considered an odd-numbered week.

Posted on August 8, 2019August 7, 2019 by Fr. Brench · 4 Comments

Nicene Creed Translation

In our week-by-week Thursday walk-through of the service of Holy Communion, we come now to the Nicene Creed. Amidst the very many blog posts and articles that cropped up early this summer with the release of the 2019 Prayer Book came one writer who objected to the translation of the Nicene Creed. This was, in many ways, a very strange complaint, because the new translation in our book was made and approved by our College of Bishops six years ago, in 2013. It’s been available since the very first Texts for Common Prayer were released, and some churches, like mine, have been using it ever since. It’s a bit late to complain. The nature of the complaint, too, in my opinion, is more a questioning of motive than it is of actual substance.

Nevertheless, one should be very attentive to how the Creeds are translated. Article of Religion #8 places the Creeds on a very high level of authority: they “ought thoroughly to be received and believed: for they may be proved by most certain warrants of holy Scripture.” So, just like Bible translation, it’s very important that we get a decent translation of the Creeds before us. With that in mind, let’s take a look at the text, comparing 1662, 2019, and 1979.

1662: I BELIEVE in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, And of all things visible and invisible:
2019: We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, visible and invisible.
1979: We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.

The modern we/I switch is one of the main objections the aforementioned critic took issue with. The functional difference here is that in the context of the Eucharist, our affirmation of faith is corporate (while the Apostles’ Creed in the Daily Office is our place to say “I believe…”). There is a fair bit of history behind the I/we translation choices which I’ll let you research yourself if you’re curious.

The other big difference in this opening line is the terminology “visible and invisible” versus “seen and unseen.” The problem with the latter translation was that it opened the Creed (and thus the entirety of the biblical faith) to the possibility of demythologization. Among the excesses of modernist thought, this subtle wording change paves the way for the rejection of angels and demons, and the devil, as these are things invisible. “Unseen” suggests a more empirical approach to reality and metaphysics which can easily be used to “correct” the Bible.

1662: And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten son of God, Begotten of his Father before all worlds, God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God, Begotten, not made, Being of one substance with the Father, By whom all things were made:
2019: We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made.
1979: We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father. Through him all things were made.

The repetition of “we believe” is a modern concession to English grammar. The whole creed is technically one giant sentence, but that’s pretty incomprehensible to the modern reader. A couple hundred years ago, it was still in practice to make giant compound sentences nearly an entire page long, but readership has changed since then, and thus so have our approaches to dealing with punctuation and repetition.

In terms of actual substance, note that we got “only-begotten” back, omitted in 1979, “eternally begotten” is a theological clarification in the modern translations, “of one substance” is equated to “of one being” (more theological technical terms). Nothing controversial here, just basic orthodox Christology.

1662: Who for us men, and for our salvation came down from heaven, And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, And was made man, And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.
2019: For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
1979: For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;

“For us men” became “For us” in contemporary English, as the gender-neutral use of “men” goes on the decline. At least this is an instance of that word where its omission isn’t a problem, as it is in some verses of Scripture.

The similar language in 1662 and 2019 – “incarnate from/by the Holy Spirit/Ghost of/and the Virgin Mary” – is highly preferable to the 1979’s translation “by the power of the Holy Spirit he became incarnate from the Virgin Mary”. The latter separates the Holy Spirit from the Annunciation and conception of Jesus by a degree that is neither necessary nor precedented. “The Holy Spirit will overshadow you”, the archangel Gabriel told Mary, not “the power of the Spirit will descend upon you”.

There is an interesting difference in where to end the sentence/phrase which you can see at the end of this section and the beginning of the next. It seems to me primarily a matter of logical organization rather than of direct theological import.

1662: He suffered and was buried, And the third day he rose again according to the Scriptures, And ascended into heaven, And sitteth on the right hand of the Father. And he shall come again with glory to judge both the quick and dead: Whose kingdom shall have no end.
2019: he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
1979: he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.

Apart from language style and punctuation, there’s no substantial change here at all.

1662: And I believe in the Holy Ghost, The Lord and giver of life, Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son, Who with the Father and the Son together is worshipped and glorified, Who spake by the Prophets.
2019: We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father [and the Son],† who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.
1979: We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. With the Father and the Son he is worshiped and glorified. He has spoken through the Prophets.

Again, nothing here is of any substantial difference, just language style and translation methods. Except one… the filioque – the phrase “and the Son”. This is a bit of a historical-theological bugbear. The original text of this Creed, on which the 2019 translation is based, does not include that phrase. A Lambeth Council (representing Anglicans world-wide) decision in 1978 encouraged future liturgical texts to drop the filioque even though it is a constant feature of the entire Western Church. It (and the way in which the Roman Popes “authorized” it) was one of the wedges driven between East and West, leading to the final split in 1054. To drop the filioque is a gesture of good will toward the Eastern Orthodox Churches, and (potentially) a return to primitive creedal orthodoxy. Does this little word really make much difference, theologically, let alone practically? It can, but it doesn’t necessarily have to. So our prayer book has bracketed the phrase and included a footnote reference to a longer statement about the issue, written by our bishops in 2013, as an opportunity for further education and learning.

1662: And I believe one Catholick and Apostolick Church. I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins. And I look for the Resurrection of the dead, And the life of the world to come. Amen.
2019: We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.
1979: We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins. We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.

To be honest, the difference between “believe in one… church” and “believe one… church” has always puzzled me. Go ask some other more educated priest than I. Or if you, please comment about it, so I can understand it too!

There seems to be a bit of a mixed report about the word “holy”… it is a traditional part of the Creed, one of the “four marks of the Church” – one, holy, catholic, apostolic. How it got omitted from the Prayer Book tradition until 1979 escapes me. The legend that it was a printing error that got enshrined in England and American practice is unconvincing.

One can argue that there is a difference between the precise meaning of “remission of sins” and “forgiveness of sins”, but the effect is at least the same.

So there you go. If you’ve been used to the 1979 Creed, hopefully this has helped you see the improvements we’ve got in our new book. It’s high time to make the switch if you haven’t already!

Posted on August 7, 2019August 6, 2019 by Fr. Brench

Collect for Proper 13

With the Transfiguration over, the Collect of the Day in the Daily Office returns to this past Sunday’s Collect – for Proper 13.

Almighty and merciful God, it is only by your grace that your faithful people offer you true and laudable service: Grant that we may run without stumbling to obtain your heavenly promises; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

What we see at work in prayer is a biblical principle from verses like 1 Corinthians 4:7 – “What do you have that you did not receive? If then you received it, why do you boast as if you did not receive it?” This humbling reality, that all good things that we’ve got come from God, applies even to our worship and service.

This reality is a balance between two extremes. On one hand is an error more often made by Roman Catholics: the assumption that ordinary Christians are just too sinful and ignorant to offer God any “laudable service”, and so we entrust the clergy and the ‘religious’ to offer God more perfect praise on our behalf. Go to church, hear Father celebrate mass, and we can say that we vicariously offered something to God too. On the other hand is an error more often made by evangelicals: the assumption that if we just worship God with heart-felt enthusiasm that he will be truly honored, and so we dive in to a string of worship songs with the mad assertion that our feelings of sincerity are more significant to God than the actual content of our words and actions.

Countering both these extremes is the biblical reality: we can offer worthy worship to God, but only by his grace. Grace then precedes worship and works. Because of grace, we offer laudable service to God and strive to “run without stumbling” to attain to God’s heavenly promises. As the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews put it, “And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but imitators of those who through faith and patience inherit the promises” (6:11-12).

So when you sit down to pray (or kneel, or whatever), remember not to be overconfident in your own worthiness, verbosity, or sincerity; and remember not to be embarrassed, discouraged by your bumbling ways. God gives you grace to approach his throne with boldness. We find that grace in confessing our sins to a merciful Lord; we find that grace in praying prayers that God himself provided us to pray (especially the Lord’s Prayer and the Psalms); we find that grace in an order, a liturgy, provided by his Church, to assist us not only to form our prayers into coherent sentences but also to unite our prayers with our brothers and sisters in Christ.

And underlying all of that, of course, is the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. Every baptized person has God the Spirit within, it’s not a matter of elitism or ordination status or what-have-you. Be not afraid, when your prayers are bumbling and crude, the Spirit will “translate” your intentions to the Father; and when you think you’ve got it just right and perfect on your own wit, the Spirit will ask the Father for the mercy and humility you omitted. Let us learn from one another how to pray, how to worship. Think of the Prayer Book as the compilation of centuries of insight in this matter! Rather than asking advice in prayer from one or two friends or pastors, why not turn to the collective wisdom of millions as represented in the Common Prayer book.

Posted on August 6, 2019August 5, 2019 by Fr. Brench · 1 Comment

The Transfiguration: Living Between Two Worlds

The feast of the Transfiguration, celebrated today, August 6th, is a special holiday to me in the Church calendar. As a child, the story of the transfiguration was (ironically) utterly veiled to me. It was a weird story of Jesus glowing on a mountain and confusing the three disciples with him, and it made no sense to me at all. Only in the liturgical tradition, seeing the various texts of Scripture appointed for this day, did I piece together the biblical significance of the transfiguration, and the way it points to (and prepares for) the Gospel events surrounding our Lord’s death and resurrection.

This holiday also ended up being my wife’s and my second-born’s birthday. It was a funny story – he was due around the 10th of August, so my last Sunday serving our church before paternity leave for the rest of the month was August 6th, Transfiguration Day. I was responsible about it, though, and made sure I had my sermon fully written out just in case our baby was early and I would have to hand the sermon to someone else to read in my place. Sure enough that’s exactly what happened. I even got some positive feedback on it, so I’ve dubbed it “my best sermon I never preached”.

So now, two years later, I’ve recorded it, so others can celebrate this feast day and begin to put the pieces together too, if you haven’t before. The Gospel text of the transfiguration event is from Luke 9, which you should probably read before listening to the sermon about it. If you’ve said Morning Prayer already, then you’ll have read Mark’s account of the transfiguration, which I’m sure should also suffice.

Posted on August 5, 2019August 4, 2019 by Fr. Brench

A Hymn for Holy Matrimony

It is a curious thing that for all our culture’s love of weddings, our hymnals stand remarkably short on hymns for this blessed occasion. Perhaps people had a tendency to choose other favorite hymns; perhaps weddings were not frequently celebrated with hymnody back in the great hymn-writing centuries; perhaps weddings have long been too secularized (at least in popular mindset) for enough people to dare consider singing a wedding hymn from a hymnal. Blessed be the ties that bind is the only hymn I can think of that’s even marginally popular for weddings, and some hymnals don’t even put it in that category! It’s appropriate, for sure, but it’s not specifically (or exclusively) about holy matrimony.

So let’s take a look at a hymn that is specifically about marriage: O Father, all creating. You may notice that it’s also explicitly trinitarian, verse by verse.

O Father, all creating, Whose wisdom, love, and pow’r
First bound two lives together In Eden’s primal hour,
Today to these thy children Thine earliest gifts renew:
A home by thee made happy, A love by thee kept true.

O Savior, guest most bounteous Of old in Galilee,
Vouchsafe today thy presence With these who call on thee;
Their store of earthly gladness Transform to heav’nly wine,
And teach them in the tasting, To know the gift is thine.

O Spirit of the Father, Breathe on them from above,
So mighty in thy pureness, So tender in thy love;
That, guarded by thy presence, From sin and strife kept free,
Their lives may own thy guidance, Their hearts be ruled by thee.

Each Person of the Holy Trinity is called upon to bless and sanctify the marriage. As each has been revealed in Scriptures to relate to and interact with us in particular ways, so this hymn prays for their respective forms of presence and guidance upon the married couple.

It is perhaps a “no-brainer” to most of you who follow this blog that a marriage needs the guarding and guidance of God to survive in a holy state and bear spiritual fruit, but it should be observed that the way many weddings are celebrated, even among Christians, often tends to focus upon the marvellous love the couple holds for one another. This is all too often exaggerated to the point where the binding force and strength of marriage seems to be their mutual love; God is hardly more than a formal afterthought, a patron to invoke for the sake of custom and respect. I wouldn’t go so far as to say this hymn (or similar songs) should be required at every wedding we officiate, but the prayer and sentiment it puts forth is definitely and sorely needed, not only in the ears of our congregations and wedding-goers, but on their lips as well.

Let’s see how the last verse ends it:

Except thou build it, Father, The house is built in vain;
Except thou, Savior, bless it, The joy will turn to pain;
But nought can break the marriage Of hearts in thee made one,
And love thy Spirit hallows Is endless love begun. Amen.

Drawing from the language of Psalm 127, this stanza narrows in on the complete dependence of man upon God. Note particularly that last line, “and love thy Spirit hallows is endless love begun.” Divine-inspired love between husband and wife is not perfect love, nor love fulfilled, but still only love begun. The world will not be saved by spousal fidelity, no matter what some false teachers say. Rather, a holy marriage is only the beginning of a picture of salvation. When God makes two hearts into one, a glimpse of his divine love is introduced, not consummated. Only continual reliance upon that strength and foundation will survive the course there begun. As St. Paul wrote, “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?” (Galatians 3:3).

Most of my friends’ and family members’ wedding anniversaries seem to be either in June or August, which is why this Customary appoints the two Matrimony Hymns in the 2017 hymnal in early June and early August. Feel free to move them around in your own use of this order for daily hymnody, as songs like the one we’ve looked at here are great prayers for your own marriage, or those of your friends and family!

Posted on August 3, 2019July 28, 2019 by Fr. Brench · 1 Comment

Book Review: Elements of Offering

We turn today to another book concerning ritual and customs, still generally high church yet very, very different from last week’s entry on Ritual Notes. Today’s book is a much shorter affair, barely passing 100 pages: Elements of Offering by Fr. John-Julian, released by Nashotah House Press. Despite the similar churchmanship, this book is almost completely different to Ritual Notes. It’s short, written as personal-yet-principled advice rather than as straightforward rubrics. This book seems more like a pile of educational church bulletin inserts stuck together into a book – there are more typos than I’m used to seeing, a more casual writing style, and (horrifyingly) no Table of Contents or Index. You just have page through the book to see what’s there. Fortunately its contents are arranged pretty logically. I took the liberty of creating the following list.

The Eucharistic Action (1)
Liturgical Meaning (2)
Liturgical Emotion (2)
Liturgical Novelty (3)
Liturgical Accretions (4)
Division of Labor (6)
Silence (6)
– – – In the Sanctuary – – –
The Fair Linen (8)
The Candles (9)
The Corporal (11)
The Purificator (12)
The Lavabo Towel (13)
Laundering Linen (14)
Vestments (15)
Posture (20)
Altar Wine (29)
The Altar Breads (31)
The Vessels (32)
Sanctus Bells (35)
The Credence Table (36)
The Eucharistic Action (37)
Uncluttered Altar (38)
Incense (40)
Osculations (41)
Missals and Stands (42)
– – – Walk-through of the Holy Eucharist – – –
Salutations (43)
The Collect (43)
The Scripture Readings (44)
The Sermon/Homily (49)
The Creed (50)
Passing the Peace (51)
The Offertory (52)
The Consecration (53)
Sign of the Cross in the Lord’s Prayer (57)
Invitation to Communion (58)
Words of Administration (59)
Administering the Chalice (60)
The Ablutions (61)
The Post-Communion (63)
Final Blessing (63)
– – – The Divine Office – – –
A Literary Liturgy (65)
The Phos Hilaron (65)
The Psalter and Office (66)
Meditative Recitation (68)
The Office Readings (69)
The Suffrages (71)
– – – Other Liturgies – – –
Advent (73)
Lent (73)
Rogationtide (77)
Holy Unction (79)
Miscellaneous (82)
Clericals (83)

Appendix

Appropriate Forms to announce Scripture Readings (84)
Folding Altar Linens (87)
Concerning Advent (89)
When to Bow (91)
Recipe for Gluten-free bread (92)
Music & Liturgy (96)

Each “chapter” here follows a simple format: Principle, Practice, and sometimes also Pointer. The principle sets out a rule or reason or goal, the practice is how to achieve or apply that principle; the pointer is further advice. On the whole the author is mostly a pragmatist. He has little patience for the high ceremonial of his more Anglo-Catholic forebears. He is writing for the 1979 Prayer Book which is quite removed from previous tradition, and he therefore advocates an approach to ritual and ceremony that is also quite simplified and streamlined from previous high church practice. He also comes down on a view of Eucharistic consecration that is somewhat out of line with traditional catholic belief.

As you may surmise from this description so far, this book is both highly useful for us in the ACNA (as our prayer book liturgy is similar in order to the 1979), but also a little frustrating. Some of his advice is fantastic:

“The Eucharistic liturgy is not a soap opera. Its purpose is not to produce an emotional jag or an ardent “high” for participants. Good liturgy is dependably repeatable… to attempt to make it “emotionally satisfying” can destroy its built-in and intended objectivity and universality” (2).
“And never, NEVER, NEVER use a person’s name when administering Communion! It is a communal liturgical act, not a private one-to-one intimacy between priest and communicant” (59).
“Watch the introduction to Bible books: “A reading from Galatians” is woefully inadequate and actually inaccurate. It is “Paul’s Letter to the Galatians”” (70).

Some of his advice is oddly over-specific:

“Under NO circumstace is it EVER appropriate to divide a Psalm verse at the asterisk, with one voice taking the first half of the verse, and a different voice the second half” (67).

And some of his advice is (in my opinion) ridiculous:

“It always seemed awkward, and in the past it was difficult to provide an apologia for the elevation and genuflection before the epiclesis” (55).
“The old fashioned (Puritan) practice of announcing Chapter and Verse before a Reading is absolutely pointless unless the Assembly is following the reading in a Bible and the Celebrant wants them to look it up (vile practice!)” (70).

These last two bad examples are indications that the author is not terribly well-informed about liturgy, Anglican or otherwise, before the radical reforms of Vatican II. Catholic theology of the consecration of the Eucharist was pretty clear back in the day, and the early Prayer Books did in fact call for the announcement of chapter (and sometimes verse) of Scripture lessons. It’s as if all he knows is the 1979 book, and he’s projecting his understanding of that book upon all that came before it. That way of thinking is precisely what this Customary and blog exist to rectify today!

The ratings in short:

Accessibility: 2/5
This book is very readable; even a ‘newbie’ to Anglicanism will understand what it says and learn a lot. The below-average rating is due to its lack of index or table of contents; you have to skim the whole book in order find the answer to your question.

Devotional Usefulness: 2/5
This isn’t a book you pray with, so in a sense this is an N/A answer. But if you aim to apply the principles of liturgy in this book, you’ll get a formal but essentially-pragmatic style that is common in popular Episcopalianism today, and may be initially attractive to those interested in liturgical worship, but is somewhat shallow and ignorant of actual prior tradition. The author’s approach to the reading and purpose of Scripture is also a bit weak, in my opinion.

Reference Value: 3/5
If you’re a lay server, like in the altar guild or something, the parts of this book that relate to you are actually really quite useful! The stuff about the celebrant, though, is somewhat hit-or-miss. So maybe give this to your lay readers and lay ministers, but not to a new priest.

Over all, it’s a neat book to have, but whenever the author is talking about liturgy and ‘tradition’ straight up, it’s worth double-checking him against actual traditional sources. And make sure you’re more classical-prayer-book-literate than he is.

Posted on August 2, 2019August 1, 2019 by Fr. Brench · 1 Comment

The August Major Feasts

As mentioned a little while ago, we’ve got a major feast day coming up next week: the Transfiguration (August 6th). Hopefully that will adorn your worship of our Lord on Tuesday!

But let’s take this moment, today, to cast our eyes upon the rest of the month. There are two more major feast days coming up: St. Mary’s on the 15th and St. Bartholomew’s on the 24th. On the surface these are pretty straight-forward commemorations, honoring the Virgin Mary, mother of our Lord, and Bartholomew (or Nathaniel), one of the twelve apostles. If you dig deeper you can make further connections to tradition and history.

St. Mary’s Day (August 15th) was not in the classical prayer books. This was for two reasons: first it was likely considered sufficient to commemorate Mary in the Purification/Presentation (February 2nd) and the Annunciation (March 25th) and having a third holy day for her would be redundant; and second, August 15th was originally a more specific holy day in Western tradition: the “Assumption” of Mary. The assumption refers to the post-biblical event of Mary being taken up (or assumed) into heaven. This is different from Christ’s ascension into heaven in a key way: Christ ascended, which is an active verb; Mary was assumed, which is a passive verb. Like Elijah and Enoch and presumably post-mortem Moses, the original holiday of August 15th was to commemorate when Mary was taken up into heaven like those Old Testament predecessors. I call this “extra-biblical” because it takes place after most of the New Testament was written, and thus is not preserved for us as a sure doctrine within the Scriptures themselves. The Reformers, thus, did not typically teach the Assumption of Mary (nor did they necessarily deny it); it’s purely a diaphora from our perspective. Thus we are free to read the doctrine of the Assumption into the Collect for this day or not:

O God, you have taken to yourself the blessed Virgin Mary, mother of your incarnate Son: Grant that we, who have been redeemed by his blood, may share with her the glory of your eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

For St. Bartholomew’s Day we can also look back at the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, a riot of angry Papists who killed thousands of Protestants across France in 1572. Feel free to Google it if you want to know about the history, just be careful you don’t end up reading about the Doctor Who story about it! Or do; Doctor Who’s a cool television show. I review stories from that franchise as a for-fun activity. Anyway, even though there’s no real logical or thematic link between Bartholomew and the massacre of Hugenots, other than the common incident of martyrdom, it’s worthwhile taking note of how major events in history that concur with church holy days can leave deep impressions in popular memory. Shakespeare helps us do this with St. Crispin’s Day too, for example.

So consider yourself forewarned for a Thursday and Saturday later this month. We’ll probably take closer looks at the liturgical observances of these days when they arrive, but it’s important for the worshiper to be aware of feast days before they make their appearance. We’re invited to anticipate them the same way we anticipate Sundays, after all.

Posted on August 1, 2019July 31, 2019 by Fr. Brench · 10 Comments

The Collect & Lessons – but how many?

After the Acclamation, Collect for Purity, Penitential Rite, and the Gloria, we now come to the main Propers of the Communion service: the Collect and the Lessons (or Readings). Although the page-flipping required to find them is annoying (particularly in modern prayer books), this is functionally very simple: the priest leads us in the collect, and we listen to the scriptures read to us.

So what we’re going to examine today is how many collects and lessons there are.

Those of us used to the modern liturgy often forget (or never knew in the first place) that this was ever different. We’re used to one collect, an OT reading, a Psalm, an Epistle, and a Gospel. Occasionally a reading from Acts jumps in to replace the OT or Epistle slot. But the classical prayer book tradition, until 1979 changed it up, was one collect, an Epistle, and a Gospel. Occasionally a reading from the OT or Acts took that Epistle slot, and on Good Friday the collect was actually three prayers in succession (known as the Solemn Collects, now expanded and relocated into the Good Friday liturgy itself).

I cannot confirm this in any written source, but I have heard of situations, in the context of general western catholic liturgy, wherein additional collects could be supplied after the Collect of the Day. The purpose of this would be to “memorialize” a lesser feast day that was being overwritten by a feast of greater rank. For example, a couple weeks ago the commemoration of St. Bonaventure fell on a Sunday. As an optional commemoration, he could not have been celebrated in place of that Sunday, so we might have had the option to memorialize him by reading the Collect for his day after the Collect for that Sunday. But again, I don’t remember where I came across this idea, so I can’t commend this as a reliably traditional practice. Besides, the way modern prayer books have handled the Good Friday collects suggest that we ought to stick to one collect only, at this juncture in the liturgy, and save secondary collects for, say, the Prayers of the People.

As for the number of Scripture readings, the 1979 Prayer Book did offer some commemorations with only two Scripture readings plus a Psalm, matching more closely the traditional format. But in the 2019 book, all our “common” commemorations and various occasions have the full three readings plus psalm, suggesting that this is now to be the standard number of readings across the board. In the 1979 tradition, it seemed that Sundays and Major Feasts were to have three readings and lesser feasts on weekdays could have two. This Customary was going to continue that tradition, but the 2019 Prayer Book seems to indicate that three is to be the norm.

The instructions on pages 716-717 elaborate on this point:

The number of readings on any Sunday or Holy Day may be lessened according to pastoral circumstance, provided the Gospel is always read at Eucharist.
…
The Bishop of the Diocese is to be consulted where a regular pattern of fewer than four lessons is adopted as the Sunday customary of a Congregation, or when a pattern of alternate readings or a “sermon series” is proposed.

Thus, in isolated events and circumstances, we can drop a reading. But at the principle services on Sundays, you need your bishop’s permission to do so on a regular basis. Same for any other form of tinkering with the lectionary: it is not a priest’s prerogative so to do.

Posted on July 31, 2019July 30, 2019 by Fr. Brench

Let’s pray Midday Prayer together!

One of the nice additions of modern prayer books like the 1979 or the 2019 is the recovery of two minor offices – Midday Prayer and Compline. These are not parts of traditional prayer book liturgy, but they (or at least Compline) have been popular devotions continued by many Anglicans since the earliest times of the Reformation. They are regarded as “extra” devotions, which is why they aren’t part of our official historical tradition, and so when we see them in modern prayer books we should understand the liturgies for Midday Prayer and Compline as offerings for standardization, not as binding liturgical mandates the way Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Holy Communion are. In other words, as you’re building a faithfully Anglican life and parish, MP & EP plus the Communion on Sundays and other red-letter days are what’s required; Midday Prayer and Compline are the optional extras.

That said, let’s take a look at what Midday Prayer can sound like. If you keep it simple you can zip through it in two minutes tops. If you take your time, it’s still short. Here’s today’s service in under 12 minutes:

Order of Service so you can have your books ready:

Midday Prayer begins on page 33 of BCP 2019.
Psalm: 124 (page 35) set to chant tune #739 (in the 2017 hymnal)
Reading: Ezekiel 32 (according to our supplemental lectionary)
Brief reflection
The Prayers (page 37-39)