The Daily Office Rant is coming but this has been on my mind a while and I thought I’d just throw it out there. The expression “Prayer book
Anglo-Catholic” or even “Prayer book Anglican” is, I believe, English in
origin. It’s not American. That makes a pretty big difference. Remember
that the *official* English BCP is none other than the 662—especially since the 1928 attempt was kicked back by Parliament. As a result, England has always had more leniency concerning supplemental and other books. Even the new “official” book is not technically “official”… To be a “Prayer book Anglo-Catholic”, then, was to be one who followed the 1662 rather than the English Missal or other texts (a la the Directorium Anglicana…).

For someone on this side of the pond to call themselves a “Prayer book Anglican” or whatever—what does that really mean? It seems after the ’79 BCP that the original and current meanings of the term are somewhat at odds. The ’79 follows the mainstream of ecumenical liturgical thought in the halcyon days after Vatican II and the attempt to re-enthrone the 4th century—but in doing so it makes some changes distinctly out of line from the classical Anglican tradition represented by the 1662 and the 1549 books.

So—where are we in this? If you’re a “Prayer book” person, what sort are you
and why??

Can one of my more Catholic readers offer a suitable distinction between doctrine and discipline? Specifically, I’m thinking about the development of doctrine issue. The faith of the Church never changes, never has–and so when Catholics are confronted with the contradiction between clerical celibacy and Paul’s prescription in the Pastorals (husbands of one wife…) they tell me that that’s a matter of *discipline* not doctrine. Discipline can change but doctrine can’t. So–where’s the line?

So I was all excited to figure out last night’s collect for Evening Prayer. Why? Well, it’s a Saturday night. Generally Saturday nights are the First Vespers of the Sunday following which is why even the ’79 BCP instructs that the Sunday collect be used (p. 158). However, it being the Saturday falling after the first Wednesday after the 14, yesterday was also the Fall Ember Day which is a fairly significant event. Not only that, it was the 23rd which means it’s the eve of a 24th.

Caelius can explain this better than I, but the date of the summer and winter solstices and the equinoxes have drifted a bit over the centuries. They’re currently on the 21st where they used to be on the 24th. Early on, the church appropriated the natural theology of the increase and decrease of the sun and positioned incarnational feasts at each of them. Thus, Christmas–the rebirth of the light–was Dec 24th; nine months early was the vernal equinox and the equality and increase of the light and thus the Annunciation of the BVM. The Birth of St John Baptist was at the summer solstice (nb: it’s really rare to celebrate the *birth* of a saint rather than his death…it’s a signal there’s something deeper going on…). Since the sun decreases at that point it was linked to the words of JB in John’s Gospel, “I must decrease so he [Jesus] may increase.” Nine months before that, then, is the Conception of JB. Which is today. So yesterday was the eve.

What then should be observed? The 1st Vespers of the Sunday or the Feast or the 2nd Vespers of the Ember Day?

When I went to check the tables of precedence in the Anglican Breviary–what do you know, they had the nerve to take out the Conception of JB!

Final answer–The Ember Day as the second vespers of a feria of the second class takes it; the Conception would have to be a 1st class feast for a first verspers to knock out a second vespers.

Hey–I said it was the height of geekiness…

I’m still here–just really busy with little time for blogging these days. A few things:

* Talked to my best friend from college the other day. He’s at Falls Church. I said, “C’mon, is this really a forty day period of discernment? Is there any doubt about what’s going to be discerned?” He just laughed.

* Church politics. It’s a serious pain in the ass. I heartily agree with bls when she says that often the Church and its politics are often the biggest stumbling block to the gospel [paraphrase…]. I’m really tempted–especially at times like these–to say, screw ’em all and stick my head back in my prayer book. Unfortuantely, though, that’s what got us to this situation…

* Prayers for *Christopher and C. They went ahead and did what they needed to do even though it was against the rules. Now, it seems, the rules are going to be enforced.

* Prayers for Anastasia. Dissertation directors can, as a class, be Evil Spawn at times. They literally hold power over their students’ careers. It’s great if they want to play petty games with their peers but screwing with their students is wrong.

More later.

Word on the street is that the diocese is beginning action against Good Shepherd, Rosemont.

Personally, I’m ambivalent about this. M began attending midnight mass there with her father when home from college and I begam making that pilgrimage too when I starting going home with her. Our last visit was shortly before Fr. Moyer’s consecration as a Continuum Bishop. It is what we look for in a church: Catholic in liturgy and practice, Evangelical in preaching. Clearly, we don’t agree with their stance on the ordination of women, though… I’m sorry it has come to this. But both Fr. Moyer and the vestry have been on thin ice for sometime and the fissures are now opening.

For those unfamiliar with the parish or just know about Fr. Moyer’s longstanding feud with his bishop, some may be interested to learn that Fr. Andrew Mead–now of St Thomas Fifth Ave–was rector there before Fr. Moyer’s tenure (and thus it helped form his son, now at Smokey Mary’s…).

There will be more about all this later, I’m sure, as things develop.

It’s now over a month since we moved–and I still can’t find my favorite cookbook. I’m getting highly annoyed. There are at least three dishes I want to cook but they’re all in there:
* oven-dried sun-dried tomatos for our famous pizza,
* a great bacon, onion, and black bean concoction with a great use ob balsamic vinegar and
* an ancho chile mole

Guess what I’ll be doing today…

A copper kettle is a must. Not just because it has an old-fashion flair and because it’s really expensive–the thermal conduction and chemical composition do actually help.

Fresh cream is essential. Can’t start without a good base.

And don’t get lazy either, lobbing in big chunks of chocolate. Take the time to shave it with a serrated knife. That way the chocolate incorporates much faster and cleaner.

Worldwide Christianity sometimes wonders if we Anglican types have anything to contribute beyond the best two-office synthesis of the monastic hours and the retention of snooty vergers with pinching undergarments. They forget that we have a long, proud tradition of making really, really, good fudge.

I’m proud of the bishops for upholding this fine tradition…

Read it here from the daily episcopalian.

Update: …and the ABC demonstrates that the Old-World tradition is still alive and well, too.

Abstract
The Anglican Breviary (AB) is a wonderful resource. I heartily encourage all liturgy geeks and those with a curiosity about the Roman roots of the current hours of prayer to get this book. It is a showcase demonstrating that liturgical worship of God at its best is the disciplined encounter with Scripture in cycles of psalmody, Scripture readings, and patristic interpretation. That having been said, I cannot commend its daily use; to truly profit from it, you must be able to live in the entirity of its cycles and–for most uncloistered Christians–I do not see how this can be acheived with consistency. However, it is a rich resource for adding orthodox material to the hours that you already say as well as for general edification.

Paranthetical Rambling Warning
As I wrote out my thoughts on the Anglican Breviary, I saw them turning into not just a book review but some general thoughts on learning the Offices and Office Books in general. So–don’t expect anything concise or coherent in this post; it rambles a bit. (But it’s my blog, so there! :-D)

The Book Itself
The first things that you will notice about the AB is that it has some heft to it and that it is finely crafted. Church Publishing take notice!! This is the way you put a book together that you intend people to use over the course of decades. While I’m no bookbinder and can’t tell you the technical details, my 2-volume Daily Office Book suffers in comparison. The Daily Office Book has nowhere near the life of the breviary; you can tell the AB is a book intended for constant use.

Using the Book
First off, this is not an intuitive book by any means (nor is it intended to be…). A quick list of suggestions:
1. If you’ve never said a form of the Daily Office or Morning and Evening Prayer before, don’t start here! Even if you’re dead set on using this book, apprentice yourself to a simpler form and work your way up to it.
2. Familiarize yourself with the mechanics of sectional prayerbooks. Most of the breviaries out there have sections in one form or another. That is, one part of the book has the basic flow of the prayer service (the ordo) that is used daily (the Ordinary). Another part will have the Psalms; another will have the readings; if there are Propers–things done on certain days or seasons–they may be grouped elsewhere.
3. Flowing out of #2–learn how to deploy your ribbons. My general rule of thumb is that one ribbon goes in each section to measure your progress as you move through the day/week.
4. When you sit down with this book (or any other for that matter) never try to pray with it right off–study it first. It’s not very prayerful if you’re trying to figure out where to go and what to do next. Map it out before-hand, even drawing up an ordo sheet and writing in some of the shorter repeating Ordinary texts if that’ll help you. For the AB in particular, I sat down and just flipped pages for two or three hours, then read through most of these excellect lessons. (Just ask M–I sat on the floor flipping pages muttering “where’s the freakin’ [Matins] hymn?” for about twenty minutes; I found it in the weekly Psalter.) Only then (the next morning) did I try to pray with it.
5. In any prayerbook based on the monastic way of life (as the AB is despite it being a secular use–insert long aside on Chrodegang and the evolution of secular offices here) there is a cycle and rhythm and it’s usually connected to the psalms. You’ve got to figure out the key units of time–or at least the key units for your use. For instance, the way I read the BCP’s Daily Office, the basic unit is the month because that’s how long it takes to get through the Psalter. With this book, it’s the week. Once you know that, you know to look for clues that relate to days of the week.
6. Start simple, move to the complex. I’ve had my breviary for about a week now and I’m still ignoring the sanctoral cycle. It’s not because I don’t love the saints or don’t feel I need their intercession–it’s because piling everything on at once would simply be too much at one time. I’m still living into the flow of the book and the proper of the season. Once that’s second nature, I’ll add in the saints.

The Upshot
I’ve prayed Matins, Laus, Vespers, and Compline with the AB; I’ve studied the Little Offices. Of the Offices, I’ve been saying Matins more or less regularly. I’d love to be able to use this as my chief prayer book–but I never will. Why? Because I’d never be able to honor the cycle. In proper fashion, the psalms are repeated every week. Ergo, to read them all, you have to say every office of every day for the week. In between doing laundry, cooking meals, driving the girls to day care, working full-time, catching trains, every once in a while saying hello to my wife, working on my dissertation, etc., it ain’t gonna happen. While I could probably do some of the Offices every day, I know I wouldn’t be able to do them all. I need all of the psalms and knowing that I’m missing a section of them every week would drive me absolutely crazy. It would be like working out every day but only doing the upper body…

Furthermore, I am, at heart, a BCP kinda guy. That’s why I switched to the Episcopal Church, after all. This is a beautiful liturgy–and I’m eager to incorporate parts of it into my BCP Offices(For suggestions on incorporating AB elements into the BCP, look here…)–but the rhythm that works for me in my life–and that I can pray with my wife and children–are the BCP Rite I offices. I love dipping into the Breviary because of what it teaches me about how my offices came about; I also love it for what doing Matins teaches me about my dissertation topic; but the discipline I need and the pattern that my family has chosen is not this. I will probably say Matins from the AB in parallel with the BCP Office for a while but it will–for this time of my life–be for edification rather than my chief spiritual discipline.

Well, the downstairs of our house looks better than it has in a while. G’s room, on the other hand… It looks like a natural disaster occurred there. Which is incorrect, actually–two natural disasters occurred yesterday–my own Lil’ G and Anastasia’s Kizzy. They had a grand time running around the house, pushing each other, and generally wreaking much fin-filled havoc. And the four of us adults had a great time too…

I loved this! And it goes for more than just Catholics (and Orthodox) as well in my experience… ;-)

HT to A conservative blog for peace.