Field Guide to the Prayer Book Studies (PBS I-XVII)

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Post Motivation

A friend was asking me the other day which volume of the 9-volume set would be the best to look into the background of the Baptismal Covenant. He had thought maybe Volume 1—perfectly understandably—as PBS I is about Baptism. But no! It turns out the first inklings of what we know today as the Baptismal Covenant doesn’t actually appear until PBS 26, the revision of the Trial Use PBS 18. (Furthermore, even the explication of PBS 26 in its very large supplement only contains the phrase “Baptismal Covenant” once; it wasn’t as nearly big then as it is now…)

In light of that, I thought it might be helpful to provide my guide to what’s in the various volumes and which ones you might be interested in for various purposes. In what follows, I will be relying quite a bit on the introductions I wrote to the 9 volumes, but I’ll be adding other thoughts and tidbits as well.

The Series as a Whole

The Prayer Book Studies (PBS) series documents the 26-year process of study and conversation that led to the adoption of the American 1979 Book of Common Prayer. It falls broadly into two parts, distinguished by the use of Roman numerals and Arabic numerals. PBS I-XVII were published by the members of the Standing Liturgical Commission between 1950 and 1966 to communicate research and draft liturgies leading towards a revision process; PBS 18-29 were published by the various drafting committees between 1970 and 1976 once the revision process was formally begun and the earlier drafts were being transformed into new usable liturgies leading up to the adoption of the new prayer book in 1979. Finally, PBS 30 and its commentary were an addition in 1989 to discuss inclusive and expansive language for God for further liturgical efforts.

The First Series, Part I (PBS I-XIV)

These fourteen studies that appeared in ten publications (four volumes contain two studies) systematically explore all of the liturgical materials within the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, incorporating scholarly research alongside input from clergy and congregations, concluding each study with a sample liturgy based on the study and reflection of the Commission. 

Each of these fourteen studies begin with an identical preface laying out the guiding principles: to objectively and impartially inform the broader church on the principles and issues involved in the revision of each portion, not for the benefit of one theological party but to the education of all.

The overwhelming impression of these documents is of a committee, anchored by Bayard Jones, Morton Stone, and Massey Shepherd, Jr.–the professors of the leading Episcopal seminaries of the day–that accomplished its work in a careful and thorough fashion. A great deal of thought, discussion, and argument has gone into these materials. The results are careful and fairly conservative modifications, assuming a retention of the “traditional” Elizabethan/Jacobean idiom of the English Prayer Book and the King James Bible.

I’ve got a post in process about what I call the “American 1960 BCP”—what the prayer book would have looked like if we had received the prayer book as envisioned by the end of this comprehensive survey of the 1928 book. Spoiler: it would have been a relatively conservative update of the 1928 with some interesting catholic additions and retaining a certain Anglican identity lost in the triumph of the Liturgical Renewal Movement especially post-Vatican II…

Volume 1 (PBS I-IV)

PBS I/II

The initial study on Christian initiation specifically identifies Baptism and Confirmation as the two rites that have raised the largest numbers of suggestions and criticisms received by the commission. Not only were there complaints about the structure and intent of the baptismal liturgy, but even then the purpose and ecumenical implications of Confirmation were hotly debated. 

This study provides the basic template that will be followed in many of the successive works: an historical survey incorporating the latest liturgical thought on the matter, a discussion of the principles of revision based on that historical and liturgical work, and a revised text of the rite for study and reflection–but not use. That last point is important; there was no mechanism for trial use at this time, so the liturgies could only be read and debated rather than fully experienced.

The historical survey here focuses mostly on the baptismal material in the Apostolic Constitutions. The rest is a brief drive-by of the medieval evolution, basically putting the separation of Baptism and Confirmation at the feet of the Scholastics, Peter Lombard and Thomas Aquinas in particular.

The second study focuses on the Eucharistic lectionary, considering the purposes of the seasons of the Church Year, then proposing a slightly amended version of the 1928 lectionary. At all points, keeping step with the contemporary Roman Catholic lectionary is kept in view. Of interest as well is a final section that advocates for largely retaining the historical text of the King James Bible except for certain words where the sense is no longer the same. In these cases, substitutes from the Revised Version are being considered–but no changed texts are included here.

PBS III

This third study on the Visitation of the Sick recommends a complete shift away from the rites of earlier prayer books and radically revamps the tone, structure, and intent of the rite. This study gives a first glimpse into what “radical” revision might look like, the boundaries of what “radical” might encompass, and the attention to earlier rites and patterns even when proposing something “radical.” It also represents a path not taken, as none of the forms here appear in the revised prayer book.

PBS IV

Weighing in at a whopping 360 pages, this fourth study on the Eucharist contains ten times more words than either PBS I or III. The first part, “The History of the Liturgy” rehearses the history of the Eucharistic rite from the New Testament to the present, incorporating the latest liturgical scholarship on the matter. A great deal of attention is given to the transition from the Latin Sarum Mass to the first Book of Common Prayer, comparing the texts section by section. From that point, each English prayer book is discussed including the Non Jurors and Scottish liturgies that would contribute to the American branch Each American book is then discussed in turn. Finally all Anglican revisions from 1928 to 1952 receive discussion. 

The second part, “Proposals for the Revision of the Liturgy,” begins with General Considerations that are then implemented as every portion of the liturgy is discussed in detail, concluding with the proposed rite itself. The resulting rite is very similar–but not identical–to the current Prayer II of the Rite One Eucharist.

If your interest is in the history of the Eucharistic liturgy—especially the relationship between Cranmer’s 1549 and the Sarum Missal—I highly recommend getting ahold of this. This section presents a very thorough look from the earliest recoverable materials through the Anglican books—English, obviously, but also the changes in other bodies of the Anglican Communion up to the early 1950’s.

Volume 2 (PBS V-IX)

PBS V

This first study on the Litany follows the typical pattern with a historical survey, principles of revision, and a revised rite. It’s quite brief. The version of the Great Litany here contains some minor tweaks in terms of phrases and individual words and is substantially that found in the revised prayer book. It also includes a Byzantine-derived “Litany of St. Chrysostom” not included in the revised book.

PBS VI/VII

This second study on the Morning and Evening Prayer betrays by its brevity that it is a very modest revision of the 1928 rites. A few new canticles have been added, but psalms are still offered as alternates in Evening Prayer, and the concluding collects are largely those of former editions. The lectionary is not addressed at all. 

The third study on the Penitential Office is a revision of the old Commination, a liturgy of repentance originally derived from the Sarum Ash Wednesday liturgy. While bound with the previous study, it does not pertain to the Daily Office. Here the commission is thinking through the sin and repentance from a mid-century psychological perspective. While little, if any, of this material ultimately appears in the revised prayer book, this study is helpful in illuminating their initial thinking around a modern approach to penitence.    

PBS VIII

The other study not pertaining to the Daily Office in this volume, the fourth study contains initial work on the Ordinal: the making of deacons, priests, and bishops. Another conservative revision, it takes great pains to point out that the essential structure and intent of the rite is in no way changed. Thus, the shadow of Roman concerns regarding the efficacy of Anglican orders still lies upon this effort as well as implications for relations with other Anglican churches. 

PBS IX

By far the largest study in this volume (although only half the size of PBS IV on the Eucharist), the fifth and final study tackles the Calendar and, in particular, the question of the liturgical celebration of sanctity. While there is the usual survey of historical materials and recent efforts across the Anglican Communion, it is noteworthy that in exploring historical and contemporary sanctoral calendars there is very little theological discussion of sanctity and how the notion of sanctity connects to Anglican theology as a whole. Thus–in my subjective opinion–the seeds for the ongoing controversy around the prayer book’s sanctoral calendar were sown here with the recommendation of such a calendar, but with no clear theology of sanctity to underpin it.

I find myself coming back to this study again and again when thinking about and writing on saints and sanctity in the Anglican Communion/Episcopal Church. If you have an interest in the Sanctoral Calendar, understandings and misunderstandings of it, this one is not to be missed!

Volume 3 (PBS X-XV)

The studies contained in this volume, PBS X-XV, hit the first major seam in the series. The first five studies (X-XIV) mostly deal with the pastoral offices, with the exception of PBS XII which takes on the collects of the Church Year, and should be seen within the broader context of PBS I-XIV. These fourteen studies that appeared in ten publications (four volumes contain two studies) systematically explore all of the liturgical materials within the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, incorporating scholarly research alongside input from clergy and congregations, concluding each study with a sample liturgy based on the study and reflection of the Commission.

The final study, PBS XV, is not–properly–a study of any particular liturgy. Rather, it is a plea directly from the Standing Liturgical Commission to the delegates of the 1961 General Convention for the adoption of the category of “trial use” in order that the liturgies produced by the Commission could be experienced by worshipping congregations and be tested in actual practice rather than in theoretical read-throughs.

PBS X/XI

This first study on Marriage is a now-typical gentle revision of the 1928 rite, primarily concerned with altering rubrics and words that have changed meaning. Other changes, like both rings now being blessed before either are given, are relatively minor.

The second study revising the former rite of the Churching of Women makes some major changes. Here the original prayer book logic for the rite–removing the ritual taint of childbirth from a new mother–is rejected and the rite is rethought and restructured as a communal thanksgiving for the birth of a child.Like the studies on the Visitation of the Sick (PBS III) and the Penitential Office (PBS VII), this study demonstrates the way the revisers reinterpreted a rite no longer in step with modern beliefs and attitudes.  

PBS XII

Far and away the longest study in this volume, the third study picks up where PBS IX on the sanctoral calendar left off. Taking the list of recommended feasts and fast from there, this study provides the liturgical materials in terms of Epistles, Gospels, and collects for their Eucharistic celebration. The new groupings of saints such as Pastors, Missionaries, Theologians, etc. are first found here, and most saints share collects with a small group of like-minded souls (biographical collects having been explicitly rejected).

Propers for some weekdays of Lent are also given here, appointing Epistles and Gospels for Sundays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. There is no sense yet of a dropping of the Pre-Lenten season.

PBS XIII/XIV

The fourth study on Burial is remarkably terse in its initial material. There is only the briefest sketch of historical development, and barely a nod to the principles of revision. The vast majority of the content is simply the revised rites which are lightly amended from their 1928 models.

The fifth study on the Institution of a Rector contains much more historical detail than Burial, as well as principles of revision. There are few revisions from the 1928 rite, with the exception of one alteration that already points a to a key shift in Episcopal public worship: whereas the institution in the 1928 rite could occur in the context of Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, or Eucharist, this revised rite requires the celebration of the Eucharist by the newly instituted rector.

PBS XV

The fifth and final “study” in this volume is not a true liturgical study, but rather a plea to the delegates of the 1961 General Convention. It is a study in that it rehearses the history and failures of American prayer book revision based on the lapses of parliamentary procedure; it notes that the 1928 book was passed over a period of fifteen years and five successive conventions before all parts were ratified twice by both houses and that only because the 1925 convention halted all new business until the prayer book matters were completed! Indeed, a resolution to initiate a formal process of prayer book revision was passed by the House of Deputies in 1958, but never taken up by the House of Bishops. Rather than making the same mistake or worse, this study calls for new solutions to old problems, chiefly the designation of “trial use.”

Volume 4 (PBS XVI-XVII)

First Series, Part II

These studies bring to an end the First Series–those studies designated with Roman numerals. They sit in an interesting place between what has come before and what will come after. These studies revisit ground already trod in the first series. Returning to them now is significant because two major shifts have occurred since the original studies were written. 

First, the plea of PBS XV succeeded: the change to Article X of the Canons allowing “trial use” passed overwhelmingly by voice vote in the 1961 General Convention (before the publication of PBS XVI) and a second time in the 1964 General Convention (before the publication of PBS XVII). Thus, both of these are written looking forward to or actually receiving the benefits of trial use in actual worshipping congregations.

Second, these studies appeared in the context of the greatest ecclesiastical shift of the 20th century, the Roman Catholic reforms of Vatican II that took place between 1962 and 1965. For the first time in a millennium and a half, the Roman Catholic Mass was revised along 4th century lines and made available in vernacular languages; for the first time, Roman Catholic and Episcopal laity could compare the liturgies of their co-religionists and discover their similarities. 

However, with these publications, the Episcopal Church had not yet turned the corner to full revision; that would not come until the 1967 General Convention. Thus, these two studies are the last words of academically inclined theoretical study. From the publication of PBS I-XV–that is, from 1950 to 1961–the membership of the Standing Liturgical Commission consisted of 20 people, 4 of whom remained in key roles the entire time. The time from 1961 to 1966 added 7 new people to that number. In other words, the First Series was governed by disciplined academic and ecclesiastical control that emphasized a cautious and reverent approach to the materials. What will come next will be a radical expansion of voices and authors at the same time that tight deadlines and turnarounds will be demanded from those crafting the new liturgies.  

PBS XVI

This first study on the Calendar draws together the calendrical contents of PBS IX and XII into a usable form. The initial portion describes changes that have occurred within other Anglican Calendars as well as sanctoral changes wrought at Vatican II and their impact on the developing Episcopal Calendar. The proposed material presents the 12-month Calendar of observances, then the Collects, Epistles,and Gospels for the Fasts starting with the Ember Days of Advent and all Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent, the Rogation Days and the Summer and Fall Ember days. After the Fasts come the Lesser Feasts, starting with Channing More Williams on December 2nd through the Church Year until Clement on November 23rd. From there it takes on the Common of Saints, followed by the Propers for Special Occasions.

This proposed material would be accepted for trial use at the 1963 General Convention and would be published in 1964 as the first Lesser Feasts & Fasts.   

This also brings us to our new shape of the Church Year with a dropping of the Pre-Lent section, but without the Triduum liturgies.

PBS XVII

Where there was not much change in the sanctoral material from the previous Studies, quite a bit was needed for this second study on the Eucharist. Indeed, this volume is explicitly framed as a report on PBS IV. Over 150 responses from groups large and small had been received by the time the drafting of this new study began in 1960–six years before its eventual publication. By that point it had become clear that a mere revision of the rite of PBS IV would not be acceptable, and that work would need to begin again from the ground up. In addition to offering critiques of PBS IV, the study also discusses changes due to Vatican II and includes a selection of consecration prayers from worldwide liturgical efforts through the 1950’s and 60’s.

Further changes in later studies would demonstrate that this proposed prayer, too, would be found lacking in several important respects.   

Conclusion

I hope this has been helpful; if so, I’ll do a similar post on the Second Series (PBS 18-30)!

Prayer Book Studies Series: It’s Here!!

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At long last, the full Prayer Book Studies series is finished and available!!

This has been a very long time in coming.

For those unfamiliar with this material, here’s the blurb I wrote to describe them:

The creation of the landmark 1979 American Book of Common Prayer was the fruit of nearly four decades of discussion within the Episcopal Church. Prayer Book Studies is a series of official reports by the Church’s Standing Liturgical Commission that were published irregularly over the course of that period, representing the work of the committees deliberating over and drafting the materials that would eventually become the 1979 revision. These reports provide an extraordinary window into the work of leading liturgical scholars during an age characterized by huge transformation in the fields of liturgy. Long out of print and unavailable, these reports, collected in nine volumes, are an invaluable resource for liturgical scholars and clergy. 

I originally conceived of this project in early 2018. After some initial discussions and wrangling, an editor I knew at Church Publishing and I hashed out a plan for me to digitize the 29+ soft-cover/pamphlets that constitute the publications leading up to the publication of the Draft Proposed Book of Common Prayer in 1976 before its final ratification as the new American 1979 Book of Common Prayer. She insisted I add in the two later volumes from the late ’80’s I had not been aware of, and so we did.

The fundamental concept was a “diplomatic” edition of the primary source documents. In this context, “diplomatic” means an edition that replicates the format and contents of the original as closely as possible in its new form. Thus typos in the original, changes in formatting between volumes, and such would all be preserved. The idea is that whomever is looking at the new edition will essentially receive the same visual information from the page as an original viewer. This meant after scanning in all of the volumes, doing the OCR work to convert images to text, proofreading it all, and applying html code to structure the result, I also added styling markup to reflect the original as closely as possible.

We put out the First Series, volumes I-XVII, that contained the background academic work before Prayer Book Revision was formally engaged by General Convention as an e-book in January 2020. I’d hoped to get the Second Series, volumes 18-30, finished fairly soon after, but then COVID hit. That completely stalled my progress for a whole variety of reasons including four different job changes in just a few years.

Once things stablized, I got back to it—albeit slowly—and finally got everything finished last year. I reached out to the editors I’d worked with before with the finished draft: no response. Turns out they’d both moved on.

After a bit of emailing around, I was hooked up with some new editors. I had to explain the whole project again–what it is, what I had done, why it was important, etc. I received a heart-stopping reponse that began, “Well, we’ve looked things over… And we’ve decided to go in a different direction…” To my shock, they’d decided not just to do an e-book but also softback and hardback editions!

As great as this was, it did cause a few issues, mostly relating to the original goal of a diplomatic edition. All of the formatting was standardized which caused issues around headings and levels of headings across the 40-year spread of the series; the restoration of footnotes also changed things as I had marked editorial notes differently based on the original formatting of each volume. This didn’t get fully worked out, so you’ll notice a shift in how these appear as you go through the volumes!

All in all, we ended up dividing the full series into 9 separate volumes, with new (and brief) introductions for each. When they initally told me the projected pricing I flipped out; the paperback and digital prices were the same. The whole point of this project was to get these works back into the hands of anyone who wanted them! So, I pushed back and we were able to get the digital price dropped.

Now, at long last, I’m happy to present the new complete edition of the Prayer Book Studies! They’re all listed separately on Amazon, so here’s a link to the first one.

(I’ve also advocated for topical collections that would gather the Eucharist stuff in one volume; the Initiation stuff, the Daily Office stuff, etc.; let me know if that would be something you’d like to see so I can report back interest in that option too!)

Apology & Prayer Book Studies Update

Well, I have to start by apologizing for the state of the breviary recently… Since I moved it here to the WordPress platform, I’ve been relying on periodic updates to the date table to tell it what day it is rather than calculating it programmatically from the date of Easter as on the old site. What that means is, when I get bogged down and behind, sometimes that table doesn’t get updated and as a result there are no readings, collects, etc…

So—that’s why the start of Advent has been a little rough. Not bugs–it’s me. But at least I do have a reason.

As some of you know, one of my passion projects for quite a while has been a digital edition of the Prayer Book Studies series. These are the thick blue pamphlets where the Standing Liturgical Commission began presenting their research and ideas for what would eventually become the 1979 American Book of Common Prayer. If you truly want to understand this prayer book, what scholarship and sources went into creating it, the logic behind it, the paths not taken—all of these things can be found in these little blue books.

If you can find the little blue books…

And that’s the challenge. If you’re persistent and lucky in trawling the secondhand book sites, you can accumulate quite a number of them until you might be able to acquire a full set. And even then, you may well be the only person in your diocese who has a full set.

With all the discussion of prayer book revision, with all the discussion of writing new liturgies, I wanted to give these resources a wider circulation so that people interested in both appreciating and creating Episcopal liturgy would have a deeper understanding of it. It’s quite humbling to look at the pedigree of some of the collects of our prayer book—the direct sources, the additional sources consulted for tweaking, the deliberation over placement of clauses; it’s a whole different ballgame from jotting down a prayer on your way into the sanctuary following the acclamation/petition/result/doxology model. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course, but there’s a gravity, a weight of experience and years, behind so many of our prayers. It’s good for those who wish to create replacements or supplements to have a full understanding of that pedigree of prayer and access to the sources that nourished and nurtured the liturgists of former days.

In any case, I released the First Series of Prayer Book Studies as a digital resource through Church Publishing before COVID hit. It took me a little longer to get the Second Series together. But I finally did. On submitting the second part, I found a whole new editorial team at Church Publishing who decided to go a different way with it.

Yes, it’ll be a digital resources as I originally intended, but they’ve also decided to release it in both paperback and hardback! So–I’m on an extremely tight deadline to get the page proofs back in order for everything to get to the printer on time. It turns out that in printed form the whole collection together—First Series and Second Series—will span nine volumes. And I’m currently editing Volume 6…and they’re due back before the end of the week…

And that’s why the breviary has been glitching the last few days. (It ought to be good up until Christmas, but I do need to go back and remind it about the Ember Days.)

So—the glitches should stop now for the rest of Advent, and I need to get back to proofing.

The Papacy *Sigh*

I have great challenges whenever I consume some of my favorite types of visual media: movies/shows/YouTube depicting historical or fantastic medieval societies. M will tell you how often I work myself into a state of apoplexy concerning the armor and weapon sets portrayed in such shows. (Studded leather was not, is not, and never will be a thing!!!)

Another great challenge to me is the portrayal of the western Church in these medievalish times, including the depiction of the papacy. Apparently, Hollywood screenwriters are taught that from the Fall of Rome until…The French Revolution?? the Pope was a mastermind, crouching like a giant masculine Shelob at the center of a highly effecient bureacratic web whose tendrils extended through every portion of Europe and likely beyond. A parish priest in furthest Scandanavia whispered a heretical thought and suddenly the papal assasins were on him…

Particuarly as an Early Medievalist, I find these assumptions truly bizarre. Do people really not know that the Roman popes were under the thumb of and often picked by the Roman Emperor (in Constantinople) until some point in the 8th century?? Sure, when Boniface wanted a final word on what degree of consanguinity was acceptable for Saxon marriages, he’d send a letter asking the pope. But that’s a missive from the periphery in—most certainly not the other way around! And as for political power and control in Latin-speaking Europe, you don’t get the first inkling of that until Leo III’s turn toward Charlemagne and away from the Eastern Emperor (and yes, Leo’s crowning of Charlemagne as “Holy Roman Emperor” was fully intended to be a middle finger to Constantinople!), and it isn’t actually realized until Gregory VII–from Frankia–was brought into Rome and who conceived of himself as above all other earthly authority. But even then you don’t begin to get an actual extension of the papal arm until the legate system got up and going around the 13th century or so—and even then it was sort of iffy at best…

Sometimes I almost feel like we need Adult Forum materials entitled “BS People Believe about the Church and Why it’s BS” including popes, Galileo and science, the “Lost” Gospels, and all sorts of silly things people are taught in modern media.

The Winding Stair

I’ve been reading a fair amount of novels recently; I just finished Susanna Clark’s Piranesi. I really enjoyed it and definitely recommend it. I was warned to go into it knowing as little about it as possible, which is a good idea. (And I’m not going to spoil anything here either, having said that…)

I’m coming to it having recently finished Mark Lawrence’s Library Trilogy, and am noticing some interesting and complementary things.

In particular, I’m feeling the influence of Borges’ collection Labyrinths: Selected Stories & Other Writings on both Clark and Lawrence’s works, and don’t want to comment further without going back to “Garden of Forking Paths” and “Library of Babel” and maybe a few others. Too, I’m wanting to reread Piranesi again before saying more about these works and their interconnections and themes, but need to reread The Magician’s Nephew again before I do so as Clark deliberately references that classic several times.

So, thoughts to come about selves and searching…

Confirmation: What’s it for?

A comment on the last post reminded me of the Great Episcopal Confirmation Debate. This is most certainly not a new one, and I was reminded of that recently when re-reading Prayer Book Studies 18 (Holy Baptism with Laying-on-of-Hands–no separate Confirmation here!) vs. Prayer Book Studies 26 (Holy Baptism Together with a Form for Confirmation or the Laying-On of Hands by the Bishop) and the 100+ page supplement explaining the logic of the rite especially after the special meeting of the House of Bishops to hammer out a list of agreed positions on Baptism and Confirmation!

Contra the Liturgical Renewal Movement and its peculiar form of 4th century fundamentalism on this issue, I am a firm believer in Confirmation and its continuing utility.

My own take approaches it from a big-picture view of Christian initiation and discipleship.

What does Baptism do? It is the sacrament that joins a believer into the Body of Christ. It unites us into the full company of Christians, the blessed company of all faithful people. It initiates us into the Church Universal–that is also the Church Invisible spread across time, place, and divided sects of the disjointed Christian family. This is why we say that people are not baptized into the Episcopal Church–because they’re not. I was baptized in a Lutheran church–not into the Lutheran Church. When I joined the Episcopal Church I had no need to be baptized again having already received the “one Baptism for the remission of sins” by being baptized 1) by water 2) in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

So what does Confirmation do? And why is a bishop required for it? As I see it, it’s a pretty simple answer. As a baptized member of the invisible and universal Body of Christ, Confirmation is that which grounds and instantiates me in the essential particularities and physicalities of an incarnate Christian faith: it ties me to a visible and particular assembly of Christian believers. If we agree with Irenaeus that the three marks of the Church are the biblical canon, creed, and apostolic succession–which I do–then Confirmation serves to orient and locate me within a particular instantiation of that apostolic succession through the physical touch of an actual bishop.

(Now–I do believe that apostolic succession is first and foremost about intent: the intent to carry on the faith as handed down from the apostles. I’m not going to argue that Presbyterians, some Lutherans, and Baptists are not actual Christians because they don’t currently have sacramental bishops. But I do think we do need them and should have them. As the conversations around Called to Common Mission went, the Lutherans said: bishops are desirable but not essential; we responded: bishops are essential but not desirable…)

So–that’s my take. We can’t be Christians by ourselves. We need a physical, incarnate, embodied community to encourage us, live with us, and take us to task. That’s where Confirmation comes in. It’s the rite that connects us to a particular divided community of the Church filled with contrary, failed, broken people so we can be contrary, failed broken–and holy–alongside them. Does our rite currently reflect that logic? Not sure–but I think it should…

There’s Something About (St.) George

There’s Something About (St.) George

Intro

A correspondent was asking me some questions about the status of St. George, he–patron of England–who is not on our sanctoral calendar despite having several churches around the Episcopal Church named for him.

What’s up with that?

First Thoughts

Here’s a version of my initial response:

I’m at my daughter’s Parents’ Weekend at the moment so don’t have access to all of my records, but I can tell you this…

St. George was one of the saints on the first proposed American calendar during the 1913-28 period, but that calendar was voted down and not included in the 1928 BCP. When the topic was taken up again in Prayer Book Studies 9, St. George was the poster-child for “saints of dubious historicity.” Here’s the paragraph in question:

Not only are many of the most popular and widely commemorated saints of both the Eastern and the Western Churches of dubious historical authenticity; but, if their historicity is beyond reasonable doubt, there is no certain knowledge or information about their lives and character. It is impossible, for example, to establish the historical existence of St. George. The fact that he has become a patron saint of England does not make him any the more real; nor does it necessitate making him a saint of the American Church. Fairy-book tales may indeed be edifying. When they become part of the folklore and tradition of a great nation they can become stirring symbols. But it is asking too much of the majority of our American Church membership, who have no such traditional and patriotic associations with the name, to respond with mature devotion to a saint of whom it can only be said, “He may have existed, sometime, somewhere.” There are innumerable saints, many of them martyrs for the Faith, who deserve the thankful remembrance of the Church, but for whom the accidents of history have left no certain testimony. For these holy men and women whose memory might otherwise be forgotten by the faithful the Church provides the common feast of All Saints with its Octave. Where church dedications or other circumstances have left the memorial of saints who are scarcely recorded in the annals of history, the Prayer Book already provides two sets of propers for their commemoration: the Feast of the Dedication of a Church, and A Saint’s Day. These propers should give adequate coverage and usefulness for such occasions as may be desired by local parishes or parish groups.

PBS IX, p. 36.

Despite this, George was re-added in the Holy Women, Holy Men phase, and according to my records was in the HWHM editions of at least 2009 and 2013. He was also included in the ill-fated Great Cloud of Witnesses. In the return to Lesser Feasts & Fasts, though, he was once again dropped.

The largest hurdle to a new effort at including him would be the question of historicity–nailing down exactly who and when we’re talking about.

The Propers

Here’s the thing… When it comes to celebrating St. George, it doesn’t matter if he’s on the Official Calendar or in Lesser Feasts & Fasts. That’s because anyone (theoretically) can be liturgically celebrated if a local congregation chooses to. That’s the heart of the flexibility of our Calendar:

Subject to the rules of precedence governing Principal Feasts, Sundays, and Holy Days, the following may be observed with the Collects, Psalms, and Lessons, duly authorized by this Church . . . Other Commemorations, using the Common of Saints.

BCP, 18

So–yeah, any parish can celebrate St. George if they like using the Commons of Saints. That having been said, as I mentioned above, there were propers provided for St. George in HWHM:

I. Almighty God, who didst commission thy holy martyr George to bear before the rulers of this world the banner of the cross: Strengthen us in our battles against the great serpent of sin and evil, that we too may attain the crown of eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

II. Almighty God, you commissioned your holy martyr George to bear before the rulers of this world the banner of the cross: Strengthen us in our battles against the great serpent of sin and evil, that we too may attain the crown of eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Redeemer, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

HWHM, p. 339

They’re different in Great Cloud of Witnesses. (I feel like I may have written these?? But haven’t checked back…)

Rite I. Lord Jesus Christ, whose cross didst seal thy servant George: Grant that we, strengthened by his example and prayers, may triumph to the end over all evils, to the glory of thy Name; for with the Father and Holy Spirit thou livest and reignest, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Rite II. Lord Jesus Christ, whose cross did seal your servant George: Grant that we, strengthened by his examples and prayers, may triumph to the end over all evils, to the glory of your Name; for with the Father and Holy Spirit you live and reign, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

GCW, p. April 23 (no actual page numbers??)

A Deeper Dive

A key question here is about history: Was George historical? Or, perhaps even better, What can be said about George from a historical perspective? I think that PBS IX raises a question worth examining when it asks whether people of mature devotion should be required to call upon a person who may or may not have existed–especially since there are so many fascinating worthies that history does record that the church of our day has completely forgotten (Radegund, anybody???)

Since the very first set of criteria were established for additions to the Episcopal calendar, historicity has been one of them. It’s worth looking into that a bit clearer.

At the Reformation, the cult of saints was one of the Reformers’ major objections with the Church of Rome. Issues involved matters of salvation, penance, and money (the Treasury of Merit binding these topics together), as well as dubious relics (cf. money again), an occlusion of Christ himself as our mediator with God, and–finally–the ahistorical and unhistorical tales of various saints recounted within the liturgy itself. As with many issues raised by the Reformers, sound minds within the Roman Church agreed that they weren’t entirely wrong. At the instigation of a couple of earnest researches, a organization arose to tackle some of these issues by means of that last item: The Bollandists.

A Jesuit named Herbert Rosweyde produced his principal work, an edition of the Vita Patrum [Lives of the Desert Fathers] in 1615 with the intention of creating a work that would focus on cutting through myth and pious legend, back to the best and most recoverable sources in Greek and Latin about the saint in question. This was the first step on a grand project, the Acta Sanctorum [Acts of the Saints] which would attempt to do this work or research and recovery on the full Roman Kalendar. Unfortunately, Fr. Rosweyde caught a disease from a dying man to whom he was ministering and died himself in 1629. But that’s not the end of the story: his work was taken up by another Jesuit, Fr. Jean Bolland, from whom the organization’s name would arise. Taking on an assistant named Henschenius, the first two volumes of the Acta Sanctorum were published in 1643. By the death of Henschenius in 1681, 24 volumes had appeared and more were in preparation. By this time a community of scholars were involved in the work and it would continue even through its own suppression, the suppression of the Jesuits, and a refoundation in the 19th century using the developing tools of philology and historical criticism. As the Roman Church periodically reformed its calendars, they relied heavily upon the Bollandists’ Acta Sanctorum–as they continue to do. New volumes and supplements continue to be issued.

It’s this group, their efforts and labors, that was hanging in the minds of Massey Shepherd, Jr., Morton Stone, and Bayard Jones as they worked on their own calendar revision (two volumes by Hippolyte Delehaye published by the Société des Bollandistes appear in the General Bibliography of PBS IX).

Why does this matter? In a word–Incarnation. A mature sanctoral theology is grounded by a great many things but at the core is the doctrine and concept of Incarnation. Saints are humans. Regular, fallible, sinful people–just like you and me. Yet, they serve as examples of how our weak flesh maybe suffused by the light of Christ that the people they encounter might see their good works and glorify their Father who is in heaven. And Incarnation demands historicity because without it, all we are left with is a pleasant, pious story.

Complications

But–it’s also more complicated than that.

The way I see it, the story of the saints is not simply an exercise in history. No more than the story of a nation is an exercise in history. And that’s because history is a very slippery animal. The way I can explain it best is like this…

The discipline of history is the science of discovering facts–truths–about reality in the past that can be quantified. A certain man died here on a certain day. A battle was fought at this site in a certain year. A pot, of a particular type, made at a particular time, by particular people, was broken here because we have gathered its fragments. These momentary points of truth are then gathered and weighted–some receive more weight, some less–but taken together these weighted facts become steps and signposts in the creation of a subjective narrative (or set of narratives) that rely on these data points to pull together something coherent, that can account for the greatest number of the most compelling points in the best way.

This is why history changes; why the past is not fixed. Not only can the data points themselves be reinvestigated as new techniques give us new information with which to study them, but the stories in which we embed them are subject to revision as we learn more and as we examine the constellations of data points from new and changing angles. And that’s the point of so-called “revisionist” history: the subjective narratives that former historians have built around the data points they had access to are what is being revised in the light of new facts and new narrative options. (Indeed, one of the best examples of revisionist history in the fields I know best is Eamon Duffy’s Stripping of the Altars which led to a complete reassessment of late medieval piety and spirituality.)

I’d suggest that both stories of nations and stories of the saints are far better conceived of not as objective history, but as an exercise in social memory.

Social memory rests on history, even on a framework of historical facts, but is an origin myth where the facts themselves matter less than their role in a foreshortened, condensed, and broad-stroked story that we tell ourselves to establish our cohesive group identity today. Social memory is a corporate and collective exercise in describing who we are now, by telling a story about who we were and how we got here.

So many of the modern political fights that we assume are about history are actually about who controls and narrates the social memory. Does our Story Of America! start with the Mayflower and Plymouth Rock in 1620 or in Jamestown in 1607? Is the start of the story about the establishment of a corporate town to funnel money and profits back to England or is it…a story about the establishment of a corporate town to funnel money and profits back to England from the Virginia area? (Less than half of the people on the Mayflower were radical Puritans; the majority were adventurers and tradesmen–and that’s a historical fact.)

So what does this mean and how should it influence our stories about the saints and the commemorations we put on our calendars?

To my mind, it means that who we choose matters because when we choose them we are saying something about us as much are we are saying something about them. And looking at how people are chosen, which people are chosen, can tell interesting and sometimes uncomfortable truths about us. Like how the Roman Calendar in the 19th century was greatly weighted towards French, Spanish, and Italian bishops… What does that say about who is important in the church?

In the same way, we should asks questions like–why George? Is it because of his connection to “Englishness”? Is he a symbol of national or ethnic origins? Or because he is a tie to our deep history: a saint called upon by our spiritual ancestors since the eighth century and possibly before? A human echo of the angelic St. Michael, slaying with his lance a dragon, symbol of Satan, just as his angelic mentor rides down Satan himself?

I don’t have answer–but I think it’s essential that we ask the question…

Ending, for now

I’ve been thinking a lot about saints recently.

I’ll likely have more to say as I think through it all. Reflecting on some of the stuff mentioned above, and quite a number of things not included up there as well. But I thought I’d just go ahead and share this with you now as I get the writing juices flowing again.

Easter Breviary Fixes

It’s been a while…

I’ve completed a number of breviary fixes that include:

  • Buttons to increase and decrease font size,
  • Restoring the Evening Gospel Canticle Antiphon, and
  • Correcting some Easter/Easter week related issues

I continue to work through the items on the bug fix page–and adding suggestions from the comments.

I’ve been doing some writing. More on that in a bit…

Advent Hiccups

Moving to a new year is always challenging… I knew I needed to put some patches in to make the transition to Advent and Year 1, but it’s taking much longer than I expected and I’m running into some odd challenges.

That being said, I am aware and working on the issues, and hope to have everything operational just as soon as I can–even if that means fixing things in stages rather than all at once.

John Cassian from grdominicans.org

Breviary Tweaks Continue

I’ve been away from the computer quite a bit as we did our yearly family vacation at the Shore, brightened by the presence of my wife! (Some of you know that in addition to being a priest, she’s also an army/National Guard chaplain currently deployed with her unit; she got to come back and spend the week with us before shipping back out again…)

((Yes, the Episcopal Church does have military chaplains! No, most Episcopalians don’t seem to know this or anything about their work, but that’s a discussion for another post.))

In any case, I have been making some corrections and fixes to the current code, including a fix to a silly mistake preventing a number of saints from showing up. Thankfully, John Cassian is back today, and we get his collect which I very much like:

Holy God, whose beloved Son Jesus Christ didst bless the pure in heart: Grant that we, together with thy servant John Cassian and in union with his prayers, may ever seek the purity with which to behold thee as thou art; one God in Trinity of persons now and for ever. Amen.

It’s got a passing reference to his Conferences, but makes sense whether you’ve read those or not. It doesn’t make him some figure in the past who has one feature for us to emulate (as in the “biographical” collects), but a current companion with us on the way, and–honoring our Baptismal Ecclesiology–acknowledges that our prayers ascend together regardless of any temporal divide between us as we are bound together in the common life of Christ. What a nice little collect! I wonder who could have written it…

;-)

I’ll probably put up a page to collect and track the fixing of breviary errors, just so you know if the mistake you’ve seen is one I’m aware of or not. It’s not uncommon for me to miss mistakes that occur in the versions/selections that I don’t pray myself, so especially if you’re a Rite II type, don’t hesitate to chime in!