Category Archives: Anglican

U2charist Review

Seeing this post at AKMA’s reminded me that I hadn’t posted my thoughts on the U2charist… We–the whole family–attended one a week or two ago at a diocesan event. M in particular wanted to study it in that it relates to a particular liturgical interest of hers. Here are a few things I/we found:

  • Neither one of us got to attend the whole service. Why? Lil’ H was being cranky… She wanted to wander around as she’s working on the whole walking thing. It was also in the late afternoon–naptime. This could just be a personal thing but we were not the only ones in the narthex with small children. Think about it demographically–the people you want to attract to a thing like this are of the age to have children–small ones. Furthermore, having kids is one of the reasons people of our demographic return to church. It’s doubly important, therefore, to attend to the issue of small children in worship with this service. Childcare is not necessarily the answer, either. If “inclusivity” is one of the hallmarks of the event (which is what I took away), what’s the just rationale for excluding a certain slice of the baptized?
  • The U2 music was only in place of congregational hymnody–no liturgical elements were replaced/displaced by it. Thus, it was a normal Rite 2 Low Mass, but with other congregational music. I found that interesting.
  • I liked singing along to the songs. You could definitely tell from a quick glance around who knew the U2 catalogue and who didn’t.  What I discovered, though, was that during various songs I wasn’t thinking about their lyrics but about the situations, people, and places with which I associate with them. These were very powerful memories–but not necessarily ones conducive to prayerful attentiveness.
  • I was glad that it wasn’t a Sunday morning service–because it wasn’t a typical Sunday morning experience that would nourish and nurture over the long haul. M said she thought it would be a good thing maybe quarterly for a peace/social justice/world hunger kind of event. I agreed. But–they used the propers of the week. Why? To my mind, it looks and feels like a votive mass. I seem to remember seeing in some book (Occasional Services? Priest’s Handbook?) propers for a votive mass for Peace/Social Justice. (it stuck in my memory because I had to shout down the Old Oligarch [the archetypal crusty conservative] embedded in my soul that wanted to reject such things out of hand as unnecessarily partisan.) If it seems like and is appropriate as a votive mass, do it that way!
  • On the way home asked Lil’ G what she thought. In terms of music, she has been raised with traditional church music and knows the basic chants; she also sings along to The Cure and AFI. So, trying not to bias the question, I asked her if she liked the music we normally hear in church, the music we heard today at the U2charist, or both. She thought about it for a minute, and said both.

So to summarize, I found it an interesting experience. I liked the parts of it that I participated in, but it’s not something I would either seek out or go to on a regular basis. I think its true liturgical home is as a votive mass to draw attention to a particular issue on an occasional basis (and in saying this I imagine this may well have been its original intent.) Musically, pop music is problematic to my mind because of its secular location and all the mental/memory baggage that goes along with it. Furthermore, I wouldn’t call this a pop music mass either because it only appeared at spots for hymnody; none of the liturgical chants were replaced (or even appeared…).

Schism Update

There’s been a lot going on in Anglican circles these days that I haven’t felt up to reporting. But I do feel the need now to put three points of data in relation to one another.

First, notice who is not on the steering committee. No +Duncan…no +Iker…no +Schofield…no +Beckwith…

Now, notice who is on it. As Brad Drell rightly points out, all of the people who signed the “Windsor” letter ordain women.

What does this mean? It’s too soon to tell. The way I connect the dots, though, it would seem the FiF dioceses may be trying to leave, aligning themselves with Nigeria. But something smells fishy here; ++Akinola is a protestant…

I have always contended that the groups aligned against the current Episcopal leadership are only aligned in what they are against–not in what they are for–and that this does not bode well for their continuation as an organized structure. I would not be surprised if this latest bit of news does not herald the end of the Network as we know it.

Random Thoughts

  • bls had an interesting parish visit yesterday and thinks about the spread of “traditionalist-yet-welcoming” priests–specifically young women priests.
  • Speaking of young female “traditionalist-yet-welcoming” priests…M did some supply work yesterday at a parish in the area. (Did I mention “beautiful” in that list of attributes…?) It’s a very interesting parish; it’s a blend of long-time locals in what’s generously referred to as a “transitioned” neighborhood, some new people moving in with a revitalization initiative but the majority of the congregants are people with mental illness/special needs who live in nearby group homes. M had done spent a couple of months there several years ago and it was wonderful to see some of the faces and personalities I remember from that time. It was also wonderful to see M behind the pulpit and altar again (they have a nice east-wall altar but supply clergy don’t have the option of rearranging furniture) and to participate in a beautiful sung mass by some who takes the time to practice it beforehand…
  • Speaking of singing, looking at the Google click-throughs that have been directing people to the site, I think I may need to put up some resources on how to point various things for chanting and also something on Anglican chant.
  • I will also be putting up–as time allows–a page with some of the trial liturgies I’ve had here including the Anglican Offices of the Dead, a cleaned up version of my Anglican Lauds/Vespers (aka the commute liturgies), and an ordo for the standard BCP Offices. This one is my inspiration; while it presents a completely proper ordo that follows the intention of the Rite II service, I’ll post the version I use with Rite I that takes its cues from the 1662 book. It’s a version that tries to honor both the classical Anglican pattern while falling entirely within the rubrics of the current authorized American use. I’ll just warn you that time is rather limited; these may be a bit in coming…
  • If I had time, I might watch some movies… Two have come to my attention recently. The first is a review of “The Lives of Others” commended to us by Raspberry Rabbit. The other is, of course, Into Great Silence commended by quite a host of people including Caelius and, most recently, Anhaga of Old English in New York with whom I once sang Compline though neither of us knew it at the time…

Anglicans & Africa (Updated)

My sole personal experience of African Anglicanism came in the person of one of my preaching students. He was already a priest in the Nigerian church, in the US to improve his theological training. Passionate, intelligent, he was an amazing preacher; my class learned a great deal from hearing and responding to his sermons. His best sermon–I forget the text–was on the connection between the call of the Gospel and the rule of law. This took most of the class by surprise. Whenever Gospel and law are connected in American preaching it tends to be about legalism or attempts of one political part or the other to make a selective reading of a text. Not in this case. He wasn’t pushing a party agenda–he was pleading for law. He explained a bit about the African context at the conclusion of the sermon. We in the US take the rule of law for granted. He couldn’t. Not where he was from. Pleading for the rule of law was essential for him because it was so often denied in the political culture he was from.

(And yes, for the record, he also shocked them when one student asked him his views on homosexuality and he expressed his utter disgust…)

It’s this reality of life on the ground in Africa that so often we miss in our electronic debates–and it has truly profound implications on what we do. For instance, As the center of gravity in the Anglican Communion shifts southward, how aware are we making ourselves of what is going on in Africa? How many of the self-styled “orthodox” know what the major political and social issues are in Africa–and how their ecclesial allies are coming down on them?

This has now come to a head.

The crisis in Zimbabwe is reaching a breaking point with President Mugabe attempting to extend his corrupt rule yet again. There’s a story here about the brutal suppression of non-violent protests. I kept reading about “bishops” speaking out against Mugabe and his regime–and I kept hoping they were Anglican. I was wrong. No, as CNN reports here, it was an Easter message from Roman Catholic bishops across the country.

What is the response of the Anglican bishops? Dr. Chilton writes about it here at the Episcopal Cafe. This is what conservative Anglicans are pinning their hopes to. Does this look like the Gospel?

(n.b.: Don’t mistake this for a whole-hearted embrace of Mugabe’s opposition either–I don’t know their politics nearly as well as I’d like. I’m equally guilty of not knowing African current events as well as I should. It should be obvious, though, that Mugabe’s oppression which has been censured by not only Western human rights groups but also other African groups and governments is beyond the pale.)

UPDATE: I am more than happy to report that Stand Firm has called attention to this matter. I applaud Greg Griffiths for calling this to the general attention and condemning the Mugabe regime. There are some who dispute the level of the letter’s support for that government but the important thing is that the issue is being aired.

On Censored Lectionaries

Dr. Deidre Good of GTS has written a short thought about ++Rowan’s lecture on Scripture interpretation. (h/t *Christopher) In it, she specifically addresses something that is a major concern of mine. That is, if the liturgical gathering is the primary and normative locus for the Body of Christ encountering the Word of God, why are our lectionaries piece-meal? Why do they consciously skip certain texts–and what does this say about us as an interpretive community…

One of the fundamental things that make Christians Christians is that
we share a canon. We have wrestled and struggled with the Scriptures for centuries and that is part of what makes us who we are. What does it do to us and to our formation when we choose to not wrestle with God?

Some of the comments engage the whole idea of selected readings at all. I have thought a bit about this and point back to something I wrote on this topic a while ago. I’d like to revisit it again soon but time, at present, does not permit…

On Kneeling in Easter

One of the major changes that the American ’79 BCP wrought was a look Eastward. The mainstream of BCP tradition was that of the Western Church as filtered through the Sarum Rite. Furthermore, the previous great movement towards Big-T Tradition–the various parts of the Anglo-Catholic movement–took the high medieval West as their paradigm. Something that I’ve heard from the time I started frequenting Episcopal Churches is that you don’t kneel during Easter. But what I’ve observed at many traditional churches–and even at a few liberal ones–is that the common culture is to kneel during the prayers of the People and after the Sanctus as usual.

We ran into this on Sunday. The congregation was split from what I could tell…

I’ve been told that the move to not kneel in Easter is an ancient decision of the Church codified in the Ecumenical Councils of which–according to Andrewes’ dictum–we recognize the first four (though most Anglo-Catholics retain the first seven…). I have to admit a certain degree of suspicion here, though. One of the things I’ve noted in the VII revision and its Protestant offspring is a desire to de-emphasize the penitential and to emphasize the joy and rejoicing throughout the Christian year. Insofar as this is a reaction against an overly sober and somber way of being the people of God, I’d agree. But, like many things, I want to make sure the pendulum doesn’t swing to far. Get too far on the other side and we capitulate to the cultural message that we’re all just fine the way we are, no repenting, no introspection, no cultivation of virtue needed (and when in doubt, blame somebody else…). So I got curious about this and thought I’d look it up…

Now, what I had in mind was John Cassian’s comments. This is what he says in the Conferences:

But it is now time to follow out the plan of the promised
discourse. So then when Abbot Theonas had come to visit us in our cell during
Eastertide after Evensong was over we sat for a little while on the ground and
began diligently to consider why they were so very careful that no one should
during the whole fifty days either bend his knees in prayer or venture to fast
till the ninth hour, and we made our inquiry the more earnestly because we had
never seen this custom so carefully observed in the monasteries of Syria. (Conf. XXI.11)

What I’ve taken away from this is that not kneeling during Easter was a custom assiduously observed among the desert monastic communities in Egypt–but apparently not in Palestine and maybe other places as well (Rome?).

In essence, this seems to recommend what I’ve received, to wit, not kneeling during Easter was an ancient custom practiced in the time of the Fathers particularly in the East.

So far, so good.

But then there’s the reference to the Ecumenical Councils… Here’s what we find in the canons of the First Ecumenical Council in Nicea:

Canon XX

Forasmuch as there are certain
persons who kneel on the Lord’s Day and in the days of Pentecost,
therefore, to the intent that all things may be uniformly observed
everywhere (in every parish), it seems good to the holy Synod that
prayer be made to God standing.

Ancient Epitome of Canon XX.

On Lord’s days and at Pentecost all must pray
standing and not kneeling. (First Ecumenical Council, Canon XX)

[As a note, it must be said that “Pentecost” was used as the name of the season between the Day of Resurrection and the Day of Pentecost (cf Tertullian).]

Hmmm… This does mention not kneeling during the whole 50 days–but also on every Sunday! While I’ve heard the first part of the custom proclaimed, I’ve not heard this–nor would I want to, really. I find kneeling to be a very effective way of kinesthetically experience the liturgy and it does help the proper attitude of supplication. I think the key to remember here is the principle of balance. This canon assumes a culture of near constant liturgical activity with numerous prostrations every single day. For them, then, not kneeling or prostrating themselves was a celebratory shift from a more penitential norm. But that’s so not our case… When I say the Office by myself I sit, not kneel, and in my experiences of the Office in community at Smokey Mary we didn’t kneel either. For us to obey the canon’s letter seems to miss its spirit in terms of kneeling and prostrations.

The canon’s explicit spirit isn’t about kneeling, though. It’s about liturgical uniformity. I find this interesting particularly in light of Cassian’s comments above: he was writing about a hundred years after Nicea… Whatever uniformity the council hoped to establish didn’t take.

So where does that leave us? Well, it means that:

  • there is ancient Eastern precedent for not kneeling in Easter (Egypt)
  • but also ancient Eastern precedent for kneeling (Syria/Palestine).
  • There’s also Western precedent for kneeling in Easter.
  • An appeal made to the Council seems specious on a few grounds.
    • First, it makes a really selective reading that undercuts the authority of the canon.
    • Second, the canon seems to make sense within a very different liturgical environment than we have today.
    • Third, the canon attempts to create–or impose–a liturgical uniformity that did not obtain throughout the Church.

So, if you’re going to try and use this custom in your parish, it’s really not a good idea to appeal to the council. (Here’s where my earlier suspicions come in to play about motive…) Furthermore, competing precedents show no clear voice on the matter from the practice of the early church. There’s no reason why, all other things being equal, East should trump West.

My personal feeling? Actually, I think I’m for not kneeling during Easter…(but for kneeling the rest of the time, naturally). I think our current problem in the church is forgetting that Easter is fifty days long. We are able to remember that Lent is forty days, but have misplaced the fact that Easter is fifty… Things like using the Pascha Nostrum as the invitatory at Morning Prayer and standing at Mass do actually help with this by shifting our routine for the length of the season. But we should teach accordingly–that is, tell people why we’re doing it and how it ties in with a proper and joyful remembrance of the resurrection…which is the point of this whole exercise anyway…

Quick Easter Survey

M and I were quite puzzled this year. Most of the higher churches in the admittedly MOTR-to-low diocese did Easter Vigils this year–at 6:00 Sunday morning. Only a couple retained the usual Saturday evening position. I’d never heard of that before, yet a bunch of folks seemed to do it en masse.
Did anything like this happen around your dioceses or this just a localized phenomenon?

Vatican II and the Destruction of the Western Liturgy

Vatican II was the last straw that swept away the elegant construction that was the western liturgical tradition. But not how you think.

It has nothing to do with the vernacular or even with the move away from the Tridentine Mass. It’s about the final destruction of the balance and the mutual relationship between the Mass and Office, the links between the missal and the breviary. Because the classical Office is so little known these days, what happened is not fully known or understood. Here’s my take on things.

The western liturgical tradition is about the whole-body experience of the liturgical year. The seasons teach us and train us in the Christian affections. They do this through the rhythms of the Mass and Office. The way that this formerly worked was intimately connected to the use and application of Scripture. To remind, there were three biblical readings that really shaped things. One was the Gospel at the Mass. This was the primary key of the cycl. These readings were both selected to fit the season and, in turn, actively shaped the season. In connection with this was the Reading, also at Mass. (We’re used to calling this the Epistle because it predominately came from the Pauline or Catholic epistles but fasts had readings appointed from the Prophets.) The third was the reading at the Night Offcice. There, the whole of the Bible, excepting the gospels, were read every year. Again, these were keyed to the seasons. These were the main building blocks but interweavings happened from that point. The various texts of the Mass like the prefaces, collects, and benedictions incorporated elements from the Gospel and the Reading. During the week elements from the Gospel and Reading from the Mass of the Sunday would appear in the propers of the Offices. Bits of the Epistle would show up as Little Chapters; verses from the Gospel would appear as antiphons for the Gospel Canticles at Lauds and Vespers. Thus, the theological messages that grounded the seasons as found in the Sunday Masses were interlaced through the rest of the week in the Offices. The Scriptural content created the lived reality of the seasons as interpreted by the surrounding versicles, hymns, etc.

Hence, I repeat my charge: Vatican II was the last straw that wrecked this. It wasn’t the vernacular that did it in but the three year lectionary… Formerly the Mass and Office were on a common one-year calendar. No longer. The current ’79 BCP shows how the aftershocks effected protestant liturgies: We now have a three-year mass lectionary that is completely disconnected from our two-year office lectionary.

If the motu proprio does come out (yeah, here’s how this is connected to the previous post…) and restores a Tridentine Mass, will it also restore the Tridentine lectionary? Because if not, even the Roman traditionalists will face what we face now, a system wherein the appointed Gospel may have resonances with the rest of the Mass texts maybe once every three years but where it has nothing to do with the Offices.

Ah well–it was an elegant structure but was fundamentally a house of cards… The three-year lectionary seems to be here to stay. I wish we could recover again thesekinds of connections. There are ways but they would be complicated. Essentially, the next revision of theBCP would have to incorporate a three-year cycle of liturgies that wouldcohere with the three-year lectionary. Too, something would have to be done with the Office and with the Office lectionary.

Actually, though, it’s the Offices where something of the old system could be recaptured… Ever read the rubrics after the Offices carefully? Antiphons for the Psalms and the GospelCanticles are permitted, especially those that come from Scripture… You know what I’m thinking? A three-year “antiphonary” that would tie the mass readings into the Offices as antiphons. It’d be another book to juggle but I wonder what it would do to recapture our sense of the liturgical year…

Thoughts on the Latin Mass, Relativism, and the Answer

I’ve been doing some reflecting about the reputedly forth-coming motu proprio. For those out of touch with current Roman doings, the traditionalist blogs have been abuzz with rumors that B16 may release a document (possibly) in the next week that reinstates the Latin Mass and celebrating ad orientem. I greet this news with mixed feelings. I’ll probably split my thoughts into two posts–this and the next.

A few weeks ago I was leading a section of New Testament on ideological criticism, particularly feminist and socio-economic readings. I was in a small group that happened to be populated by several very intelligent conservative evangelicals. They spent about 30 minutes trashing ideological critism as a form of eiegesis–importing one’s own politics into the text. Now–I’m not a huge ideological kind of guy so but at that point one of them said something to this effect: “There’s no reason to try and make everything so political. Care and concern for the poor and women are already in the biblical text. Why do some people feel they have to go looking for it everywhere since it’s already there?” At that point, I could contain myself no longer.  I explined to them that there was a reason why they thought it was already there–because every class they had taken at seminary was so thoroughly imbued wiuth the principles and the benefits of ideological criticisms of one kind or another that they had forgotten that they had read the text any other way. I reminded them that for centuries the guild of privileged white men had read the text without ever finding the women or the over-riding concern for the poor that they took for granted. I pointed out the irony of trashing an interpretive system from which they had already reaped the benefits–especially one of the more vocal critics who was a woman… There seems, to me, to be a certain dishonesty there, rejecting with one hand the very structures that enable your own flourishing.

In the advance of the rumored motu proprio I have read quite a number of folks who are more than ready to jettison the insipid banalities of the English Novus Ordo and to return to the purity and power of the Latin Mass. (By the way, the rumors haven’t quite decided if the “Latin Mass” means the Tridentine ot the Latin Novus Ordo…) Personally, I love the idea of the Latin Mass and certainly wouldn’t mind of our Roman brother brought it back. BUT–I say that with full awareness of three things: 1) I know Latin. No, I don’t have the killer Latin linguistic skills of certain lurkers on this blog but my Latin is certainly good enough to follow the Mass prayerfully without parallel English. I also know I’m in the huge minority of Americans–let alone citizens of the world. 2) I’ve never lived under a Latin Only regime. And from what I can glean, neither have most of the people who seem to be pushing for it the hardest. 3) I honestly don’t have a dog in this hunt. I’m not Roman and my life won’t be changed by this decision whether it ever comes out or not.

From  where I sit, it seems that the most vocal critics are the privileged few who not only have had the ability to study Latin but–even more important–have had the advantage of growing up with the Mass in the vernacular. Even those with sketchy Latin will know the general meaning of what the priest is saying because they’ve grown up hearing it in their own tongue.

Now, my understanding is that this document will not signal a return to the Latin Mass; I don’t think that vernacular Masses will be abolished, only that Latin Masses will be more widely allowed. I fervently hope that this is the case. For as much as Ilove the idea of the Latin Mass, people need to hear the liturgy and be formed by the liturgy in their own mother tongue as well.

When I mentioned  the document to a Roman of my acquaintance, his response was interesting. He asked me if I knew what was driving it. I responded, “Yes, small t-traditionalism. That traditionalism that believes that tradition is defined as ‘how they did things when I was a kid’ or that defines it as ‘they way things used to be before my parents’ generation f’ed everything up.'” He said, “No. That may be why lay groups are for it but the Vatican doesn’t care about that. It’s about a ressurgent clericalism, pure and simple. Putting the power and knowledge–by means of a language known primarily if not exclusively by the priests–back into the hands of the priestly class and drawing the deep distinction again.” His response is shaped by the experiental knowledge of the vicious conflict in the years immediately after Vatican II when his order went through power struggles that were ostensibly about languge and liturgy but really ran much deeper.

I’ve been thinking about his response for  several days now.  When studying history, particularly WWII, I often wonder what could possibly make otherwise sane and intelligent Germans vote for Hitler and the Nazis. Why would people want any form of totalitarian system? The answer that I keep coming back to is that people prefer strong and decisive leadership over chaos. And what wasn’t emphasized enough in the hiostory lessons that I received is the chaos and breakdown of the Weimar Republic: the catastrophic inflation, the breakdown of law and order. A vote for the Nazis was a vote for some kind of stability and structure (despite the downsides that most didn’t really grasp) in the face of overwhelming chaos.

Why would people–people who *aren’t* priests, that is–want to embrace a form of clericalism? Perhaps the same dynamic is at work. In an age of relativism, people looking for truth live in the midst of philosophical chaos. Where and how is big-t Truth to be found–and how will you know it when you find it? The denominations and organizations that seem to be growing the most in America are those who are perfectly happy to give clear-cut answers. Your local Vineyard or Southern Baptist or, yes, Roman church will be more than happy to supply you with a big-t Truth. And I can definitely see the attraction. It would be nice to have clear-cut answers, clean lines and boundaries. As Devo once put it, “Freedom of choice/ Is what you’ve got/Freedom from choice/Is what you want…” Because the alternative is uncertainty.  Especially when it comes to the realm of spiritual truth, how do you know when you really have it right? When it’s something as important as divine realities, who can really afford to be wrong?

But that’s the kicker isn’t it–because someone says they have the Truth, how do you know they do? At some point, we are still stumbling in the dark, adjudicating competing claims as best we can. The choice as I see it, is either selecting one of the groups who claim to have the Answers or affiliate with  one of those that affirms that Answers exist but they’re not going to insist complete conformity.

At some point we who are Christians must ask–what of the Spirit? Does it move in and through people or only in communities–or only in one community? And yes, I have now been talking for a while about the Great Unpleasantness. To my mind, one of the chief virtues in both people and in institutions is humility. A willingness to confess that they do not have all of the answers or, perhaps, that they do have the Answer but not the details. And that is where I prefer to stand. I do have the Answer but, to be completely accurate, that’s not really it. Rather–the Answer has me. Through Baptism. I have been united in a death like his and rise in a resurrection like his. I know that the Answer is Jesus and I take comfort that he has me.

Trial Liturgy: An Anglican Office of the Dead

(One of the reasons I transferred to WordPress is the ability to connect files to posts–this is a test of that functionality…)

Linked here are two files for an Anglican Office of the Dead. First, a Matins of the Dead; second, a Vespers of the Dead.

I have adapted the Roman form as found in the Anglican Breviary using the same kind of manipulations that were used to create our Morning Prayer form the combination of Matins and Lauds (there is no Prime version of the Office of the Dead) and Evening Prayer from Vespers (again–there is no Compline Office of the Dead). (For those unfamiliar with these Offices, see the article from the Catholic Encyclopedia.)

Following the traditional use, these may be read after the regular days Offices 1) on the first Friday of every month where we pray for all the departed, 2) on the day of death–or the day we are notified of someone’s death, 3) again on the day of burial, and 4) on the 3rd, 7th and 30th days after either death or burial. (While a double office is preferable you could, of course, read this instead of the usual offices…)

One of the reasons I post these files is because this disputed theological topic–praying for the dead–is part and parcel of the theological conundrum that the Lutheran Zephyr brought up: the invocation of the saints. I see them as inseperable because they are rooted in a shared Christian theology of death. I’ll write more on this a little later.

I welcome comments on the Offices.