Posted on by Fr. Brench

Beyond Sunday Communion part 4: Morning Prayer & Litany & Communion

The Prayer Book tradition of worship is rich and robust, providing not only rites and rituals for individual worship services but indeed for an entire life of Christian worship. As a part of this ambitious large-scale schema, it should come as no surprise that there’s more to worship than simply going to Holy Communion every Sunday morning. There are the daily rounds of prayer, punctuated by the [Great] Litany a couple times per week, various pastoral offices for key stages in the natural and spiritual lives of a congregation and family, and pointers toward the development of private devotions to enable the individual worshiper to flesh out his or her own life of worship apart from the gathered Church.

What is often missed in today’s church culture, however, is that the original Prayer Book pattern for worship on Sunday morning was actually a three-part affair: Morning Prayer, The [Great] Litany, and the Holy Communion. Until relatively recent times, all three of these were appointed to be said in every church every Sunday and Holy Day. Granted, this was often shortened in actual practice, and by the late 19th century it was probably more common for people to attend just one service rather than all three in a row. Yet the full pattern of worship is still present even in our modern Prayer Books, and the typical malnourished Christian of today could benefit greatly from a retrieval of the spiritual rigor of our forebears. To that end, we’ve been looking at different combinations of worship services that you could carry out on Sunday mornings in your church.

Morning Prayer & The Litany & Holy Communion

We’re wrapping up this sequence of articles by going for the gold: how might you run a 100% Authentic Anglican (TM) Sunday Morning Worship Service? I’m going to present three ideas on how to execute this trilogy of Prayer Book services: the start-and-stop approach, the compound marathon, and the finessed liturgy.

The Start-and-Stop Approach

I would consider this the ideal for Sunday morning worship, personally. You start with Morning Prayer by the book, with a little bit of music. Then there’s a little break for study, discussion, catechesis, whatever’s going on. Then you return to the pews and kneel for the Great Litany. But rather than concluding the Litany outright, you open it up for spontaneous prayer. Or if the congregation is charismatic-influenced, open it up for prayer and praise! After the reading and studying of the Word in Morning Prayer and the long detailed prayer coverage of the Litany, and with the climax of the Eucharist ahead, this is also a perfect opportunity for the Rites of Healing: offering sacramental confession and the anointing of the sick. Then, after another breather, it’s time for the full Communion service.

While this would be quite a full morning for all involved, there are mitigating factors worth considering. First of all, the priest doesn’t have to lead everything! He should be present to pronounce absolution in Morning Prayer, available for ministry after the Litany, and only then must he take up the mantle to officiant Holy Communion. As for the congregation, not everyone necessarily comes to all three services. Prospective members and “seekers” will receive the instruction and prayer they need in the first two services; Holy Communion isn’t for them yet. Lots of people would probably still show up only for the Communion portion and skip the first two. But imagine the robust spirituality that would be fostered in those who did show up for all three! What a blessing that could be to the church and the community.

The Compound Marathon

Like the first approach, the Compound Marathon is a walk-through of the Morning Office, Litany, and Communion in full, one after another, with no breaks in between. You could omit the closing sentences from Morning Prayer, just so it doesn’t feel too much like you’re sending everyone away 1/3 of the way through, but otherwise this is literally three worship services in a row.

This is the least attractive idea to my sensibilities. With no transitions between each service, people will be very aware of an awkward “we’re done, but we’re not done” sense and the overall impression will probably be very foreign to everyone involved.

But it is the simplest way to bring the three services together. The less verbal guidance required to help the congregation through the liturgy, the better, so finishing out each service before moving on to the next is going to be the path of least confusion. This is also the most instructive approach: those who’ve never experienced Morning Prayer or the Litany before will get to experience them both in full without anything clipped out! In that light we find where this strange idea might actually make sense: the church could make a special occasion of “exploring the fulness of our tradition of worship” and do Morning Prayer, Litany, and Communion all together as a one-off special event.

The Finessed Liturgy

But if you want to use all three liturgies together on a regular basis, and/or the congregation is already at least somewhat familiar with them, then you’re best off following the actual rubrics when it comes to moving from one service to the next.

Morning Prayer starts off on page 11 and runs until (but not including) the Prayer for Mission on page 24. Then the Litany begins (page 91) and runs through the Kyrie on page 96. At that point, the Communion service begins with the Collect of the Day on page 107/125.

Additionally, some other factors could be considered:

  • The Confession & Creed may be omitted from the Office.
  • The Psalms and Lessons in Morning Prayer may be able to be shortened.
  • Reading the Canticles is much quicker than singing them.
  • The Great Litany can be lengthened or shortened at the officiant’s preference, so abbreviating its intercessions is a legitimate move, as long as the congregation is able to follow you.
  • A hymn (or the Gloria) might sit nicely between the Litany and the Eucharist’s Collect of the Day.
  • The Prayers of the People in the Communion liturgy technically aren’t supposed to be skipped, but in light of all the prayer that has come before you’d be well within your rights to shorten them drastically.

This sounds super long, yes. But don’t be intimidated! The two biggest time-sinks in a worship are the sermon and the singing. And remember that the great majority of the Prayer Book liturgy is about reading and praying the Word of God (Scriptures) to the Word of God (Jesus), so there’s no such thing as time wasted there.

Personal note in conclusion

Of all the combinations, this is the one I’ve never tried before in my church, I must admit. On paper, I was set to try it out a couple times, but I always chickened out. Someday I probably will muster up my resolve and give it a go, and when I do I will almost certainly use the Finessed Liturgy approach, as well as clearly identify the Sunday ahead of time with a special reason for observing the full tradition of Prayer Book worship. It may be a special holy day, or a historically-minded occasion. And I will make it clear that it’s a once-time event so as not to scare my flock with an unasked-for spiritual workout in overdrive. If I were to make the observance of all three services a regular part of parish life, I’d separate them out (as in the first approach) to provide space for particular ministerial and practical needs in between.

Posted on by Fr. Brench

Beyond Sunday Communion part 2: Morning Prayer & Litany

The Prayer Book tradition of worship is rich and robust, providing not only rites and rituals for individual worship services but indeed for an entire life of Christian worship. As a part of this ambitious large-scale schema, it should come as no surprise that there’s more to worship than simply going to Holy Communion every Sunday morning. There are the daily rounds of prayer, punctuated by the [Great] Litany a couple times per week, various pastoral offices for key stages in the natural and spiritual lives of a congregation and family, and pointers toward the development of private devotions to enable the individual worshiper to flesh out his or her own life of worship apart from the gathered Church.

What is often missed in today’s church culture, however, is that the original Prayer Book pattern for worship on Sunday morning was actually a three-part affair: Morning Prayer, The [Great] Litany, and the Holy Communion. Until relatively recent times, all three of these were appointed to be said in every church every Sunday and Holy Day. Granted, this was often shortened in actual practice, and by the late 19th century it was probably more common for people to attend just one service rather than all three in a row. Yet the full pattern of worship is still present even in our modern Prayer Books, and the typical malnourished Christian of today could benefit greatly from a retrieval of the spiritual rigor of our forebears. To that end, we’ll be looking at different combinations of worship services that you could carry out on Sunday mornings in your church.

Morning Prayer & The Litany

Let’s say the priest is on vacation. You could get a supply priest from elsewhere in the diocese to fill in for him, sure, but there are plenty of homegrown options available as well. How about save the parish a little money, time, and effort, and instead whole Prayer Book services that don’t require a priest? Take advantage of the situation as an opportunity, and make use of the other two Anglican services traditionally expected on Sunday morning: the Morning Office and the Great Litany!

Of all the possible combinations of services, this is the easiest one to work out. You proceed through Morning Prayer normally, and when you get to the rubric on page 24 (right before the Prayer for Mission) you skip over to page 91 and start the Litany. Simple!

There are really only two questions to ask yourself in the course of such a plan.

First: do we want to pause between the collects and the start of the Litany? In the original Prayer Book, the Daily Office ends with those collects, so anything else that followed it was extra. Singing an anthem at that point would have been perfectly natural, and indeed has remained a staple of Choral Evensong and Sung Mattins to this day. This is also the traditional point at which to include a sermon. The sequence could therefore be:

  1. Morning Prayer through the collects
  2. Hymn or anthem
  3. Sermon or Homily or Bible Study
  4. The Great Litany

The other question is: how do we want to conclude the Litany? Ever since 1928, the final section of the Litany has been cordoned off under a subheading (“The Supplication”) and rendered optional. As you prepare a Sunday service composed of the Office and Litany, you have to decide whether to include the Supplication or not. The rubrics in the center of page 97 explain where the Supplication supplants the shorter ending. The simplest explanation is that the top half of page 97 is the shorter ending, and the bottom of half of page 97 (leading to page 98) comprise the longer ending.

Because the Supplication is particularly “gloomy” – praying for aid against danger, and deliverance from unnamed afflictions, I recommend including it throughout Advent, Lent, and any other penitential occasion. In my own practice, I always include the Supplication whenever I pray the Litany on a Friday, and always skip it on Wednesdays. Again, find a pattern that works for you and your congregation, remembering that what is normal and familiar is sometimes best, and sometimes familiar normality needs to be challenged.

Posted on by Fr. Brench

Beyond Sunday Communion part 1: The Litany & Communion

The Prayer Book tradition of worship is rich and robust, providing not only rites and rituals for individual worship services but indeed for an entire life of Christian worship. As a part of this ambitious large-scale schema, it should come as no surprise that there’s more to worship than simply going to Holy Communion every Sunday morning. There are the daily rounds of prayer, punctuated by the [Great] Litany a couple times per week, various pastoral offices for key stages in the natural and spiritual lives of a congregation and family, and pointers toward the development of private devotions to enable the individual worshiper to flesh out his or her own life of worship apart from the gathered Church.

What is often missed in today’s church culture, however, is that the original Prayer Book pattern for worship on Sunday morning was actually a three-part affair: Morning Prayer, The [Great] Litany, and the Holy Communion. Until relatively recent times, all three of these were appointed to be said in every church every Sunday and Holy Day. Granted, this was often shortened in actual practice, and by the late 19th century it was probably more common for people to attend just one service rather than all three in a row. Yet the full pattern of worship is still present even in our modern Prayer Books, and the typical malnourished Christian of today could benefit greatly from a retrieval of the spiritual rigor of our forebears. To that end, we’ll be looking at different combinations of worship services that you could carry out on Sunday mornings in your church.

The Litany & Holy Communion

Perhaps the simplest combination of Anglican traditional rites is the use of the Great Litany with the Communion service. The Litany is a longish prayer list with full congregational participation throughout. It’s repetitive to the modern sensibility, but instructively thorough and succinct – a real balm for the “Father God we just—” prayers that often ramble on too long in current popular evangelical practice. There are three main ways that the Litany may be appended to the Communion service.

The first and probably least desirable method of including the Litany in the Communion liturgy is to replace the Prayers of the People with the Great Litany – starting at its beginning (page 91) and ending it just before the Kyrie on page 96. This is not how the Litany was or is meant to be used, and this has no historical precedence. I mention this only because it is permitted by the Communion rubrics to replace the Prayers of the People with something else that meets certain standards, the Litany easily fulfills those standards, and a congregation who has never seen the Litany before in their entire lives might be most easily introduced to it in a familiar spot in the known Communion liturgy.

The second and third ways to bring the Litany into Sunday worship, connected to the Communion service, is by starting with the Litany itself and switching over to the Communion at a certain point.

One way to do this is to treat the Great Litany as if it were a “hymn, psalm, or anthem” at the start of the worship service. You go through as much of the Litany as you want, using whichever ending you prefer to choose (the rubrics on page 97 note what these two endings are), and after that begin the Communion service at the Acclamation. This has the benefit of simplicity and breadth of coverage: the congregation experiences the Litany in its full, nothing of the regular service is omitted, and (as a handy bonus) they’ll experience the two worship services most closely to how the historic Prayer Books intended for them to be observed. The downside, of course, is the length of all this. Plus the stop-and-start where Litany ends and Communion starts may be a jarring experience for a congregation unused to the larger breadth of Prayer Book worship.

Lastly, the other approach is to utilize the rubric on page 96, which direct that the Litany be terminated there at the Kyrie and the Communion liturgy picked up at the salutation leading into the Collect of the Day. This is the “combo-pack” invented for the 1979 Prayer Book, and honestly makes for a smooth transition from one service to the other, thanks especially to the Kyrie being a familiar component to both orders functioning as a hinge linking them together. The 1979 Prayer Book further allowed the Prayers of the People to be skipped when the Litany is used like this, though our 2019 Book has not retained that particular allowance.

In my own experience, I have used (parts of) the Litany in place of the Prayers of the People once or twice, but most often I go with the third, rubrical, choice. With occasional exception, I appoint the Litany seven times a year: Advent 1, Epiphany 3, Lent 1, Lent 5, Easter 6 (Rogation), Proper 10, and Proper 20. This way, my flock develops at least a little familiarity with the Litany without feeling overburdened by a lengthy devotion that “nobody else has to do!” You may find another pattern of use may suit your context better. The Additional Directions on page 99 provide a few suggestions to this end, also.

Posted on by Fr. Brench

Before the Sunday service starts

Sunday mornings can be very busy times for pastors and other ministers, there can be a lot of preparation involved before the liturgy begins, especially a Communion service, and double-especially a Communion service with any semblance of high church ceremonial – candles to light, vestments to don, ministers to assemble and coordinate. It’s wonderful when everything goes to plan and everyone does their part and the whole result is a dignified and beautiful offering of the people of themselves unto God and a faithful reception of His Word and Sacrament.

But, as Mother Teresa said when her sisters warned her that the work was getting to be too much, the answer to a busy situation is not to pray less, but to pray more. Sure, it’s “inconvenient”, but it’s often what we need. So, straight to the point, what or how should we pray before the Sunday Communion?

There are a number of possibilities.

Some like to gather the ministers together beforehand and offer/prompt spontaneous prayers unscripted.

Some like to use traditional forms of preparation descended from the traditional “Fore-Mass” (prayers before the Introit where the Mass formally begins). There are also traditional prayers for the minister to consider the Gospel in the donning of each vestment, as well as prayers that are written to prepare priests and other servers for the liturgy. There are also some preparatory prayers in the draft ACNA Altar Book; you should check them out if you haven’t yet!

If you want something more middle-of-the-road in terms of churchmanship – you don’t want to troll an Anglo-Catholic agenda, and you don’t want to go all loosey-goosey about it either, how about grab the Prayer Book for a 5 minute block of time sometime before the liturgy starts?

the Great Litany in the Prayer Book (2019) next to my photogenic Bible (left)

Yesterday I grabbed a few minutes to pray the Great Litany before people arrived for Holy Communion. It was a little hectic with my kids running around and I must admit I had to interrupt myself at one point (and not just to take this picture!). Still, it was a moment of stillness for my soul, which would then go on to share the burdens of my parishioners and feel rather more clogged up thereafter. Praying for them, the whole church, and the world, in the words of the Litany prepared myself for ministering to them. It also just plain gave me a chance to worship and pray on my own, which can be something that priests and ministers sometimes struggle with, especially in small congregations where the leadership roles are not as widely shared.

The Litany is a great traditional choice for an Anglican, also, because the original Prayer Book order for Sunday morning expected Morning Prayer, Litany, and Communion all in a row! So bringing some of that back, even if only by yourself (as a clergyman or as a lay person) can only be good and upbuilding for us.

Any other tips or approaches that you like which help you (and/or the ministry team) prepare spiritually for the worship service? Leave a comment!

Posted on by Fr. Brench · 1 Comment

On Prayers for the Departed

“Why would you pray for the dead? They’re already with Jesus!”

Such is the common well-meaning retort from most Protestants today when they hear us pray for the faithful departed. This is an ancient practice of the Church, but it seems that the Romans have cornered the market when it comes to explanation. They, famously, believe in Purgatory, wherein the souls of ordinary Christians are purged of their lifetime of sin before beholding the fullness of the Beatific Vision, or (more crassly), going to heaven. While this doctrine could be interpreted in a benign fashion – simply the clearing of our spiritual eyes after a life of sin and darkness – it has typically been presented in very penitential terms: the soul is tortured, exposed to the pains of hell for a period of time depending upon how much sin went unconfessed, lightened by indulgences and prayers and masses on their behalf.

Anglican prayers for the departed has no place for that.

Actually, some say that Anglicans have no place for any prayers for the departed. We had some in the first Prayer Book, and got rid of them a few years later, only to see the extreme Anglo-Catholic wing bring them back in the 20th century and the liberals tolerating it under the guise of “tradition.” But this explanation is not strictly true. The Prayer Books have always included prayer for the departed.

If we look at what our reformed liturgy, 1549 to the present, actually says, we will find that our practice is quite far from Roman superstition.

The Prayers of the People in the 1549 Prayer Book’s Communion liturgy prayed for

all other thy servants, which are departed hence from us, with the sign of faith, and now do rest in the sleep of peace: Grant unto them, we beseech thee, thy mercy, and everlasting peace, and that, at the day of the general resurrection, we and all they which be of the mystical body of thy Son, may altogether be set on his right hand, and hear that his most joyful voice: ‘Come unto me, O ye that be blessed of my Father, and possess the Kingdom, which is prepared for you, from the beginning of the world’.

This was dropped from subsequent Prayer Books until the American book of 1928, which prayed

for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear; beseeching thee to grant them continual growth in thy love and service, and to give us grace so to follow their good examples, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom.

In between, the 1662 Prayer Book contained a similar, if more subtle, prayer for the departed in the penultimate prayer of the Burial rite:

Almighty God… we give thee hearty thanks, for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our brother out of the miseries of this sinful world; beseeching thee that it may please thee, of thy gracious goodness, shortly to accomplish the number of thine elect, and to hasten thy kingdom; that we, with all those that are departed in the true faith of thy holy Name, may have our perfect consummation and bliss, both in body and soul, in thy eternal and everlasting glory…

The final Collect in the 1662 Burial service reuses some of the material from the 1549 Prayer Book quoted above, acknowledging the future consummation of the Christian hope of resurrection unto eternal life.  This is the common acknowledgement throughout the Prayer Book tradition – that God’s will, or plan, for his people has not yet reached its conclusion.  We pray for the departed no longer with the fear or urgency of late medieval piety, which errantly believed in the departed souls’ need to move through Purgatory, but instead with personal affection and biblical hope that all is not as it yet should be.

The Prayers of the People in the 2019 Prayer Book summarize it this way:

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

The 2019 Litany offers a more specific explanation of this will:

To grant to all the faithful departed eternal life and peace, We beseech you to hear us, good Lord.

Thus the prayers for the departed in the Prayer Book tradition is drawn from biblical doctrine rather than from later superstitions.

Posted on by Fr. Brench

When and how should we use the Litany?

One of the most neglected pieces of historic liturgy in the Anglican tradition is the Great Litany.  Steps have been made in the ACNA, and the 2019 Prayer Book, to make it more visible, which is great, but it has a long way to go (and a lot of history to overcome) to return to the average worshiper’s awareness.

The Saint Aelfric Customary is here to help, suggesting ways to use the Litany both in your private prayers and in your church’s Sunday worship.  Check it out! https://saint-aelfric-customary.org/customary-the-great-litany/

Posted on by Fr. Brench

The Great Litany has three different endings?

wrw

The Great Litany is the oldest piece of liturgy in the English language; it was the first “worship service” that Cranmer assembled, a few years before the first Prayer Book was promulgated.  It has been changed a little bit over the centuries, but on the whole is probably the “most original” piece of Reformation Anglican liturgy in our (or any) Prayer Book.

It’s also supposed to be very simple: start at the beginning and finish at the end, but in the 2019 Prayer Book (similar to what you see in the 1979 Book) it has three different endings!  What gives?  Welcome to Weird Rubric Wednesday.

Ending #1

The earliest rubrical ending is on page 96.  When the Litany is sung or said immediately before the Eucharist, the Litany concludes here [between the Kyrie and the Lord’s Prayer] and the Eucharist begins with the Salutation and the Collect of the Day.  This is a modern option inherited from the 1979 Prayer Book.  The standard pattern set out in the English Prayer Books was that the Litany followed Morning Prayer, but the American Prayer Book tradition de-coupled the Litany from its usual standard times, and permitted it to be tacked on the end of both Morning and Evening Prayer and the beginning of the Communion service.  What the 1979 and 2019 Prayer Books have done is simply chop off the end of the Litany and the beginning of the Communion service so they run into one another more smoothly and briefly.

Ending #2

The second natural place to stop is on page 97; this seems to be the default expected use of the Litany in the 2019 Book.  One who is used to the 1662 Prayer Book Litany may be surprised here: why has the traditional ending been chopped off?  This goes back at least to the 1928 Prayer Book (or maybe earlier; I haven’t checked), where a rubric on its 58th page notes that the majority of the last two pages of the Litany may be omitted.  This last section has been given a section heading in modern prayer books: “The Supplication.”

Ending #3

The longest form of the Litany includes The Supplication, skipping the top half of page 97 and concluding on page 98.

That’s weird.  How should I choose?

Well, it depends upon the situation.  If you’re planning the Sunday morning worship service and you want to include the Great Litany, the easiest way to start your congregation out with it is to attach it to the service they’re most familiar with: so either as a special extended ending for Morning Prayer or a special prefix for the Communion service.  The rubric on page 97 also states that the Supplication portion is especially appropriate in times of war, or of great anxiety, or of disaster.  So, like, right now.  We’re in the midst of a pandemic, race riots and protests are rocking the country, millions are unemployed or recovering from unemployment, and to top it all off it’s an election year.  Pray the darn Supplication!  We need it.

O Lord, arise and help us; And deliver us for your Name’s sake.

Posted on by Fr. Brench · 2 Comments

Rogationtide at home

The Rogation Days are here!  Today, tomorrow, and Wednesday are the three “purple days” at the turning point of the season from Easter to the Ascension.  As the liturgical color implies, these are days of fasting and prayer.  They’re not penitential, as such – certainly not in the way that Lent or even Advent is – but they are days of particular supplication to the Lord of the harvest for our safety and the safety of our land.  If you want to see last year’s introduction to the Rogation Days, click here.

The question I want to focus on today is how you might observe the Rogation Days at home.  Most of us still have closed churches, after all, so there wasn’t much we were able to do to mark yesterday (Rogation Sunday) as particularly special.  Here are few traditional ideas and resources to draw upon.

The most obvious thing we’ve got is the set of Collects for the Rogation Days, on page 635 of the 2019 Book of Common Prayer.  In addition to praying them in the Daily Office on these three days, consider using them in family devotions, private prayers, before a meal, or in the context of a small group for prayer or worship or study.  You can read more about those Collects in this post from last year.

Similarly, you can sing the hymn O Jesus, crowned with all reknown, a classic song for the Rogation days, and the only one labeled as such in the 1940 hymnal.  To that, the 2017 hymnal adds O God of Bethel, by whose hand and the 1940 recommends also We plow the seeds, and scatter.

Another resource that should not be overlooked is the Great Litany.  Rogation Sunday was one of the major days of the year in English tradition for a grant procession out of the church building, with prayer and supplication, and the Litany was the primary tool for such a public devotion.  It would be a marvelous thing to make use of the Litany on your own through these three days – the most traditional time to pray it would be at the end of Morning Prayer, but the tradition has evolved over the past near-century such that you should feel free to pray the Litany in any context, even on its own!

You could even combine the Litany with a version of the historical tradition of Beating the Bounds.  On Rogation Sunday the grand procession would encircle the entire parish, literally surrounding the village in prayer.  As the great Anglican divine, George Herbert, described it:

The Country Parson is a Lover of old Customs, if they be good, and harmless; and the rather, because Country people are much addicted to them, so that to favour them therein is to win their hearts, and to oppose them therein is to deject them. If there be any ill in the custom, that may be severed from the good, he pares the apple, and gives them the clean to feed on. Particularly, he loves Procession, and maintains it, because there are contained therein 4 manifest advantages.

  1. First, a blessing of God for the fruits of the field:
  2. Secondly, justice in the Preservation of bounds:
  3. Thirdly, Charity in loving walking, and neighbourly accompanying one another, with reconciling of differences at that time, if there be any:
  4. Fourthly, Mercy in relieving the poor by a liberal distribution and largesse, which at that time is, or ought to be used.

Wherefore he exacts of all to be present at the perambulation, and those that withdraw, and sever themselves from it, he mislikes, and reproves as uncharitable, and unneighbourly; and if they will not reform, presents them. Nay, he is so far from condemning such assemblies, that he rather procures them to be often, as knowing that absence breeds strangeness, but presence love.

George Herbert, A Priest to the Temple Or The Countrey Parson, chapter 35

What you see there is very rooted in centuries of history that are, on the practical level, defunct and so far removed from us that it would be impossible to replicate.  But in spirit, these are very “earthy” practices that can be recaptured pretty easily.  Obviously with social distancing in place it would be rather difficult to form a town-wide parade!  But at the level of the home, this could be an opportunity for the household to walk around the property line, praying for one another and for the neighbors.  It could be an opportunity to chat with the neighbors over the fence or across the road, pray for them or even with them!  With the Spring planting now in full swing in many places, pray for your gardens or fields.  Consider how you might use your bounty to bless others, especially the poor or needy.

Andm, if you want yet more ideas and background history, I commend to you The Homely Hours, a lovely blog with a wealth of historic Anglican insight, with a particular high-church-like attention to the traditions of our forebears.

Posted on by Fr. Brench

Friday Devotions

Hey, everyone, it’s Friday again.

It’s all well and good to enjoy the appropriate Cross-related prayers that modern prayer book tradition has given us.  But there are even more traditional options that should be considered for our praying of the Office on Fridays.

#1 – Read the whole Venite.  The American Prayer Book tradition, I think from the very first in this country, has shortened the Venite (Psalm 95) and provided either additional options or alternative endings for it.  Our new prayer book represents an almost-complete-return to the English order on this point, except the “wrathful” second half of the Venite is optional.  The rubrics direct it to be added during Lent and other penitential occasions.  Consider every Friday (with a couple seasonal exceptions) a penitential occasion.  Read the whole Venite this morning.

#2 – Pray the Great Litany.  As discussed some time in the past, the Litany was originally appointed for the end of Morning Prayer on every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday, plus any other occasion deemed appropriate.  The 2019 Prayer Book is not so specific in its direction for the Litany, but absent of any other plan for regular use, we’re best off simply continuing what the classical tradition appoints.  Say the Litany today.

#3 – Oh, and don’t forget to fast.  It’s not a “Roman thing”, it’s a “catholic thing”, and the Reformers (especially English reformers) saw themselves as the true catholics over against the Papists who had deviated from the catholic tradition.  Fasting on Fridays is thoroughly Anglican; only in recent times have prayer books gotten lazy about that.  The easiest way to fast is to have a small breakfast and eat nothing else until dinner.  This gives you lunchtime, at least, to spend in prayer and rest before God where one might normally be attending to one’s bodily hungers.

Posted on by Fr. Brench

Don’t neglect the Litany

The Great Litany was the first liturgy put out by the Church of England, before the Prayer Book as a whole was compiled.  It has undergone little edits since then in just about every edition of the prayer book, yet is arguably the least-changed piece of the prayer book to this day.  I suspect this is due, in part, to the fact that it has been slowly declining in prominence.  The fewer people pray it, the fewer changes people bother to make to it.

You can even trace this decline in prominence from book to book.  In 1662 the Litany was appointed to be read after the three collects in Morning Prayer every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday.  By the American prayer book of 1928, it was broadened to be after the three collects in either Morning or Evening Prayer, with no directions of how often it was to be used.  The 1979 prayer book broadened the options further by allowing it to be used immediately before the Eucharist (which is probably how it’s best-known in American parishes right now – as a solemn procession maybe once a year if at all).  But in that book, it’s physically located in a very cluttered part of the volume between the Daily Office and the Communion services, physically isolating it, sending the tacit message that it’s just window-dressing and there for the sake of tradition.  They didn’t even bother updating its language to match “Rite II.”

The 2019 Prayer Book, now, keeps the broad options open but provides a little more direction and accessibility.  The Litany begins on page 91, between the Office and Communion liturgies which is not quite so cluttered compared to the 1979 book.  There is also this suggestion on page 99:

It is particularly appropriate to use the Great Litany on the First Sunday of Advent and the First Sunday in Lent.  It is also appropriate for Rogation days, other days of fasting or thanksgiving, and occasions of solemn and comprehensive entreaty.

In one sense this is a “toothless” rubric.  It’s not rule, not even an authorization, but merely a suggestion.  The phrase “it is appropriate” appears in a few such rubrics, and is so gentle that it almost doesn’t count as a real rubric (or rule).  But as a suggestion, it does help point us in the direction of how we might implement the Litany in parish life in accord with some semblance of tradition.  Originally the Litany was supposed to be a thrice-weekly affair at the end of Morning Prayer, so having two Sundays and a short list of other occasions when the Litany is “appropriate” is extremely gentle indeed.  But, as things stand in the American church, once a year is about as often as the Litany is used, if at all, so by making these suggestions explicit in the book, and by making the Litany a bit easier to find (and connect to the primary liturgies) there is a definite intention here to restore this excellent service of prayer.

In your own devotions, I heartily encourage you to pray this Litany often.  Every Sunday, between Morning Prayer and Holy Communion, is a good place to start; or perhaps every Friday as a sort-of-penitential discipline.  It is longer than modern worshipers tend to be used to, so it can be an overwhelming experience for some.

But if you can bring it into your church, definitely start with the rubric’s suggestion: the beginning of Lent and Advent.  From there you can also add it to Epiphany II (when the festive part of the Christimas-Epiphany cycle has ended), Lent V (Passion Sunday, signalling the approach of Holy Week), the Sunday after the Ascension (following the apostolic spirit of prayer between the Ascension and Pentecost), and periodic Sundays after Trinity such as Propers 10 and 20 (even spaced out between Ascension and Advent).  The more, the better, in my opinion, but it’s usually easier to introduce new & different things to people when there’s an easy liturgical explanation.

Anyway, today’s a Wednesday, so how about you give it a go in your own prayers after Morning Prayer?