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Prayers for Veterans Day

Yesterday was Veterans Day in the US, but today is its “observed” day for many businesses and schools.  If you didn’t take advantage of yesterday’s centennial observance, today’s a good day to add some appropriate prayers to your daily rounds.

Pull up our “Occasional Prayers” collection: https://s3.amazonaws.com/acna/Occasional%20Prayers%20181017.pdf

There are plenty of appropriate options to choose from.  #25-37 are the national prayers, especially consider #25 & 26 For the Peace of the World and #30 For Those in the Armed Forces, and #120, the thanksgiving For Military Veterans.

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I’m wearing black today

It occurs to me that the lessons and collect for Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day (in the ACNA’s Sunday & Holy Day lectionary) give them a feel not unlike the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed (popularly, All Souls Day). I haven’t double-checked, but I suspect most of these lessons are also options for our Burial service.
 
In which case, it seems that the funeral colors (black is traditional, white is modern(ist)) would be reasonable options for Veteran’s Day and Memorial Day.
 
Obviously, as Anglicans, and especially under the modern calendar with less connection to the 1,500 years of recorded liturgical history, vestment color schemes are in the “a diaphora” category that are not regulated by canon law – we do have freedom of choice here. In that spirit of freedom, and awareness of what our modern lectionary is doing, I decided I’m wearing a black stole today, to celebrate Veterans Day.
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Martinmas tomorrow

Before Armistice Day, Remembrance Day, and/or Veteran’s Day took hold of 11/11, it was known as St. Martin’s Day, or Martinmas for short.  It was one of the most popular and beloved saints’ days all across Europe.  It served as the end of an extended All Saints’ celebration.  It coincided with the final harvest of the year.  Especially up North, like in England, it was a day to slaughter a cow, have some martinmas beef, cook up some blood or suet pudding and other treats, and set an extra place at the table for St. Martin on his white horse for ambling merry-makers about the town, or for the poor.  The festive tone of the whole thing is rather like how one might envision an old-timey Christmas.  What a lovely thought, to realize that such a cheery festive spirit could be enjoyed on more than just one holiday a year!

Since Martinmas this year (tomorrow) is a Sunday, and since it’s also Remembrance/Veteran’s Day with a very special anniversary this year, perhaps today is the better day to make a little shout-out to the old feast of Martinmas.  Grab some various hymns and songs to add to your daily prayers.  Open a bottle of wine, or procure a fancy dessert to enjoy with family or friends, or grab some portable yummy healthy food and visit the local homeless folks or needy neighbors.

Maybe we all need to learn to “keep the spirit of Christmas” all the year round, and use old customs like this to remind us.

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Wrapping Up All Souls’

In Eastern and medieval Western practice, many Major Feast Days had “octaves” – eight days of celebration and observance.  None of these survive in the Prayer Book tradition today (nor really in modern Roman Catholicism for that matter), though echoes are found in our observance of the Baptism of Christ on the Sunday after the Epiphany and the usual practice of observing All Saints’ Day on the Sunday following when November 1st is a weekday.

Today is the “octave day” of All Souls’ Day – that is, a full week has passed since the commemoration of the faithful departed.  To my knowledge, there was never any such thing as an “All Souls’ Octave;” rather, All Saints’ Day was and is the primary celebration going on in early November.  But, just for kicks, sometimes it’s worth re-visiting recent commemorations, and doing so a week later is a convenient time for doing that.  I’m not proposing anything crazy or complicated; how about just grabbing the hymnal off the shelf and adding once of the Burial hymns to the Daily Office today?  The following came to mind:

Now the laborer’s task is o’er;
Now the battle day is past;
Now upon the farther shore
Lands the voyager at last.
Father, in thy gracious keeping
Leave we now thy servant sleeping.

There the tears of earth are dried;
There its hidden things are clear;
There the work of life is tried
By a juster judge than here.
Father, in thy gracious keeping
Leave we now thy servant sleeping.

There the penitents, that turn
To the cross their dying eyes,
All the love of Jesus learn
At his feet in paradise.
Father, in thy gracious keeping
Leave we now thy servant sleeping.

There no more the powers of hell
Can prevail to mar their peace;
Christ the Lord shall guard them well,
He who died for their release.
Father, in thy gracious keeping
Leave we now thy servant sleeping.

“Earth to earth, and dust to dust,”
Calmly now the words we say,
Left behind, we wait in trust
For the resurrection day.
Father, in thy gracious keeping
Leave we now thy servant sleeping.  Amen.

On a practical, unrelated, note, it is wise for ministers to have the “occasional services” like the Burial Rite periodically refreshed in memory whether we have any planned or not.  These are events that can crop up suddenly without warning, and it is very helpful when ministers have the liturgical mindset behind those services intuitively grasped ahead of time!

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Looking ahead: Thanksgiving Day

Two weeks from today, in the USA, is Thanksgiving Day.  Apart from family traditions that may involve your efforts in the meantime, let us give consideration to some of the liturgical resources we have available for the observance of that day.

The Collect of the Day could be imported into the Daily Office:

Most merciful Father, we humbly thank you for all your gifts so freely bestowed upon us; for life and health and safety; for strength to work and leisure to rest; for all that is beautiful in creation and in human life; but above all we thank you for our spiritual mercies in Christ Jesus our Lord; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

The lessons for a communion service that morning (or perhaps the evening before):

  • Deuteronomy 8; Psalm 65:1-8(9-14); James 1:17-27; Matthew 6:25-33

Additional prayers (link) and thanksgivings #20-22 and #114-123 are also excellent additions to the Daily Offices or other devotions for Thanksgiving.

Hymn ideas:

  • Come, ye thankful people, come (also known as Harvest Home)
  • We plow the fields (refrain “All good gifts around us“)
  • Praise to God, immortal praise
  • For the beauty of the earth
  • Let us, with a gladsome mind
  • Now thank we all our God

If you among the growing number of people who want to push back against the Black Friday shopping craze, consider adding these prayers and hymns to your private and/or congregational worship from Wednesday through Sunday, or even the whole week!

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Offering Imperfect Praise

A shortcoming of contemporary worship music is a frequent sense of overconfidence in one’s own worthiness.  There is a severe lack of penitence and contrition among the popular spiritual songs of today, particularly in the mainstream.  There are, of course, more excellent local and grassroot corners of the contemporary worship music movement that are much more biblical, especially Psalms-based, but you kind of have to know where to look in order to find them.

One of the issues this relates to is the idea of offering God worthy praise.  There is a common assumption (usually taken up and reinforced) in contemporary music that our heart-felt worship is worthy of God.  This falls apart at the definition of heart-felt, however.  The human heart, the Scriptures tell us, is full of evil and deceit.  No matter how much emotion and enthusiasm we muster up, our worship of God will always be imperfect, as long as we are sinners.  Only the fully redeemed, sanctified, and glorified Church in Heaven offers God truly perfect praise.  The Psalms are full of reminders of our imperfect praise: Psalm 51’s prayer “open my lips and mouth will proclaim your praise” shows that it is the Lord who opens our lips and enables us to worship him; Psalm 15 reminds us that only the sinless Saint is truly worthy to enter into God’s presence.

John Mason’s hymn Now from the altar of my heart is another example of this reality.

Now from the altar of my heart
Let incense flames arise;
Assist me, Lord, to offer up
Mine evening sacrifice.

Minutes and mercies multiplied
Have made up all this day;
Minutes came quick, but mercies were
More fleet and free than they.

New time, new favor, and new joys
Do a new song require;
Till I shall praise thee as I would,
Accept my heart’s desire.  Amen.

Like many contemporary songs, this hymn expresses the desire to worship God in an honest heart-felt manner.  But it also devotes its second stanza directly to the issue of our sinfulness – the need for God’s mercy was more frequent than the passage of minutes!  To many modern ears, such an assertion sounds like an exaggeration… we’re not really that sinful are we?  Regardless, the hymn ends with the acknowledgement that we desire to worship God for all his mercies, and asks him to accept what we do offer until we reach the point when we finally can and do worship him as we wish we could.

Give this some thought today, and perhaps pull it up to sing at Evening Prayer tonight?

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Praying on Election Day

Here in the US of A it’s an election day today.  Local and mid-term elections for various offices and a number of ballot questions sit before millions of Americans.  In our collection of Occasional Prayers we have a prayer for elections:

Almighty God, to whom we must account for all our powers and privileges: Guide and direct, we humbly pray, the minds of all those who are called to elect fit persons to serve [in ___].  Grant that in the exercise of our choice we may promote your glory, and the welfare of this nation.  This we ask for the sake of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

This is, obviously, a good prayer to take with you to the polls, or to pull out in moments of anxiety, or to add to the Daily Office today.  If you feel so compelled to spend further time in prayer, or otherwise find yourself seized by fear or worry about this election, consider this ideas:

Prayers for wisdom: Psalms 1, 19, 37, 49, 73
Prayers for leaders: Psalms 82, 132
Prayers for forgiveness: Psalms 32*, 38, 51, 143
Prayers of praise: Psalms 145 through 150

* In the Daily Office, we’ll get Psalm 32 this evening anyway.

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The Lost Sunday

One of the downsides of the modern calendar is that the same Sunday almost always gets overridden by All Saints’ Day when it’s transferred to Sunday.  Occasionally it’s the Sunday before that gets missed, but usually it’s this one, the “Sunday closest to November 2” or “between October 30 and November 5” or “Proper 26” (depending upon what book you’re looking in).  The Collect, which we at least get in the Daily Office for the rest of this week starting this morning is:

Grant us Lord, not to be anxious about earthly things, but to love things heavenly; and even now, while we are placed among things that are passing away, to hold fast to those that shall endure; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

It’s a lovely Collect, drawing heavily from the sermon on the mount in Matthew 5-7, and it’s a shame that most of our congregations will miss hearing it most years.  If you have a mid-week Communion service, and you celebrated All Saints’ back on Sunday, the “lost” Sunday Propers (collect & lessons) are highly recommended!

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Who shall dwell in thy tabernacle?

On the 3rd Morning of the month, the first Psalm is Psalm 15:

Lord, who shall dwell in thy tabernacle? or who shall rest upon thy holy hill?
Even he that leadeth an uncorrupt life, and doeth the thing which is right, and speaketh the truth from his heart.
…
Whoso doeth these things shall never fall.

One of the many, many advantages to praying the entirety of the Psalter each month is that we have innumerable opportunities to hear the same psalms juxtaposed against various and sundry contexts.  With All Saints’ Day, and its usual transferred Sunday, awaiting us tomorrow, one might find this an opportune Psalm to reflect upon the universal call to sainthood upon all God’s people.  The opening question – who gets to live in God’s house – is asking point blank for the qualifications of a Saint.  What does holiness look like?  What kind of person gets to live in God’s new heaven and earth?

Verses 2 through 6 describe a litany of virtue – doing good, speaking the truth, humbly refraining from exalting oneself, respecting those who fear the Lord, who keeps his word and lends even at personal loss.  Of course, this is not a complete theological statement; we know that righteousness purely by works and deeds is impossible for us sinners.  But this Psalm shows us two things: it depicts the Righteous One (Jesus) and the end state of righteousness to which he has called us.  We are all invited to receive the Way, Truth, and Life; we are all invited to practice righteousness and to grow in grace.

Psalm 15 shows us where we’re going.  Let that sink in as you pray it in Morning Prayer today.

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Remembering the Faithful Departed in the Liturgy

November 2nd is the commemoration of the Faithful Departed.  For the Roman Catholics, this is a holy day of higher rank, equal (or almost equal?) to All Saints’ Day itself.  The distinction is that All Saints’ Day remembers the Church Triumphant – Saints with a capital S – and All Souls’ Day remembers the Church Expectant – those at rest, awaiting the resurrection on the Last Day.  In Protestant theology, most of us generally don’t make much (if any) distinction between these two groups.  Some might posit that the “Capital S Saints” are enjoying the beatific vision to a greater degree than others among the departed, but I’m not aware of much talk along those lines.

As a result, the All Souls commemoration has typically been rolled into the All Saints commemoration in Anglican practice and piety.

However, there is a good reason for distinguishing these two holy days.  Two analogies present themselves.  The first is in our Prayers of the People in the Communion service: historically the last petition of those Prayers acknowledges both the departed at rest and the saints in glory.  Even if one believes these are not two different groups of people, they are clearly presented to us as two aspects of people.  We remember the Departed in a joyful glorified state and in a mournful “we miss them” sense.  The second analogy is the funeral/Burial service: the interplay between giving thanks and mourning is intricate and (occasionally) controversial.

In the standard Prayers of the People we have now, there is a lovely inclusio wherein you can add the names of the departed to your prayers:

We remember before you all your servants who have departed this life in your faith and fear, especially ___, that your will for them may be fulfilled…

My congregation makes use of this on a regular basis, but if yours does not, this weekend is the perfect opportunity to do so!