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O Sapientia begins

The die-hard liturgy fans out there may already know about this, but others of you may glance at the ACNA calendar this week and mumble in broken Latin “O Sapientia?”  It means “O Wisdom” and it refers to a traditional antiphon that was paired with the Magnificat in Vespers (Evening Prayer).

Let’s back up.

In the final week leading up to Christmas, pre-reformation liturgical tradition spruced up each Evening Prayer service with a different antiphon, meditating on a different aspect of Christ.  Because each of them begin with the expressive word “O”, they’re known as “The O Antiphons.”  How does an antiphon work?  Traditionally they are placed at the beginning of a Psalm or Canticle and repeated at the end, after the “Glory be”.  So the first one, O Sapientia, would work like this:

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.

My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.
For he has regarded
the lowliness of his handmaiden.

…

He, remembering his mercy, has helped his servant Israel,
as he promised to our fathers, Abraham and his seed forever.
Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen.

O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end to the other, mightily and sweetly ordering all things: Come and teach us the way of prudence.

Each day, at Evening Prayer, this Antiphon would be different, in the final lead-up to Christmas.  For most of Europe there were seven such antiphons:

  • O Sapientia (O Wisdom)
  • O Adonai (O Lord)
  • O Radix Jesse (O Root of Jesse)
  • O Clavis David (O Key of David)
  • O Oriens (O Dayspring)
  • O Rex Gentium (O King of the Nations)
  • O Emmanuel (O God-with-us)

In England, an eighth was added at the end, moving all the other seven forward a day: O Virgo Virginum (O Virgin of Virgins).

As the discerning reader might now recognize, the classic seven of these comprise the seven verses of O come, O come Emmanuel that we have in our hymnals.  The order is not the same, however, and with good reason: the culmination of these pictures of Jesus is Emmanuel; that is the most profound and clear of all the prophetic images of Christ.  These antiphons, thus, form a progression of growing clarity in our Advent anticipation: we await our Wisdom, our Lord, the Root (or stump) of Jesse, the Key of David, the Dayspring (or Morning Star), the King of the Gentiles, God-himself-with-us!

The medieval English addition of the Marian observance, O Virgo Virginum admittedly interrupts this progression, though its content is just as biblical and pious as the other seven.  I adapted it to verse a couple years ago, for those who care to add it to the hymn.

If you have found Advent to be passing you by, perhaps you can latch on to this final week before Christmas.  These O Antiphons are the stuff of excellent Bible Study, meditation, reflection, prayer, and worship.

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What is liturgy?

One of the most prominent differences between Anglicanism and other Protestant traditions is the liturgy.  We hold to a way of worship that is rooted not in the whims and wiles of the local congregation, but in the wisdom of the historic Church.  Although a great many local variances can be found in different times throughout history and places across the globe, the liturgical tradition puts into action a set of principles and practices regarding corporate worship.  In conversation with visitors and members of other traditions, therefore, one of the biggest questions we can be asked (and which we need to know how to answer) is “what is liturgy?”

From a Greek verb and noun that appears several times in the New Testament, liturgy means “public work” or “work of the people.”  That second quote is the more popular definition offered, but it can be misleading with the connotation that it’s the work by the congregation specifically.  There are examples in the Epistles of St. Paul of “liturgy” or “ministry” being carried out by individuals on behalf of others.  Although the context does not concern worship directly, it is illustrative of the reality that congregational worship does not always necessarily take place at the initiative of the congregation.  Some aspects of worship are individuals-driven, other aspects are representative (or led by particular ministers on others’ behalf).

All corporate worship is by definition liturgical.  And our tradition is cognizant of that.  Something that comes up here and there today is the offering of multiple worship services according to different styles.  This is not inherently wrong, but something that is a very bad idea for an Anglican Church is to label certain services as “liturgical” and others as something else like “modern” or “contemporary.”  No, all worship services are liturgical.  To attribute the term “liturgical” as a label only for certain things we do is to turn the very nature of worship on its head.

Instead, we need to understand what it means for our worship to be specifically and properly liturgical.  Here’s a quick and easy answer that will help you and anyone else clarify your understanding:

The book of common prayer is our liturgy.

Putting our answer of Anglican worship in this way can be a valuable reorientation of common assumptions.

  1. It gets you away from thinking of liturgy as a style, which is the worst mistake that I’ve come across in conversation with other Christians.  Liturgical worship is not merely a flavor of Christian tradition, it is a set of biblical and theological principles in concrete ritual order and action that can be (and is) written down in a book for all to use.
  2. It gets you away from thinking of liturgy as the order of service, which is also a very common mistake but at least is closer to the truth.  There is a sense in which “the liturgy” does refer to the ordering and contents of a particular worship service.  But in its fullest sense, liturgy is bigger than that.
  3. It gets you thinking about liturgy as everything.  The liturgy includes the Daily Offices, the Communion on Sundays and Holy Days, the Calendar, Baptisms, Burials or Funerals, Marriages, everything.  The entire Christian life, as enacted and celebrated in worship, is the Church’s liturgy.  And the genius of Anglicanism, historically, has been that we’ve tied that together into one single book that’s accessible to anyone who can read.

In short, liturgy is the church’s life together.  It’s what we do when we’re together.  When Anglicans gather for worship, the Prayer Book is the expression (and rule) of how we go about it.  To eschew the Prayer Book in favor of the Roman Mass, other Protestant worship books, extemporaneous prayer and praise, or any other tradition, is to surrender that which makes us Anglican.  That doesn’t mean we can’t learn and borrow from other traditions at all.  But if we reach for those materials more instinctively or frequently than we reach for the Prayer Book, our “Anglican-ness” is not in good shape.

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Looking Ahead: I doubt you’ll remember…

I doubt you’ll remember this ahead of time, but a week from today, December 21st, is the feast of Saint Thomas.  This is a major feast day in the calendar that very easily sneaks up on us.  Here we are, going through Advent, preparing for Christmas which is just three days away, and suddenly everything goes on hold for a day to celebrate the Apostle Thomas.  We’re more used to hearing about him on the heels on Easter, in the famous story of his doubting the resurrection until he too gets to be an eyewitness.

The Roman Catholic Church (and I think also the modern calendar for the Church of England) has dealt with this issue of placement and attention by shuffling Thomas’ feast day to early July, where he only has to compete with the adjacent Independence Day in the USA; a much easier “holiday conflict” to resolve than this.  But in the American Prayer Book tradition, we’ve always kept St. Thomas Day on its historic date.

One way that we can capitalize on this traditional date is by observing that the 21st is usually the Winter Solstice (in the Northern hemisphere) – it’s the shortest day and longest night of the year.  Thomas, likewise, was in the darkness of doubt the longest of the apostles.  All of them doubted the resurrection, and refused to believe until they saw evidence, but Thomas was absent for Jesus’ dinner visit that first Easter evening and had to wait for the following Sunday to see him for himself.  The match-up of darkened faith and darkened daylight gives December 21st a sort of fittingness to the celebration of Saint Thomas.

This even fits into part of the Advent theme, in which we are praying for the return of Christ, striving to “keep watch” – to keep our lamps burning, as it were.  The Collect that starts (and traditionally accompanies throughout) the season exhorts to “put on the armor of light.”  Even with Christmas Day rushing toward us at tilt-neck speed, let us remember to celebrate the Apostle Thomas next week.  His story of wavering-but-confirmed faith, paired with the turn of the natural season from darkness toward light and the liturgical season of bearing light for Christ, can make for a wonderful occasion of spiritual refreshment in the midst of what is for many the busiest time of year.

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Saint Lucia Day

Celebrate Saint Lucia Day, go light your little sister’s hair on fire!  Haha, just kidding… sort of.

Saint Lucia (or Lucy, in English) was a martyr of the Early Church who died in the year 304 during a particularly nasty round of persecution under Emperor Diocletian.  Lucia was betrothed by her mother to be married to a man of some esteem, but Lucia had already pledged herself to virginity and was already beginning to give of her late father’s possessions to the poor.  Discovery of this cause her husband-to-be to scorn her and turn her over to the authorities.  As the story goes, she was sentenced to be defiled in a whorehouse but the soldiers and oxen couldn’t make the cart carrying her to move, and when she was sentenced to be burned to death instead the fire wouldn’t touch her, so the Emperor stabbed her instead.

The candles-on-the-head thing derives from a story that when she carried food to Christians hiding in the catacombs, she wore a wreath with candles on her head so she could carry more food in both hands.  Whether either this or her martyrdom story are accurate reports of history is beyond our ability to know.  But the piety, acts of service, and devotion to Christ displayed in her life are inspirational stories that have endeared Christians the world over, ever since.  Check out the devotion her story can inspire:

Saint Lucia Day, December 13th, is not just any old commemoration in the ACNA calendar.  It also happens to be the anchor date that defines the Advent Ember Days.  You’ll hear more about those next week, but suffice it to note now that the Advent (or Winter) Ember Days are always the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday soonest after St. Lucia Day.  In this year’s case, we’ve got almost a whole week left before the Ember Days begin.

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The Scripture Collect

The Collect for the Second Sunday in Advent is sometimes nicknamed “the Scripture Collect” for obvious reasons:

Blessed Lord, who caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and the comfort of your Holy Word we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

One of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer’s originals, this Collect has a beautiful and intelligent list of verbs noting a progression of the individual’s interaction with Sacred Scripture: first hear, then read, then mark, then learn, and finally inwardly digest them.  This, I believe, seems to be what most people latch on to when they uplift this Collect as one of their favorites.  But what follows is particularly important; we pray for this venerable interaction with the Bible so that “we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life“.  This may not stick as well in memory, but it’s very important to consider.  As it turns out, that part of the Collect is a paraphrase of Romans 15:4, which says:

For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope.

And this is no random reference; the Epistle lesson for the 2nd Advent Sunday was Romans 15:4-13, until the modern calendars of the 1970’s onward took over.  Though even still, we do have that scripture lesson appointed for the Epistle in Year A of the lectionary’s three-year cycle.  That is why it’s a very good thing that we’ve got this Collect back on Advent II.  I say “back” because the Episcopalian Prayer Book of 1979 (as well as some of the recent calendar revisions in the Church of England) shuffled this Collect off to a spot typically somewhere in November, a couple weeks before Advent begins.  There, it was just a nice prayer.  Here, it is relevant to the season and directly references the Epistle reading (one year out of three).

Unless you attend a traditional parish that uses the historic calendar and lessons and therefore already heard it, take a few minutes to read Romans 15:4-13.  Not only does its first verse echo the Collect, but the rest of the text continues to speak of hope, trust, and peace, as well as make a couple fantastic Old Testament references including “the root of Jesse” – one of the famous Advent & Christmas texts.  It will be well worth your time and devotion!

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Opening Sentences in the Daily Office

The Prayer Book tradition has always begun the Morning and Evening Offices with “opening sentences of scripture.”  In the modern prayer books, the Communion service also begins with a choice of seasonal “Acclamations” that tend to be viewed in a similar light as these Opening Sentences.  Indeed, the way our 2019 book looks like it’s going to be treating them, the implication seems to be that they are correspondent to one another.  However, this has not always been the case.

People like to complain about the 1979 Prayer Book – and understandably so: much of the standard format and content of historic prayer books got radically re-written, re-ordered, and altered to the point of unrecognizability in some places.  And in the case of the Sunday lectionary, 1,500 years of slowly-evolving tradition got chucked out the window.  But when it comes to the Opening Sentences, the 1979 book is not where the change began; this was a slower evolution through the American Prayer Books.  Already in the American 1928 Prayer Book (if not before), the Opening Sentences included various seasonal verses for use during Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, and so on.

The idea that the Office should begin with a “seasonal” verse is not a bad one.  It helps sets a devotional mood that links the Office to the church calendar more strongly than it is otherwise.  But it is also helpful to understand the mentality and purpose that existed before.

The Daily Office, by nature, used to be very static and unchanging.  The options we now have simply weren’t offered in the past.  The Opening Sentences were no exception.  Instead of seasonal or occasional verses to read, the older Prayer Books offered a large pile of verses, and any number of them could be read (not just one verse, as the 2019 Prayer Book looks like it’ll direct).  If you look at the “sentences of scripture” listed in the 1662 Prayer Book, for example, you will find that they are largely penitential.  In fact, if you read all of them, straight through, in the order they are presented, you’ll find they form a sort of outline of salvation.  There are Sentences about repentance, God’s grace toward sinners, trust in God’s mercy, and expressions of commitment to God’s judgment and cleansing.  These are not Opening Sentences that are meant to set the mood for the Office as a whole, these are preparatory words of Scripture meant to lead into the Confession that follows.

If you’ve ever felt like the Opening Sentence of Scripture is a little lonely there at the beginning, left hanging, that’s why.  Its original purpose was to be part of the sequence of Confession & Absolution that begins the Daily Office.

Granted, knowing this history will not necessarily translate to the use of our 20th and 21st century prayer books… the listed verses we have are so different from the original that it’s going to be somewhat contrived to attempt to use our seasonal Sentences as preparations for Confession.  Some of them will work better than others, though, so it can be a helpful thing to remember.  When it doesn’t link well to the Confession, that’s when we just have to treat them like the “Acclamation” at the beginning of the Communion service, and consider them a call to worship in general, if not to confession specifically.

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A Canticle for Advent: Quærite Dominum

A few days ago we looked at the canticle Magna et mirabilia as a great canticle option for the season of Advent.  Today let’s look at another one, Quærite Dominum (#4 in the present draft documents).  The rubric accompanying it observes that it is especially suitable for use during Lent, but if you look at all the options available, there are quite a few that are suggested for Lent… that season could end up a bit crowded.  So consider making use of it during Advent instead.

Taken from Isaiah 55, this canticle starts off with a penitential tone: “Seek the Lord while he wills to be found… Let the wicked forsake their ways… let them turn to the Lord.”  But this penitential aspect doesn’t overpower the canticle like in other cases; the bulk of Quaerite Dominum focuses on God’s redemptive work, especially with images of creation.  God’s thoughts and ways are higher than ours, the water cycle is a picture of God’s providence, the harvest cycle is a picture of God’s providence, the cycle of God’s Word is a picture of God’s providence.  In this second week of Advent, the theme of God’s Word (particularly in the Scriptures) is already made prominent by the Sunday Collect, sometimes called “the Scripture Collect”, which we can take a look at in a couple days.

Furthermore, the accomplishment of of God’s purpose and the prospering of his Word at the end of the Canticle suggest eschatological themes, pictures of the End of the Age, to which the entire season of Advent points.  In short, this Canticle is a great option to bring into the Daily Office this season!

As Magna et mirabilia has already been recommended for Morning Prayer, consider this Canticle for Evening Prayer, in place of the Nunc dimittis.  If you are a regular or semi-regular pray-er of Compline, the night office, then you will get the Nunc dimittis in that liturgy instead, so it’s more “expendable” to Evening Prayer in the big picture of the Prayer Book liturgy.

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Revelation begins today!

In Evening Prayer today, the daily lectionary begins its course through the book of Revelation.  Just as this book has an interesting place in the biblical canon, it also has an interesting place in the liturgical tradition.

Even in the Early Church there was widespread disagreement over how to interpret this book.  Some theologians, especially in the East, took a largely preterist view, seeing the vast majority of its fulfillment in the first century.  That being the case, there was little need to preserve it in the active canon of Scripture.  To this day, the book of Revelation is barely ever read from in East Orthodox liturgy (though its several hymnic sections, I’m sure, deeply inform their hymnody).  In the West, too, there was dispute on how to interpret this book, and although I cannot comment on its liturgical use through the medieval era, I can point out that the original Anglican daily lectionary omitted the book of Revelation.

Despite how modern Evangelicals love Bible-in-a-year plans, this was hardly scandalous at the time.  It had long been understood that some parts of the Bible were more readily edifying than others.  Most of the books of Leviticus and Numbers, and much of Ezekiel was left out of the original lectionary as well, along with 1 & 2 Chronicles.  Genealogies, finicky Old Covenant Laws, and obscure Old Testament visions and prophecies, although all Scripture, are not as relevant to forming and informing the ordinary Christian life as other parts of the Bible.  The book of Revelation was cast in the same light – much of it was obscure, controversial, and liable to stir up further controversy.  Indeed, radicals and revolutionaries had a tendency to use images from writings like Revelation to bolster their crazy ideas… the time of the Reformation was tumultuous enough already.

Unfortunately this backfired.  The lack of familiarity with the book of Revelation eventually gave rise to new and theologically dangerous interpretations of the book throughout the following centuries, most noteably that of Nelson Darby, who essentially invented the near-heretical Dispensationalist theology which rewrote the doctrine of the Church and sundered the entirety of Scripture between “Israel” and “the Church” in a new and complicated way that very nearly undoes the entire Gospel.  Today’s popular doctrine of the Rapture rose to prominence through this false teaching, and the various End-Times views that populate the religious landscape right now are a testimony to how poorly-understood the book of Revelation has been.

Anglican lectionaries have since restored this book, always at the end of the year.  Its eschatological and apocalyptic content lends itself perfectly to the mood and theme of the Advent season, and the culmination of the New Creation at the end of the book is matched (at least emotionally) by the arrival of Christmas.  In the modern Sunday Communion lectionary, the book of Revelation shows up on a couple holy days here and there, but gets its most thorough treatment in the season of Easter in Year C (the year which has just begun).  The context of the Easter season also befits this book, as it begins with an image of the resurrected (and ascended) Christ and looks ahead to his victory not only over death but over all evil.  It takes Easter and projects it into all of time and space!

So as you begin reading Revelation tonight, try to keep in mind that although this is a mysterious book with a great deal of controversy about it, the context of Advent’s anticipation of the return of Christ can be a helpful benchmark for understanding this book.  Also, try to take it in as a whole and tuck it into your memory, so that when Easter rolls around in a few months, and you hear parts of it read on Sundays for a few weeks, it’ll be more familiar to you.

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A Canticle for Advent: Magna et mirabilia

An interesting feature of our Prayer Book, like the 1979 book, is that the number of Canticles for Morning and Evening Prayer is noticeably expanded.  The Prayer Books have always offered choices, if originally only a Psalm as an alternative for each Canticle.  But as the centuries went by, more options got thrown in, and now we’ve got quite a bunch.  But, unlike the 1979 book, it looks like ours will be placed in a collection after the Office so as not to interrupt the page-turning flow of the liturgy.  This seems to me like a smart move.

If you, like me, are interested in making use of the various options of our Prayer Book in a sensible and orderly way, consider Advent a good opportunity to make use of Canticle 1, Magna et mirabilia.  Taken from Revelation 15, this brief canticle praise God as the great King of all creation.  A rubric rightly observes that it is “especially suitable for use in Advent and Easter.”  I would recommend appointing this Canticle in place of the Te Deum on Monday through Saturday mornings during Advent.  It gives the Morning Office an extra Advent flair, as well as providing a shorter option than the lengthy Te Deum.

Prayer Book traditionalists might shake their heads at this advice, pointing out that the Te Deum ought to be said daily, and the use of alternative Canticles should rarely, if ever, be done.  To that I would observe that in the monastic offices, from which the Prayer Book tradition was born, the Te Deum was only said on Sundays, and even then possibly only on feast days.  (I’m not intimately familiar with the tradition; I just know it wasn’t daily).  So if you want to make use of the fancy optional extra canticles in the new Prayer Book, this is one part of how to implement it.

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Thankful Thursday

Thankful Thursday is an occasional theme on social media – religious or otherwise, people sometimes make a point of posting something online some sort of expression of thanksgiving each Thursday.  It’s a healthy way to live one’s life, and, of course, a key biblical aspect of the Christian life.

Naturally, the liturgy has a prominent place for thanksgiving.  In Morning and Evening Prayer, giving thanks is near the end of the Office, as if the culmination of the service.  The “General Thanksgiving” prayer is fantastic: it’s meaty, it’s biblical, it’s thorough, it’s even exhortative in the way it reminds us how to live thankfully.  The Communion Service also has a high place for giving thanks – the word Eucharist means “good grace” or (more loosely) “thanksgiving.”  The Communion Prayers are prefaced with thanksgiving, and the Post-Communion Prayer is also one of thanksgiving.

So maybe it’s a good idea to bring “Thankful Thursday” into your prayer life, too.  Our Prayer Book comes with a large collection of Occasional Prayers, the last section of which are thanksgivings.  Why not pull these out and add them to the Daily Office today?  This is especially wise for Evening Prayer, when you’ll have the opportunity to look back on your day and give specific thanks for the blessings of the day that is past.