Category Archives: Liturgy

Solemn Te Deum!!

How You Do It

A solemn Te Deum can be placed at the end of a Mass or Office or may serve as a stand-alone liturgy in its own right. If the last, a procession may well be the way to do it in which case the solemn Te Deum occurs as you leave the station to which it went; the Te Deum is sung on the return to the altar where the versicles and responses are sung but the altar itself is not censed.

The text of the liturgy is fairly simple: it consists of the Te Deum itself sung to a solemn setting. Most traditional settings include the standard versicles with the canticle. The ’79 BCP, however, decided to hack them off and to make them Suffrages B of Morning Prayer. If you’re doing a procession, you may want to append them based on the distance or rate of speed traveled. What makes a solemn Te Deum an act of thanksgiving, though, is the presence of additional versicles which are a mash-up of the Benedictus Es and Ps 103:

V. Blessed art thou, O Lord God of our Fathers :
R. And to be praised and glorified forever.
V. Let us bless the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost :
R. Let us praise and exalt him above all forever.
V. Blessed art thou in the firmament of heaven :
R. And to be praised and glorified, and exalted above all forever.
V. Praise the Lord, O my soul :
R. And forget not all his benefits.
V. O Lord, hear our prayer :
R. And let our prayer come unto thee.
V. The Lord be with you :
R. And with thy spirit

Let us pray:

[Insert here the General Thanksgiving found at the end of the Office]

Needless to say, candles, banners, and at least one thurible are absolutely required.

Why You Do It

Any occasion of celebration and thanksgiving are suitable for a solemn Te Deum. Common historical examples occur at the ends of wars, the securing of lines of succession, etc. It need not be a huge national event, however; miraculous healings were also celebrated by such liturgies.

My reason today is because M has a job!! It’s at a parish fairly close to here where she’ll be the associate. We both get a great feeling from the rector, staff, and parish and this rector seems amazing and is interested in all sorts of interesting things. Best yet, M and the Rector seem to have a great rapport already and both are very excited to see what happens. She starts on Sunday.

Deo gratias!

Anglican Customaries

As any liturgist worth their salt will tell you, having the text of a liturgy is only a part of understanding a past liturgical experience or a liturgical tradition. As one who works with thousand year old liturgies, I have to continually hold in mind that a liturgy is not a text—it’s an experience, and that what I see on a page before me is not necessarily determinative for what may have occured in an actual embodied space. Thus, historical liturgists are always on the look out for customaries, documents that flesh out how a set of liturgies were actually performed in a certain time and place. 

Even when we have a customary, though, that’s rarely the end of the discussion. A customary may help us visualize the liturguy better but, again, it’s still a document and not an event. And customaries have their purposes too, describing not only what does happen but—quite often—what the author wants to happen or wishes to happen. Indeed, some customaries can be polemical treatises that attempt to implant in the reader’s mind one particular model that is to supplant all others. (For instance, whenever I need a chuckle, I read through the section entitled “Of Practices Not Recommended” in Galley’s Ceremonies of the Eucharist… I should also mentioned that it’s been argued that the seminal treatise of Hippolytus upon which so much of the modern Liturgical Renewal movement is based is far more polemical and prescriptive than descriptive of early Roman worship.)

As an American interested in the history of Anglican worship, I have no lived experience of worship with the 1662 BCP. Certainly I can pick it up and read through it; the text and rubrics are clear enough for most anyone to follow. There are, however, ambiguities and options explicit in the text, and anyone who knows the wide vaariety of Anglican theologies, practices, and churchmanship realizes that there must have been differences in how various groups worked with or resolved these ambiguities. Without lived experience, we fall back on customaries.

Principle customaries for the 1662 with which I am familiar are three (Please note, these are intended as introductions, not as authoritative commentary; feel free to add notes or other items in the comments!):

The Directorium Anglicanum: First published in 1858 by John Purchas, a leading Ritualist, this is a guide to the 1662 that seems well suited to larger churches with a traditional architectural format. It argues that the rubrics of the early prayer books expect a certain amount of liturgical knowledge lacking in the priests of its day and thus seeks to “put the Priest of the nineteenth century on a par with the Priest of the sixteenth century as to ritual knowledge. An html copy of the First Edition can be found here at Project Canterbury’s liturgical archive. New to me (and what prompted this post) is my discovery of a PDF version of the Second Revised Edition of 1865. (A read of the preface to the second edition gives you a sense of the battles in the midst of the Tractarian (Oxford Movement’s) growing momentum. A catholic work that harkens back to Sarum uses as well as mentioning (then) contemporary Roman uses, I consider it moderately high. The first edition makes none of the references to the saints or the Blessed Virgin found in Roman or Later Anglican works.

Ritual Notes: This is probably the best known of the catholic customaries. Originally published in 1894, it has gone on to 11 editions. There is no better way to stimulate a discussion that will consume many hours and much gin than to ask a group of Anglo-Catholics which edition is the best. Current answers to “the best” tend to bounce between the 11th, 9th, and 8th reflecting how one feels about recent (20th-21st century) changes to the Roman liturgy and the degree to which current Roman practice should either be followed or rejected. (Brief sample here…). Currently some Continuing Churches sell the 11th, the Western Rite Antiochene Orthodox sells the 9th, and the first edition in html format can be found here.  (An 11th edition sits on my shelf though I’d put a 9th edition next to it if I had one…)

The Parson’s Handbook [English Use]: Probably the least known in America, this is the work of “Blessed” Pearcy Dearmer, the classic example of an Anglo-Catholic Socialist. (Wikipedia entry on the Handbook is here.) While the first two references have—as far as I can determine—some links to living traditions, this work attempts to go back to as exclusively Sarum Use as possible. As such it is particularly susceptible to accusations of antiquarianism and “museum” liturgy. Nevertheless, this work did establish a following and while it might have been a novelty when it was first published it is now a living movement of some weight in England.  The handbook went into no less than 13 editions in rather rapid succession. (I don’t know if there are arguments over preferred editions here…) Dearmer first penned the work just seven years after ordination; he made revisions as he worked out the implications of his program by implementing it in his own parish. The First Edition in html format is at Project Canterbury; the Forth Edition as a PDF may be found here.

Towards the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass…

Kind of…

I have a new post up at the Cafe. It floats around a number of recent discussions about food and meat production, but also about sacrifice and how we understand the Eucharist. There is a positive allergy to talking about the sacrificial element of the Eucharist among many protestants and post-Vatican II catholic types. Here’s a gentle nudge in that direction, positioning it in a way to help people understand the ancient concept of sacrifice and how it informs what we do and how we think.

Minimum Prayer Book Anglican Requirements

Fr. Griffiths at Hypersync presents a call for Prayer Book Anglicans at the same time that a very thoughtful post by Fr. Haller makes the rounds and shows up on the Cafe. There’s an interesting, inevitable and contructive tension between these two reflections. One polarity is the  call to continuity, consistency and stability in the call back to prayer book faithfulness. The other polarity is the recognition of basic reality: there is no monolithic prayer book that contains and describes the whole of the Anglican Way; while the English 1662 BCP has a special claim given its long-standing status and its role during the era of imperalistic evangelism, the Laudian prayer book (Scottish 1637 BCP) and its American offspring should not be denied their proper place. Furthermore, not all the changes motivated by the broad Liturgical Renewal following Vatican II (contained in the American 1979 BCP and other recent national variants) should be excluded as aberrations as some of these changes put far firmer historical footing on the intentions signalled by Archbishop Cranmer in the preface to the 1549 BCP. 

Between these polarities, I believe there is a constructive tension that can responsibly be called Prayer Book Anglicanism that is not static but holds within itself possibilities including my preferred position–Prayer Book Catholicism. I would suggest that this position can best be staked out by a set of indispensible liturgical texts from which Anglicans draw their core theology and identity. Here’s my thesis–I’d love to hear your thoughts and disagreements…

Central Thesis: The heart of all Anglican Books of Common Prayer and thus the heart of the Anglican Path of Spirituality is the complimentary use of the Mass and the Office within the structure of the Liturgical Year.

Common crucial Mass texts include:

  • The Collect for Purity
  • Gospel and non-Gospel Reading(s) keyed to the mysteries of the Liturgical Year
  • the Nicene Creed
  • The Canon of the Eucharistic Prayer (This last is, historically, the most problematic, as Christopher and others more knowledgeable than I can attest. However, I believe that a general precis of characteristics can be identified including the distinctive double epiclesis where the Holy Spirit is invoked upon both the eucharistic elements of the bread and wine and the echaristic element of the gathered congregation [[yes–I know it’s not in all books–it’s still characteristically Anglican…])

Common crucial Office texts include:

  • Regular constant repetition of the Psalter as the heart of the Office
  • A lectionary that attempts to cover a vast amount if not the whole of Scripture within a set period
  • Regular if not daily repetition of: the Te Deum, the Benedictus, the Magnificat, and the Nunc Dimittis
  • The Apostles Creed
Common crucial aspects of the Liturgical Year include:
  • A seasonal pattern that leads us to reflect upon the mysteries of the Incarnation, Passion, and Resurrection of our Lord through the lenses of various aspects of our Lord’s words and works. I.e., minimally Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter
  • a yearly recollection of a handful of stars that form the great and brilliant constellation of the Communion of the Saints including saints from the Scriptures and through the scope of Christian history
  • A body of collects, mutable though rooted in historical precedents, that bind both Mass and Office to the framework of the year 

Wanna be a Prayer Book Anglican? Then I’d suggest that these are the materials we need to be mastering. Not just using, but reflecting upon, digging into, and embodying as we attempt to live our faith. Mastering–as we offer and present unto the Lord our selves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice in order–not to live into a label, even as one as great as “Anglican”–but into the life in which we are hid with Christ in God.

On Guitars in Worship

This is a response to David E in his comment on the last post. I started a comment but it got out of hand, so here it is in an expanded form.

Read here on the St Louis Jesuits. As the first adopters of vernacular music in a vernacular idiom for Roman Catholic worship, the music of the St Louis Jesuits holds an appeal (and a disdain) for some not based on its musical or theological properties. For what it’s worth, I think the musical and theological qualities of much of this repertoire is rather limited. However, it is of immense symbolic importance, especially for Roman or Rome-leaning people (like some progressive Anglo-Catholics) of a certain age (read: Baby-Boomers) who were coming of age in the Vatican II years and its aftermath. That is, their attachment to the music is due to what it represents–the American Catholic Church getting to do things its way , a new generation literally getting its voice heard and overturning old ways of doing things. Now that a new “new generation” is rising, certain elements are in classic back-lash mode and despise SLJ music for precisely the reasons their parents loved it. I’ll admit to having one foot in this camp.

To avoid dwelling in knee-jerk generational generalizations, I’d rather cut to what I see as the real reason why this is a fight and/or why a fight exists–and should exist.

It’s not really about guitars and folk songs or not-guitars and not-folk songs, rather what lies at the center of the argument (as I see it) is competing notions of immanence and transcendence and their place in divine worship. Should church music sound like secular music? Why or why not? Speaking personally, I like guitars quite a lot whether it is in classic country or the virtuosity of Van Halen, Hendrix, Gibbons, Morelli or others.  But that doesn’t mean I want to hear that style of music in church. (I mentioned this briefly in my critique of a U2charist we attended a while back.) I generally don’t like American Folk Revival music  from the 60’s and 70’s anyway; I especially don’t want to hear that style in church.

For me, it’s too immanent; I crave something more transcendent. Some have argued that people can generally be grouped as Platonists or Aristotelians. That is, they either have a sense of reality as something “out there” or of reality as something “really here” intimately bound up with daily mundanities. I intuit that the same is true of spirituality. Some find their connection with God as the God who is immanent and bound up in the holiness of quotidian mundane life. Others find that connection in the God of the transcendent who is “out there” and Other and speaks a word of challenge against what we think is our mundane life.

Both sorts can learn from each other; both sorts need to learn from each other. But a basic orientation one way or the other will still endure.

I’m the second kind. I’m a Platonist by natural inclination. I find God “out there” and in the transcendent and in the different and in the things that shocking me out of my business-as-usual way of living and, through those experiences, can find God and the Hoy in the mundane and the everyday in the ways that I can identify God shocking and surprising me towards transcendence.

As a result, I want my worship to be transcendentally oriented. I want it to help me get in connection with the God “out there” so that I can learn the feel, the touch, the taste of the Other and transcendent God in order that I might recognize that same God in my daily eating, breathing, and moving. Chant is to the ear what incense is to the nose what stained glass and icons are to the eye: culturally conditioned signs of the transcendent but—cutting through the culturally-based significance—vehicles that truly assist me to touch the face of God.

That’s why I don’t want guitars in my service.

And that’s why I understand that other people want them—and need them.

The other side is that I sang for a couple of years in seminary in a Catholic Mass choir that did Marty Haugen’s Mass of Creation with a guitar front-center. (i know; most rad-trads hate Haugen—I don’t. I think its better than a lot of the alternatives [especially Metho-Baptists worship settings ones I’ve experienced].) I’ve served and preached at folk services. I’ve even led with guitar in hand a Taize-style service with guitar and recorder.

Yes, there can be a place for the guitar. Yes, it can be done well, reverently, worshipfully.

But it’s not my taste. And when I’m choosing a congregation where I worship—especially given the recognition that as the spouse of a priest or if I become a priest myself I will not have any choice in the matter—I will choose a service without guitars.

Shout-out to bls for the spelling corrections… ;-)

Anglican Gifts

When talk of ecumenism has come around, I’ve suggested that the Church’s fall into denominationalism is perhaps not as bad as it seems; the different traditions have preserved different aspects of the Gospel. I’ve mentioned before that while the Lutherans maintain justification by grace, the Presbyterians uphold the sovereignty of God, we Anglicans retain the proper pairing of w(h)ine and cheese (and let’s not forget the fudge…).

However, there’s a very nice piece up at the New Liturgical Movement on one of the genuine gifts of the Anglican tradition–effective, reverent worship in the English vernacular. Although, we’d best be careful about our heritage… The Byrd compositions featured at the NLM are wonderful–but how often do we Anglicans here them? When was the last time you heard a good Solemn Evensong at your parish? We have great traditions, and riches in them to share with the rest of the Christian world; let’s not leave them rotting at the back of our cupboard.

Mass without the Faith; Roof without Walls

There’s an interview up at WDTPRS with +Fellay of the schismatic Roman Society of St Pius the Xth. As you may recall, they’re the ultra-traditionalists who believe that Vatican II introduced grave errors into the Roman Church and thus split off to preserve their orthodoxy. Clearly I disagree with them on a number of points…

In any case, I noted this particular exchange:

Q: Contrariwise, would you say that the fight for doctrine has become more important?

Fellay: No, the fight for doctrine is and remains always as important. If we do not have the Faith, we have nothing, not even the Mass. The Mass without the Faith is like a roof without the walls. Doctrine is and remains the fundamental reason for our battle.

While Fellay and I no doubt disagree as to what is included within “the Faith”, I do believe this is an essential point. The liturgy—Mass and Office—is our great entry into the mysteries of reality as we understand them in light of the Triune God. It is the entrance into the encounter with the Living God that shapes us intellectually, emotionally, affectively, and morally. I sometimes emphasize the affective elements of the liturgy because I think the tendencies of the protestant tradition (and my personal tendencies) over-emphasize the intellectual. Indeed, I think the bishop’s words could be interpreted that way as well, but I read them as I believe the tradition has always read them: the liturgy alone without the way of being that the liturgy calls us into and calls forth within us is empty. There is intellectual content and affective direction that we must hold to and actively engage.

And if the Anglican “prayer book catholicity” that I and others speak of is to be fully realized, it’s those things I think we need to be more explicit about.

…And I’m Back…

…with a some update and a bleg. And no, I haven’t yet begin to wade through my back feeds so more may be coming later as I sort out what all’s gone on since I left…

  • We got a place. We like it. M, as many of you know personally, is both wise and beautiful. At the moment, though, I’m doubting her sanity. She is planning for us to move in on August 1st. As in, the one 11 days from now… But–the girls are with the grandparents so we’ll be in a packing frenzy. Expect posting to be light…
  • I did see that Christopher is setting up a new blog to talk about a rule of life. I’ve been having a lot of thoughts about this, especially how it can be achieved in a busy…well, okay, chaotic…household with two preschoolers. I’ve got some solid ideas but nothing yet written. These will come later…
  • Thanks for keeping an eye on the pointy-hats for me–they seem not to have done anything too silly. Yet… 

On now to the bleg. This is for those who use the 1662 BCP or are familiar with its use particularly in the English Prayerbook Catholic paradigm:

  • Both the original 1662 lectionary and the 1922 update have quite a number of options in them. What patterns of use are favored–and why?
  • All of the red-letter days are supplied with collects, readings etc. Black-letter days obviously don’t change the readings–but how are they observed, there being no Commons of Saints?
  • The lectionary and kalender seem to indicate that 1st Vespers are not the custom of this prayer book. However, reading through the Rules to Order the Service, item 5 legislates it (“shall” be said) for all Sundays and red-letter days and item 6 leaves the option open. Is there a standard practice or much variability?
  • Also, the Rules to Order the Service make much causal mention of “memorials”, which I take to be supplementary collects in the fashion of commemorations. Are there other directions on memorials that I’m somehow missing?

Of course, I’ll consult my older written sources: Directorum Anglicanum and the 1st edition of Ritual Notes on these but I’d like to here about current use as well… Thanks in advance!

Bullets of Kalendrical Crap

  • The ’79 BCP has commons for these classes of saints: martyrs, missionaries, pastors, theologians and teachers, monastics, and generic saints. The general idea of a “common” is that you designate in the kalendar what class of saint a given person falls in so you know which elements to use. If you look in the kalendar in your BCP you’ll find martyrs, missionaries, pastors (bishops, priests, deacons), monastics, and general saints. But why are none of them designated as theologians or teachers?
  • I wonder why Kings and Queens are noted in kalendars. There may be a hierarchical “divine right of kings” thing going on there but from my reading of histories and such I suspect it’d be like noting lawyers—the Church is so shocked a member of the royalty achieved sainthood that we mark it especially carefully.
  • I’ll note that lawyers don’t appear as a category. Draw your own conclusions…
  • The Romans counted days backward. That is, they counted down towards a fixed date (the Kalends, Nones, Ides). So a typical Roman date format would be “the 5th day before the Kalends of March”. Which is why by ancient tradition the Feast of St. Matthias moves a day forward in leap years. The official date is, in fact, the 5th day before the Kalends of March, not February 24th. Thus, when an extra day is added at the end of February, the feast remains on the 5th day before the Kalends.
  • This “Roman Datestamp” appears as late as the kalendar of the 1662 BCP.
  • Nevertheless, this BCP doesn’t mention the feast moving…
  • There are a number of minor date variations between the Universal Kalendar and the BCP. The date for St. Bede is one of them (25th vs. 27th). As I recall, there was a perpetual impedance issue that required some shuffling of dates in this particular case.
  • It (perpetual impedance issues) makes you wonder why saints don’t have the good sense to die on a day that no one else has died on… ;-)
  • Noting the number of entries in the Universal Kalendar followed by P.M. (Pope & Martyr) reminds us that there was a time when being pope meant more than occupying a chair in Rome and telling people what to do.
  • Ditto for St. Alphege, B.M. ([Arch]Bishop [of Canterbury] & Martyr).