Monthly Archives: April 2009

Back to Basics

Christopher has a statement up for consideration in light of other statements to be presented at General Convention.

Here’s the heart of it:

Therefore, rather than a program for persuading the Church to a particular point-of-view on matters of justice or on matters of ecclesiology, we recognize that our unity is founded in and maintained by Jesus Christ through Whom in the Holy Spirit we are all children of a merciful Father.

It then goes on to reaffirm the fundamentals:

  1. The Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, as “containing all things necessary to salvation,” and as being the rule and ultimate standard of faith.
  2. The Apostles’ Creed, as the Baptismal Symbol; and the Nicene Creed, as the sufficient statement of the Christian faith.
  3. The two Sacraments ordained by Christ Himself — Baptism and the Supper of the Lord — ministered with unfailing use of Christ’s Words of Institution, and of the elements ordained by Him.
  4. The Historic Episcopate, locally adapted in the methods of its administration to the varying needs of the nations and peoples called of God into the Unity of His Church.
  5. The Book of Common Prayer as authorized in this Church in General Convention as the normative standard of worship in this Church.
  6. Service of the needs of our neighbors and the world in the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

These are the basics of who we are as Anglicans. Please—read it and, if you agree with it, sign it.

Liturgical Renewal: Mass Propers

In the Roman Use

One of the major emphases in the current Roman “Reform of the Reform” is the move to replace the Chant Propers into their correct place. A quick review is in order here. Following the handy “Division of the Mass” in my (1962) Roman Missal, there are nine variable parts or propers in the Mass:

  1. The Introit
  2. The Collects
  3. The Epistle
  4. The Gradual
  5. The Gospel
  6. The Offertory Verse
  7. The Secrets (offering prayers over the gifts just before the Canon)
  8. The Communion Verse
  9. The Postcommunion prayers

I’ve bolded the sungpropers. Note: there are no hymns in this line-up. Classically, hymns weren’t sung at Mass—they belonged in the Office. Thus, the items sung at Mass were the chant propers. After Vatican II, the use of the chant propers diminished and vernacular hymnody was introduced. The Roman Gradual (where these propers are found) was never officially translated into vernaculars that I know of. Certainly, there has never been an authorized English translation. This was a kiss of death in the post-conciliar years. As a result, many Roman Catholics today don’t know that these exist and are the normative forms of music to be used at Mass. Hence the efforts by the Reform of the Reform.

I want to make two points here:

  • The Chant Propers have always been and are now part of the historic Western liturgy.
  • The Chant Propers for the Temporal cycle are all drawn exclusively from Scripture.   (I don’t know if that’s the case for the Sanctoral cycle)

In the Anglican Use

Clearly the early BCPs simplified the Roman Mass. However, of these four sung propers, only one—the Gradual—was dropped by the 1549 BCP. The others were transformed:

  1. The Introit was a whole or a section of a psalm (rather than the Antiphon/Ps Verse/Antiphon/Gloria Patria/Antiphon pattern of the Roamn Rite) appointed for all Sundays and major days along with the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel.
  2. The Offertory was no longer “proper” and a list from which one to be chosen was given. These were now exhortations to give money, rather then Scriptures for meditation tying in with the meaning of the season or mass.
  3. The Communion also became a list of Scriptural sentences from which one was to be chosen. These too tended towards moral exhortation.

The 1552 book dropped all but the Offertory sentence. While Elizabeth’s 1559 book allowed the rite to start with a hymn or metrical psalm, none were appointed. The concept of the introit was preserved; the texts were not.

The High Church party would sometimes smuggle the chant propers back in when they could and, sure enough, inclusion of the chant propers, is one of the key points of the Anglican Missal and its relatives.

The American BCPs and the current book do not include these propers. However:

  1. We have a “hymn, psalm, or anthem” opening the service
  2. The Psalm in the RCL and the “Psalm, hymn or anthem [which] may follow each Reading” serve as the Gradual and the Alleluia with verse/Sequence
  3. The Offertory sentence is retained and the option given of “some other sentence of Scripture.” Furthermore, “During the Offertory, a hymn, psalm, or anthem may be sung”
  4. “During the  ministration of Communion, hymns, psalms, or anthems may be sung”

In short, then, the rubrics of the BCP give space for the retention of these classic parts of the historic Western liturgy that would give our congregations yet more exposure to Scripture…

Points to Ponder

  • If many of our great liturgical stride over the past decades have been ecumenical in nature, isn’t this something to keep our eyes on?
  • It’s permitted, it’s classical, and it’s Scriptural; what’s not to like?

A few of my scattered thoughts:

Pro

  • See bullets one and two above
  • Furthermore, it opens more (and more interesting) musical options
  • I know of at least one Chant Gradual (Fr. John-Julian’s) that uses the RCL psalms for precisely this purpose

Con

  • Yes, it’s historical and all—but how much of this is about recovery and revitalization and how much of it is Romish affectation?
  • Using the Roman cycle raises exactly the the same problem that we currently have with the collects. What is the true shape of the Temporal cycle: is it a one-year cycle or a three-year cycle? Given the rotation of readings it seems to be three; reintroducing another one year pattern would reshape the answer. Not necessarily a bad thing, but one to be intentional on.
  • Hymns are part of our heritage. Granted, most English language hymnody is not strictly Anglican, but hymns at Mass are what American Episcopalians are familiar and comfortable with. Where would this scheme leave room for hymns?

Obviously, I’m not in any way suggesting that chant propers be made mandatory. I don’t even see them being included in the next BCP. Rather, I’m offering food for thought. Is a recovery of the sung propers even something to be interested in?

RBOC: Post-Triduum Edition

  • Everyone survived
  • M and my mom still have issues. In other news, the sun still rises in the east…
  • Services went well. Quite a bit of liturgical nit-picking could be done but won’t be. The Gospel was proclaimed, the sacraments celebrated, and the death and resurrection of our Lord was duly commemorated. M preached some kick-ass sermons.
  • The kids behaved amazing well given that we had mass every night and a three-hour service on Friday. Unfortunately, they were the only children at all of the services but Good Friday and Easter (And the at Maundy Thursday was twice G’s age…)
  • Lil’ G was the boat girl at our Vigil. Yay! She was great.
  • From the above you’ll have gathered we had incense. We borrowed a thurible from a friend at a more evangelical-charismatic Episcopal church (don’t ask my why they had one…). Someone seriously needs to teach even evangelical types how to clean out thuribles. It was FILTHY!
  • For charcoal, I found us some organic hardwood charcoal. It gave off no smell whatsoever. Between the clean thurible and the “clean” charcoal even M was asurprised how “pure” the incense was.Shun quik-lite varities! Yeah, they light quick but the chemicals to make it do that are noxious!
  • However, have a flame burner available. I ended up toasting our charcoal on the electric burbers in the church kitchen which took way longer than I planned for. Next time we use it, I’ll get one of those little table-top propane-feuled burners and use that to ignite them.
  • M got Sunday off so we’ll be running a 10K together. Aunt A will be coming along to watch the girls.
  • There’s a sprint triathalon on Father’s Day; I’m tempted… I also don’t have a functional bike for racing and my swimming stinks. (I’m still tempted.)
  • I did my civic duty today and headed out to H&R Block. It was quick and painless. Who knew filing an extension could be that much fun? God bless America…

M’s Sermon for Wednesday in Holy Week

What wondrous love is this, O my soul! What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss to lay aside his crown for my soul.

In our readings, we are moving in a progression to Maundy Thursday. On Monday night, we heard how Mary of Bethany poured out her jar of expensive ointment onto the Savior’s feet and wiped them with her own hair. A simple act of love. But an act rich with meaning and rich with feeling. Her act gave us a glimpse of what pure human devotion to God looks like.

Tonight’s reading gives us a glimpse of another facet of the depth of love in the relationship between God and humanity. Monday’s reading showed us what human love looks like when humanity is at its best. Today’s reading shows us what God’s love looks like when humanity is at its worst.

A thousand years before, King David had sung in the psalms about the pain of human relationships, the pain of relationships gone wrong:

“All my enemies whisper together about me and devise evil against me. Even my best friend, whom I trusted, who broke bread with me, has lifted up his heel and turned against me.”

As David sang, as David prophesied, so Judas acted.

The one dips his bread in my bowl, this is the one who will betray me.

It’s not like Jesus doesn’t know. He knows the friend who will betray him. And yet he loves.

Of course, if it would be one thing if the betrayal had stopped at Judas. Not only did the disciples fall away in the garden, but Peter himself would betray Jesus three times. But the betrayal doesn’t stop with biblical characters either. I think of things that I’ve done and things that I’ve said. I too have betrayed him.

It’s not like Jesus doesn’t know. He knows the people who will betray him. And yet he loves.

What wondrous love is this, O my soul! What wondrous love is this that caused the Lord of bliss to lay aside his crown for my soul.

Learning to Love the OT in a Marcionite Church

The commenter Walmart Episcopalian has made a great comment down below that shouldn’t get lost. Here it is:

I know the discussion has moved on to the Bishop-elect of Northern Michigan, but I wanted to continue our discussion about the Liturgy of the Word.

I spoke with my Rector about the Liturgy of the Word, following our discussion here. His experience as a lay person and then as a priest tells him that most people are bored by the O.T. and Epistle and perk up during the Gospel because they have a greater sense of connection to it.

I was wondering if the Liturgy of the Word has lost its punch/relevance in a literate, information-saturated society where story-telling is not an exciting break in routine but something against which we learn to defend ourselves. I even wondered, to my shock and surprise, if returning to the proclamation of the Old Testament in the Liturgy was a good thing.

As the first reading, often the most difficult linguistically and most distant culturally, perhaps it causes shut-down among the people and by the time for the Epistle they’ve already glazed over and turned inward.

Also, the majority of Episcopalians I’ve met are crypto-marcionites, or maybe just marcionites. In Adult Ed. I constantly hear about how the God of Love would never countenance the killing of the Hivites, Jebusites, Perrizites, Egyptians, Amalekites et. al. and they simply don’t believe God had anything to do with it. They don’t believe the God of the Holiness Code is the God of Jesus.

They generally like the psalms, however, because most of the psalms address experiences in ways that are comprehensible to them. Except for the ones where the Psalmist curses his enemies or demands death, those make them uncomfortable.

Perhaps adding the OT was a bad idea for our marcionite church. Maybe the Hebrew Scriptures can only come back when the people again believe that the God of Hebrew Scriptures is the God of Jesus.

On the other hand, maybe we need to keep the OT so that we combat the marcionite tendency through proclamation if not in fact. (I would suspect the Bishop-elect of Northern Michigan would not be a big fan of the God of the Old Testament, the God who struck down Uzzah is not a God who trifles with his ‘otherness’ from humanity)

But there’s my current thought, boredom and Marcionism have gutted the liturgy of the Word. I don’t know how this could be addressed in practice. Any thoughts?

Indeed, I think this is of a piece with the issues surrounding the bishop-elect on Northern Michigan. Our people simple don’t know the Scriptures as well as they ought. This is especially true for the Old Testament.

Part of the issue is scope. The New Testament was written in and is concerned with events that happened within a fifty year span and many of the writings—especially the epistles—are focused enough an theological issues that they can be read without a whole lot of appeal to historical context. (Although I’d would never recommend divorcing them from said context.)

The OT is completely different. The events of which it speaks spans over a thousand years and involves a lot of odd places and things done by people with strange names.

I’ve recently come to some conclusions about how biblical teaching should be done in our parishes. I’m still working out how these will look in practice, but here’s the core of my thinking.

Proposal for Teaching the OT to Anglicans

Because of the issue of scope, clergy and congregations need a set of master narratives within which they can locate any particular OT text. These master narratives are:

1. Historical (I.e., an easily understandable grand sweep of Ancient Near Eastern history and Israel/Judah’s place in it.)

2. Geographical (Where the heck is Edom anyway? Or Babylon, Assyria, Carmel, Samaria (which Samaria!), etc.? We need a basic sense of what’s where.)

3. Literary (I.e., what are the major literary divisions on the OT [TaNaK is a good start…], what are the major genres, and what can we expect from these genres?)

4. Theological (I.e., what are the top 5 major themes running through-out the books that help us locate any particular text we read?)

Yes, these are a bit reductionistic—but any big picture view is. As fond as I am of adding nuance, people need a sense of the whole befgore nuance makes any sense.

The way into the whole of the OT is through the Psalms. It’s been observed by ancients and moderns alike that the Psalter is a microcosm of the OT as a whole. One the above four master narratives are in place, select psalms can be used to help familiarize people with how these things look on the ground. You start with the psalms, then move to the other books.

Does that make sense as a start?

Just Wondering

Why are we having to defend why a bishop-elect should teach accord to the Creeds?

I don’t believe the conservatives are correct. I don’t believe that, on the whole, TEC is an “apostate church”. But it is clearly way past time for the pendulum to swing out of doctrinal experimentation to recenter on the Christian message.

Does It Get Worse?

The folks at Stand Firm have dug up a bulletin insert wherein the Epistle reading at the bishop-elect’s church is replaced by a reading from the Qur’an announced as a biblical lesson.

It’s also noted there that the preacher is a Muslim-American scholar who, in the weekly calendar is listed as giving a Q & A during coffee hour.

We don’t have much context for what’s going on here. I read this as a Muslim-Christian inter-religious occasion where a Muslim speaker is explaining his faith and the piece from the Qur’an may well be part of that. But again, we don’t know.

I will say this:

1) The inquisitors at SF have not demonstrated that this replacement of readings is a pattern at this church. But I know that it is elsewhere; there are other Episcopal congregations who routinely replace Scriptural readings with non-biblical texts. It’s wrong and it needs to stop.

2) As evidence for or against the bishop-elect, it continues a trend of poor and questionable liturgical decisions. I’d have no problem with a one-time occasion where the sermon space is given over to a speaker on Muslim-Christian relations or even a reading from the Qur’an—but not in place of a regular lesson and not liturgically treated as such.  I.e., if the speaker wishes to refer to a Qur’anic text, then it should be read in the context of his presentation. [[Ok—I was trying to be broad-minded. Nope, shouldn’t be done, especially not in a Eucharistic context.]]

The pattern that is emerging around this candidate is not good: A questionable Christology, improper changes to the liturgy, and an overly-enthusiastic embrace of the practices of another faith without  clear grounding in his own tradition. Any one of these may be a misunderstanding, but here we have a pattern of a progressive who has progressed outside the bounds for one who is supposed to be a guide, guardian, and teacher of the core commitments of Christianity.

3) In the bulletin insert, Ps 40 is “paraphrased” with “Here I Am, Lord”. ‘Nuff said—this dude is toast.