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Seven Weeks of Advent?

Something that I and other preachers often observe throughout the month of November is how the Sunday Communion lectionary transitions so smoothly into Advent from the end of the Trinitytide season. Whether it’s the traditional calendar or the modern, the readings naturally anticipate many of the major Advent themes: eternity, Christ’s judgement & reign, the Kingdom of God, our glorification in Christ. In both cases Advent does not come out of nowhere, but is a natural “next step” in the calendar’s cyclical presentation of the whole Gospel of Christ throughout the year.

But Advent has some pretty tough opponents these days. It normally begins on the coattails of Thanksgiving in the USA, and the commercialization of Christmas tends to drown out the distinction of Advent from Christmas. The hustle and bustle of culture, school, and general “holiday prep” makes it all too easy for the Christian today to miss the season of Advent completely. What can be a beautiful, quiet, and deeply spiritual experience is frequently truncated to a cardboard box with 24 numbers on it and chocolates inside.

I know what we need, MORE ADVENT!

Some eleven years ago now, a group of Episcopalians and Methodists came up with the idea of extending Advent from four weeks to seven, and thus The Advent Project was born. Nothing much came of it, and it never left the confines of liberal Protestantism. Unlike most liturgical innovations from that crowd, however, this idea was based on some rather sound principles: (1) Advent was a 40-week fast in the Early Church, (2) the secularization of Advent & Christmas needs to be combated, and (3) this could be accomplished without substantially changing the lectionary as it stands.

It’s also worth noting that the modern calendar authorized in the Church of England actually sets forth a sequence of “Sundays before Advent” (sometimes nicknamed Kingdomtide) which deliberately explores some pre-Advent themes. The liturgical color of red is put forth there as an alternative to the more traditional green.

The Advent Project’s 7-week plan, however, makes a lot of sense. When the popular secular and church cultures alike have made a mess of something like the season of Advent, why not turn to the Early Church for help? And if we can do that without yet another change to the lectionary, doesn’t that sound like the perfect solution?

Actually this is a silly idea.

But every good idea has its downsides. If you extend Advent to seven weeks in length, that means it begins on the Sunday within November 6th through 12th, meaning that roughly two years out of seven there is going to be a conflict between All Saints Sunday and the First Sunday of Extended Advent. Celebrating All Saints’ on the first Sunday of November is actually a 20th-century innovation, but the sort of congregation that is likely to adopt the 7-week Advent is probably also the sort that observes All Saints’ on the first Sunday of November, and thus there will be this conundrum to face on a regular basis.

Furthermore, the idea that Advent is so special that it needs its own pre-season reveals a telling bias. The traditional calendar has three weeks of Pre-Lent, smoothing the transition beautifully from Epiphanytide to Lent; but the modern calendar has thrown them out, resulting in a jarring shift of gears from Epiphany/Ordinary Time to Lent with only one Sunday (unique to Anglicans and Episcopalians I think) to bridge the gap between them. (That Sunday does, admittedly, use the Transfiguration as a brilliant hinge to make that shift from Epiphany to Lent, but it’s still just one little day with Ash Wednesday following too soon for anyone to prepare themselves spiritually.) The fact that there is interest in restoring dignity to Advent while neglecting Lent indicates what might be considered an imbalanced set of spiritual and theological priorities.

Also, let’s be real, what are the odds that a proposal like this, which has been dead in the water since 2011, will ever catch on?

Let’s see how it works!

Having played devil’s advocate, I want to turn now to providing some positive suggestions on how the spirit of the extended Advent idea can be used fruitfully, particularly in my context, using the authorized 2019 Prayer Book of the Anglican Church in North America.

The Advent Project had a clever idea: take the seven O Antiphons and appoint each of them as the theme or motif for each of the seven Sundays of Extended Advent. If you present them in their traditional order (with just one pair switched) they line up with the modern lectionary quite nicely. The collects in the 2019 BCP are different from those in the 1979 BCP, so many of the original idea-matches from the Advent Project are not applicable. But there are different ways that the same idea can work. Let’s walk through them:

Proper 27 / Third Sunday before Advent / Superadvent I: O Sapientia

SUNG VERSE: O come, thou wisdom from on high, who ord’rest all things mightily…

COLLECT: As the song prays that we might follow in the ways of Wisdom, so too does the collect pray that we purify ourselves as Christ (our wisdom) is pure so that we will be like him upon his second advent.

GOSPELS: Matthew 25:1-13 Parable of the WISE and foolish virgins
Mark 12:38-44 The learned scribes are unwise in their conduct, the poor widow is wise in her generosity
Luke 20:27-38 God is God of the living, not the dead; the Sadducees were not wise to understand this

Proper 28 / Second Sunday before Advent / Superadvent II: O Adonai

SUNG VERSE: O come, thou Lord of might, who to thy tribes on Sinai’s height…

COLLECT: As the song remembers the giving the Law, the collect prays for an abundance of good works (which the Law directed but was powerless itself to bring about).

GOSPELS: Matthew 25:14-30 Parable of the talents, in which one servant fails to invest his talent
Mark 13:14-23 & Luke 21:5-19 Do not be deceived by false Lords (adonai’s)

Proper 29 (Christ the King) / Last Sunday before Advent / Superadvent III: O Rex gentium

SUNG VERSE: O come, Desire of nations, bind in one the hearts of all mankind…

COLLECT: The song and the collect both pray for the end of human division under the unifying reign of Christ the King.

GOSPELS: Matthew 25:31-46 The King will judge the sheep from the goats for his kingdom
John 18:33-37 Jesus admits to Pilate that he is a king
Luke 23:35-43 This is the King of the Jews

Advent I / Superadvent IV: O radix Jesse

SUNG VERSE: O come, thou Rod of Jesse’s stem, from ev’ry foe deliver them…

COLLECT: The song prays for deliverance and victory, matched in the collect’s reference to putting on the armor of light.

GOSPELS: Matthew 24:29-44 & Mark 13:24-37 At the coming of the Son of Man, his elect will be delivered
Luke 21:25-33 Keep watch and pray that you will escape all these things at the end of the age

Advent II / Superadvent V: O clavis David

SUNG VERSE: O come, thou Key of David, come, and open wide our heav’nly home…

COLLECT: The song prays for the path to misery be shut and the heavenly way opened, and the collect sets forth the Scriptures as a vehicle for blessed hope.

GOSPELS: Matthew 3:1-12 & Mark 1:1-8 & Luke 3:1-6 John the Baptist’s preaching points the way/highway/path to Christ

Advent III / Superadvent VI: O Oriens

SUNG VERSE O come, thou Day-spring from on high, and cheer us by thy drawing nigh…

COLLECT: The song’s language of dispelling darkness and night is matched in the collect’s prayer for repentance and cleansing upon hearing the prophets’ preaching.

GOSPELS: Matthew 11:2-19 Jesus affirms to John’s disciples that he is dispelling the darkness as promised
John 1:19-28 & Luke 3:7-20 John the Baptist proclaims that the Christ is drawing nigh

Advent IV / Superadvent VII: O Emmanuel

SUNG VERSE: O come, o come, Emmanuel, and ransom captive Israel…

COLLECT: The song bids us await the appearance of the Son of God, and the collect also prays for him to come among us.

GOSPELS: Matthew 1:18-25 They shall call his name Emmanuel
Luke 1:26-38 He will be called the Son of the Most High
Luke 1:39-56 Fetal John the Baptist recognizes the newly-conceived Jesus

A final personal note of recommendation.

Surely if you dig through the Epistles and Old Testament lessons of the modern lectionary you will find further connections to these themes. But it should be emphasizes that this schema is not how the lectionary was designed to be interpreted. Using these seven O Antiphons in this manner only gives coincidental lines of interpretation. They’re not bad lines of interpretation, but they don’t account for everything, nor do they even begin to exhaust the potential of these Sundays’ themes and lessons.

I have used this Extended Advent concept once, a few years ago, and plan to use it again in 2023. I did not, and will not, rename the Sundays before Advent as if to make an official Pre-Advent season; rather, I treated it like a sermon series, preaching on Jesus in the Old Testament images that those seven antiphons/verses portray. We also sang the corresponding verse of the hymn each week, needless to say. I do recommend other priests and pastors give this a try sometime, too. 2023 is a good opportunity for it because All Saints’ Sunday won’t conflict with the first day of this sequence!

That having been said, there are plenty of other ways to anticipate Advent in the final Sundays of the church year. As early as “Proper 24” (Oct. 16-22) the Collects of the Day give themes that summarize the course of Christian life and discipleship and anticipate eternity – bondage from sin (24), live among things that are passing away (26), and so on – not to mention the lectionary’s meanderings into the later Prophets, and 1 & 2 Thessalonians around the same time. (I suppose Year B is the weak one of the three, when it comes to explicit anticipation of Advent.) The seven-week Advent idea is a nifty one, and can be used gently to draw upon the wisdom and resources of the Early Church without having to tinker with the liturgy we’ve received by authority in our own day. But it’s one approach of many, and I pray that you and yours will be enriched with the blessed hope of eternal life that this time of year directs us toward!

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an All Hallows Eve liturgy

As most of my readership probably knows already, October 31st is the eve of All Saints’ Day, from which the name Halloween (or more old-school, Hallowe’en) derives. So, as this blog is inclined to explore, how might a church observe this night in anticipation of the great feast of All Saints?

Ask and ye shall receive! Provided here is a simple liturgy of Antecommunion – that is, the Communion service before (ante) the actual celebration of Holy Communion. You can just do a regular Communion service, for sure, but you may not be a priest, or you may be a priest with no congregation present. Why not just Evening Prayer, you might ask? Well, please, yes, say Evening Prayer too; that’s supposed to be said every day. This is something additional, extra, most appropriately said after Evening Prayer, and probably after the rounds of trick-or-treating are complete as well.

all-hallows-eveDownload

Three things distinguish it from a normal worship service.

First is the sequence of Old Testament lessons. This is like a light version of the Easter Vigil, wherein as many as twelve OT readings (with Psalms or canticles) are provided. Here we walk through the call of Abram followed by a number of stories of suffering, martyrdom, and perseverance. This is also an excellent opportunity for people to discover the close connection between Ecclesiasticus (Sirach) 44 and Hebrews 11, the former being one of the lessons in the lectionary for All Saints’ Day.

The second distinction is the provision of additional prayers that reference the saints and the departed. As the Prayers of the People in our prayer book end with a petition which acknowledges them, these work either as a replacement for that line or as an extension to it.

Lastly, the ending dialogue is taken from the Prayers for a Vigil that the Prayer Book provides for when someone has died.

Because this is not a sacramental service, full vestments are not appropriate; the minister would only need a surplice and preaching scarf (tippet). But if Communion were to follow, purple/violet vestments would be appropriate, as this liturgy is largely a vigil preceding the feast rather than an early observation of the feast itself. October 31st should also be considered a fast day, as it is a day preceding a major holy day, though good luck telling your kids that as they collect candy!

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Entering Hallowtide

October 31st begins a stretch of time known informally as Hallowtide – an Old English word for “Saints Season”. One way to understand this holy moment in the Church Calendar is call it a Triduum, a three-day period.

Image pulled from Facebook

October 31st, Halloween, is the opening celebration in which we acknowledge the thinning of the barrier between the living and the dead. Some say this derives from the language of Celtic Christianity, but it’s very difficult to discern fact from fad when it comes to referencing the belief in practice of the early Church in the British isles, so let’s not take that too seriously. In any case, this evening, All hallows eve, is the liturgical start of All Saints Day itself, and the party begins.

All Saints Day, November 1st, is when we particularly celebrate the church triumphant – that victory over sin and death itself that God’s people have in Christ and even now enjoy in paradise, even though they have not yet tasted of the general Resurrection of the Body.

All Souls Day, November 2nd is when the Roman Church remembers those who are still in purgatory, and have not yet attained to the beatific vision of the Saints in heaven. This is not an Anglican take on the holy day, obviously, and so the optional commemoration on this day in our prayer books now typically turn it the commemoration of the faithful departed. So rather than talking about those in heaven and those in purgatory, as the Romans erroneously do, we celebrate two different aspects or realities that the Saints departed presently experience. November 1st is the day of joy in triumph, we give thanks to God for their victory in him, and we are stirred up to follow their good examples that we might share in that eternal inheritance with them. November 2nd is the day of rest and mourning, where we lament the ongoing present reality of death, acknowledge the pain of losing people to that death even temporarily, and are comforted in the knowledge that they are at rest with the Lord.

Beyond this triduum one could also identify hallowtide as an octave. An octave is a stretch of eight days, which is represented in our prayer book by the fact that when All Saints Day is not on a Sunday we are allowed to celebrate it on the first Sunday in November. This results in a span of 7 days (November 1st through 7th) in addition to the evening of October 31st bringing us to a total of eight different days in which we could be celebrating the hallowed ones continuously!

One way this can be observed is by singing. This customary has proposed the following recommendations for observing the All Saints / All Souls dynamic throughout the octave:

  • 31st: Day of wrath! O day of mourning!
  • 1st: For all the saints, and, Lord who shall come to thee
  • 2nd: Behold a host arrayed in white, and, O Lord my God I cry to thee
  • 3rd: Who are these like stars appearing
  • 4th: I sing a song of the saints of God
  • 5th: The saints of God! their conflicts past
  • 6th: Tempted and tried, we’re oft made to wonder
  • 7th: I fall asleep in Jesus’ wounds
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Learning to sing or chant mass parts

I have always served a small church. And for all but one year of my pastoral ministry I have doubled as the musician, which is how I actually began my service for Grace Anglican Church. As a result (by necessity) the selection of music has been part and parcel of liturgical planning. This is sometimes a fair bit of extra work for me, but also can be pretty rewarding for all of us in that the songs we sing usually tie closely with the Scriptures and prayers of the day. In fact, I’ve even started working on a booklet to collect the “best practices” I’ve developed (and learned from others) which will be available for sale sometime in the coming months.

One thing which is common in many Anglican (and Episcopalian) churches which we’ve only dabbled in, however, is the singing or chanting of mass parts. “Mass parts” is a phrase that refers to the parts of the mass, or Communion service, that are traditionally sung or chanted by a choir and/or the congregation. Traditionally there are quite a few of these, but the main ones are:

  1. the Kyrie
  2. the Gloria in excelsis
  3. the Sanctus
  4. the Agnus Dei

In the classical Prayer Book tradition, there is no Kyrie but instead the Decalogue (Ten Commandments) which could have chanted/sung responses, and the Gloria is placed near the end of the liturgy instead of near the beginning. And most of the old Prayer Books had no place for the Agnus Dei, either, come to think of it. But contemporary Prayer Books (and contemporized versions of the classical Prayer Books) restore all four of these to the liturgy one way or another. Every Anglican hymnal these days worth its salt has at least one (if not a handful) of different musical settings for these parts of the liturgy.

The main reason my church never got into these is because we used the 1940 hymnal for years, and then switched to the 2017 hymnal. The former only has the traditional-language texts for the liturgy and the latter has only one setting for the contemporary language that we use 96% of the year. When we had a different music minister for a little while, he brought in a contemporary Gloria and Sanctus, which we appreciated, but I was not able to keep them up when he was gone. In fact, after his departure I quickly became a hymnal-only musician, no longer having the energy to learn and teach contemporary-style worship songs. The demographics of our congregation matched this preference anyway, so it was not an issue one way or the other.

But this past year, coming out of COVID-tide, I’ve started taking these mass parts seriously. It was time to start singing or chanting these parts of the liturgy again. I started at the Easter Vigil this year, introducing the Gloria in excelsis Deo. The contemporary-language set in our new hymnal is the New Plainsong set by David Hurd, first copyrighted in 1981 and featured in the 1980 Episcopal hymnal. It’s not an especially ground-breaking new and exciting set of music, nor is it a re-make of one of the old classics, but it is stately and singable. Since Easter, we’ve sung that Gloria on the major Sundays of the year, but not every Sunday… yet.

Shortly thereafter I introduced the Sanctus (Holy, holy, holy), which went over pretty well. We’ve been singing it ever since.

And now that we’re moving our worship indoors for the season I’m about to introduce the Agnus Dei which is nicely similar in sound and contour to the others. After about a month to get used to that, I’ll add the sung Kyrie (just threefold, not ninefold), and then we’ll have all four together for a solemn few Sundays before Advent.

In Advent it is traditional to omit the Gloria, so we will not sing or say it at all for those four weeks until it returns at Christmas. From there I will be free to use or omit some or all of these sung parts to emphasize the tone of the church calendar. We can sing everything on the most celebratory Sundays and other feast days, sing some of them on more ‘normal’ Sundays, or simply just speak them at penitential times. The solemnity of the liturgy style can become a tool in the celebration of the Gospel from week to week, and season to season.

As I was planning this, though, and preparing to type this up, I could just hear in my head the anti-traditionalists, as the ACNA is sometimes a bit infamous for, asking the question “and how will this help the mission of your church and its growth?” To which I will confidently reply that it will neither help nor hinder the missional character of Grace Anglican Church… at least directly. Instead, it will help teach us to worship with reverence, and perhaps to respect the Lord just that little bit more. And, with its periodic use and omission to accentuate the gospel that we proclaim over the course of the year, it may just help people grasp that gospel more nearly to their hearts. In which case, I dare say, we may become a people more apt for the missio Dei.

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Vigil fast today!

In the 1662 prayer book there are several fasts appointed on the eve, or vigil, or day before several of the holy days in the church year. Curiously, not all of the holy days in that prayer book get their own fast day beforehand; perhaps about 75% do and the rest do not.

Today is one such vigil fast, preparing us for the feast of the nativity of Saint John the Baptist tomorrow! This pairing of fasts and feasts is both an ancient and a sound practice:

Here, the great Anglican theologian, Richard Hooker, points out that grief and joy are two states of heart and mind which excellently summarize human life, and in her fast and feast days the church uses grief and joy to help Christians grow in virtue and holiness.

So if you are not normally one who observes days of fasting consider adopting the prayer book tradition of vigil fasts today!

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A Series of Related Commemorations

The calendar of commemorations in our new Prayer Book today lists three women: Lydia, Dorcus, and Phoebe. Normally, as you may be aware, only one commemoration per day is the norm. Sometimes if a group of people were martyred together they’ll share a date, and sometimes (even more rarely) a few people with similar legacies are remembered together. This “affinity group commemoration” phenomenon is mostly a feature of the Episcopalian calendar since 1979, though some rare examples of these entries have carried over into our calendar and/or can be found in other traditions also.

Just for one example, Lydia has been commemorated as a Saint in many traditions over the years, but her feast day varies widely. The Romans remember her on August 3rd, various Eastern churches commemorate her on March 27th, May 20th, or June 25th. Some Lutherans celebrate her on October 25th. We, with some other Lutherans and the Episcopalians, have her down for January 27th.

What is particularly interesting about this date for commemorating Lydia and Dorcus and Phoebe (since we don’t have clear traditions of when they died, which would be the normal date for a Saint’s Day) is that they are on Day Three of a three-day series of commemorations. January 25th is the Conversion of Saint Paul, January 26th is for Saints Timothy and Titus, and January 27th is for Lydia, Dorcas, and Phoebe. This string of remembrances is a real “Book of Acts Party”, I once joked, and makes a lot of sense. Together these six people form a sequence both historical and missiological:

  1. God calls Saul (eventually to be known as Paul) to faith in Christ
  2. Paul ordains ministers (Timothy and Titus) to continue his work
  3. More people convert (Lydia, Dorcus, Phoebe) and continue the advance of the kingdom

Thus this trio of celebrations is worth pointing out to our fellow church-goers as a biblical and liturgical reminder of the call of the Church to make disciples and grow. The different roles are important to note, because sometimes we assume that “mission” and “evangelism” is best done by professionals – or least by particular individuals with special zeal and drive. Saint Paul was an extraordinary individual, Timothy and Titus were bishops, they can be most inspiring but also very difficult to relate to. This is where the three women may come in helpful.

Lydia was a wealthy woman, who lived in Thyatira, in Roman Macedonia. She was essentially the first European convert to Christianity. She was already a “worshiper of God”, which means she was probably familiar with basic Jewish teachings and believed in the God of Israel, but (most importantly) “the Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul” and she and her household were subsequently baptized. She heeded the Gospel, brought her family along, and then supported the ministry of Paul and his companions with her considerable means. Believing in the mission of the Gospel and supporting it with hospitality and finances is no small thing!

Dorcas, also named Tabitha, was a devout woman faithful in Christ and abundant in good works. Her ministry of providing for the poor and needy made her most beloved in her community and when she died many people showed St. Peter the clothing she had made for them, beseeching him to pray for her and raise her from the dead, which he did. Her resuscitation “became known throughout all Joppa, and many believed in the Lord.” Thus even though she did directly participate in “evangelistic outreach” as we might call it, her good deeds gave her a positive reputation that, when recognized by the Church, brought many to share the faith she proclaimed. The light of her good deeds was seen, and many others came to the Light as a result.

Phoebe, finally, is a person of some controversy in modern Christian circles. She is described as a “διάκονον” from which we have the word Deacon. Some argue she was a Deacon in the formal ordained sense, like the men in Acts 6. Some argue she was a Deaconess in the context of the Early Church’s practice: a non-ordained minister who assisted with the baptism of women and works of mercy in the community. Others take the word in its general sense – a “servant of the Church”. Whatever the precise interpretation of this word, we know that Phoebe was an active member of the Church at Cenchrae (probably a village near Corinth) who traveled to Rome, perhaps along with the letter that St. Paul had written to them. She was to be received “worth of the saints” and to be helped in whatever she might need, because she was a “patron of many” as well as of Paul himself. A patron indicates she probably was rich, like Lydia, and provided financial and/or hospitable support for the traveling apostles and the local church. As a woman of means, perhaps she was able to be active in other ways – supplying the church and the ministers, caring for the sick, bringing alms to the poor, or any number of other services for the cause of the Gospel.

So we remember today the great contribution of these three women; their service to the Gospel and the Church was incalculable and their names endure forever through the Scriptures and the liturgical calendar. It is helpful for us to commemorate people who made a great difference through seemingly “ordinary” means… maybe just maybe we can be inspired to spend and be spent for the cause of Christ, ourselves.

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Video: the Holy Days in the Prayer Book

The video series I started a year ago nears its conclusion. Here is a summary of how the Holy Days (commonly, the Major Feast Days) fit into the Christian Calendar.

Subject Index:

  • 00:00 Definition & Major Themes
  • 05:20 Historical Features
  • 10:13 Walk-through in the 2019 Prayer Book
  • 15:36 Daily Office & other features
  • 17:36 The Collect for All Saints’ Day

Links for further reading:

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Commemorating Richard Hooker

Here’s a book that I’ve just added to my list Things I Should Have Read In Seminary: The Laws of Eccleiastical Polity by Richard Hooker. I recently finished reading books I through IV of this monumental work as rendered into modern English by the good folks over at the Davenant Institute. Check it out if you haven’t before; I highly recommend it.

Don’t get me wrong; I knew that Hooker’s Laws were important in the establishment of classical Anglicanism, that it was a monumental work of English prose, groundbreaking in the field of English-language philosophy, and the beginning of a distinctly Anglican perspective on Christianity as Reformed Catholicism, neither Papist on the one hand nor Radical Puritan on the other, but firmly moderated where it needed to be, in line with the other Protestant churches of Europe. A lot can be gleaned from well-written reviews and cliffnotes. But finally, ten years later than I believe I should have, I’ve finally started reading through this thing. And since today, November 3rd, is Hooker’s commemoration day, this seemed the right time to share some thoughts therefrom.

If you want or need a brief generic introduction to Hooker himself, you can jump over to Wikipedia, or read this little bio I wrote up two years ago.

A lot can be gleaned from an outline, so here are the first four books of the Laws in outline. (Some of the titles below are modernized for clarity.)

The Preface: RADICALISM, When Reform Becomes Revolution

  1. The Cause and Occasion for Writing this Work and What is Hoped for from Those for Whom Such Pains are Taken
  2. The First Establishment of Presbyterian Discipline by John Calvin in Geneva and the Beginning of the Conflict in the Church of England
  3. How So Many People Come to be Trained to Approve of this Discipline
  4. What Has Made the More Learned Approve this Discipline
  5. Their Call for a Trial by Debate
  6. No End to Conflict Until Both Sides Submit to a Definitive Judgement
  7. An Outline of the Remaining Books
  8. Why We Have Many Good Reasons to Fear the Consequences of Your Reformation, if it Indeed Took Place
  9. Conclusion

Book I: DIVINE LAW and HUMAN NATURE

  1. The Reason for Writing this General Discourse
  2. The Law by which God has from the Beginning Determined to Do all Things
  3. The Law by which Natural Agents Work
  4. The Law by which Angels Work
  5. The Law by which Man is Directed to the Imitation of God
  6. How Men First Begin to Know the Law they Should Observe
  7. Man’s Will, which Laws of Action are Made to Guide
  8. Of the Natural Way to Find Out Laws by Reason to Lead the Will to What is Good
  9. The Advantages of Keeping the Law Taught by Reason
  10. How Reason Leads Men to Make the Laws by which Political Societies are Governed and to Agree about Laws of Fellowship between Independent Societies
  11. Why God has made Known in Scripture Supernatural Laws to Direct Men’s Steps
  12. Why So Many Natural Laws and Laws of Reason are Found in Scripture
  13. The Advantage of Having Such Divine Laws Written
  14. The Sufficiency of Scripture unto the End for which it was Instituted
  15. Positive Laws in Scripture, how Some of them are Changeable, and the General Use of Scripture
  16. Conclusion: How All of This Pertains to the Present Controversy

Book II: THE WORD OF GOD

  1. How Far Does the Authority of Scripture Extend?
  2. Doing All Things to the Glory of God
  3. Must All Things Be Sanctified by the Word of God?
  4. Acting Without Clear Direction from Scripture
  5. Negative Arguments Derived from Scripture
  6. Arguments from Scripture’s Silence
  7. The Proper Weight of Human Authority

Book III: THE WORDS OF MAN

  1. Defining the Church
  2. Must Scripture Contain a Complete System of Church Government?
  3. Church Government is not a Matter of Salvation
  4. We Do Not Dishonor Scripture
  5. The Word of God and the Words of Man
  6. All Churches Add Laws Beyond Scripture
  7. The Appeal to “General Rules of Scripture”
  8. Reason May Also Serve as a Tool of the Spirit
  9. The Right Use of Reason in Devising Church Laws
  10. Why Scriptural Commands May Not Always Bind
  11. Can Biblical Laws Be Changed?

Book IV: IN DEFENSE OF REFORMED CATHOLIC WORSHIP

  1. The Importance of Liturgy
  2. Their Demand for Apostolic Simplicity
  3. The Charge that we Follow Rome
  4. Must All Roman Ceremonies Go?
  5. The Status of the Medieval Church
  6. Are Papists the Same as Canaanites?
  7. The Example of the Early Church
  8. The Danger of Swerving to the Opposite Extreme
  9. It Does not matter what Rome Thinks of Our Liturgy
  10. The Laments of “The Godly”
  11. The Charge that our Ceremonies are Judaizing
  12. Stumbling-blocks for Weaker Brethren
  13. Conformity to Foreign Reformed Churches
  14. In Defense of the Church of England’s Proceedings

As you can see, this is a lengthy treatise moving lowly and carefully, step by step. One of the primary purposes of these works was actually to provide a full-scale rebuttal to early Puritan complaints that the Church of England was too “Popish” and needed further reform, particularly in getting rid of bishops in favor of Presbyterianism, and eliminating Roman-infested rites and ceremonies. Many bishops had simply appealed to the status quo or to the authority of the Queen as supreme governor of the national church in reply to such dissent, so Hooker’s defense of what would later come to be known as “Anglicanism” was something new.

Rather than tackling the complaints and objections head-on, Hooker first set out a groundwork of philosophy and theology, biblical hermeneutics and interpretation. He wanted to set out the nature of law before arguing about what laws are good or not good.

For our understanding, it is critical to realize that a “law” in this sense is not necessarily a legal rule, but more generally a rule of how something works, or is. So by that definition, God is literally a “law” unto himself – who and what God is sets out the laws by which God operates. We then turn to the laws by which nature and angels and humans operate, and dive into the long and complicated field of epistemology – the study of how we know what we know. Against the Radical Puritans of his day and in line with historic Christianity, Hooker argues that general revelation, or natural theology, or the Law of Nature, teaches man a great deal about the sciences, morality, and even something of God himself (cf. Romans 1:19-20). This becomes the foundation for his ongoing defense of the role of reason in the discernment of good laws, guided by Scripture.

The doctrine of Scripture is an important subject along the way, too, especially in Book II. There he asserts full agreement with the Radicals concerning the perfection of Scripture, but he argues that the Bible does not exist to be (as we would say today) a complete textbook about everything. Rather, that which it is meant to address, it addresses perfectly. It upholds and clarifies natural law, and reveals divine truths (particularly concerning the Gospel) that would not be knowable otherwise. He even deals with the doctrine of sola scriptura, and candidly explains the reality that the Bible’s perfect authority is not justified by itself (that would be circular logic!), but discerned by reason.

With these foundations in place, Hooker is able to wade into the murky waters of disagreement over the extent of the authority of the Church. Some of it has to do with the “Regulative Principle of Worship” (a primarily Calvinist view that worship can only contain what the Bible positively allows) versus the “Normative Principle” (the traditional view that worship can contain anything the Bible doesn’t forbid). Some of it has to do with the nature of law, already taken care of in previous sections.

Book IV is where things start to get particularly interesting for the modern reader. (I mean, I actually really enjoyed the Preface and first three Books, but on the whole Anglicanism is no longer fighting to defend itself from Presbyterian detractors.) In the 4th book Hooker brings us to a series of objections to Prayer Book worship. These are still mainly about general principles, specific elements in the Prayer Book won’t be addressed until Book V from what I can tell. Nevertheless, here there are arguments that are super helpful for us today. Many of the general questions addressed are still (or again) being asked in the 21st century: is our worship too Papist? How should we address the issues of the “weaker brethren” in our midst? Why can’t we just return to the simplicity of the Apostolic Church? What does Apostolic-age worship even really look like?

Our worship-related issues today aren’t just about Roman influences; we also have controversies over Pentecostal/Charismatic elements, popular evangelical elements, and there is (still or again) a sort of Puritan party to be found here and there, pushing in the direction of Reformed Calvinist worship principles. Richard Hooker doesn’t answer all the questions that we have today, of course, but the observations and arguments he makes in Book IV are all insightful and can ground us more solidly in the tradition we have received.

I am hoping, in my non-existent spare time, to type up specific thoughts and reflections from what of the Laws that I’ve read thus far. If you’re interested in that, you can track my progress on this index page here, and/or follow my personal blog leorningcniht (Old English for “disciple”).

Posted on by Fr. Brench

Holidays about Angels

Today is the feast of Holy Michael and All Angels, according to the 2019 Prayer Book. Throughout the world, many churches are celebrating ‘Michaelmas’ right now. St. Michael is understood (from texts like Jude 9 and Revelation 12:7) to be the chief or captain of the angelic hosts, an “archangel”. Thus, with Michael, we celebrate today also all the other angels who serve God in their mysterious and wonderful ways. This holiday can be traced to the 5th century when a church near Rome was dedicated to St. Michael’s name, and by the 9th century St. Michael’s Day was a widely celebrated feast day.

But this was not always the only angelic feast day. Other churches, particularly in the East, have had feast days for other angels for centuries. Only in the 1920’s did Rome pick up a couple of these holidays: Gabriel on March 24th (sensibly the day before the Annunciation!) and Raphael on October 24th. These did not last long, though; the Roman calendar rolled them into St. Michael’s Day in 1969, though some hardy folks still hang on to that brief-lasting calendar. There is also a roughly-1,000-year-old tradition of honoring the ministry of the Guardian Angels on October 2nd.

But the Prayer Book tradition has typically been one of brevity and simplicity. We have one official feast day for all the angels today, September 29th.

Posted on by Fr. Brench

Who was St. Cyprian of Carthage?

There are several names that refer to early Christian Saints – John, Augustine, Clement, Theodore, Gregory, Basil, to name a few – so we generally have to give them suffixes to their names in order to distinguish them. Today’s commemoration in the calendar is one such example: St. Cyprian, from Carthage.

In many ways, Cyprian is the Augustine before Augustine. He was a Berber, a Roman African, born to a wealthy Pagan family, and he converted to Christianity at age 35. After his conversion he was ordained quickly, becoming the Bishop of Carthage roughly four years later. This was, perhaps understandably, a little controversial, but his actions in the ministry soon proved his sanctity-in-Christ. A wave of government oppression of the Church, called the Decian Persecution, swept through in the early 250’s, and Cyprian saw a lot of his flock cave in to the Roman demands to offer sacrifices to the pagan gods. Cyprian himself rode out much of that persecution in exile, believing it God’s will that he survive to shepherd his flock from a temporary distance, and be present to pick up the pieces when it was over, much like how the Apostles fled Jerusalem after the death of St. James, and how many Christians fled Jerusalem during the Roman-Jewish War culminating in the sack of 70 AD.

Needless to say, there was a controversy waiting for Cyprian when the dust settled: what do you do with the lapsi – the lapsed, who burned sacrifices to other gods? Cyprian’s initial demand was that they undergo public penance before being readmitted to Holy Communion, but a number of his earlier opponents thought this was too strict, and many priests took it upon themselves to invite people back under much more liberal conditions. As this controversy was brought to a local council, another party cropped up: a stricter group who argued that the lapsed could not repent and rejoin the church at all! The council stood with Cyprian, in between the too-liberal Novatus of Carthage and the too-strict Novatian of Rome.

As a pastoral and liturgical aside, this is insightful for us today, because we, too, see many lapsed Christians coming in and out of our churches these days. Do we admit them to Holy Communion without question? Or should we, as St. Cyprian ruled, call for public repentance of their wanderings from the Gospel before reinstating their place at the Holy Table? This is worth considering carefully, and we have resources in our Prayer Book to help us.

  • The Ash Wednesday exhortation explicitly mentions the ancient practice of public repentance.
  • The Exhortation in the Communion service warns us against unworthy reception of the Sacrament.
  • The Confirmation liturgy includes a variant for “Reaffirmation”, particularly for those who were previously confirmed, fell away, and have since returned.

It may well be that we have become too lax in our ministration of the Sacrament of Holy Communion, and need to re-learn, from the likes of St. Cyprian, what good Eucharistic discipline looks like.

This wrestling with the implications of the Gospel for those who fall away under persecution would return for St. Augustine of Hippo and the Donatists nearly 150 years later, though then it would be about the purported need for re-ordination, rather than readmission to Holy Communion. Cyprian was like an early Augustine in other ways too: his Latin writings were influential and beloved, his handling of controversy and good accord with other bishops was laudable. And they both saw disaster at the end of their lives. For Augustine, of course, it was the news of the sack of Rome and the arrival of barbarians at the gate of his own city. For Cyprian it was another round of government persecution, leading to his execution on 14 September 258.

The date of his commemoration isn’t so straight-forward, because 14 September has been taken by Holy Cross Day, forcing the Church calendar to shift St. Cyprian of Carthage to another day. Most Anglican calendars place him on an adjacent day – the 13th or 15th. The Roman Church has another observance (Our Lady of Sorrows) on the 15th, so they celebrate Cyprian on the 16th, and some other traditions follow suit.