Category Archives: Daily Office

The Daily Office Lectionary of the 1549 and 1552 BCPs

Michael asked a question in a different venue about the Daily Office lectionaries of the various BCPs. This is a topic about which I have commented here on occasion and have been collecting notes until the time I have an opportunity to write on it more fully. However, the mood strikes to write a bit on the lectionary of the first two prayer books.

Official Statements

In the main, there is very little difference between the first book and the second. Indeed, there are no Scriptural differences that I can tell—there are only changes in how the days are entered in the kalendar and how the names of the books are rendered. The reading of Scripture between the two is identical. There are two places where the Daily Office lectionary is discussed. The first is in the initial preface that discusses the problem with the old way of doing things. It is a corruption of an originally better plan:

THERE was never any thing by the wit of man so well devised, or so surely established which (in continuance of time) hath not been corrupted : as (among other things) it may plainly appear by the Common Prayers in the Church, commonly called Divine Service : the first original and ground whereof, if a man would search out by the ancient Fathers, he shall find that the same was not ordained, but of a good purpose, and for a great advancement of godliness : for they so ordered the matter, that all the whole Bible (or the greatest part thereof) should be read over once in the year, intending thereby, that the Clergy, and specially such as were ministers of the congregation, should (by often reading and meditation of God’s word) be stirred up to godliness themselves, and be more able also to exhort other by wholesome doctrine, and to confute them that were adversaries to the truth. And further, that the people (by daily hearing of holy scripture read in the church) should continually profit more and more in the knowledge of God, and be the more inflamed with the love of his true religion. But these many years past, this godly and decent order of the ancient Fathers hath been so altered, broken, and neglected, by planting in uncertain stories, legends, responds, verses, vain repetitions, commemorations, and synodals, that commonly when any book of the Bible was begun, before three or four chapters were read out, all the rest were unread. And in this sort, the book of Isaiah was begun in Advent, and the book of Genesis in Septuagesima : but they were only begun, and never read through. After a like sort were other books of holy scripture used.

Thus, this preface lays out a fundamental principle: mass coverage on a yearly basis. Another preface describes the structure of what’s going on:

The Old Testament is appointed for the first Lessons at Matins and Evensong, and shall be read through every year once, except certain books and chapters which be least edifying,
and might best be spared, and therefore are left unread.

The New Testament is appointed for the second Lessons at Matins and Evensong, and shall be read over orderly every year thrice, beside the Epistles and Gospels ; except the Apocalypse, out of the which there be only certain Lessons appointed upon divers proper feasts.

And to know what Lessons shall be read every day, find the day of the month in the Calendar following ; and there ye shall perceive the books and chapters that shall be read for the Lessons, both at Matins and Evensong.

And here is to be noted, that whensoever there be any proper Psalms or Lessons appointed for any feast, movable or unmovable, then the Psalms and Lessons appointed in the Calendar shall be omitted for that time.

Ye must note also, that the Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, appointed for the Sunday, shall serve all the week after, except there fall some feast that hath his proper.

This is also to be noted, concerning the leap years, that the 25th day of February, which in leap years is counted for two days, shall in those two days alter neither Psalm nor Lesson ;
but the same Psalms and Lessons which be said the first day, shall serve also for the second day.

Also, wheresoever the beginning of any Lesson, Epistle, or Gospel is not expressed, there ye must begin at the beginning of the chapter. [1552: And wheresoever is not expressed how far shall be read, there shall you read to the end of the chapter.]

Structure and Organization

Organizationally, the pattern is very simple. The books of the OT are read sequentially a chapter at a time except when certain major feasts intervene and receive their own readings. Case in point is the feast of the Circumcision on January 1—as a result the sequential read through beginning with Genesis 1 doesn’t begin until January 2nd.

So, MP (Morning Prayer) has two readings, the OT [Gen 1] and the Gospel+Acts [January 2 begins with Matthew 1]; EP (Evening Prayer) has two readings, the OT continuation from the morning [Gen 2] and the Epistles [Rom 1]. The fundamental rule is maximum coverage. If repetition happens, so be it. Case in point—Romans 2 is the appointed NT reading for the Circumcision at MP, and is then repeated in course  two days later as the NT reading for EP.

May 1st ends the first read through the New Testament Epistles—Jude is appointed on that day, on the next we begin again with Romans 1. The Apocalypse (as noted in the preface) is absent from the sequence. Likewise, the Gospels+Acts track of MP completes Acts 28 on May 2nd and Matthew 1 begins again the next day. The third NT read through is synchronized, Matthew 1 and Romans 1 beginning again together on August 31st. The cycle ends neatly and precisely on Dec 31 with Acts 28 and Jude.

Omissions

It then remains to note exactly what the ” except certain books and chapters which be least edifying” might actually be…

We’ve already noted the absence of the Apocalypse. This is the only omission from the New Testament. It appears in the NT readings appointed for the feast of John the Evangelist: MP gets Apoc. 1, EP gets Apoc 22. It also appears on All Saints: Apoc. 19 at EP.

Turning to the OT, things are a little more interesting. Because of the sequential lay out, I’ll move through sequentially, identifying dropped stitches or other items worthy of note:

  • Gen 10 (genealogies of the the sons of Noah)
  • Exodus 25-31 (these are the infinitely precise regulations around the construction of the tabernacle, describing how the tent and the vestments are to be made from costly fabrics, precious metals and gems, and how worship there is to be conducted.)
  • All of Leviticus except 18-20 which largely is about sexual relations with some economic and ceremonial rules thrown in too.
  • Numbers 1-9 (reckoning of Israel and disposition of the Levites, offering and worship rules)
  • Oddly, Isaiah is removed from sequence. Jeremiah follows immediately after Ecclesiastes
  • Mass omissions in Ezekiel; it’s easier to say what does remain than what doesn’t. What remains is Ezekiel 2-3, 5-7, 13-14, 18, 33-34.
  • The Apocrypha begins with Tobit on October 5th immediately after the end of Malachi. However, the books read are (in order) Tobit, Judith, Wisdom of Solomon, Sirach, Baruch. No Maccabees.
  • Isaiah begins on November 28th.

Preliminary Reflections

A full study uis needed to think through the implications of what’s here, but let me make at least a few tentative comments regarding what I notice here.

Lack of Liturgical Year

It should be noted first of all, that there is a notable absence of the liturgical year as a structuring device. The movement of the readings is determined primarily by the civil calendar and the sequence of the books themselves. In one sense, this is helpful because it greatly aids the cause of coverage: it’s quite plain what you’ve read and what you haven’t. On the other hand, it suppresses the liturgical year’s role as a means of ordering Christian time.

There’s only one clear departure from this principle and one perhaps accidental one. The movement of Isaiah to the end of the year is intentional. The first preface notes the custom of reading Isaiah in Advent—this lectionary keeps the same principle. The only other possible concession to pre-Reformation custom is the appearance of the wisdom books of the Apocrypha in the Fall. It’s hard to say, though, if this was by plan or simply sequentially-induced coincidence.

Lack of Apocalyptic

With the suppression of the Apocalypse and Ezekiel, we loose much of the hardcore apocalyptic content of the canon. Yes, Daniel is still in there as is the little apocalypse of Isaiah. However, the heavily visual vignettes disappear. I’m not sure exactly why. Part of the concern might have been the persistent interpretation of apocalyptic symbols with reference to governments and rulers. In short, apocalyptic provides ready fodder for those who would use the Scriptures against their rulers; Cranmer may have been taking this option out of their hands. Another interesting possibility is that much of the visionary material in Ezekiel and Revelation  relates to worship, particularly heavenly worship. Was there a suppression of the rich ceremonial described in relation to the worship of God in these texts?

Lack of Worship Law

Much of the legal material of the Law was suppressed. This is not surprising given the tendencies of Radical Reformation groups to try to take these seriously and impose ancient Israelite law on the portions of Europe they held. What seems significant to me, though, is the particular targeting of the legislation around the construction and ceremonial of the Tabernacle. The description of the wealth to be used and the richness of the material is excised. Why? Was this through concern about Radical Reformation tendencies, or was it a suppression of a particular biblical attitude towards worship that might have been used to uphold “Romish” customs around vestment and ornaments in churches?

Given the suppression of apocalyptic worship in relation to suppression of the regulations around the Tabernacle, it seems likely that one of the aims of this lectionary was to downplay the visual and ceremonial aspects of worship—but more study would be required to prove this point.

Conclusion

In fine, this is an interesting lectionary. Its principle goal is coverage of Scripture and it does that well. The OT is read through every year, the NT three times. Readings are at least a chapter long and therefore could get lengthy depending on the chapter. There is a conspicuous absence of the liturgical year in its organization and the omission of certain texts seem to further downplay the scriptural witness to ceremonial worship.

Holy Week Offices

After a year and a half, I still consider the breviary to be in beta because of issues like this morning—a missing collect and, in some cases, missing lessons. They’re fixed now and part of today’s events include a check through the rest of Holy Week to make sure everything’s functioning properly.

Exactly how the Holy Week and Triduum Offices are to be celebrated is a favorite topic among Anglican armchair liturgists; the various Books of Common Prayer give no indication of changes during this time but catholic practices give a variety of options with the Roman variations being predominate but I’m sure we can find some divergences even from that among regional uses (like the 24 candles of the Sarum tenebrae hearse as opposed to the more pedestrian 15 of Roman practice). I did write a bit about this last year which covers some of the various points to weigh.

Bottom line at the breviary is this: the breviary keeps the gloria patris for the beginning of Holy Week, but gives reduced offices for Triduum. The BSG version, however, does not use reduced offices but presents a full, regular, prayer book office. This probably is something that I should build into the preferences but haven’t had the time to do.

Early Medieval Expectations for Laity

Posting will be quite light in the near future. I’m not giving up blogging for Lent or anything, but—as is usual—have way too many irons in the fire…

I warn you now, not only will posting be sporadic but it may also be both research intensive and potentially cryptic. I’m chasing several quite specific hares—and today’s led me into something I knew some of you would be interested in.

In Old English circles there are two main homileticians and two major anonymous collections: Ælfric, Wulstan, the Blicking Homilies and the Vercelli Homilies. Then there’s the mass of random anonymous stuff into which very few individuals go, myself included.

While trawling an old tome I found a reference to this interesting passage which shows up in an anonymous homily for the Fifth Sunday in Lent (i.e., old Passion Sunday):

Us is ðonne swiðe gedafenlic, þæt we gelomlice ure circan secan and ðær mid micelre eadmodnysse and stilnysse us to urum drihtne gebiddan and godes word gehyran. And se ðe on oðrum ðingum abisgad sy oððe to ðam ungehænde, þæt he dæghwamlice his circan gesecan ne mæge, he huru ðinga on ðam sunnandagum and on oðrum freolsdagum þider cume to his uhtsange and to mæssan and to æfensange and na to nanum idelum geflite, ne to nanum woruldlicum spræcum, ac to ða anum, þæt he his synna gode andette and hira forgifnysse bidde and ðære halgan þenunge mid micclum goddess ege gehlyste and siððan mid ælmæsdædum gange him to his gereorde and mid micelre syfernysse and gemetfæstnysse his goda bruce and na mid nanre oferfylle, ne mid oferdrince, forði ðe Cristenum men nis nan ðing wyrse, ðonne druncenscipe. (Assmann, BASP3, 144: [Assmann 12] B3.2.16)

It is very proper for us that we should frequently visit our church and there pray to our Lord and hear God’s word with great humility and silence. And the one who is busy with other things or is overcome and cannot visit his church daily, he at the least should come on Sundays and on feastdays to morning-song* and to mass and to evensong and not pass them in idleness nor in worldly speech, but in this only: that he confess his sins to God and pray for their forgiveness and that he hear these holy services with a great fear of God and afterward, with almsgiving, go to his meal and partake of his food with much sobriety and moderation and not with any overeating or overdrinking for there is nothing worse for Christian men than drunkenness.

* Uhtsange looks to be the aggregated Night Office of Matins and Lauds which was said at the hour of “uhta”–the first glimmer of light.

Note on the Lenten Suppression of the Te Deum

As most Anglican liturgy buffs know, one of the few changes to the classical Anglican Morning Prayer is the suppression of the Te Deum during Lent (and Advent). The rubrics of the 1549 BCP direct:

After the first Lesson shall follow Te Deum Laudamus, in English, daily throughout the year, except in Lent, all the which time, in the place of Te Deum, shall be used Benedicite omnia Opera Domini Domino, in English as followeth

This direction was suppressed in the 1552 book and the Te Deum and the Benedicite were simply both given as options with no direction as to their use.

I’ve recently discovered that there was a bit of a backlash against this practice around the turn into the 20th century on the part of the learned Anglican liturgists of the English Rite party. Vernon Staley spends a bit of time on this matter in his book on the Church Year:

We have said above, that the rubric in the First Prayer Book of 1549 is to a certain extent in accord with ancient precedent; for whilst the direction to omit Te Deum in Septuagesima and Lent was general, if not quite universal, the mediaeval custom was not to substitute Benedicite. This later canticle, considered in itself, is even more inappropriate to penitential seasons than the Te Deum; for it consists of “one unbroken song of jubilant adoration,” whilst the Te Deum has “mingled with its triumphant praise the tenderest pleadings for mercy, the acknowledgment of human weakness, and the memories of the humiliation of the ‘King of glory’ when He took upon him to deliver man.” That the Te Deum should be omitted in Septuagesima and Lent is one thing: that the Benedicite should take its place is another thing altogether. The omission of the former canticle is in accordance with sound precedent; the substitution of the latter is not: for, as we have already noted, in the Sarum rite, Te Deum was a canticle of Sunday and festival Matins; whilst Benedicite was a canticle of another service, Sunday Lauds: neither canticle was for week-day use. What is really needed is a third canticle for penitential seasons and days, and perhaps ordinary week-days, less joyous than either Te Deum or Benedicite. Neither of these latter canticles was sung or said on ordinary week-days; both having a festival character and use, in the Sarum rite. (Staley, The Liturgical Year, 74-5)

This passage may have been inspired by the tear upon which John Dowden, Bishop of Edinburgh, proceeded in his The Workmanship of the Prayer Book (1899, 2nd ed. 1902/4) from which Staley quotes. Dowden’s Appendix E is on the form and use of the Benedicite in the prayer book tradition and he presents the liberty of the 1552 and subsequent books as a very good thing in this case. Here’s the context of the quote Staley pulls:

The opportunity may be taken here of pointing out the real gain of the liberty afforded since 1552 of using either the Te Deum or the Benedicite at any time of the year as the canticle after the first lesson. . . .
A moment’s consideration makes clear that, while Benedicite is one unbroken song of jubilant adoration, the Te Deum has mingled with its triumphant praise the tenderest pleadings for mercy, the acknowledgment of human weakness, and the memories of the humiliation of the “King of glory,” when He took upon Him to deliver man. Setting aside a false antiquarianism and looking at things as they are, I think few will be found to claim Benedicite as, in itself, more suitable than Te Deum for a penitential season. The reader will remember that in the mediaeval use Benedicite was not substituted for Te Deum in the penitential seasons, but Te Deum was omitted. The rubric of the Prayer Book of 1549 is not a continuance, even in an imperfect form, of the ancient rubrical directions. If Benedicite had continued to be sung every Sunday at Morning Prayer, the omission of Te Deum would have a significance which is not attained by the substitution. In my opinion the rubric of 1549 was a lame and wholly inefficient attempt to effect a very laudable object.
It seems to me to be a matter much to be regretted that our Reformers, in their desire for simplicity, abandoned altogether, with the one exception of Benedicite, the use of the several Scriptural canticles which had a place at Lauds on successive week-days. Much more suitable than Benedicite for Lent and Advent would have been the choice, from the Sarum Lauds for Monday, of the exquisitely beautiful Song of Isaiah (xii. 1-6) with its mingled sense of sin and gratitude for God’s mercy. . . .
Should a canticle yet more marked by a penitential character and by the tearful pleadings of fear and sorrow be preferred, the Song of Hezekiah (Isa. xxxviii. 10-20), which was sung in the Sarum Lauds for Tuesday, supplies what is needed.
If the time ever comes when the Church of England will attempt to revise and further enrich her Book of Common Prayer, it is to be hoped that consideration will be given to the treasury of sacred song which lies ready to hand in the canticles for Lauds not only in the Sarum rite, but also in the great store of the Cantica of the Gothic Breviary, and in the old Paris Breviary, which is marked by a number of noble canticles drawn from the Apocrypha. (Dowden, Workmanship, 244-7)

When one turns to the Deposited English 1928 book, you’ll find in the Alternate Morning Prayer that after the Te Deum and the Benedicite comes the Miserere, Ps 51. (The Song of Isaiah referenced above is included in the American ’79 BCP, minus the first verse that gives it its major penitential punch…)

So, to recap,  the Te Deum includes language that recalls the humiliation of both God and the church as well as praise. The Benedicite is basically all praise. As such, the Te Deum seems preferable between the two. However, since the Te Deum is used as the Church’s song of joy, it does seem inappropriate for Advent and Lent and there are better options out there.

To return to the point raised by Dowden in particular—where the heck did the Benedicite come from? Let’s recall the received wisdom on the formation of Morning Prayer. That is, it’s essentially a shortened form of the old Morning Offices said in aggregation–saying Matins, Lauds, and Prime one right after the other which was a not uncommon practice particularly for secular clergy. Hatchett’s Commentary on the ’79 BCP has a table laying this out on page 92 (EP is on the facing 93). The Te Deum was used on Sundays and on Feasts of 9 Lessons; the Benedicite is the appointed Lauds canticle for Sundays. So, is this why these were chosen—Cranmer and the boys decided to use the canticles from Sunday because it was the start of the weekly cycle?

I don’t think so.

My research on the Prymers may be bearing some interesting fruit here… When you look at both the Sarum pre-Reformation prymers and the Reformed English prymers, both contain the Te Deum and the Benedicite for daily use. The Sarum Matins of the BVM uses the Te Deum everyday without regard for season, and—likewise—the Sarum Lauds of the BVM uses the Benedicite daily. In the so-called “Marshall Hours” that replace the Offices of the BVM in the Reformed books (first appearing around 1535—almost 15 years before the first BCP comes on the scene), the “Matins” office already aggregates material from Matins and Lauds and—again—contains both items for daily use. Thus, if one looked at the Marshall Hours, they contained three canticles for the morning: the Te Deum, the Benedicite, and the Benedictus. If, in following the directions of the Sarum Breviary (not the prymer), the Te Deum were to be dropped in Advent and Lent, there would be two canticles left: the Benedicite and the Benedictus. And there, I suspect is the real rationale of why the Benedicite appears as an alternative to the Te Deum. It has nothing to do with being a real replacement or substitution. Instead, there were three morning canticles that people knew in English and were used to saying in English from the prymers—and these happen to be the three that appear in the Prayer Book’s Morning Prayer.

Again, I’ll be saying more about this in coming days, but I do believe that prayer book historians would be well to give the prymers a bit more attention. I think their role in the shape of the Prayer Book offices has been significantly underplayed especially in current narratives of Prayer Book origins.

Artist Missing the Point

So I’m flipping through an online Book of Hour in the Library of Congress’s collection. One of the standard items is the seven penitential psalms. Traditionally, these were ascribed to David as part of his remorse over the seduction of Bathsheba, the killing of Uriah the Hittite, and the subsequent death of David’s son.

The introductory image to the seven penitential psalms is a full frontal nude of Bathsheba in her bath with David looking on.

Call me crazy, but it seems like the illustrator is kind of missing the point and, were this my devotional book, I might have some trouble staying focused on my psalter…

Bits on the Night Office

A few thoughts on the Night Office, some from the previous post, others not.

On the Patristic Readings

Within the early medieval English system with which I’m most familiar, a regular ol’ weekday ferial Office usually had one nocturn. A nocturn is a hunk of psalms, then a reading broken up by 3 (secular) or 4 (monastic) responsaries. On a weekday, this single nocturn took its reading from Scripture, hearkening back to the Night Office lectionary of Ordo XIII or one of its derivations.

On Sundays and feast days, there were usually 3 nocturns. The first nocturn was often like a regular night, meaning that its reading came from Scripture. The second nocturn had a patristic reading that, in Paul the Deacon’s system at least, was referred to as a sermo and was a general seasonal text from a patristic source or a was a particular sermon about the feast being celebrated. Again, in Paul’s system, Leo and Maximus were often favorite sources (and some of the sermons traveling under the name of Maximus were actually by Caesarius of Arles). The third nocturn was an exposition of the appointed Gospel for the feast. Paul seems to have called this the omeilia or “homily.” [The distinctions we think Paul was trying to draw broke down fairly quickly and the terms “sermo” and “omelia” tended to be used in an interchangeable fashion by the 10th century.] Paul’s go-to guys for the omeilia were Gregory and Bede with some Jerome and Augustine thrown in where warranted (i.e., Augustine’s tractates on John and exposition of the Sermon on the Mount; Jerome from his commentary when a Matthew text popped up with no other texts from Gregory or Bede).

So—on special occasions, there were two patristic pieces in the Night Office, one focused on the season/event, the other on the appointed Gospel text.

Patristic Creep: Office to Mass

Perhaps the greatest conceptual shift in the study of early medieval preaching in the last half of the twentieth century was the recognition of the role of Night Office homiliaries (collections of sermons typically from patristic sources often but not always in liturgical order) within apparently Mass-focused preaching. Determining how patristic homiliaries functioned is tricky. Some, it’s clear, were used for the second and third nocturns of the Night Office. Some were clearly used for spiritual reading in lectio divina. Whether and how they were used at masses in the period is a complicated question with few easy or clear answers.

We can say three definite things about mass preaching in the Late Anglo-Saxon/Benedictine Revival period in England.

  1. There was an expectation that preaching was supposed to happen. English editions of the Rule of Chrodegang require that secular canons (so, priests at cathedrals) preach at least every other Sunday and on feast days. Furthermore, the Canons of Ps.-Egbert which Aelfric quotes in one of his letters on clerical duties states that clergy should preach every Sunday and on major feast days. Manuscript evidence supports these mandates (but says nothing about their fulfillment…) in that Aelfric’s two cycles of Catholic Homilies and supplemental sermons gave preachers texts to read on these occasions. Furthermore, Ursula Lenker’s work has proved to my satisfaction that the Old English Gospels were used by canons for sermon preparation.
  2. It’s clear that Aelfric uses patristic materials from the Night Office and specifically re-purposes them for proclamation at Mass. In a sense, I think the written sermons of Aelfric (in the vernacular) give us a sense of what most of the preachers did. That is, those who were bilingually competent took their homiliary from the Night Office into the pulpit with them and used the Latin as source material for a vernacular sermon, either translating on the fly, or trying to hit the major points in a loose paraphrase. The problem is that not all of the clergy at the time were that competent in Latin—a situation Aelfric bemoans on a regular basis and is the reason for his English homily collections.
  3. Sometimes the preaching had no relation to the Night Office (or the texts at all…). The mass of anonymous vernacular Old English homilies shows quite a bit of disparity. Some are exegetical with patristic sources. Some are composites where a preacher patched several things together. Some are basically direct translations of banned apocryphal works. (What, you think when your preacher starts working off The Shack that this is a new thing? Hardly…)

So—among preachers who cared about passing on orthodox Christian teaching, there was often quite a bit of carry-over between what the clergy and monks heard in the Night Office and what the laity heard at Mass. But that wasn’t necessarily the case and it might have been spotty.

On the Night Office Lectionary

I believe that Ordo XIII and its later evolution into breviaries has had and continues to have a significant impact on how we understand the readings for the Daily Office. In particular, I think we can identify four major characteristics of the “Ordo XIII pattern” that have significance for how we assess any modern Office lectionaries:

  1. Maximum Coverage. The goal of reading was to move systematically through the entire canon.
  2. Yearly Cycle. One of the defining features of the the early medieval pattern is that it demonstrated a clear intent to get through all of Scripture within the space of a single liturgical year. This is one of the points that Cranmer and other Office reformers have consistently gone back to.
  3. Liturgical Coherence. The books read tend to have a seasonal connection with the Church Year. Particular books are read at particular times because the text as a whole has a coherence and significance with the time.
  4. Blocks of Text. In the Night Office, you get a long stretch from a single book. There’s a continuity of narrative or, at least, text. Of the four main characteristics I identify, this is the one that tends to be honored the least in modern schemes. That is, while Cranmer legislated a narrative flow in taking sequential texts from OT, NT, and Gospel works, he divided them up at the start so that the readings were disjointed. So at each Office you read an OT reading, then an NT—the flow was broken up.

There’s no particular point I’m trying to make at the moment about these, I’m just identifying these four characteristics and holding them up for discussion.

Formation and the Ecclesia Anglicana

One of the perennial Anglo-Catholic hobbies  is constructing and maintaining an acceptable myth of origins. That is to say, if you are going to argue that there is a historical and theological validity to the use of certain catholic principles, doctrines, and ceremonies—but not others—within Anglican churches, you need to have some reason to hand that accounts for it.

One of the classic favorites is the notion of the Ecclesia Anglicana. This is the concept that English Christianity is just a bit different from Roman Catholic Christianity—always has been, always will be—and that the Anglican Churches are simply the current expression of this separate but equal way of being. As a result, adherents of this view claim a certain freedom by identifying the differences between Roman and English practice.

I’ve always quite liked this notion in a big-picture kind of way, but have had all sorts of problems with it on a historical level. It’s one thing to assert it with a side-order of nostalgic Victorian nationalism, it’s another entirely to document it in a convincing fashion in the historical and liturgical record.

It’s with this background (a love for the concept but a weighty skepticism concerning its historical realities) that I surprised myself last night while washing dishes by coming up with a potential liturgical-historical argument in favor of it…

If you’re going to argue a difference between “English” and “Roman,” liturgical and historical evidence supports an approach that sees “Western” as a super-category made up of a number of related theological and liturgical traditions one of which is “English” and one (actually several that fuse into one) which becomes dominant as “Roman.” Part of the question, then, is in the matter of definitions: what’s “English” and what’s “Roman” and how are these situated in relation to what’s “Western”?

Then, once that’s been teased out, what are the things that can be identified as granting a fundamental theological distinction between them? (Understanding liturgy in its proper place as the kinetic side of the theological coin…)

One way to crack the nut is to point to the formative aspects of the liturgy, and I’d approach it this way. The Sarum strand is identifiably and recognizably English in locale granted that its roots straddle both French and earlier English practice. When you compare Sarum sources against Continental Western texts and the materials designated “Roman” by the Council of Trent, one of the differences that you find is the Mass Gospel Lectionary. If I recall correctly (and this came to me while washing dishes, mind you, and I haven’t consulted my tomes yet), there are differences at least in Advent, Epiphany, and in post-Pentecost.

What makes this difference major and important is not the Mass, however—it’s the Office. The Mass Gospel Lectionary appears in the third nocturn of the Night Office and determines the patristic homily found therein. A different Mass Gospel lectionary suggests that the nocturn lessons may be different with the possible result that the Sarum-using folk were being formed by reading different patristic texts at different times and were being formed and normed differently than their “Roman” brethren. If you are trying to argue for a theological and practical difference between the Ecclesia Anglicana and the Roman Church especially defined by its Tridentine liturgy, one of the best ways to do it would be a thorough audit of the nocturn texts.

Come to think of it, I recall that in Advent, at least, the second nocturn readings don’t quite cohere either. I seem to recall a Maximus of Turin text where the Tridentine/Roman sources have the Jerome text on Isaiah quoted below. The significance there is that the Sarum source seems to be drawing on an older “Western” strand as the Maximus likely is a hold-over from Paul the Deacon, the official Night Office collection from the Carolingian period.

So—to make a sustained and historically verifiable argument for a theologically distinct Ecclesia Anglicana one possible route could be a thorough comparison of the Night Office texts between the English and Continental sources. What you’d have to find in order to make a strong case is greater coherence between Sarum, Hereford, and York sources (perhaps Hyde Abbey as well?) than what you find in Continental sources, particularly those that feed into the Tridentine Breviary. Then, if you could further isolate a difference in perspective—so, a preponderance of a particular father or set of fathers over others—between “English” and “Roman” breviaries, then I’d be willing to give more credence to the notion of a theologically distinct Ecclesia Anglicana that contains demonstrable theological and formational tendencies from its Continental counterparts.

On the Hill of Circumcision

Those who used the breviary early this morning may have gotten a glitch at the First Reading. I currently have the entire contents of the KJV and WEB Bibles in the database. As a result, the file pulls a Scripture reference and passes it to a parsing function which looks at it for colons, dashes, and commas. The short reason why there was an error this morning is because today’s first reference: Joshua 4:19-5:1, 15:10-15 overwhelmed the parser with the sheer volume of its punctuation. The longer answer is that I didn’t fully program the parser to handle this kind of Scripture reference because of a fundamental disquietude concerning our current Daily Office lectionary.

I know—the rule is common prayer. And I abide by it (99% of the time…). As a result, the Daily Office lectionary from the BCP is what is in there and what will remain in there.

But on occasion I have to register my objections, and this is one of them.

Whenever I look at a reference that causes my parser to break a sweat, I always have the same question: why? Why is there a gap here that we have to deal with? What is it about the intervening verses that the BCP Daily Office lectionary doesn’t include them. Did the compilers feel that they were too boring? Too strange? Too uncomfortable? Too raunchy? And how does the absence of these texts from our day-to-day biblical experience skew our understanding and apprehension of the Bible?

Here are the verses that we were instructed to—er—cut out today…:

At that time the LORD said unto Joshua, Make thee sharp knives, and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time. And Joshua made him sharp knives, and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of the foreskins. And this is the cause why Joshua did circumcise: All the people that came out of Egypt, that were males, even all the men of war, died in the wilderness by the way, after they came out of Egypt. Now all the people that came out were circumcised: but all the people that were born in the wilderness by the way as they came forth out of Egypt, them they had not circumcised. For the children of Israel walked forty years in the wilderness, till all the people that were men of war, which came out of Egypt, were consumed, because they obeyed not the voice of the LORD: unto whom the LORD sware that he would not show them the land, which the LORD sware unto their fathers that he would give us, a land that floweth with milk and honey. And their children, whom he raised up in their stead, them Joshua circumcised: for they were uncircumcised, because they had not circumcised them by the way. And it came to pass, when they had done circumcising all the people, that they abode in their places in the camp, till they were whole. And the LORD said unto Joshua, This day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you. Wherefore the name of the place is called Gilgal unto this day.

What about this was deemed unnecessary? Who got to decide that we shouldn’t encounter this, and what were their reasons for doing so? In a time when we are arguing over identity and covenants (recalling both the Anglican Covenant and the whole Communion without Baptism controversy) aren’t these verses worth hearing?

One enterprising reader compiled and sent to me a reverse Daily Office Lectionary which identifies which passages are, and therefore are not, included within the Lectionary. It makes for enlightening reading. He gave me permission to put it into a database with a web front-end but my current massive busyness has prevented me from accomplishing this yet. Soon, however…

I think it’s time to start revisiting the lectionary. I have no problem with a Mass lectionary with gaps. After all, that’s not the purpose of a Mass lectionary. But the function of the Daily Office lectionary is to move us through the entire Scriptures each year. Ours doesn’t—and that’s worth a serious discussion.

New Breviary Upgrade is Here

The latest version of the St Bede’s Breviary is now up. This new release includes a number of features that people have been requesting:

  • cookie support—if you go to the “Preferences” page, you can now save your Office-praying options and they will stay set whenever you return to the site.
  • additional sanctoral kalendars—In addition to the kalendars as printed in the ’79 BCP and the extended Holy Women Holy Men, it also includes the Church of England’s Exciting Holiness, the current Roman Catholic kalendar, the ordines of the Order of the Holy Cross and the Order of Julian of Norwich, and the kalendars from the Anglican and English Missals.
  • improved aesthetics—including a layout which functions for handheld devices; I’ve been praying the Offices via Blackberry with it
  • additional information on the sources of the material
  • some brief catechetical material included in the preferences page.

Quite a lot has also changed under the hood in the way that it calculates dates, but—hopefully—no one but me will know that…

It’s still in beta, so I’m not promising that it’s bug-free, but this does represent a big step forward towards the goal I’m trying to fully realize here.

As always, it’s your breviary as much as it is mine, please feel free to send in thoughts, questions, comments, and new feature requests. As to the latter, I’ll let you know that the NRSV readings are in the works as is a build-out to include the Prayers and Thanksgivings on BCP pp. 810-841.

On Picking Prelates

The slate of candidates for the next Bishop of Springfield has been announced and what a large field it is—14 nominees in all. With a field that large it’s no surprise that there are some familiar names; one is even a commenter here.

I clicked into the responses for several of them; I appreciated that the one of the questions that nominees had to answer queried them about their personal Rule of Life. Bishops are, in theory, at the spiritual center of the dioceses. Yes, I imagine you’d want a capable administrator, but I’d very much want a person of prayer as well, especially one grounded in our Anglican tradition. I saw one commonality in their responses, that I’d like to lift up.

I had no idea that so many senior clergy have such a steadfast devotion to the Daily Office.

Because, in all honesty, I fail to see signs of it in our church at large.

Indeed, I’d think that if such a large sampling of senior clergy showed so many so devoted to it, there would be more evidence of it in the parishes and in the dioceses where they serve now. But there’s not.

With such a wonderful opportunity, though, to inquire of regular users of it, if I were at the walk-abouts, I’d have one question for each of the nominees: “So, in light of your Rule of Life, I was wondering if you could tell us what canticles you like to use on Wednesday mornings, and why?”

Come to think of it, it’s a question I wouldn’t mind putting to the whole House of Bishops…