Scott has helpfully pointed to the Internet Archive’s edition of the Anglican Missal. (Here’s the page with a variety of download options)
I have posted my thoughts on the value of Anglican Missal here.
Again, as a database guy, I’m very happy to see the txt file here which saves me from doing a lot of typing should it become desirable to database said work…
Sure enough, LutherPunk, Chris and Christopher have all weighed in on Pr. Pfatteicher’s article trashing the ELW’s renditions of the Daily Office. (And it looks like Christopher may be offering a series on it…)
I want to lift up in particular Chris’s point in which he cited Augsburg Confession Art. 7: not only is the particular use of liturgy not specified in the Confessions, it is also true to say that the Office has not historically been a major part of Lutheran piety.
Chris is quite right to note this. I have observed this before and, indeed, it is one of the several reasons why I left the Lutheran Church.
Lee points us to a must-read article by Philip Pfatteicher, one of the Grand Masters of American Lutheran liturgy.
He writes a devastating critique of the new ELCA work, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, and damns the new LCMS Lutheran Service Book with faint praise. In particular, he focuses upon what these books have done to the Daily Office.
If you run in any sort of protestant liturgy circles (and if you’re reading this you do…), don’t miss this article!
Both the Lutheran Zephyr and Lutherpunk left notes at Lee’s place indicating they might say more; I’d be interested to see what they have to say about it.
The Rubric Policeman who lives within me and who I normally suppress is busting forth this morning…
I ran through MP online this morning. When I can do this, I normally open up both MissionStClare and the C of E’s 1662 MP and use the 1662 ordo with the readings and collects from MissionStClare. Thus, I’m in line with the lectionary and weekly collects so when M and I pray EP together I don’t get liturgical whiplash. (MSC doesn’t maintain a consistent Rite I—hence the English book…)
Neither of these sources had the Collect for the Feast of the Holy Cross. MissionStClare didn’t have the readings for it either. What’s up with that?! I’ll note that Josh’s Daily Office site had both the readings and the collects… (I would have used the Festal Canticles but again—that’s just me.)
I know that to 99.9% of Christians this kind of detail focus comes across merely as nit-picking and a show of liturgical arrogance and that’s really not my point—and why I try to keep my inner rubric cop on a short leash. (I’m trying to repent of years of liturgical arrogance… ;-)) Rather, the point is about formative patterns. What is the rota that we adopt or have adopted by which we will form ourselves? Liturgical formation is a process that happens over a period of years if not decades. And I’ll freely admit, these things jump out at me because I struggle with them—I’m always tempted to toss my current plan out the window in favor of the next great breviary.
The real issue and explanation in terms of the online offices, of course, is that these aren’t really liturgy issues or rubrics issues—as I see them, they’re database issues. That is, the best way to set these things up is not to put them in place manually, rather it’s to program your pie (kalendrical calculations) to seamlessly plop in all the right pieces at all the right times. In fact, as I see it, missals and breviaries are materials that exist only imperfectly in manuscripts or books. These things have pleaded and cried out for integration with relational databases for centuries and our computer technology has finally caught up to our liturgical vision.
What I’d love to see is a Daily Office site where you could select from a range—what version you wanted to use, which lectionary, which kalendar, with Office Hymns and antiphons or without, with each possible Office either readable on screen or printable as a PDF. The technology’s in place—it’s just a matter of the time…
The big liturgical news of the day, though, isn’t about the Office… Rather, M has been invited at the last minute to celebrate mass at our alma mater’s contemplative Eucharist today so I’ll be spending my lunch hour with her there—hopefully in the service if Lil’ H will permit…
Life is extremely busy and will be for some time to continue.
In the meantime, here’s a random collection of quotes worth pondering:
“The principle literary sources of monastic culture may be reduced to three: Holy Scripture, the patristic tradition, and classical literature. The liturgy. . . is the medium through which the Bible and the patristic tradition are received, and it is the liturgy that gives unity to all the manifestations of monastic culture.”
Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God: A Study of Monastic Culture (trans. Catharine Misrahi, New York: Fordham University Press, 1982), 71.
“The various [monastic] rules were merely so many individual expressions of the tradition. All the ancient monks considered their real rule, in the sense of the ultimate determinant of their lives, to be not some product of human effort but the Word of God himself as contained in the Scriptures. Monasticism was simply a form of the Christian life itself, and hence it drew its inspiration from divine revelation.”
Claude Peifer, “The Rule of St. Benedict”, pp. 65-112 in RB 1980: The Rule of St. Benedict in English and Latin with Notes, Edited by Timothy Fry, (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 1980), 85.
…[W]hen a monk is endeavouring after the plan of monastic life to reach the heights of a more advanced perfection, and, having learned the consideration of discretion, is able to arrive at the very summit of the anchorite’s life, he ought by no means to seek for all kinds of virtues from one man however excellent. For one is adorned with flowers of knowledge, another is more strongly fortified with methods of discretion, another is established in the dignity of patience, another excels in the virtue of humility, another in that of continence, another is decked with the grace of simplicity. . . . And therefore the monk who desires to gather spiritual honey, ought like a most careful bee, to suck out virtue from those who specially possess it, and should diligently store it up in the vessel of his own breast; nor should he investigate what any one is lacking in, but only regard and gather whatever virtue he has. For if we want to gain all virtues from some one person, we shall with great difficulty or perhaps never at all find suitable examples for us to imitate. For though we do not as yet see that even Christ is made “all things in all” as the Apostle says; still in this way we can find Him bit by bit in all. For it is said of Him, “Who was made of God to you wisdom and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption.” While then in one there is found wisdom, in another righteousness, in another sanctification, in another kindness, in another chastity, in another humility, in another patience, Christ is at the present time divided, member by member, among all the saints. But when all come together into the unity of the faith and virtue, He is formed into the “perfect man,” completing the fullness of His body, in the joints and properties of all His members.
John Cassian, Inst. 5.4; NPNF 2.11.234-235.
There’s a full transcript here of B16’s remarks on the Daily Office made at an Austrian Abbey. My only disappointment in these remarks is that he seems to address them specifically to the ordained and the consecrated. The steady procession through Scripture as mediated by the liturgical year and the constant repetition of the Psalms does not belong only to the consecrated and ordained—it belongs to all Christians and should be encouraged among all Christians.
Even if the pattern presented is less than the 7+1 offices of the monastic rota, I encourage you to make the discipline your own. Posted on my side-bar are links to Anglican and Roman sources for the hours, both contemporary and traditional. Too, the purpose of this page is promoting the Office.
Lastly, here’s a little taste of the Pope’s comments:
Our light, our truth, our goal, our fulfilment, our life – all this is
not a religious doctrine but a person: Jesus Christ. Over and above any
ability of our own to seek and to desire God, we ourselves have already
been sought and desired, and indeed, found and redeemed by him! The
roving gaze of people of every time and nation, of all the
philosophies, religions and cultures, encounters the wide open eyes of
the crucified and risen Son of God; his open heart is the fullness of
love. The eyes of Christ are the eyes of a loving God. The image of the
Crucified Lord above the altar, whose romanesque original is found in
the Cathedral of Sarzano, shows that this gaze is turned to every man
and woman. The Lord, in truth, looks into the hearts of each of us.
The core of monasticism is worship – living like the angels. But since
monks are people of flesh and blood on this earth, Saint Benedict and
Saint Bernardo added to the central command: “pray”, a second command:
“work”. In the mind of Saint Benedict, part of monastic life, along
with prayer, is work: the cultivation of the land in accordance with
the Creator’s will. Thus in every age monks, setting out from their
gaze upon God, have made the earth live-giving and lovely. Their
protection and renewal of creation derived precisely from their looking
to God. In the rhythm of the ora et labora, the community of
consecrated persons bears witness to the God who, in Christ, looks upon
us, while human beings and the world, as God looks upon them, become
good.
Caelius has a nice post up on the Golden Number and calculations for Easter and such.
Kalendar arithmetic (the art of the computus) was an important part of the liturgical arts back in the day. Isidore includes astronomy in Book 3 on Mathematics along with music and geometry but puts his section on the Paschal Cycle in Book 6 where he talks about the book and services of the Church. (Here’s a handy fully hyperlinked table of contents for the whole Etymologiae.) Bede wrote two books on time, De Temporibus and the later De Temporum Ratione (see the table of contents here), that teach calendar calculations. The second is the more complete treatment.
Furthermore, this was an important enough matter that the two great English translators of things ecclesiastical into the vernacular—Ælfric and Bryhtferth—both tackled the topic. Indeed, Bryhtferth’s Enchiridion is theoretically a work focused on the calendar and computus but he meanders through all sorts of areas to get there. Ælfric’s De Temporibus Anni is far more lucid, drawing primarily from Bede and supplementing with Isidore.
Where the rubber really hits the road, though are the tables like those that begin on folio 45v of the Leofric Missal… And, hey, as long as you’re poking around those parts of that manuscript, check out the Christ and Satan pictures too.
More news . . . the retired bishop of Newark has decided to send a calculatedly insulting letter to the Archbishop of Canterbury.
The incessant politicking, posturing, and rhetoric will only escalate from here.
I will be posting no more material on the current Anglican Unpleasantness until Martinmas at the earliest. There are plenty of voices of sanity and credibility out there to whom one should listen for such news—just don’t expect any here.
My time and energy will be much better spent in the 10th century. . .
Rwanda’s Anglican Church has just elected three more Americans to be bishops. They are the Rev. Terrell Glenn, the Rev. Philip Jones and the Rev. John Miller. [h/t Thinking Anglicans]
I don’t know any of these folks–but you know who they’re not?
the Reverend William Ilgenfritz
Does that name ring a bell? No? He was the candidate that Forward in Faith put forward to become a bishop by some cooperative foreign Anglican body back in 2002 along with Fr. David Moyer. The call was re-iterated in 2007 when five years later Fr. Ilgenfritz was still not consecrated… (Fr. Moyer was consecrated a while ago by the Traditional Anglican Communion, a group not in communion with Canterbury.)
So—however many American bishops later and Fr. Ilgenfritz has not received the nod. I don’t know about you, but this doesn’t seem to bode well for the place of FiF and traditional Anglo-Catholics in the coming realignment.
[To clarify the confused, I know members of FiFNA and the SSC, have cordidal relationships with them, have learned much from them, but do not agree with them concerning the ordination of women.]