A Treat for Alcuin’s Day

Happy feast of Alcuin!

Obligitory collect rant…

If you did Morning Prayer today according to the Episcopal scheme you probably saw this collect…:

Almighty God, who in a rude and barbarous age didst raise up thy deacon Alcuin to rekindle the light of learning: Illumine our minds, we pray thee, that amid the uncertainties and confusions of our own time we may show forth thy eternal truth; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

…which has to rank among my least favorites. “Rude and barbarous age”? Really? Here’s the one I’ve proposed in its place:

Almighty God, who didst raise up thy servant Alcuin as a beacon of learning: Shine, we pray, in our hearts, that in our generation we may show forth thy praise, for thou didst call us out of darkness into thy marvelous light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Light remains the theme, but I think this one works a bit better than the other.

Ok—here’s an Alcuin-related treat for those of you with an interest in the early medieval stuff. Over the past month or so, I’ve been slowly working through this dissertation from the University of York: The Meaning, Practice and Context of Private Prayer in Late Anglo-Saxon England (PDF). Here’s the abstract:

This thesis is a detailed discussion of the relatively neglected subject of private prayer in late Anglo-Saxon England, mainly focusing on three eleventh-century monastic codices: the Galba Prayerbook (London, British Library Cotton Nero A. ii + Galba A. xiv), Ælfwine’s Prayerbook (London, British Library Cotton Titus D. xxvii + xxvi) and the Portiforium of St Wulstan (Cambridge, Corpus Christi College 391). Chapter One provides a background to the following chapters by introducing a wide variety of English and Continental texts from the ninth century. This chapter demonstrates the many different prayer genres, prayer guides and attitudes to prayer which would be inherited by the late Anglo-Saxons. Chapter Two, which focuses on private adaptations of the canonical Offices, examines the different manuscript contexts in which private prayers were found. It argues that series of prayers were combined into increasingly sophisticated ordines for personal devotion, and that it was from these that the Special Offices arose. Chapter Three applies these concepts to prayers to the Holy Cross. After a discussion of the evidence for prayer before a cross, and involving the sign of the cross, it examines private prayer programmes based on the liturgy for Good Friday and those from which the Special Office of the Cross developed. Chapter Four turns to private confessions, arguing that these prayers were somewhat different from those hitherto discussed. It therefore begins with an exploration of the many kinds of confession which existed in the late Anglo-Saxon church, before examining a number of private confessional prayers in detail. Throughout this thesis, emphasis is placed on the bodily experience of prayer in its time and place, and upon the use of each text as it is found in the prayerbooks of eleventh-century England.

Alcuin is a major figure in the first two chapters. Alcuin’s letters speak quite a bit about private prayer in connection with the psalms, and the thesis investigates a major treatise attributed to Alcuin, De laude psalmorum.

I’ll be writing more about this thesis and the material it works with in the future, but if you have the time and interest, I highly recommend it!

Reflecting on the Weekend

I had a lot of fun this weekend down at Holy Trinity, Decatur. It was great to catch up with the rector, Greg Tallant, (M went through the discernment process with him and we are all at General together during our time there) and to hang out with Jenna Strizak and Ashley Lytle; Rob and Susan Ashemore were extremely gracious hosts!

In terms of my talks, we were all over the map, touching on several different aspects of the prayer book. Friday focused on the patterns and habits of the prayer book with a special focus on family life. Generally we fussed around topics of prayer, prayer disciplines, and the place and formation of the psalms. We even did some psalm singing together as we discussed corporate discernment of the Spirit and breath in the classic method of singing the psalter.

Saturday focused on saints and the prayer book. Coming out of my experiences co-chairing the Calendar subcommittee, we dove into the prayer book itself and looked carefully at the Calendar, the Baptismal Covenant, and the sections on Burial to get a solid sense of how the prayer book implictly constructs sanctity in a church that truly includes all the baptized—both living and dead. Then we made the constructive turn and talked about a specific and positive theology of sanctity and how such a theology follows naturally from and serves as the capstone to a theology of sacramental discipleship.

On Sunday morning we visited the Communion Without Baptism controversy as a way to open up conversation about topics around  inclusivity, church identity, our practices of hospitality, and the role of the sacraments within a life of discipleship. The discussion around the issue was honest and open and difficult and was a great opportunity to wrestle with some of the important thoughts and feelings that this topic stirs within the church.

As a presenter, I couldn’t have asked for a better audience—they were attentive, thoughtful, and more than happy to ask questions and push back, particularly in the CWOB session.

Two thoughts as I reflect on it…

First, there truly is a theology of sanctity hidden within our prayer book that is intimately connected to and has deep implications for a robust baptismal ecclesiology. Working over the texts together with this group made me even more convinced. It’s just not obvious or expressed enough. More work needs to be done on making this theology known.

Second, as I was putting together my thoughts around the CWOB discussion, I kept thinking about the ways that anxiety and church identity are present within this topic. My tendency and the tendency of a lot of others who hold to the traditional pattern is to want to make it about sacramental theology. And, it is a matter of sacramental theology—but that’s only part of it. To approach it purely from that angle is pastorally lacking. I came away from the discussion itself with a stronger conviction than ever that the pastoral angle is an important one. This topic touches on a deep woundedness in many of our people. It calls up and taps into ways that they have been hurt by the church—or a church. We do the conversation as a whole a disservice when we do not acknowledge this and when our rhetoric is insensitive to it.

So—all in all, a great weekend that generated a lot of stuff to think about further…

On the End of Scripture

Imagine the balls it takes to write a book on Scripture interpretation, then to basically say that there comes a point when you don’t need the Bible any more…

I’ve been re-read the work of that rank revisionist—Augustine of Hippo—who says just that at the end of Book 1 of On Christian Teaching. It’s a passage that gives me pause every time I read it, and I’ve thought about it quite a bit (off and on) over the last few years. Here’s the text:

 43. And thus a man who is resting upon faith, hope and love, and who keeps a firm hold upon these, does not need the Scriptures except for the purpose of instructing others. Accordingly, many live without copies of the Scriptures, even in solitude, on the strength of these three graces. So that in their case, I think, the saying is already fulfilled: Whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away [1 Corinthians 13:8]. Yet by means of these instruments (as they may be called), so great an edifice of faith and love has been built up in them, that, holding to what is perfect, they do not seek for what is only in part perfect— of course, I mean, so far as is possible in this life; for, in comparison with the future life, the life of no just and holy man is perfect here. Therefore the apostle says: Now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity: [1 Corinthians 13:13] because, when a man shall have reached the eternal world, while the other two graces will fail, love will remain greater and more assured. De Doc. Chr. I.39.43

Now, for Augustine a full and intimate association with Scripture is necessary as these three virtues are being developed. Indeed, I don’t think he can conceive of a person learning them correctly without lots of time and effort spent with Scripture. Despite that, I find this fascinating. This is full and complete possession of the Mind of Christ—when the virtues are strong enough that a person’s instincts and inclinations will be on point whether they’re referring to the book or not.

Broadly, I think he’s tapping into a Pauline spirit here. Paul gives rules and lists but is always at his strongest when he’s talking virtue. As such, I always give more credence to a virtue-based argument coming out of Paul than a rule-based argument…

On the Collect for the Departed

A whole bunch of things are swirling around in my brain around the dead, saints, and theology thanks to discussions about the SCLM report, the talks I’m going to be doing in Atlanta next weekend (more on this in a little bit!), and the latest edition of the Collect Call which focused on the collect for the Departed.  If you’re not listening to the Collect Call and/or recommending it to your parishioners, you really ought to be. Brendan and Holli do a great job of looking at the collects and discussing the theology in them in a very accessible way. A few points, some in response to the episode, others that I just think need to be said…

1. Baptismal Ecclesiology!!

I don’t like it when certain liturgical, biblical, or theological phrases are co-opted by church politics and their functional meaning is reduced to address a very specific issue. I’ve often said that I fear this is the case with the phrase “baptismal ecclesiology.” A plain and literal meaning of this phrase means that we are talking about Church as it is fundamentally and uniquely formed by Baptism and the necessary and inherent corollaries of that fact. The way that it tends to get used in church talk, though, is to indicate either a construct of the church as a non-hierarchical institution (oddly, this perspective seems to be insisted upon by certain priests and leaders who impose it in a hierarchical kind of way…) or following the catch-phrase for Integrity “all the sacraments for all the baptized” promoting the full inclusion of lgbt folks in the life of the church.

Now, personally, while I totally support the roles of bishops, priests, and deacons and acknowledge an inherent hierarchy there, I am for a less hierarchical practice of being church. As I was saying to a clergy friend on Facebook, as a layman I do get tired of “clergysplaining”—when someone dismisses me on the basis that they wear a collar and I don’t. Also, I do support the full inclusion of lgbt folks in the church. However, the apparent attempt to reduce the term “baptismal ecclesiology” to these two specific referrents drives me crazy.

If we say that we are interested in and care about a true baptismal ecclesiology, then it means thinking through all of the various aspects of what that means—and that was one of my big beefs with Holy Women, Holy Men. This collect gets it exactly right:

Eternal Lord God, you hold all souls in life: Give to your whole Church in paradise and on earth your light and your peace; and grant that we, following the good examples of those who have served you here and are now at rest, may at the last enter with them into your unending joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

This is precisely an expression of baptismal ecclesiology! The church consists of all the baptized, not just the-baptized-who-happen-to-be-bodily-living-right-now. This is part of why getting our theology of sanctity and saints right is important! All souls who have been baptized are, in the words of Colossians, “hid with Christ in God” and are plugged into the life of God in a greater and grander way than before. The physically dead still remain part of our community—which is the entire logic of church-yard cemetaries.

We need to be thinking and talking about baptismal ecclesiology in its broader sense and not just allow it to be narrowed for use as political language.

2. When to Use This Collect

The collects for Various Occasions grew out of the old notion of votive masses. Briefly, with a multiplication of priests who were each bound to say a daily mass, early medieval monasteries and cathedrals needed something else to celebrate other than the Mass of the Day from the Temporal cycle as that mass could only be celebrated once. The solution was votives. Masses were said for particular intentions and a standard weekly pattern evolved:

John Beleth in the thirteenth century describes a series of votive Masses once said (fuit quoddam tempus) each day in the week: on Sunday, of the Holy Trinity; Monday, for charity; Tuesday, for wisdom; Wednesday, of the Holy Ghost; Thursday, of the Angels; Friday, of the Cross; Saturday, of the Blessed Virgin (Explic. div. offic., 51).  (Ibid.)

These changed over the centuries as certain causes and personages waxed and waned in the church’s favor. However, take a look at these and then at the first several items appointed for Various Occasions: “Of the Holy Trinity,” “Of the Holy Spirit,” “Of the Holy Angels,” “Of the Holy Cross,” etc. Coincidence? No.

One of the most common votives throughout history in the Christian West was the Requiem—the Mass for the Dead. It was said for a particular person on the day they died, the third day after they died (in token of the resurrection), then on the anniversaries: the week (7 days later), the month (30 days later), and then yearly from then on. In some times and places, the Mass for the Dead for the community (rather than for a specific individual) was said on any ferial day. In some places, the pratice was to do a solemn Requiem for the whole community on the first Friday of every month. Some priests were paid stipends in wills to say daily Masses of the Dead for wealthy benefactors.

Most modern Christians tend to look askance at these sorts of practices, and—partly due to Reformation polemics—tend to see the last practice of bequeathing masses as a bald tactic by the Church for diverting the fortunes of the faithful into their coffers. I’m not saying that there isn’t truth to this critique, but I also have to point out that, due in part to this focus, the medieval church had a far better sense of the expanse of a baptismally-shaped church than we do!

In addition, the Offices for the Dead were supplemental versions of the Office prayed in addition to the regular hours on behalf of the dead. In some places, these offices were done at particular set times, in others it was done every day. Again, thinking of late medieval wills, some of the wealthy set aside money to be paid out to poor men who would pray the Office of the Dead daily for them.

This constant prayer for the dead generally and specific dead individuals helped retain a sense of community through time, seeing the living and the dead in close communion. If we were serious about a baptismal ecclesiology, this might be a practice worth considering. Hence, I include both the Traditional form and a Contemporary form of the Offices of the Dead at the St. Bede’s Breviary. Note that the aforementioned collect is the one used in these offices.

3. No Prayers for the Dead in “I Will Bless You…”

Huh… I hadn’t realized that. I’ll have to poke around and find out what’s up with this.

 

 

Working Out Bugs

Still fussing with some stuff to make sure that everything is fully functional.

Could someone post some comments here? I haven’t seen any yet, and want to make sure that’s working properly. If you’re trying to but are unable, please shoot me a note at haligweorc(at)hotmail(dot)com.

The Liturgical Addendum

My sincere apologies to the General Convention translation crew… The appendix to the Standing Commission on Liturgy & Music (SCLM) resolutions has now been made public. It can be found here (in a 264 page pdf…). The first section contains the materials on same-sex blessings. A second part contains the material generated by my Calendar Subcommittee. Of that part there are three major sections. The third contains resources for Honoring God in Creation.

The first section of the Calendar material is the revised collects. These go from page 152 to page 171. Generally, what you’ll find here is a move away from the “biographical collect.” Introduced in the 1980 revision of Lesser Feasts & Fasts, the biographical collect tends to functionally serve as a mini-homily in prayer form. It tends not to formally be a collect as a collect is one sentence long; these tend to be two sentences. Instead of stressing elements of biography or profession, the new collects try to foreground virtues and charisms. That is, the new revisions attempt a deeper connection with Baptism and the Baptismal Covenant.  Baptism doesn’t give a person a profession. That is, one isn’t baptized as a lawyer or a musician or a teacher. Rather, Baptism opens us to the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the virtues of Christ. As a result, most of the revisions attempt to reflect this theological understanding grounded in Baptism, and focus on charisms and virtues rather than accidents of profession and biography.

The second section contains the prefatory material for “A Great Cloud of Witness” (GCW) which introduces a new paradigm for understanding the materials formerly submitted as Holy Women, Holy Men.  This material goes from page 172 to page 217. I’ll expand on this later, but there are two central shifts here. The first central shift is from the Calendar as martyrology to the Calendar as necrology. That is, the SCLM is not saying that the people listed in GCW are saints. Rather, these are people whom we recognize as part of our broader family of faith who have helped the Episcopal Church understand who it is and how it proclaims the Gospel in this time and place. Saints are not declared by a “central committee” but by local communities who may choose all, some, or none of the folks listed in GCW as they discern holiness and sanctity within the bounds of a prayer-book faith. The second central shift is from propers to commons. Instead of trying to assign appropriate propers—Scripture readings in particular—to every single person in the book, the Commons of Saints have been greatly expanded and the individual entries suggest which Commons would be appropriate sources from which to select biblical readings if a given individual is deemed to be a saint by the local worshipping community.

The third section is a companion to GCW. Entitled “Weekday Eucharistic Propers: 2015”, its presence underscores the fact that all of the contents of GCW are entirely optional. Thus, it presents three among many licit options for celebrating weekday Eucharists by 1) collecting the options for following the Temporal Cycle together into a coherent structure, 2) giving greater visibilty to the sadly neglected Various Occasions, and 3) giving options for eucharistically celebrating saints as determined by the local community. This material goes from pages 218 to page 228.

I will be saying more about these materials as time allows and as you ask questions for clarification!

Blog Revamp

After a decade, it’s time to rework the blog and my approach to it.

When I picked the name “haligweorc” it seemed like a good choice—I was hip-deep in my dissertation, working with a lot of Old English, and was writing it semi-anonymously. The name worked perfectly well. Fast-forward ten years, and it’s better known as the blog that nobody can pronounce… So—while I still like haligweorc, I’ve opted for something a little easier to spell and to say!

Welcome to the new St. Bede Blog. Obviously, there’s a clear reference here to the St. Bede’s Breviary, my online Daily Office site. In many ways, that initiative represents one large and important strand of my ministry: presenting digital tools to introduce the contemporary Church to classic Christian liturgical spirituality. Others have appreciated the work of the breviary, and I have built several related web apps using the core code; St. Bede Productions serves as an umbrella for this code-work and for some other projects currently under development.

As I complete the shift to a new domain and build out the site, the St. Bede Productions projects will get more visibility including the top two, the Anglican Breviary Online and the Anglican Gradual & Sacramentary. The Anglican Breviary Online is still very much in progress and there is work going on behind the scenes as the transcription work moves forward. Too, I am hosting the Anglican Gradual & Sacramentary files and have plans to migrate much of this content to a databased/xml format for ease of use down the road. Several mobile app adaptations are also in the works, some in conjunction with Forward Movement.

If programming digital tools is one facet of my ministry, the other is teaching as represented by my writing. The blog will remain a central venue for that. Links to my more formal writing and publications appear on the Publications page.

The format of the site is new; if it looks like others you may have seen that might not entirely be accidental… I have to thank Fr. Scott Gunn for the recommendation of the Hueman theme for WordPress. I’m still playing with the widgets and such. The blogroll is a complete restart and I’ve left off a whole lot of people and will be continue to add to that in the weeks to come; if you’re a regular conversant and I haven’t gotten you on yet, drop me a note to be sure that I do.

I’ll post full links to the expanded site as the domain shifts settle down.

The Baltimore Riots

Many readers know that I live in the northern part of South Baltimore. We’re less than a mile away from the Inner Harbor, the downtown area and Camden Yards where the Orioles play. While many people watching the events unfolding here can do so as spectators, it’s a little more personal for us.

So far, everything has been quiet in our part of town; the unrest has largely happened in West Baltimore although the activity in Fells Point was not far from here (it’s on the northern side of the Inner Harbor).  That having been said, we’re keeping our eye on things and will be particularly attentive on Friday when we expect more details about the Freddie Gray case to be made public.

A few thoughts, not necessarily coherently connected…

First, I object to media reports about demonstrators turning violent. This is imprecise and misleading language. There have been demonstrations through the week with an especially large demonstration on Saturday; in our Adult Forum Sunday we got a full run-down of the events there as two of the women from our church—who are lawyers with the ACLU—were present, one as an official Legal Observer. Their observations were that the demonstrators were predominately local people demonstrating peacefully and only a small fraction were violdent. Too, they said that there was a very heavy police presence but that it was marked by restartaint. Even when they saw demonstrators throw water bottles or rocks at the police, the officers did not respond to the provocations.

What happened yesterday was not demonstrating turning violent. Rather, it was the deliberate creation of opportunistic chaos. Most of the violence I saw on TV and heard about was done by juveniles. In the footage—particularly the day-time footage of activity near Mondawmin Mall—notice the prevalence of light blue and orange shirts; in that section of the city, orange is the school uniform for middle schoolers, and light blue is for high schoolers (middle schoolers wear green in my neighborhood…)   This activity was not protest at an unjust system as much as opportunistic criminal behavior to loot local (local!) community businesses under the cover of a larger situation of unrest.

Second, I think the situation here can help us ask some important questions. Is there an unjust system in place here? Yes. There is a serious problem in the way that policing is carried out in Baltimore. However, where the Baltimore system is helpful and instructive is the way that it differs from some of the other locations where unrest has occurred and problems have surfaced. Baltimore gives us the opportunity to see some of the more complex and worrisome dynamics that were masked in other places.

The chief narrative here is race. The key slogan is “Black Lives Matter.” And I totally agree with that. After Mass on Sunday, we collectively left the nave and stood by the well-travelled Highway 40 holding signs saying “Black Lives Matter” which prompted at least one motorist to yell back, “All lives matter!” Driving home the girls and I unpacked this. My take is that yes, of course all lives matter, but at this time and place the specificity of “Black lives” helps us to better see the generality of “all lives.” Because “all lives” are not threatened in the particular and systemic ways that attention is showing that “Black lives” are.  Therefore the focus on “Black lives” is helpful and necessary to accomplish the goal of “all lives.”

That having been said, the topic of race is Baltimore is more complicated here than in other places. Our police commissioner is Black. Our mayor is Black. Of the fifteen members of the Baltimore City Council, seven—including the Council President—are Black. I would guess that roughly half of the Baltimore City Police that I see are people of color; Wikipedia says that in the O’Malley administration (2 mayors ago, now), 43% of the force was African-American. According to the 2010 census, 63.7% of the city inhabitants are African-American. All that having been said, recent investigations into police brutality by the Baltimore Sun don’t make easy reading and the city has paid out $5.7 million in compensation to victims of police brutality. (I don’t know how this compares to other cities, though—and without a decent basis for comparison, I’m not sure what this number means except that it sure looks big!)

What this says to me is that 1) it’s not just about which individuals are in the seats of power. Systemic injustice can be a reality despite the current composition of the local government.

Furthermore, 2) an overly-directed focus on race can obscure the role of class which I think is a very important part of this conversation. Race and class are inextricably tangled in the American social situation and I wouldn’t argue otherwise; white privilege and the legacy of an unjust system that allowed White America to build wealth and pass it down through inheritance (enabling the emergence of and solidifying the American middle class) in ways largely denied to Black America is an essential part of this mix. I think that the reality of pervasive injustice and brutality despite people of color in the highest levels of city governance reveals  the problem here is not just race alone. Rather, it’s about how authority can be and is abused by those in power.

I don’t know much about city politics. What little I do know appears to back up a rather widespread perception on the ground that the corruption is a huge issue in the city government.  Who has power, how they wield it, and who has oversight is a more complicated set of issues and are far harder to tweet about than race but are major factors in the persistent inequity here.

3) The inequity and crime and some of the issues around policing are directly connected to our heroin epidemic; to ignore it or to say otherwise is disingenuous and misleading. We can’t deal with the issues here without addressing the drug trade.

Third, what is particularly affecting to me is that the burning and looting did not occur in particularly privileged sections or even in “common areas” like downtown, but in the neighborhoods that are already economically depressed. It was a big deal for West Baltimore when the Target and Shoppers moved in. It requires a certain amount of trust on the part of the corporations.  One of the main areas of media attention was the looting and burning of a CVS at North & Pennsylvania. Do you think CVS will be eager to set up shop there again? Will major retailers be willing to invest in these neighborhoods? Yes, the consumers are there, but will that outweigh the risks?

Furthermore, a lot of the looting happened to locally-owned mom-and-pop stores. So—the very people in the community who were providing economic opportunities to the area are now—literally—paying for it.

There’s much more to say, but this’ll be it for now… Please pray for peace in Baltimore, and work for it where ever you happen to be.

Reading Matthew with Monks: Physical Edition!

When M, the girls and I got back from the Boston Marathon late last night, there was a slip indicating that a package was waiting for me at my neighbor’s house. After taking the girls to school this morning, I went by and collected it. And here’s what it contained:

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Fifteen copies of my first full-length single-authored book!

As a few of you may remember, I originally started this blog ten years ago to provide an outlet for both thoughts and distractions while working away at my dissertation. That process finished in 2009 with my defense, and then officially with my graduation in 2011. Now, that work is being made public in (hopefully) a more accessible form than than the dissertation in this handsome publication from Liturgical Press.

I’m ecstatic that this work is finally here, and the fact that it is exists is, naturally, the result of a lot of patience and prodding from both my wonderful wife and also my incredible dissertation director who was kind enough to write the Foreword for the book.

I’ll have more to say about it later, most likely, but I’ll leave you here with the Table of Contents:

  • Introduction (Introductions to Hermeneutics, Reading Cultures, and Ælfric)
  • Chapter 1: How Monastic Living Shaped Reading
  • Chapter 2: How Monastic Praying Shaped Reading
  • Chapter 3: The Temptation and the Beatitudes (Ælfric’s sermons on Matt 4 and 5 put into context and placed in conversation with modern commentators)
  • Chapter 4: Two Healings and the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Maidens (Ælfric’s sermons on Matt 8 and 25 put into context and placed in conversation with modern commentators)
  • Conclusion: Bringing Early Medieval Voices into the Conversation
  • Chapter 4:

It had been showing in a “pre-order” state on its page on Amazon; now it says “Temporarily out of stock.” In any case, it exists now in physical form!

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SCLM Resolution on Article X

There has been a great deal of online discussion over the last couple of days regarding the intentions of the Standing Commission on Liturgy & Music around the Article X resolution. For those who don’t keep track of such things, Article X is the part of the Episcopal Church’s constitutions that deals with alterations to the Book of Common Prayer and other aspects of our worship life.

Here is what the SCLM has included in the Blue Book that touches on Article X—it cites the full article but recommends an addition that I have bolded below:

Resolution A000: Amend Article X of the Constitution: The Book of Common Prayer [first reading]

Resolved, the House of ________ concurring, That Article X of the Constitution is hereby amended to read as follows:

The Book of Common Prayer, as now established or hereafter amended by the authority of this Church, shall be in use in all the Dioceses of this Church. No alteration thereof or addition thereto shall be made unless the same shall be first proposed in one regular meeting of the General Convention and by a resolve thereof be sent within six months to the Secretary of the Convention of every Diocese, to be made known to the Diocesan Convention at its next meeting, and be adopted by the General Convention at its next succeeding regular meeting by a majority of all Bishops, excluding retired Bishops not present, of the whole number of Bishops entitled to vote in the House of Bishops, and by a vote by orders in the House of Deputies in accordance with Article I, Sec. 5, except that concurrence by the orders shall require the affirmative vote in each order by a majority of the Dioceses entitled to representation in the House of Deputies.

But notwithstanding anything herein above contained, the General Convention may at any one meeting, by a majority of the whole number of the Bishops entitled to vote in the House of Bishops, and by a majority of the Clerical and Lay Deputies of all the Dioceses entitled to representation in the House of Deputies, voting by orders as previously set forth in this Article:

a) Amend the Table of Lessons and all Tables and Rubrics relating to the Psalms.
b) Authorize for trial use throughout this Church, as an alternative at any time or times to the established Book of Common Prayer or to any section or Office thereof, a proposed revision of the whole Book or of any portion thereof, duly undertaken by the General Convention.
c) Provide for use of other forms for the renewal and enrichment of the common worship of this church for such periods of time and upon such terms and conditions as the General Convention may provide.

And Provided, that nothing in this Article shall be construed as restricting the authority of the Bishops of this Church to take such order as may be permitted by the Rubrics of the
Book of Common Prayer or by the Canons of the General Convention for the use of special forms of worship.

Explanation

The Constitution allows the General Convention to authorize alternative forms of worship only for trial use as a proposed revision of the Book of Common Prayer. Since the 1979 Book of Common Prayer was adopted, alternative forms of worship in the Enriching Our Worship series and in Liturgical Resources 1 have been authorized, even though these were not designated for trial use as a proposed revision of the BCP. In addition, a number of congregations are experimenting with other new liturgical forms. This amendment would create a clear constitutional basis for experimental liturgical reforms that are not intended for trial use as a proposed revision of the Book of Common Prayer, while ensuring common prayer through the use of authorized liturgical materials.

I first remember this coming up at the October meeting where we were putting the Blue Book together. Despite the occasional moment when I shoot my mouth off, I don’t consider myself a “church politics” person when it comes to things like constitutions and canons and such. Indeed, I didn’t quite catch what this was saying the first time around and, in fact, thought it said the opposite of what it is attempting to say. I still find the language and the placement of clauses in the explanation a little odd, but I don’t see it as a nefarious attempt to manipulate processes (more on this later…).

Ok—what is this trying to say, and why are we saying it? The addition itself is enabling General Convention to provide for “other forms” (read here–liturgies) aside from what is in the authorized books like the Book of Common Prayer and the Book of Occasional Services.  Why would we do this? The language is “for the renewal and enrichment of the common worship of this church.” Renewal and enrichment as opposed to “regular use.” So—we’re discussing the introduction of novelties and experiments here. This neither says nor implies that this change is giving permission to seek alternate liturgies to supplant those of the prayer book throughout the church. Furthermore, General Convention holds the keys: “for such periods of time and upon such terms and conditions as the General Convention may provide.” So, yes—there can be some experiments, but not a free-for-all, and these experiments ill be sanctioned and delineated by General Convention.

The Explanation portion provides some context and presents an intention for this addition. There’s a whole lot of backstory to this that I have neither the time nor the desire to get into at this point, but let me, instead, point you to Prayer Book Studies XV: The Problem and Method of Prayer Book Revision. If, like me, you might read this title and assume that it will talk about liturgical principles for change, you’d be quite wrong. Rather, it is an 18-page essay written in 1961 intended to persuade General Convention to pass a resolution including the notion and phrase of “trial use.” Here’s a key bit with clear application to the present resolution:

For the past three General Conventions (1952, 1955, and 1958) the Standing Liturgical Commission has offered with its report to the Convention a resolution seeking an amendment to Article X of the Constitution that would set up the possibility of trial use in any forthcoming revision of the Prayer Book. This resolution has been defeated in all three Conventions. The Commission is disturbed, not so much by its defeat, as by the fact that the proposal has not as yet been properly interpreted to the Convention. (PBS XV, 14)

Thus, in the days when the ’79 prayer book was but a twinkle in Massey Shepherd’s eye, there was legislative resistence to the idea of trial use, and when it did finally get passed it was with the constraint that such trial use be specifically intended for the purpose of prayer book revision.

As I understand it, this is still the way the official documents read: trial use is coupled with prayer book revision.

Jump closer to the present. We have the Enriching Our Worship series.  Well—what is it? We are not in a state of prayer book revision. Yet these things exist and are in trial use. Glancing over the prefaces of EOW 1, it appears that these documents were seen in continuity with and were passed in 1997 as the fourth edition of Supplement Liturgical Materials. I have no clue what this series or its canonical/constitutional status except that I think it may have been what Prayer Book Studies series morphed into. (Like I said, I don’t follow this kind of stuff, and all of these things happened before I became an Episcopalian…)

To put it bluntly, I think some canon lawyers messed up. EOW seems to exist in a legislative limbo  that is technically not permitted by the Constitutions. If something is “trial use” it is therefore for the purpose of “prayer book revision.” EOW is authorized for circumscribed “trial use,” but the language of “prayer book revision” has been studiously avoided.

Now we’re in a position to understand the Explanation and what the addition to Canon X is about. The only licit purpose for new GC-authorized liturgies as it currently stands is for prayer book revision. What this amendment is trying to do is to create an official grey area for “alternative forms of worship” to be used on a GC-circumscribed basis that are not necessarily nor inherently intended as part of prayer book revision. As I see it, it’s a retroactive “cover your butt” amendment for things like EOW and Daily Prayer for All Seasons (of which I’ve written in the past). And, of course, the “I Will Bless You” materials in Liturgical Resources 1—and that’s where people start going ballistic in multiple directions…

From where I sit, the point of this amendment is to define what these alternative forms of worship are constitutionally, and to say that they are not currently seen as part of the process of prayer book revision. I, for one, would be very happy to say that EOW and DPFAS exist but are not seen or thought of as replacement for material currently in the prayer book. Chiefly because I don’t think they measure up.

Two of the fellows of the Anglican Communion Institute are quite concerned about this change and see it as a harbinger of great changes to the church and its polity. They see this as the end of the former way of doing things and as the start of a new kind of church with new rules. I think that they are reading way to much into this and are neglecting the context, particularly the explanation. I’m quite sure in response they’d question my naiveté at such a reading.

Bottom line is, of course, do we need an Official Gray Area? I understand the desire for constitutional CYA and provision of a space to point to for the blessing liturgies. But I don’t know if this is the best way to go about doing it.

My own feeling—as I’ve said before—is that the period of reception for any given edition of the BCP ought to be measured in generations rather than years. I do think that waiting four hundred years is too long. But we also need to give the book time to percolate and work amongst the church. The energies are still stewing.

Another issue concerns the SCLM itself. Are we a commission that creates work for itself, then—on passage of the resolutions—insists that we only take up what Convention asks us too? That’s a genuine question. For me, I’d love to see a return to Prayer Book Studies where the SCLM and others are actively studying aspects of our liturgies—use, pastoral value, perception within the church, perception from various bodies outside the church, re-examination of the tradition and history in light of these discussions, etc.  Perhaps a Gray Area is best accomplished through those means.

There’s a lot up in the air. A great deal of the future direction of many of these matters depend on how the TREC resolutions develop. Will the SCLM be one of the last CCABs standing? Will it change is shape and purpose? Will it too be swept away altogther? I suppose we’ll all have to wait for the summer to see…