Category Archives: Spirituality

CWOB and the Diocese of Connecticut

This resolution passed at the convention of the Diocese of Connecticut:

Resolution #10: year-long Dialogue on Communion of the Unbaptized PASSED AS AMENDED

This resolution was much debated as well. It started with an amendment to change “open communion” to “communion of the unbaptized” for clarification. which passed.

Final language: RESOLVED: That the 227th Convention of the Episcopal Diocese of Connecticut declares a year for theological and catechetical reflection, dialogue, discussion, conversation and listening among parishes of this diocese on “Communion of the Unbaptized” [welcoming all, baptized or not, to Holy Communion]; and be it further,
RESOLVED: That the laity make their voices heard to the bishop and clergy as they explore this sacrament.

Couple of things here…

First, I’m wary of the words “dialogue” and “conversation” in the Episcopal Church. This generally seems to be shorthand for: “We know better than you on this topic and we’re going to have a ‘dialogue’ until you see the error of your ways and agree with me at which point our dialogue will be done.” I will be very interested to see what form this “dialogue” takes. What sort of theological and catechetical material will be used to guide the reflection?

Who really will get to have a voice at the table?

…And that brings me to my second thing…

What the heck does that last line mean? Let’s take another look at it: “That the laity make their voices heard to the bishop and clergy as they explore this sacrament.” What is the rhetorical purpose and the political valence of this sentence?

Two options immediately present themselves.

The first is a simple and straight-forward wish that all orders of ministry will have an opportunity to have a say in the matter. Well, yeah—isn’t this kind of the point of our whole process? Isn’t this how our polity is different from the COE and other Anglican churches? Perhaps I’ve been in church circles too long but this seems a little too much like wide-eyed naivete; I’m feeling something a little disingenuous here…

The second is a sneaking suspicion that the appeal to “the laity” is an attempt to stack the deck. I truly believe that the current argument around CWOB is neither a theological nor a sacramental argument. Instead, it’s an issue of identity that rests primarily upon an emotional appeal. That is, I think it’s less about theology and a lot more about how we perceive ourselves and shape the face we offer to the world; CWOB advocates intend it as a message that we are open, inclusive, and welcoming. I have no problem with framing ourselves this way–but CWOB is not the way to do it!!

Are the folks behind this line thinking that the laity will be swayed more by this sort of an emotional appeal than a theological one?

I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to see more resolutions like this popping up a conventions going forward . This will be a very important resolution and “dialogue” to follow over the coming year.

Naming Spiritual Communities in the Sarum Rite

I was thinking aloud a few days ago about the liturgical act of acknowledging the dimensions of our spiritual community. It occurs to me that a quick glance at the Sarum Rite will give some really interesting examples of what I mean… (Note: most of the things I say here will be broadly applicable to the Historic Western Liturgy—I’m just focusing on the Late Sarum because it gives a nice nailed-down example that I can conveniently point to.)

First, there’s the exercise of the capitular office. Four major things happened here. First, it was the monastic/cathedral daily check-in meeting. Second, there was a reading from the Rule or the Fathers. Items three and four are the reason I’m bring it up. Third, it was a list of obits that identified anyone in the community’s records who had died on that day. Fourth, the hagiographies were reviewed for the saints who would be celebrated that evening and the next day.

Before Mass on Sundays there was a procession. That procession would include the following prayers bid by the priest “in the mother tongue”:

“Let us make our Prayers to God,” [here was sometimes added, “Our Lord Jesu Christ, to our Ladie S. Mary, and all the Company of Heaven,”] beseeching His Mercy for all Holy Church, that God keep it in good estate, especially the Church of England, our Mother Church, this Church, and all others in Christendom.” [Here sometimes was added, “For our Lord the Pope, for the Patriarch of Jerusalem, for the Cardinals.”] “For the Archbishops and Bishops, and especially for our Bishop N., that God keep him in his holy service. For the Dean or Rector, or all other Ministers, that serve this Church.” [This was sometimes varied “For your ghostly father, and for Priests and Clerkes that herein serve or have ferved, for all men and women of religion, for all other men of Holy Church.”] For the Holy Land [and the Holy Cross], that God deliver it out of the hand of the heathen; for the Peace of the Church and of the earth; for our Sovereign Lord the King, and the Qyeen, and all their children. For [Dukes, Earls, and Barons, and for all that have the peace of this land to keep], all that have this land to govern. For the welfare of N. and N., and all this Church’s friends. [For all that live in deadly sin.] For our brethren and sisters, and all our Parishioners, and all that do any good to this Church or Foundation. For yourselves, that God for His mercy grant you grace so to live as your soul to save, and for all true Christian people.

Thus we’ve got a naming here of a whole bunch of folks—from the saints to the geographically dispersed to the deceased to one another. It does name quite a community to keep in mind.

At the beginning of the Mass itself, we have a form of the Confiteor:

I confess to God, to blessed Mary, to all the saints, and to you, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, by my fault : I pray holy Mary, all the saints of God, and you, to pray for me.

I’m more used to the modern form where it calls out more of the saints by name, however, Not only does the Confiteor name the saints—mirroring the prayer at the procession—it places them in the proper relationship to us; we pray together for one another.

The beginning of the Canon of the Mass likewise begins with a very clear naming of the gathered spiritual community (rubrics are parenthetical):

…together with thy servants our Pope N. and our Bishop N. (That is to say, the bishop of the diocese only,) and our King N. (The above persons are mentioned by name. Then shall follow : ) and all who are orthodox, and who hold the catholic and apostolic faith. Remember, O Lord, thy servants and thy handmaidens N. and N. (in praying for whom a due order dictated by charity ought to be observed. The priest prays five times : firstly for himself; secondly for his father and mother, that is to say both carnal and spiritual, and for his other relations; thirdly, for his special friends, parishioners and otherwise; fourthly, for all persons present; fifthly, for all Christian people; and here the priest may commend all his own friends to God. I counsel, however, that no one should pause at this point too long, both on account of possible distractions of mind, and also on account of suggestions which may be made by evil angels, as well as on account of other dangers.) and all here present, whose faith is approved, and whose devotion is known to thee; on behalf of whom we offer unto thee, or who offer unto thee this sacrifice of praise, for themselves and for all pertaining to them, for the redemption of their souls, for the hope of their own salvation and security, and who are paying their vows unto thee, the eternal, living, and true God. In communion with and reverencing the memory, in the first place, of the glorious and ever virgin (inclining a little as he says,) Mary, mother of our God and Lord Jesus Christ ; As also of thy blessed apostles and martyrs—Peter, Paul, Andrew, James, John, Thomas, James, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Simon, and Thaddseus, Linus, Cletus, Clement, Sixtus, Cornelius, Cyprian. Laurence, Chrysogonus, John and Paul, Cosmas and Damian, and of all thy saints; through whose merits and prayers do thou grant that in all things we may be defended by the aid of thy protection. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

That initial “together” kicks off quite a clear naming of who all has gathered: the living, the dead, the saints, and anybody else who might not fall neatly into any of those categories.

That’s just a few examples; doubtless many more could be produced. Notice something here: all of these prayers are very much present tense. The point is not that they’re liturgically remembering historical figures—however fondly. Rather, these prayers are naming the current, present members of the spiritual community whether they happen to be visibly present or not.

Now, this rite does a great job with this liturgical naming—when it’s considered as a text. The actual liturgical experience of it would be quite different. The laity would hear the processional prayer in their native tongue; the monastic or cathedral Chapter would here the capitular office; the confiteor would be heard by the altar party and basically only the priest would have heard the section that starts the Canon. There’s a great ecclesiology present here; the fact that so much of it is liturgically inaccessible to the majority of the physically gathered community does seem a little ironic.

Perspective on the Saints

I wrote this a while ago for use on the Cafe, and—given both my current train of thought and the time of year—thought it was worth re-sharing.

One of the approaches that I was specifically trying here was an alternate form of persuasion. That is, there are all sorts of readers at the Cafe, some of a churchmanship not amenable to the notion of saints. My goal here was to make more of an affective or poetic appeal for the concept rather than logical argumentation.

———

A cold wind flaps my coat-tails and whirls a cloud of dead leaves about my feet as I walk my elder daughter to the bus stop. They rasp voicelessly on the concrete and my thoughts finds them a flock with words, warnings, pleas, spoken—but not understood. A passage of Homer flickers to mind: Odysseus, sword drawn, keeping the rustling flock of shades at bay from the invigorating blood of the black sheep that gives back voice to a fallen comrade, to an ancient prophet, to the hero’s mother—strangers joined only in death. For the dead have been on my mind.

It’s only natural, I suppose—in the most literal kind of way. As the sun rounds another corner, the hours of night overtake the day; the vibrant star’s light dims to watery wintry shadow and, harvest passing, the fields fall fallow—corn stubble awaiting a blanket of snow. The signs of the earth turn to sleep or death. With signals like these it’s only natural my pagan precursors identified the passage from day’s supremacy to night’s to be a passage between worlds, a time when the dead souls return to be blown about our lands toothlessly muttering words, warnings, pleas to the living. With the coming of Christ to the British Isles, the soul cakes were offered to wandering strangers rather than the family dead; flickering faces lit visitors rather than turning away spiteful spirits. For All Hallows’ Eve and All Hallows and All Souls replaced and displaced the former pagan feast.

All Hallows—or All Saints as we know it now (the Latinate “saints” replacing the Saxon with the same sense)—is something of a confusion in these latter days. Who we remember, what we remember, and why has been blurred: sometimes on accident, sometimes on purpose. All Saints, All Souls, and the difference between them lie at the intersection of the Church’s musings on Scripture, on the Church Expectant, the Church Triumphant, and the overarching principle of the baptized dead knit into the living Christ.

All Hallows is for the Church Triumphant, those spirits and souls of the righteous who already rejoice in the ineffable splendor of the appearance of the glory of God. For these are those who already harmonize in the great chorus and who unceasingly lay down their petitions before the Throne, praying for we who yet linger here.

All Souls is for the Church Expectant who rest from their labors, who sleep in the earth awaiting the last trumpet when the earth shall flee away, the sky roll like a scroll, and our great company shall throng to the judgment seat.

Images fill my mind, of the Great Judgment, the Last Day, snatches of songs, paintings half- remembered from medieval books on penitence and prayer. Pre-modern in aspect, pre-modern in assumptions, a pervading truth permeates the scenes. It shall not be as they envisioned, it shall not be as I envision and yet…

And yet…

My mind turns to the font and the flood for this is the center of this belief that yea, though they die, yet shall they live, knit to the marrow, the sinew, the bone, knit in the body of the Living Christ. Held in the mind of God, held in the heart of God, whatever our state of wake or rest we are hid with Christ in God.

Today we walked amongst the dead.

As sunlight filtered through fallen lives, my girls and I sat with gravestones.

Walnuts lay thick their husks and shells, and we sat and filled bags—much to the squirrels’ chagrin. Down on my knees, I dug out the walnuts, cleared them away with the rest of the parish volunteers. My flirtatious five-year old finding a friend, laughed and skipped as she gathered the shells, laughter pealing like little bells over mossy stones and markers. The other, tired, threw herself upon a marble slab and stared at the sunlit sky. At first I tried to hush and shush them, to remind them of the reverence due this place, and then I thought of the music of voices and of how they rang in this silent space and remembered that we walked among friends. And a trumpet sounded its clarion call, the sound drifting over the waiting stones, but it came from the organ inside of the church that lay at the center of the stones—tuning for the day’s second service. St. Paul’s words then came to my mind: “Sleeper awake! Rise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.”

No Homeric scene this with the blood of goats and shades that mutter and warn. There is blood, it gives life—but not as the old poet sang. For the cup that we share and the loaf that we break is a sharing in the life of our God. And here in the church-yard we gather as one—those on high, those in sleep, those awake—and we gather at the table that is an altar and a tomb and we share in the mysteries of God. For the communion we share links the living and dead, finds all those knit together in Christ, and invites us to share in the promise of that place, a life hid together in God.

Another Issue with HWHM

I’m working on a longer piece on Holy Women, Holy Men (about which more later) but I think it finally hit me what one of the major problems of one of the central new categories is. I didn’t notice it until I’d fully digested the rhetorical structure of the collects.

One of the tendencies of the new additions is to group like people together and to produce a collect that speaks to all of them. Here are some examples:

Divine Physician, your Name is blessed for the work
and witness of the Mayos and the Menningers, and the
revolutionary developments that they brought to the practice
of medicine. As Jesus went about healing the sick as a sign
of the reign of God come near, bless and guide all those
inspired to the work of healing by thy Holy Spirit, that they
may follow his example for the sake of thy kingdom and the
health of thy people; through the same Jesus Christ, who
with thee and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God,
now and for ever. Amen.

[btw—we’re going to ignore for the moment the presence of a “your” in a Rite I prayer and focus on the structure…]

Eternal God, who didst inspire Anna Julia Haywood
Cooper and Elizabeth Evelyn Wright with the love
of learning and the joy of teaching: Help us also to
gather and use the resources of our communities for the
education of all thy children; through Jesus Christ our
Savior, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy
Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

As the heavens declare thy glory, O God, and the
firmament showeth thy handiwork, we bless thy Name for
the gifts of knowledge and insight thou didst bestow upon
Nicolaus Copernicus and Johannes Kepler; and we pray
that thou wouldst continue to advance our understanding
of thy cosmos, for our good and for thy glory; through
Jesus Christ, the firstborn of all creation, who with thee
and the Holy Spirit liveth and reigneth, one God, for ever
and ever. Amen.

Are you seeing a pattern here? This is what I see… At its most reductionistic, it goes like this:

O God, we thank you for A. and B. who were great Xs. Help us to be great Xs too. Thanks.

What’s the problem here? It’s that we’re not just trying to form Xs—we’re trying to form Christians. Whether they were good at their job or not (however holy that job might be), is not the point. The point should be that these specific people displayed the incarnate presence of Christ in their lives and thus were part of the sacramental conversion of all creation.

Liturgical Naming of Spiritual Communities

Our creeds tell us that we believe in “the communion of saints.”

Our Eucharists tell us that, in the consecratory act we are “joining our voices with Angels and Archangels and with all the company of heaven.”

These are important but rather non-specific ways of talking about our larger eccesiology. These two statements remind us that when we gather in the church on a Sunday morning (or other times) for a Eucharist there are more who gather than we see; our “we” and “us” are not simply limited to those physically and visibly present.

The Rite I Post-Communion Prayer may say it best: “we are very members incorporate in the mystical body of thy Son, the blessed company of all faithful people…”

Now—“all faithful people” has a pretty wide scope. This helps break open the sense that we are more than the folks in this room, but almost broadens the scope to near incomprehension, not leaving us much better than we were to begin with.

How do we get a concrete sense of who these people are?

The central place where we get a picture of this in an Anglican environment is the church kalendar. Specifying people to be liturgically celebrated in Mass, the Offices, or both, is our primary vehicle for naming the company who surrounds us and joins us when we gather for worship.

In most of the Anglo-Catholic places I’ve been, a litany of the saints is chanted during the procession to the font during the rite of Baptism which seems a particularly appropriate time to be naming the saints who surround us and who have preceded it into the Body of Christ.

In both the kalendar and the litany, the church never claims—should never claim—that its lists are exhaustive. Rather, they are representational. They indicate a tiny fraction of this great host—just enough for us to get a sense of what kind of people inhabit our spiritual community. Furthermore, the Commons of the saints present us with helpful categories for grouping and conceptualize those who are in this company.

So—to summarize—the liturgy’s construction of the sanctoral cycle and sanctoral categories performs a valuable function in terms of giving us a tangible, comprehensible sense of who the church is.

The Presence of God: Immanence and Transcendence

When we think about the “presence of God” or “the holy” or “the sacred” in the world, I think that there are two main directions from which we can approach it that generally fall under the rubrics of immanence and transcendence.

The transcendent tends to identify God as “out there” or normally distant and God reveals himself to us through big events and moments. The immanent tends to identify God as “in here” and intimately related to us, present in every moment and action, and thought—one of my mentors used to regularly weave into prayers Tennyson’s phrase “Closer is He than breathing, and nearer than hands and feet.”

Another way that this gets framed is where do we find God: in big church events or in the commonplace action of everyday life ( the second a view that heartily believes that ironic scare quotes are needed in the phrase “secular” life).

These two positions tended to be pitted against one another. I don’t think that you can authentically read Scripture and the Tradition without seeing that both revealed wisdom and spiritual learning affirm this to be both/and not an either/or. Heck–it’s hard to read far in the psalter without both things being affirmed.

The preferable way to see it is as a spectrum. Immanence and transcendence take their sides but there’s a healthy relationship between the two. On the ends of the spectrum would be pantheism and (a little closer in) panentheism for immanence and gnosticism and (a little closer in) docetism for transcendence.

At this point, however, is where I’ve got to stop or at least pause. This is as far as Ican go before I have to consider exactly what kind of discussion we’re having and why. Where I get irritated and edgy is when people try to make grand statements about these two terms on some sort of dogmatic level. As I’ve said before, I’m not a dogmatic or systematic theologian. I simply don’t have the tools to wrestle with these terms on an abstract basis. I have no choice but to come at it from the direction of ascetical theology. Thus, the way that I have to frame the issue is something like this:

God is both immanent and transcendent; to base a relationship with a too-exclusively immanent or transcendent deity is to mischaracterize the relationship. If one of the goals of the spiritual life is to cultivate a habitual awareness of the presence of God, what are the disciplines needed to cultivate an openness to the presence of God and what is the relationship between them? I.e., do we start with disciplines of transcendence to learn to recognize God in the big moments so that we can recognize him in the small? or do we begin with disciplines of immanence in order to comprehend and affirm the qualities of God that also appear in the transcendent moments? The true answer (once again) being a balance of the two, are there ways that the balance tends to shift through a “typical” spiritual life—and in recognizing that there’s little “typical” in a relationship with the Living God, to what degree is this balance informed by a given person’s temperament and dispositions?

I do believe that, largely speaking, some people are wired more towards an immanent understanding while others are wired for a transcendent understanding. In a marketplace of religions like we have now in post-Constantinian America, I suspect that some of our inter- and intra-denominational groupings may reflect certain preferences one way or another (among other sorting factors) and are reflected in certain worship styles and practices. Thus—as in this piece in an earlier attempt to fool around with these issues—I think that the guitars vs. chant debate is deeply related to this topic.

I think it’s fair to say that your standard Anglo-Catholic Mass foregrounds transcendence. The environment created by the vestments, the music, the candles, the odd liturgical objects we favor presents a cultural experience that is profoundly different from our everyday cultural experiences. (By contrast, a potted-plant concert hall with a guitar-wielding shirt-sleeved and goateed praise team leader presents a cultural experience that is profoundly familiar to our everyday life.) However, Anglo-Catholic spirituality doesn’t stop at the end of Mass, either. As Fr. Gerth always reminds his herd of servers in the sacristy on the really big feast days, these services have meaning not by themselves but in relation to all of the other, lower, simpler Masses and Offices that fill out our daily/weekly/monthly/yearly round.

So, to begin to head in the direction of an answer, I’m going to suggest that contemporary Anglo-Catholic practice foregrounds disciplines of transcendence through a focus on God’s particular presence in the sacraments, the deliberate cultivation of a transcendent religious culture, and emphasizing distinctions between sacred (space, objects, people [sometimes running to the crazy extreme]) and the secular. A lively Anglo-Catholic spirituality needs to supplement this with disciplines of immanence like breath prayers and practices of the presence of God (a la Br. Lawrence and others).

I’m thinking out loud here—does this make sense? Thoughts?

I’m feeling the need to go back to Thornton and Underhill to see if/how they approach this…

Random Thought on Customaries

I had a random thought this morning at Mass concerning customaries (you know, the list of what a body does when during the service…).

Most customaries come at things from the “descriptive” perspective. That is, they list out what you see the person doing: “Walk from here to there in such a way. Genuflect. Then stand in that place…” In the past when I’ve worked on memorizing a new customary, one of the harder parts was remembering when to throw in various gestures or movements like genuflections, bowings, crossings, etc.

What tends to make this more difficult is that a lot of customaries were created in a descriptive fashion. That is, there was a way that things had “always” been done and in order to keep it that way and to train the newbies, someone wrote down a description what they did—often without reference to what the other folks on/around the altar were doing—and it became “official.”

What’s the problem with this?

Well, if the various versions for the various folks aren’t harmonized you can have different folks doing the same things at different times and, especially if they’re standing right next to each other, that can appear a bit odd… (For instance, if the deacon and the priest standing at the front side-by-side cross themselves at different times at the end of the Gloria.) The real issue, though, is that you’ve got a bigger and deeper problem if you having different folks doing the same things for different reasons.

From my perspective, ceremonial actions shouldn’t happen at random or happenstance; they should have specific “triggers.” The three key triggers that fire-off or initiate a ceremonial action should either be words, motion to or through a place, or an object.

If you look at a good descriptive customary, you should start to see patterns, an internal logic, that will lead you to prescriptive principles about when and why certain things are done. I.e., genuflect when entering or exiting the sanctuary (the space enclosed by the altar rail or rood screen), profound bow at mention of the three persons of the Trinity, and so forth.

Here’s the thing, though: if we start laying out the prescriptive principles, that’s when we start getting into the hard work of liturgical thinking. When we start laying out the prescriptive principles, we realize that we’re starting to bring to a conscious level a practical theology of the holy. That is, ritual gestures are triggered when we hear holy words, when enter or leave holy space, or engage holy objects. If our prescriptive principles are clear and coherent then they inform us—or challenge us—to think about what we think about the nature of the sacred: what is holy and what is profane, how we show respect for the holy, how the holy is kept distinct from the profane. Simple reflection on what things shouldn’t been done or brought into what parts of the church, how the altarware should be handled both in and out of the service (is there a difference? should there be?) has the potential to run us into some complicated spiritual and theological reflection about our beliefs on the imminence and transcendence of God, about how we think about orders of ministry, and such.

Is the nave of the church an innately more holy space than the narthex? Is the sanctuary inherently more holy than the nave? Who can handle the altarware and does what they wear when doing so matter?

When you get right down to it, this avenue of exploration will eventually lead us to the key root question: how does God who is fundamentally Other and distinct from creation choose to interact in and with our earthly reality—and how does that impact how we conduct our worship?

The Bishops’ Prymer and Daily Office Lectionaries

I ran across an interesting discovery the other day…

While looking through the Three Prymers for another purpose, I took notice of the kalendar of the second prymer, referred to as the bishops’ prymer, written by John, Bishop of Rochester and others within the reign of Henry the 8th. (According to my downloaded file, the kalendar of which I speak begins on PDF page 308.)

Just to clarify, this text was written when the official public services of the Church of England were still the Latin-language Sarum services according to the Missal and the Breviary.

The kalendar is not a true kalendar in the sense that it would give a listing of the days and the sanctoral or occasional fixed temporal feasts that fall upon it. Instead, this kalendar is used as a general framework on which is superimposed the moveable contents of the Temporal Cycle with the red-letter days inserted as they appear.

The page has three main columns. The middle column gives only the dominical letters and so is just a string of letters repeating from A to g. A thin column by the side of the page gives a breviary-type reading (you’ll see why I call it that in a second) while a wider column on the other side of the letters gives the incipit and chapter for the Epistle and Gospel readings for Sunday and festal masses. The “breviary” column is roughly aligned with the Sundays listed in the “Mass” column.

These are the contents of the “Mass” column for January:

[New Year’s Day]: For the, Tit. ii; And when, Luke ii
On the Sunday within eight days of Christmas whenever it fall: And I say, Gal. iv; And his, Luke ii
[Untitled–Christmas II? Vigil of Epiphany?]: For the, Tit. ii; When Herod, Matt. ii
The Epiphany: Esa. lx; When Jesus was born, Matt ii.
On the Sunday next after Twelfth Day: Rise up, Esa. lx; The next day, John i
On the Second Sunday after Twelfth Day: I beseech, Rom xii; And when he, Luke ii
On the Third Sunday, if there fall so many: Seeing we have, Rom xii; And the third, John ii
On the Fourth Sunday, if there fall so many Twelfth Day and going out of ma.: Be not wise in your, Rom xii; When Jesus was, Matt. viii
On the Fifth Sunday if there be so many between Septuagesima and Twelfth Day: Owe nothing, Rom xiii; And he entered, Mark iv
On the Sixth Sunday, if there be so many between Twelfth tide and Septuagesima: Now therefore as elect, Col. iii; The kingdom of heaven is, Matt. xiii
On the Sunday when marriage goeth out [Septuagesima]: Perceive ye not how that, 1 Cor ix; For the kingdom of heaven, Matt. 20

If you check your Sarum Missal you’ll find that this is pretty darn close to the list of readings there. It’s not exact, but that that may have as much to say about variation in the Sarum Missal tradition than anything else. For instance, my Missal shows Matt 8 for the Fifth Sunday (Fourth after the Octave) but the passage pointed to here, Mark 4, is the Synoptic parallel of the same miraculous feeding. Likewise, my missal doesn’t include a Sunday after the Nativity, but the readings here line up closely with the Sixth Day after the Nativity (the only one without a feast) whether a Sunday or not. Thus, this appears to be a rough and ready means for the laity to either follow along or to read beforehand the Epistles and Gospels that will be heard in Latin at Mass.

Here, then, is the “breviary” column:

New Year’s Day: Read the Epistle to Tit[us] & 2[nd Letter] to Timothy
[Opposite Sunday after Twelfth Day]: Read the Epistle to the Romans
[(sort of) Opposite Second Sunday]: Read the Epistle to the Corinthians
[(sort of) Opposite Third Sunday]: Read the 2[nd Letter] to the Cor[inthians]
[(sort of) Opposite Fourth Sunday]: Read this week to the Gal[atians] & 1[st Letter] to Tim[othy]
[(sort of) Opposite Fifth Sunday]: Read the [Epistle to the] Epeshians & [to the] Phil[ippians]
[Opposite Sixth Sunday]: Read [the Epistle] to the Thess[alonians] & to the Col[ossians]
[Opposite Septuagesima]: On this Sunday the Church beginneth to read the Scripture in order

As we move through the rest of the months, we find that the instructions given in the “breviary” column move in rough correlation with the Sundays indicated in the “Mass” column. Sometimes they are unable to link clearly due to spacing and the type already on the page. However—as in the case of January—by counting back and giving each instruction a week, the proper arrangement can be found. Now I’ll give the sequence for the rest of the year, noting months and Sundays where pertinent, passing in silence over reiterated readings:

[Opposite Sexagesima]: Read this week within the Church, Genesis.
[Opposite Mid-Lent Sunday [The Fourth Sunday]]: Read here with the Church the Second Book of Moses, called Exodus.
[Opposite Passion Sunday [the Fifth]]: Read this week with the Church the prophet Jeremy.
[Opposite Easter-Day]: Read this week the Acts of the Apostles.
[Opposite First Sunday after Easter]: Read this week with the Church the Apocalypses of John.
[Opposite the Third Sunday after Easter]: Read this week the Epistle of James and of Peter both.
[Opposite Fourth Sunday after Easter]: Read this week the Canonical Epistle of John and Jude.
[Opposite Sunday before the Cross [Rogation] Days]: Read of the Acts of the Apostles this week.
[Pentecost Week]: Read of the Acts.
[Opposite the First Sunday after Trinity]: Read in the First Book of the Kings [1 Samuel] with the Church this week.
[Opposite the Second Sunday after Trinity]: Read with the Church this week in the Second Book of the Kings [2 Samuel].
[Opposite the Third Sunday after Trinity]: Read this week the third [Book of the Kings [1 Kings]].
[Opposite the Fifth Sunday after Trinity]: Read this week the fourth [Book of the Kings [2 Kings]].
[Opposite the Seventh Sunday after Trinity]: Read this week the Chronicles called Paralipo.
[Opposite the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity (First in August)]: Read here the Proverbs with the Church.
[Opposite the Twelfth Sunday after Trinity]: Read here Ecclesiastes.
[Opposite the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity]: Read here the History of Job.
[Opposite the Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity]: Read the History of Tobit.
[Opposite the Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity]: Read here the story of Judith.
[Opposite the Eighteenth Sunday after Trinity]: Read here the History of Hester.
[Opposite the Nineteenth Sunday after Trinity (First Sun. in October)]: Read the First Book of the Maccabees.
[Opposite the Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity]: Read the Second Book of Maccabees.
[Opposite the Twenty-Third Sunday after Trinity]: Read Ezechiel.
[Opposite the First Sunday of Advent]: Read Isaie with the Church.
[Opposite the Fourth Sunday of Advent]: Read Isaie still until the First Sunday after New Year.

What we have here is a pre-prayer book attempt to set the breviary pattern of reading through Scriptures before the literate laity. Note that we’re only talking one passage of Scripture at a time (not four as we’ll see with Morning and Evening Prayer).

As a scheme, it exhibits many of the faults that breviary schemes have suffered throughout Christian history, namely: too much time for some books, not nearly enough for others. The late summer is a classic case. One week is provided for the dense poetic book of Job and its 42 chapters, while just a little later three weeks are given for the 14 novelistic chapters of Tobit. Again, Genesis is spread out from Septuagesima until Mid-Lent (not a bad plan for its fifty chapters, some of which are lengthy); Exodus is allotted one week (not nearly enough).

As far as absences go, there’s no Daniel, none of the Twelve Minor Prophets, no Law after the first two books, and we miss the apocryphal wisdom books altogether.

Nevertheless, this is the first attempt that I’ve seen to introduce a plan of Scripture reading to the laity.

I imagine there’s more to be said about this scheme, how it compares with other pre-Reformation schemes, how it feeds into the prayer books, as well as how it connects to the rest of the prymer as a whole. So this is the first rather than the last word on the subject.

Elizabeth’s Lectionary–Payoff

After detailing some of the changes that occurred with the 1561 revision of the 1559 Daily Office Lectionary (you may want to review the previous post), it’s time to take a look at what it all means. For me, at least, there are several things that jump out at me.

User Experience

One of the big changes here is the user experience. With Cranmer’s original plan, you could stick three bookmarks in your Bible—one for the OT, one for the Gospels/Acts, one for the NT Epistles—and watch them proceed through each year in a virtually unbroken march. Thus, in the active user experience, continuity and coverage is in the foreground. With this revision, I wouldn’t say that daily march is broken, but it’s certainly disturbed. The reason is that we’re no longer dealing with a single sequential pass through the Old Testament; instead, we’re experiencing two and a half! As in Cranmer’s plan, there is a single overarching sequence that moves through the Old Testament throughout the calendar year. However, there’s now another sequential series that is appointed for Sundays. It’s a miniaturized version of the bigger cycle and, presumably, aims to hit the high points for the slackers who only get their offices on Sundays. Thus, you now have the main cycle running concurrently with the Sunday “greatest hits” cycle. But it gets worse—the Sanctoral OT readings pick up where the Sunday OT readings left off: in the Wisdom Literature. So, not only do you have these two cycles moving in loose parallel, you also have to add in dips into the Wisdom Lit for most of the red-letter days which occur at a rate of about two each month. Hence, two and a half cycles… The result is that you have to do a bit more jumping around for the OT readings.

Red-Letter Awareness

The assignment of OT lessons to the red-letter days was a real shift away from the 1552 policy and the incorporation of these lessons into the 1561 kalendar meant that they could no longer be ignored because they were in a different table as in the 1559 edition. Just to recap, a red-letter day gets its name from the old manuscript kalendars where the more important feast days would be written in red ink rather than black. This tendency continued into the age of printing and some of the BCPs from various times and places will have red letters for the major holy days or at least a distinctive font. Functionally, these tend to be the days where the apostles and other New Testaments saints were celebrated. Something interesting is going on with these… A few of them were singled out for attention by Cranmer in the 1549 kalendar; he appointed special New Testament readings for Stephen, John, Paul, Barnabas, and Peter. With the exception of John, these readings were from Acts and give some scriptural backing to the saint being celebrated. Notice what happens with this lectionary, though. The kalendar calls attention to these days by making an alteration in the Scriptural pattern. However, the readings appointed give absolutely no information about the saint; the point is not directed edification towards the individual being honored. Instead, it seems that a link is forged between notions of sanctity and the so-called “orthodox wisdom” traditions found pre-eminently in Proverbs, Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus. That is, these traditions bolster the notion that right action brings divine favor. (These are counter-balanced canonically by the so-called “wisdom in revolt” traditions of Job and Ecclesiastes that rightly point out that crap happens to the righteous too.) As the wisdom tradition moves into the apocryphal, Hellenistic books of Wisdom of Solomon and Ecclesiasticus, right action tends to be identified much more closely with obedience to Scripture (Torah, to be precise, but not narrowly so). I see in this otherwise unusual pattern a statement that sanctity is grounded in right—Scriptural—action. I think this is quite in line with Reformation anxieties around the saints; this is a means of both preserving the observances and re-emphasizing the importance of Scripture. The new addition of Leviticus 26 (which hadn’t ever been present in the lectionary before) seems to underscore this emphasis on the keeping of Scripture.

Continued Ceremonial Hacking

A renewed emphasis on the obedience to Scripture also requires new safeguards against Scripture taken to an extreme–“Judaizing.” One of the occasional features of certain factions of the continental Radical Reformation was an over-zealous adoption of Torah regulations on Christian communities. Of the Torah material, the most suppressed material is that relating to religious observance and the ceremonial aspects of Israelite religion. Was this due to a fear that the simpler folk might decide to worship according to Jewish customs and traditions? Who knows… What canbe said is that the 1561 lectionary shows an even greater suppression of biblical material related to cultic worship. The overall effect is that fewer and fewer passages are read that show God legislating ceremonial worship, and the care and cost taken around implements, ornaments, and vestments for divine service. Can we see in this a more puritanical turn that strikes against both Jewish and Catholic traditions at a single blow? Yeah—I think so. This lectionary leaves even fewer Scriptural warrants for defenders of Christian ornament and ceremonial than previous versions.

People and Places

The big losers here are, of course, genealogies and long lists of Ancient Near Eastern place names. This is really no surprise; few people find these passages particularly entertaining and if there’s a renewed emphasis on edification, then it’s no surprise that these chapters got the boot. Is there a theological argument to be made in defense of these passages? Of course—we may not find them edifying in their particulars, but they are edifying specifically because of the principle of particularity. That is, they remind us that God tends not to work in the abstract. Instead, he works with particular tribes, and families, and individuals—who knows, maybe even us… There is an incarnational aspect to particularity which can teach us something even if all the Hebrew names blur together after a while. Keeping that little lesson in mind, I have a feeling that we won’t see many of these chapters coming back as we move through the rest of lectionary tradition.

Theological Issues

Only one chapter seems to be removed due to theological reasons, and that’s Job 23. We mentioned wisdom-in-revolt above, and Job is seriously revolting in this passage. He decries the absence of God in his experience of suffering and questions the justice of God more starkly here than anywhere else that I can recall. I can’t prove it, but my guess is that this chapter was removed because the editors were too uncomfortable with its content.

Suppression of Magic

The other interesting disappearances are the targeted removals of certain apocryphal chapters. The loss of Tobit 5, 6, and 8, the trimming of Ecclesiasticus 46, and the dropping of Daniel 14 seem to be connected by a common thread—they all have something to do with magic and the supernatural. Remember now, this was the age of John Deeand angel magic. I have a feeling that the Hellenistic spirit of enchantment hit just a little too close to home in the Elizabethan age, and that the editors removed these lest they fuel the fire and suggest that these practices had Scriptural support.

Summary

In conclusion, it’s my contention that the 1561 revision of the Daily Office Lectionary represents the culmination of a shift away from the chief principle of the 1549 lectionary. Cranmer started with the principle of coverage and arranged his lectionary accordingly. By his 1552 revision, we’d already seen some cracks appear and the suppression of certain material. This accelerated with the 1559 edition and by the 1561 version it’s clear that we have a new chief criterion pushed by the queen—edification. Don’t get me wrong: coverage was still important and the vast majority of the OT and NT was still being read on a yearly basis. Two main things are going on. First, the less edifying readings are being culled in order to foreground the more edifying—particularly the “orthodox wisdom” passages. Second, there is an awareness of the special role and requirements for Sunday reading. Elizabeth’s lectionaries reflect the first acknowledgement that not everybody is going to be following along day-by-day and that Sundays have a special role. If people are only going to hear two chapters of Old Testament a week (Sunday morning and evening), then let’s make sure that it’s going to be something edifying rather than whatever random chapters happen to roll around.

Elizabeth’s Lectionary, Cont.

According to Procter and Frere’s history of the BCP, Elizabeth’s letter to her ecclesiastical council written on January 22, 1561 had little impact on the lectionary.

They were wrong.

The kalendar revision of 1561 was the biggest shift in both kalendar and Daily Office lectionary policy since the production of the first Book of Common Prayer. 1561 represents a sweeping reform that fully embeds the modifications from 1559 into the kalendar system, moves the devotional clock “back” towards late Sarum practice, and establishes a new guiding hermeneutic for how biblical lessons are assigned through the year.

So—what precisely happened here? First, 1560 happened and the translation of the 1559 Book of Common Prayer into Latin. When we look at the kalendar of the Liber Precum Publicarum (LPP), two things are immediately obvious. First, the Daily Office readings are identical with the 1559 book. (As far as I’ve determined… I’ve been surprised on this in the past, though.)

Second, the kalendar has exploded with commemorations. Most every day of the year has a black-letter observance. The exact source of all of the commemorations is not easy to trace. According to Vernon Staley (one of the the greats of the English Use movement), there are four negative indicators that these were taken up from the kalendars of the Sarum Missal and Breviary. In both the LPP kalendar and the Sarum kalendars:

Neither Joseph, adoptive father of Our Lord nor Joseph of Arimathea are present
There is an absence of Scottish and Irish saints with the sole exception of Bridget
Certain Western greats are conspicuously absent: viz. Anselm, Aquinas, and Bernard
There is an absence of the Eastern saints–even the two directly mentioned in the prayer book (Athanasius and Chrysostom)

The 1561 kalendar revision is a slimmed-down version of the 1560 LPP kalendar. Staley states:

It is exceedingly difficult to determine on what principles the four commissioners proceeded in compiling the list of black-letter or minor saints days, which we find in our present Kalendar [Ed.: he means the 1662 kalendar]. The selection has, to say the least, an appearance of caprice and inconsistency which is almost, if not altogether, impossible to justify.

. . .

Broadly speaking, the holy days in the Kalendar of the Book of Common Prayer correspond to the Feasts of Nine Lessons in the Sarum books. It does not seem improbable that the compilers of the Kalendar of 1561, which is practically our present Kalendar, took the Feasts of Nine Lessons in the Sarum books as their working basis, making such modifications as they felt desirable ; though this theory by no means disposes of all difficulties and inconsistencies as to omissions and additions which are presented to students of the Kalendar of the Prayer Book.

Thus, the sanctoral revision of 1561 is best thought of as a capricious rendering of the more important feasts of the Sarum kalendars.

When it comes to the Scripture dispositions, things are a bit different.

The first change between the 1561 kalendar and the ones that came before it is that all of the red-letter days from the proper lessons table have been thoroughly incorporated into the yearly round. Thus, days like Candlemas, the Annunciation, St Matthew and St Luke all receive their own proper OT lessons. On the surface this is a small change as these lessons had already been in the proper tables of the 1559 book. What makes this so important is the effect that it has on the rest of the year. The chapters appointed for Sundays and Holy Days were also retained without exception in the in-course reading cycle (so they would be read twice every year, once on the Holy Day and once where they fit within the canon). But, in order to make room for these proper OT readings, 38 chapters of Scripture had to be cut in order to let the rest of the cycle function as it should.

Cranmer’s original prime directive of comprehensiveness—reading through all of Scripture every year—has just moved into second place. It has been replaced by “edification.” Comprehensiveness is self-evident: you’ve either read through all the chapters or you haven’t. Edification is a fundamentally interpretive criterion: what is edifying is based on what the selectors deem to be edifying.

So—38 chapters had to go. To put this in perspective, it would be like losing one large book of Scripture (like cutting the entire book of Job) or losing more than half of the minor prophets (those twelve books contain only 69 chapters between them). What got cut? We’ll go sequentially through the year:

January loses Exodus 6 (a narrative reduplication of God’s promise to Moses and Israel concluding with the genealogy of Moses)
The usual jump from Exodus 24 to 32 is retained
Exodus 35 and 40 on the construction & erection of the tabernacle get dropped
Leviticus 26 gets added back in (details blessings and curses on those who keep or don’t keep God’s law)
Numbers gets savaged, losing 10 (silver trumpets, order of march), 15 (sacrificial regulations), 18-19 (sacrifice, red heifer), 26 (second census of Israel), 28-29 (sacrifices), 33 (stages of march), 34 (boundaries of land, naming of leaders)
March loses Deuteronomy 23 (no eunuchs, foreigners in sanctuary, on noct. emissions, prostitutes, usury, etc.)
The reduplication of Joshua chapters that we had seen in the 1552-9 ends, but the readings now jump from 10 to 23, dropping more chapters than before and wrapping with Joshua’s final address
Ezra begins at ch. 2, leaving out 1 (edict of release and return of temple treasures), 8 (appointment of priests and vessels), and 10 (condemnation of foreign brides, list of priests and levites who had married them)
Nehemiah missing 3 (builders of sections of wall), 7 (registration of the nation), 11-12 (naming of leaders, dedication of wall)
Omits Job 23 (Job’s cry of dereliction on the absence of God)
Prov 30 (sayings of Agur) omitted
A note on MP on July 26th states that Dan 13 is read until the end of Susanna, omitting Bel & the dragon; no Dan 14, Prov 30 [left out earlier] takes its place instead
Tobit is read in course on Sep 28th, break for Michael, continues on 30th, then on October 1st replacing Tobit 5 (angel travels with Tobit), and 6 (fish magic) are replaced with excised Exodus 6 minus genealogy and Joshua 20 (appointment of the cities of refuge);Tobit 7 picks up on MP of the 2nd. Joshua 22 (Joshua’s instructions to the Reubenites) replaces Tobit 8 (exorcism) at EP on 2nd
The note on Ecclesiasticus 46 seems to indicate that the last verse is left off, the one speaking of Samuel’s prophecy after death.
Isaiah begins on EP of December 23 with the ending of Baruch

In summary, we see a few things going on here. There’s a continued curtailing of the law which, again, seems to focus on descriptions of ritual worship. We also see some consistent moves against genealogical material and the mass listings of tribes and people and foreign places. Some of the more objectionable material is dropped from Job and from the apocryphal narratives.

I’ll unpack some of the implications of these cuts in another post (lest this one get hideously long…).

The St. Bede Blog

Formerly haligweorc; Liturgical Spirituality for the Episcopal Church