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Psalm 119 in pieces

The 119th Psalm is, as I’m sure you know, the longest in the Psalter by far.  It’s so long that it has (probably?) never been appointed to be sung or said all the way through in a liturgical setting.  Private recitation and devotion, is another matter.  Thomas Cranmer’s monthly cycle of Psalms splits it over a few days, starting on the evening of the 24th day.

As you will find in most Bibles, Psalm 119 has 22 sections.  These sections are noted in the Prayer Books also; four are grouped together in the evenings and five are grouped together in the mornings.  These groups come from the structure of the original Hebrew poetry: an acrostic.  The acrostic is actually a fairly common poetic structure in the Hebrew Bible: it’s a simple matter of beginning each successive line with the next letter of the alphabet.  A handful of Psalms are acrostics, each chapter of the book of Lamentations is a sort of acrostic (well, chapter five is an anti-acrostic, but we’ll check that out later), and the occasional bit of prophetic writing also uses this device.  Psalm 119, however, does this to the extreme: it has eight lines (verses) beginning with the first letter (aleph), then eight beginning with the second letter (beth), and so on, all the way through the alphabet.  Obviously this effect is lost in translation, but many Bibles (and most if not all Prayer Books) note these eight-verse groupings.

One result of the acrostic structure is that the Psalm doesn’t have another organizing principle or logical flow.  It’s a series of meditations on God’s law and commands (etc.), with little sense of progression from one section to the next.  In that regard it’s like some of our modern songs (Christian or otherwise), dwelling on ideas, topics or feelings, but not developing a logical structure for the lyrics.  This means that, in the context of the liturgy, we can fruitfully deal with each section of Psalm 119 as if it were its own psalm, without missing much context.

In medieval and early Prayer Book tradition, therefore, it was appointed that the worshiping congregation place the Glory be to the Father at the end of each section of Psalm 119.  Today, Prayer Books tend to be ambiguous – we can either say that end the end of the whole Psalmody section of the Daily Office or at the end of each Psalm.  But be it known here that if you opt for the latter option, which was the way of the early Prayer Books, you may even do so with each eight-verse section of Psalm 119.

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Follow-up: obscure Christmas songs

Near the beginning of the month, I made the wacky suggestion that in order to get through the massive pile of Christmas hymns and carols in most Anglican hymnals, you could sing a different one every day all the way until the feast of the Presentation (February 2nd).  Well, as that date approaches, why don’t we check in on one of the lesser-known Christmas songs lurking in the hymnals.

And by “lesser-known”, I’m referring to common American use.  If you know and love this hymn, don’t be offended; be proud you know it!

From heaven high I come to you was written by Martin Luther in 1535; he may have written the tune also which bears this song’s name, Vom Himmel Hoch.  You can hear the piano part on YouTube (though the text translation will be a little different).

Despite how most arrangements like to shorten things, this hymn could have seven verses.  The first three are in the voice of the angels.

From heaven high I come to you: I bring you tidings good and new;
Good tidings of great joy I Bring; Thereof will I both say and sing:

For you a little child is born Of God’s own chosen maid this morn,
A fair and tender baby bright, To be your joy and your delight.

Lo, he is Christ the Lord indeed, Our God, to guide you in your need;
And he will be your Savior, strong To cleanse you from all sin and wrong.

Like the Gloria in Excelsis, these words proclaim the saving purposes of God in Jesus Christ.  But unlike the Gloria, the hymn then continues with another three verses of application.  The voice of the angels is now the voice of the heart, exhorting one another.

Now let us all right merry be, And with the shepherds go to see
God’s own dear Son within the stall, His gift, bestowed upon us all.

Mark well, my heart; look well, mine eyes; Who is it in the manger lies?
What child is this, so young and fair?  It is my Jesus lieth there.

Ah, dearest Jesus, be my guest; Soft be the bed where thou wilt rest,
A little shrine within my heart, That thou and I may never part.

The pious desire to worship the newborn Savior at his manger leads to an invitation – may Jesus come into our own home.  Let us make a bed, a shrine, within our hearts to care for and cherish the Savior forever.  Evangelical culture often speaks of “inviting Jesus into your heart” and “putting Jesus on the throne of your life.”  This hymn does exactly that, with poetry, grace, solemnity, and joy.

The final verse is a doxology:

Praise God above on his high throne, Who giveth us his only Son.
The angel hosts rejoice in bliss To chant a glad New Year like this.  Amen.

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This Morning: Resurrection

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Book Review: the 1662 BCP

Welcome to Saturday Book Review time!  On most of the Saturdays this year we’re going to look 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.

We’re starting with the 1662 Common Prayer Book, a very good place to start.  As I have mentioned before, this is my “second” prayer book in terms of the order and extent that I got to know a prayer book.  It was preceded by three: those of 1549 (under King Henry VIII), 1552 (under King Edward), and 1559 (under Queen Elizabeth).  The 1662 is most like the 1559, for the most part being a re-issue of the Elizabethan Prayer Book after its temporary suppression by the Puritan government which deemed the book not sufficiently reformed and “purified” from Papist influence.  For the modern reader and pray-er accustomed to variety and choice, the 1662 Prayer Book is frustratingly short on options.  On the other hand this makes it one of the thinnest and simplest Prayer Books of them all.

Some of the distinctions that mark this Prayer Book from its successors include prayers for the monarch royal family, and a cultural expectation that weekly Communion will not be received by the people, or even celebrated by the priests.

As an English book, and the Church of England being a state church, the Prayer Book quite naturally appoints quite a few collects and prayers for the reigning monarch, the royal family, and the welfare of the country at large.  Outside of the British Commonwealth this has to be “translated” into more generic prayers for the state or government leaders.  And, apart from rewriting those specific words, there is also the question of mentality – what is the more subtle influence in a Prayer Book of a national church, and how should prayers for the state be approached where the government is not a patron of the Church?

The practical pastoral issues surround the frequency of Holy Communion also marks the 17th century from the 21st.  The Communion service begins with the following rubric:

So many as intend to be partakers of the holy Communion shall signify their names to the Curate, at least some time the day before.

Imagine having to register with the clergy every week!  Clearly times and expectations have changed.  Also, in the middle of the Communion service stand three lengthy Exhortations: one announcing the celebration of Communion on an upcoming Sunday or Holy Day, one for when he sees people are negligent about coming to the Communion table, and one for the day the Communion is actually being celebrated.  Only the last of these has survived into modern prayer books – the expectation of a weekly Eucharist and the peoples’ participation therein is a surprisingly recent achievement in Anglican practice.

Comparing the lengths of liturgies between the 1662 and the common modern rites can also be jarring.  This book has shorter Communion prayers but longer prayers of the people.  Its Baptism and Confirmation services are brief affairs, but its Daily Office is robust, especially with the use of the Athanasian Creed 13 times a year and the Litany 3 times a week.

The ratings in short:

Accessibility: 4/5
I’m not sure if a 5/5 Prayer Book exists; they all have some sort of learning curve.  But the lack of options and variations go a long way to making this book as usable as it is.  The typeface and blocky filling of space is also strange to the modern eye, as prayer books today tend to have a lot of blank space between sections.  Necessary page-flipping is minimal, and the rubrics are usually very specific about what you’re supposed to do next.

Devotional Usefulness: 4/5
The biggest winner in this book is the Daily Office.  The original lectionary covers more of the Bible than pretty much any of its successors.  The prayers and canticles and collects, creeds and litany, really make Morning and Evening Prayer the heartbeat of the life of worship in this volume.  If you’re of a high church sort, you may find the Communion prayers a bit frustrating.  Some have observed a lack of evangelistic or missional emphasis in the older prayer books such as this one.  And the 17th century English can be a bit of a stumbling block to those not used to it.

Reference Value: 4/5
This is kind of tricky.  On one hand, early prayer books like the 1662 didn’t go out of their way to pepper their pages with scriptural citations.  It’s constantly quoting and paraphrasing the Bible but you don’t always get to see where it’s coming from.  It simply is what it is, and if you don’t notice where it comes from then you’ll just have to ask someone else.  On the other hand, this is, historically, the quintessential prayer book; others are measured according to this one.  So the 1662 BCP is of reference value simply on its own merits; you can compare liturgies and prayers from other books to this one, knowing this is the “standard” most Anglican provinces recognize as the common baseline.

All in all, this is a significant book.  I wouldn’t say that every Anglican ought to have and study it, but anyone who cares about Anglican tradition and history definitely should.  And that, by definition, should include all members of the clergy!

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Confession of St. Peter at Morning Prayer

As is often the case, today’s holiday, the Confession of Saint Peter, has a special reading for the Morning Office: Matthew 16:13-20.  As our new ACNA daily lectionary likes to do, this lesson is a repeat of the Gospel lesson at today’s communion service.  So if you’re saying the Daily Office but have no Eucharist to attend today, you still get the primary story of the holiday.  The downside is that if you do attend today’s Communion, you hear the same passage twice rather than hearing something different to deepen and enrich the day with further scriptural insight.

As we noted last week, this feast day is an excellent “epiphany moment”, revealing the divinity of Jesus through the words of Peter.  This feast day is actually a modern addition to the Prayer Book tradition; it first appeared for us in 1979.  And this seems a good contribution to the calendar, in my opinion, reinforcing the traditional epiphany theme.

If you haven’t been doing so, perhaps this is a good day to pull out the Surge illuminare as the first Canticle at Morning Prayer, too.  If you have, then perhaps bring back the Te Deum in honor of the major feast!

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Saint Anthony of Egypt

January 17th is the commemoration of Saint Anthony of Egypt.  He is known and remembered as one of the first hermits, from whom the monastic tradition would grow and develop.  His Life, or biography, was written by Saint Athanasius and is one of the first of its kind in Christian literature.  In that document we read that he was not seeking to “escape the world” for the sake of solitude and peace, but to do battle with the devil (or demons, at any rate) in his own soul.  Cloistered monastic or parish priest, lay person or ordained, we all face against the world, the flesh, and the devil.

Nevertheless, it may feel a bit odd to commemorate a man like Saint Anthony during the Epiphany season.  At least in the modern calendar tradition, Epiphanytide is missionally focused, and the life of solitude exemplified in today’s commemoration is decidedly inward-focused, not outward.  As it happens, there are at least two ways that we can link this commemoration to the Epiphany season’s mission theme.

First, we see in the life of Anthony the reminder that no matter where we go geographically, the same spiritual forces of darkness will be waiting for us.  In the mission field (be it on a distant continent or your around your neighbor’s grill in the back yard) we will find opposition.  There is an enemy to contend with, we will be wrestling with beings not of flesh and blood.  The example of Saint Anthony reminds us that we must be ready for battle, especially as we seek to increase our service to God’s kingdom.

Second, history shows us that, paradoxically, the seemingly-inward-focused monastic tradition has greatly benefited the missional movement of the Church.  Much of Northern Europe was evangelized by monks!  In Anthony’s case, he sought solitude in the desert to fight against evil alone, and other would-be hermits came to live nearby caves so they could benefit from his wisdom.  He soon had a community of hermits – monks – and ordinary people from the cities soon started visiting this monastic community for spiritual guidance, insight, and advice.  This pattern has repeated all over the world: an intentional community of worship, fellowship, and solidarity is established, people “come and see,” often a whole village or town arises next door, and the Gospel advances into that region.  We are thus reminded, at least, that there is more than one way to go about mission and evangelism.

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Getting through Psalm 78

Depending upon your mood and state of mind (or heart) we may have a bit of a Tuesday Terror looming at Evening Prayer: the 78th Psalm.  Assuming you’re using the 30-day cycle of Psalms by Thomas Cranmer that has adorned every Prayer Book for over 450 years, this evening is when we come to Psalm 78, the second-longest Psalm in the book, and the longest that we pray straight through.

In terms of genre, it covers a few bases.  It is a didactic psalm, written with the express purpose of teaching its reader, singer, or pray-er.  It is a history psalm, telling stories of the people of Israel throughout their past.  It is a parable, according to its opening verses, intending to teach us about divine faithfulness and human unfaithfulness through the medium of story.

Something that can help one get through this Psalm attentively and profitably is to break it into manageable sections:

  • Verses 1-8 are a very general introduction to this type of Psalm.
  • Verses 9-40 are the first story, summarizing the exodus, focusing on the wilderness wandering.
  • Verses 41-54 form the second story, also summarizing the exodus, but focusing more on the events in Egypt.
  • Verses 55-72 form a less organized section noting the conquest of Canaan, the split of Israel and Judah, a shout-out to Solomon’s Temple, and the kingship of David.

While the chronology is a bit mixed up, the order that may give clarity to the Psalm is perhaps the level of faithfulness exhibited by God’s people.  Much of the Psalm reveals how sinful and disobedient we can be, but there’s a trajectory of growth towards the end.  The end, reflecting on the Shepherd-King David, is a decidedly positive note to close with.

If you’re singing or chanting this Psalm, first of all congratulations – this will keep you singing for quite a while!  Second of all, consider changing the chant tune at verse 41, breaking the Psalm roughly in half.  I have heard choirs do this before with other long psalms, and it can help both break up the monotony and audibly mark the turn from one section to the next.

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A Canticle for Epiphanytide: Surge illuminare

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The Baptism of our Lord

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Looking Ahead: two Friday Feasts

Happy Friday!  Happy Epiphanytide!  It’s unusual to have such a long beginning to the Epiphany season, having a whole week between the Day (January 6th) and the first Sunday.  It’s as if the wise men are staying to party with the holy family extra long this year 🙂

As we look ahead at the next few weeks, a succession of major feast days await us.  The two remaining this month are both on Fridays: the Confession of Saint Peter on the 18th and the Conversion of Saint Paul on the 25th.  The former was not in the historic prayer books, but now adorns our modern calendar.  If your church has a regular Friday worship service, these two holidays stand as special opportunities to celebrate the work of the Gospel in the New Testament as well as to flesh out the Epiphany season even further.

For, although we don’t know the dates of the original events – when Peter declared “you are the Christ, the son of the living God”, and when Paul encountered the risen Christ on the road to Damascus – it is appropriate that we celebrate these critical gospel moments during the Epiphany season.  Both of these holidays celebrate epiphanies, revelations, or showings of who Jesus is.  They fit right in to the season’s traditional overarching theme.

Eight days after that will be February 2nd, a Saturday, when the feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple and the Purification of Mary is observed.  That is the 40th day after Christmas, matching the event being 40 days after the birth of Jesus.  We’ll hear more about that when it draws near, but it’s good to mark one’s calendar ahead of time so these major holidays of the church year don’t surprise us when they arrive.