Emergent Monasticism?

There’s an item today at the Daily Episcopalian from one of the Community of Solitude folks.

I’ve heard bits and pieces about the whole “New Monasticism” movement and this group seems to be a version of it that appears particularly in Episcopal circles.

I, of course, have drunk from the streams of the “Old Monasticism” movement and am still not sure what to make of these groups. As I’ve mentioned in some private correspondence, my minds not made up partly because of one line that I’ve seen in the Community of Solitude’s material:

If an aspirant is married, we require a letter from the spouse
demonstrating their enthusiastic endorsement of the call and their understanding of the demands this will place on the family, especially in terms of time management and responsibilities. Only one spouse can be a Solitary.

I’ve added the emphasis.

What I like in this community’s documents (and I’ve fussed around the degree to which a dispersed group with a common bond can be considered a community here…) is that they share with classic monasticism the sense that the monastic way is not something above and beyond basic Christianity, rather, it is basic Christianity. However, according to their rule, only one member of a household can be an “authentic” Christian. I find that very problematic.

With the Mass-and-Office harmony of the BCP, I believe that our Anglican forebearers gave us a way to embrace the heart of the monastic vision in a way that made it possible for every memeber of the Church of England and her daughter institutions to be “authentic Christians” even according to the old monastic liturgical model.

I also think that it is interesting and instructive to see this in the same week that the All Saints Sisters of the Poor announced that they will leave the Episcopal Church to go to Rome. Call me a stick-in-the-mud, but I feel the loss of “Old Monasticism” communities more keenly than I feel joy at the springing up of “New Monasticism.”

I’m not sure where I’m going with this except to say there’s something about these new movements that both attracts me, and makes me wonder if they’re missing something important. As I type this, I hear the voice of my mentor in my head commenting on stability:

Stability is one thing in the abstract. But when you become a Benedictine, stability is the sudden realization that the guy in the stall next to you who sings everything just a half step flat will be there and doing that for the next fifty years…

I wonder if my hesitation has to do with a lack of that kind of in-the-bones stability with these movements.

Podcast Bleg

As M is responsible for Christian Ed at the parish and I think I’m being roped into some sort of official position, I’ve been thinking recently about podcasts. We don’t get a whole lot of participation from adults in our education programs, and one factor is weekday travel; quite a number of our parishioners do heavy-duty international travel and aren’t consistently available.

I’m thinking of starting a bimonthly Bible study of the Psalms. It’d be modular—one psalm a week so there’s a natural beginning and end—and people could drop in as they could.  But if I could podcast it… Even the international travelers could have the option of following along if they can’t physically be there.

So—what can y’all tell me about podcasting and churches? What’s the best way to make it accessible—post it at the church’s site or do an iTunes thing, or what?

The Episcopal “Reform of the Reform”

The Episcopal Church is passing through a watershed era. I believe that as the Baby Boomers begin to fade out and Generations X and Y begin asserting our voices, yet more changes remain on the horizon. As these changes are coupled with the growth of information technology, emerging/evolving soical media, and widespread social changes, I think we’re only at the start of a larger, more complicated, more convoluted process than we may suspect.

The Roman Expression

As I read the runes, I believe that one of the coalescing centers that will have an impact on the Episcopal Church to come will be a burgeoning “Reform of the Reform” movement. For those unfamiliar with the term, it is a movement within the Roman Catholic Church that seeks to understand the Reforms of Vatican II within a “hermeneutic of continuity” rather than a “hermeneutic of rupture.” I.e., proponents argue that much of what occurred after the council was not in keeping with either the texts or intentions of the Council Fathers and that many of the changes (and resulting abuses) were beholden to the “Spirit of Vatican II” rather than the texts of the same. (Apparently the Spirit of Vatican II may be recognized by its penchant for felt banners, guitars, and a faux folksy style of presentation…)

One of the central public expressions of this movement is the New Liturgical Movement blog. From perusing that site one can easily be led to believe that this reform is primarily about embracing the Traditional Latin Mass and colorful processions with lots of brocade and lace. Something deeper and more substantial lies below this superficial surface, however.  As I’ve said many times before, liturgical change is fundamentally theological change. Chant, baroque vestments, and classical ceremonial point to a set of theological issues promoted by this movement which include but are not exhausted by the following items:

  • Reclaiming the liturgical heritage of the Western Church in terms of texts, music and ceremonial
  • Emphasizing the liturgy as a central locus of the faith experience and highlighting classical qualities of God-centeredness, reverence, and solemn beauty
  • Re-energizing the new liturgies promulgated by Vatican II by emphasizing the continuity with the Traditional Latin rite
  • Connecting an embrace of the liturgy with  the classic doctrines of the faith
  • Recapturing the spirituality of the Liturgical Year through the emphasis on the official chant propers that ground the Liturgical Year as a fundamentally one-year cycle despite a three-year lectionary in the Novus Ordo

The strongest parts of this movement are not (as sometimes found in the comboxes of the NLM) those who seek a roll-back of Vatican II but those who appreciate the genuine advances of the council yet seek to restrain some of the excess committed in its name.

The Episcopal Expression

I suggest that there is a “Spirit of ’79” that was born from and exists in parallel to the “Spirit of Vatican II.” That is, the 1979 BCP embodied wide-spread changes that were rooted in the scholarship of the Liturgical Renewal that was embodied in Vatican II’s Novus Ordo liturgies. Like the Spirit of Vatican II, the Spirit of ’79 has understood the generous freedoms and liberality of the ’79 BCP as a authorization of liturgical license in general rather than a provision of space for legitimate options. Furthermore, I believe that this Spirit was not simply introduced in the texts but as part of a socio-liturgical movement. It’s no secret that many current Episcopalians are former Roman Catholics. Many, especially some of the more outspoken clergy, swam the Channel because they believed Vatican II did not go far enough and that the journey further could be facilitated within the Episcopal Church.

The time has come to say “enough” to the Spirit of ’79.

As in the best expression of our Roman cousins, I believe that we need to re-assert a hermeneutic of continuity—and not rupture—and embrace the ’79 BCP within the context of classical Anglican liturgy and theology and within the historic expression of the Christian Faith which we understand to be rooted in the Canon of Scripture, the Creeds, the Apostolic Succession, and the Great Sacraments.

What I will not say is that such a movement needs to be started; it already exists albeit in a variety of fragmented forms.

Indeed, I think that an Episcopal Reform of the Reform is the true home for Anglo-Catholics who remain within the Episcopal Church; after all, they were Reform of the Reform before there was a Reform… The movement for more visible creedal orthodoxy on the part of the Episcopal Church is part of this. So is a return of 20-30 somethings who prefer their churches to look and sound like they remember church. So is a backlash against some of the more extreme expressions of liturgical license.

The issue, then, is one of connections—connecting these groups and individuals within the church to one another and helping us find a common voice.

The Common Voice

If there were a common voice for the Episcopal Reform of the Reform, what would it say? I shall offer a few points that I think I hear:

Main Points

  • Fidelity to the ’79 BCP as an authentic expression of the Historic Western Liturgy. The ’79 Book has some infelicities of sound and thought—some notably dated language in some places (yes, Prayer C, I’m looking at you)—but is nonetheless a book that stands within the Historic Western Liturgy and participates within the move ad fontes that restores both Eastern and Western elements to the liturgy. Thus, to paraphrase our Roman cousins, “Read the black; do the italics.”
  • Reorient towards the faith and practice as witnessed in the early days. I.e., reading and teaching the Scriptures and the Church Fathers. Furthermore, not just echoing their words, but learning from them how to think theologically. They used the best science of their day combined with reason directed by the Spirit and shaped by the virtues. The monastic elements of the BCP and the early Anglican attraction to pre-Scholastic monastic practices and teachings commend in my mind special attention to the thought of John Cassian and the Desert Fathers and Mothers.
  • Submission to the Rule of Life inherent in the BCP and the Liturgical Year. This means living it and searching out the riches in it rather than changing it because we fail to see its depths.

Minor Points proceeding from the Major

  • Continued use of both rites. Rite II gives us our prayer in our daily language. Rite I gives us our prayer in language that is apart from our daily language. Both are important vehicles of our Anglian spirituality and theological heritage.
  • Recover the proper place of the Daily Office. Early expressions of Anglicanism over-emphasized the Office to the detriment of the Mass. Our current American practice is an over-emphasis on the Mass to the detriment of the Office. The original intention in the early medieval period and in the Reformation attempts to recapture the early medieval scheme are a harmonious balance of the two.
  • Respect the Creeds. I.e., use them and explain them.
  • Respect the Sacraments. I.e., use them and explain them. Baptism, our inclusive sacrament, prepares us for Eucharist, our intimate sacrament.
  • Emphasize the dignity and God-wardness which is our heritage. Whether the congregation prays eastward (per the rubrics of the ’79 BCP) or facing the priest, let our common prayer be focused on God, not ourselves or the clown up front.
  • Restoring the proper place of both Anglican Chant and Plainchant.

What do you hear?

The BCP and Spiritual Adventurism

Following an interesting link at YF’s I found an interesting article. The topic is on Episcochameleonism but I’d like to pull something else out of it…

The author (a conservative Anglican priest) writes:

28 years ago when I noticed that the opening of the Eucharist was a takeoff on the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, I went out and ordered three sets of Greek Orthodox vestments. It was early in my Anglo-Catholic days, and I was playing one of the classic Anglo-Catholic games–more high-church than thou. Even in a diocese that described itself historically as Anglo-Catholic, I won hands down. A year or so later I discovered the born-again movement, and it was time to play some different games.

Not every Episcopal cleric plays games like I did. At the time I didn’t know it was a game, and I did not mean to play games with other people’s lives as, regrettably, I often did. The fact is I found myself playing church for a living, and I was shocked.

He identifies something here that is very important for the recent discussions on the prayer book. There is a large percentage of the current Episcopal clergy who I regard as “seekers”. That is to say, they are still looking and searching for the deep connection with God and the holy that their soul calls them too. I’d hazard a guess that many of them are clergy because it gives them an opportunity to be a full-time “religious/spiritual person” and still be able to draw a salary. Some, like the priest quoted above, do this while remaining within the prescribed boundaries of the church (canon, creed, sacraments a la Chicago-Lambeth); others, not so much…

Is this seeking or spiritual adventurism necessarily bad? Maybe not as long as an individual stays within the boundaries of the Church but definitely yes when it stops being an individual journey and is foisted on congregations.

The Book of Common Prayer is, among other things, a defense for laity against spiritual adventurism on the part of the clergy.

That having been said, it is no fail-safe. Even when the rite is followed as written, ceremonial, vestment, and other choices can still throw things off quite a bit—but let’s at least keep in place what safeguards we have!

I am sympathetic to the spiritual adventurers, being one myself to a certain degree. I have always, however, had a conviction that my own personal spirituality not be placed onto a congregation and was perhaps the most significant reason that I left the ELCA’s ordination process. (I couldn’t live with the average ELCA parish’s attitudes towards the sacraments and would have felt compelled to change it; I can live with the average Episcopal parish’s sacramental sense…) I have enormous respect for the rector under whom M served as a deacon. He was an Anglican Missal guy but the way he adapted his use was such that the congregational text was always the BCP. He was a Missal guy—but no one else had to be just because he was.

On one-hand, I’m open to legitimate spiritual adventurism on the part of the clergy in so far as it reflects necessary growth and listening to the Spirit and transformation into the Mind of Christ. On the other hand, I believe that much of it reflects a failure of our discernment and formation processes. Yes, it’s fine to deepen, but I’m seeing a lot more wandering around than rooting down. Further liberalizing the already generous and liberal options of the prayer book to endorse these behaviors is entirely unwarranted. Rather, a re-focus of the issue placing it in terms of the obedience and stability necessary for conversion of life is the ticket.

On the Epiclesis in the Western Rite

This from the learned Fr. Hunwicke:

In the Eastern rites, and in the invented Eucharistic Prayers which were introduced into both Roman Catholic and Anglican worship in the 1970s and 1980s, the Epiclesis is treated as crucially important. The Holy Spirit is invoked to come and make the elements the Body and Blood of Christ. I am not a Byzantine and I have no interest in rubbishing their ancient and noble tradition. Nor would I stand for any ‘latinising’ of their tradition. The only criticism I have is of those Byzantines who encourage an Orthodox ‘Western Rite’ in which an epiclesis has been intruded into the Roman Canon. Because the epiclesis is not our tradition. And our tradition should not be Byzantinised.

At the beginning of the 20th century, liturgists commonly believed that the epiclesis was ‘primitive’ and must somehow have got ‘lost’ from the Roman Canon. If you have a copy of Fortescue, you will find an account by him of the various theories which were held about this; and the various ingenious attempts made to ‘reconstruct’ the ‘original Roman epiclesis’.

A succession of distinguished Anglican scholars disposed of this nonsense.

. . .

Where Easterners call upon the Spirit to come down upon the elements, our ancient Western, Roman tradition asks the Lord to take his Church’s offerings to the Altar on high.

Now I am a card-carrying liturgy geek (as you may have figured out by now) but I’m the first to admit that my academic focus has been more on the medieval, the monastic, and the Office rather than Mass Intricacies which is a field of study unto itself.

Anyone care to comment either way on this quote, the original post, and theo-liturgical contents?

More on the Spring Bank Liturgies

In response to the interest generated in their new psalter and antiphoner, Br. Stephen has given us a couple of PDF peeks at it. Additionally, he does indeed verify that the English version of the psalter is the translation done for the ’79 BCP also shared by the Vatican-authorized Anglican Use book.

I was amused in the context of the current discussion to read these lines:

Anglicans today may not be quite sure who’s in communion with whom or whether they have binding positions on a number of issues, but, with 450 years of practice, they still know how to write good English liturgical prose.

Let’s not forget how to write it either…

Messing with the Prayer Book

Fr Tobias has been talking about Prayer Book changes; the post has been picked up over at Creedal Christian as well.

In my own understanding of the Benedictine roots and expression of the Episcopal Church, sticking with the texts of the authorized BCP is a matter of both stability and obedience that (quite naturally in Benedict’s ascetical theology) lead into conversion of life. As a Prayer Book Catholic I am committed to using the ’79 BCP but I sometimes find my “catholic” warring with my “prayer book”. That having been said, I entirely subscribe to what Fr. Tobias and others are saying. The American ’79 BCP is the authorized book of our Province. It is the definition of Common Prayer for American Episcopalians and as such should be regarded as the foundation of our “lived experience” and the beginning of our pathway into life with the Triune God.

Is the language used by the prayer book outside of the normal vernacular? Does it need to be fiddled with again to make it more accessible? Not to my ears—for two reasons. First, it was last revised thirty years ago. The English language has not changed that much in 30 years. (No…just…no)

Second, as someone who works primarily with language, let me say that language matters and the ways that we choose to be sloppy or precise with our language says a lot about both our action and our thought. I could, for instance, use the word “book” and most of the time it’ll get the job done. words like “manuscript” and “folio” might be synonyms in some cases—in others they mean something quite specific.  It makes quite a lot of difference if I’ve found a liturgy in a “book” or a “manuscript”. Questions of provenance, accuracy, scribal tendencies, completeness suddenly jump to the fore with “manuscript” that simply don’t exist or to a much lesser degree if I say “book”.

Similarly, I see a desire to “translate” “churchy language” as, more often than not, not only as a dumbing down but a deliberate choice in favor of imprecision and loss of meaning. Yes, I can say I’ve made a “mistake”; but don’t be confused that this is the same as saying I’ve committed a “sin”. Different words mean different things. We—okay, I—don’t use “churchy language” for the sake of “being churchy”; I use it because it’s accurate. If “mistake” would work I’d use it—but it doesn’t, so I don’t… There is a distinctive Christian vocabulary that is necessary to transmit specifically Christian thoughts, attitudes, and beliefs. It shouldn’t be used to “exclude” but if we don’t use it then we’re not transmitting the faith that we have received.

Language is acquired primarily in two ways. First by definition, second by context. From Sunday School, to Youth Group, to seminary, to graduate work, many people have defined the word “sin” for me in different ways. But I’ve also heard and seen it in literally tens of thousands of contexts which teach me far more about the word’s true meaning. That’s how vocabulary gets acquired. What, therefore, does it do if we begin dropping such language from our liturgies? Unless you equally begin editing these “churchy” terms out of, oh say, the Bible and 99.9% of English language Christian literature than you are depriving the people to whom you give a dumbed-down liturgy the tools they need to understand the Scriptures and other Christian literature.

Enough… Here endeth the rant. For now.

RBOC: Mostly Ecclesiastical

  • The Episcopal Cafe is reporting that the Bishop-Elect of N. Michigan has received too many “No” votes from Standing Committees to be confirmed. I’ll draw your attention in particualr to Dr. Carroll’s comment: “In this case, I think history will remember this as the point when the Episcopal Church began to show some backbone about basic Christian doctrine. For too long, we have allowed our respect for difference to mean anything goes. There are boundaries. . . . The danger for us has not been witch hunts. It has been an amorphous Christianity that does not adhere to the standards it sets for itself. I could see us tilting too far in the opposite direction, but there is no present danger of that.”
  • Across the Tiber, a beautiful new thing has been born: the Cistercian monastery of Spring Bank has a newly-produced psalter and antiphonary. The news and shots come courtesy of Br. Stephen’s blog which is also well worth following if you’re not already. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: with modern computer technology, there’s absolutely no reason why we shouldn’t have liturgical works that are simultaneously beautiful and functional; this work looks to be a case-in-point. However, as I understand it, there are no plans for mass-production/publication.
  • There are mass schedule changes at Smokey Mary’s. Due to likely upcoming staffing issues (i.e., the anticipated departure of Fr. Mead), daily evening low mass will no longer be offered. I have fond memories of this service; this service (along with preceding EP) was one of the things that helped keep me going when M and Lil’ G were in Philly and I was in NYC.  Even with these reductions, however, a full rota of Morning, Noon, and Evening Prayer and a daily mass will continue to be offered. This is the pattern our prayer book lays down for us; may Smokey Mary’s long be a beacon for catholic liturgy and spirituality in the Episcopal Church.
  • Speaking of solid catholic liturgy and spirituality, I’m still reading Martin Thornton’s Christian Proficiency. I understand less and less why Morehouse (now a division of Church Publishing) who holds the copyright has let this gem go out of print. What a shame.
  • Dissertation feedback is trickling in from my readers. Looks like some minor but no major changes will be required. Fr. Director is talking about a late August/Early September defense date.