05.05.09
Aidan and Cuthbert
New Blue book on the proposed revised calendar for the Episcopal Church is out to be approved at this summer’s general convention. There are a large number of changes and many additions.
Cuthbert has a vision of Aidan's soul being carried to heaven on the night he died, from a version of Bede's Life of Cuthbert.
One of the changes combines the feast day for Bishops Aidan and Cuthbert of Lindisfarne on August 31st (Aidan’s feast day). We have been saying for years that Cuthbert is the politically correct version of Aidan and now they will share a feast day. On top of that, they share Aidan’s feast day. I think that is appropriate given that Aidan is the founder of Lindisfarne and is probably more popular among the neo-Celtic movement, but I’m sure in terms of historic popularity, Cuthbert was more popular. Having the feast in August will remove it from the complication of possibly falling in Lent. It will also move Cuthbert from the shadow of St Patrick a couple days earlier. Overall, I can’t say that I mind too much, but it does decrease the number of early medieval and Anglo-Saxons feasts. This is more relevant because they are proposing to add so many post-Reformation people.
New proposed collect:
Everliving God, you called your servants Aidan and Cuthbert to proclaim the Gospel in northern England and gave them loving hearts and gentle spirits: Grant us grace to live as they did, in simplicity, humility and love for the poor; through Jesus Christ, who came among us as one who serves, and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
01.10.09
Lectionary edits
I’ve been working on my Lenten reflection for my parish collection. The psalm I’m working on is one where they cut out a couple verses because they have objectionable curses. I can’t help wondering why they bother to edit out a couple verses from the daily office lectionary. Its not as though the daily office is reprinted in a service leaflet or booklet where the offending verses could actually be cut out. You say the daily office with the BCP and/or the bible. If I get a direction to cut out eight verses out of 38 then I’m going to be curious at what is being cut out and look for those verses especially. Besides, like it or not, the curses are part the psalms. The curses are difficult for Christians to understand as being part of scripture but if they were left in the lectionary it would give priests sermon topics. It would be a teaching moment. Its interesting how some priests completely ignore the pslams in their sermons, while others use them frequently.
01.07.09
Preparing for Lent
Here it is Epiphany and yet at my parish we are getting ready for Lent. For at least the last five years my parish has put together a booklet of Lenten reflections or meditations based on the daily office for every day of Lent from Ash Wednesday to Easter Sunday, written by members of the parish. It takes a considerable effort to organize, recruit authors, have people across the parish write, collect the contributions, edit and produce the booklet in time to distribute it before Ash Wednesday. I think its well worth it. It is fascinating to see what 47 people across the parish will write. Many parishioners will follow the office for Lent, even if they usually don’t, to read the reflections of their church family. This year we decided to write on the psalms. Each person will have their choice of the two to four psalms assigned to the (morning or evening) office for their day. The psalms will be a challenge but I am eager to read the results.
So here is an offer for you, if you would like a copy of our Lenten reflections on the psalms email me at hefenfelth(at)gmail.com with your name and address and I will try to send you a copy around Ash Wednesday (while supplies last).
If your parish has any unusual preparations for Lent, I’d like to hear from you in the comments section below!
05.06.08
A Guidebook to Daily Prayer
Christopher L Webber. A User’s Guide to the Book of Common Prayer: Morning and Evening Prayer. Morehouse, 2005. $8 on Amazon.com.
This is a very handy little book. It is designed for people who know nothing about daily prayer, and so takes nothing for granted. This is a good thing! Webber has reprinted the pages of morning and evening prayer out of the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), going so far as leaving the same page numbers, and then provides facing page commentary.
The Introduction overs a wide variety of information. One of the primary concerns here is the difference between Rite I and Rite II. Webber provides a discussion of how Rite I differs from Rite II, but all further discussion uses Rite II. He also discusses the differences between the 1928 and 1979 BCP.
The real value of the book comes when we get to the actual offices. Set up in facing page style, each section has a general description of its purpose, history, and the sources of the actual words. One of the obvious things that comes out of the discussion is changes to the canticles in the 1979 BCP. I have to say I like the additional canticles and I would be happy if there were even more of them. It always surprises me that so much from the apocrypha is included when there are so many canticles in scripture that are omitted (Jonah, Song of Songs, Hannah’s song etc). He goes on to give the sources and authors of the collects included with the offices. The bit about the Phos hilaron was considered a cherished old hymn by St Basil in 379 is interesting. I also thought it was interesting that Webber noted that the Magnificant can be used for morning prayer and that any morning canticle can be used for evening prayer. That is very good to know because always using it for evening prayer is a little too rigid for me. Don’t get me wrong, I like it, but it doesn’t always seem like the best canticle to go with the other selections. The book rounds off short discussions of the prayers and a short glossary.
As I said from the beginning, its a handy book. Its not groundbreaking scholarship or comprehensive analysis, but it suits its purpose: to introduce new people to morning and evening prayer. I think it does that quite well.
05.05.08
Juggling books
Derek has an interesting post here on early medieval liturgical materials. As Derek points out, to do the daily office in the early medieval period required juggling five different books — breviary, collectar (with collects, I presume?), psalter, antiphoner, and hymnal. How many clergy would want to juggle this many books, much less laity? Besides, this requires a mini-library and is not very useful for travel. Books of hours then provided primarily the laity with one book that contained everything they needed to pray the hours.
Now to be sure, some of the above books may have had a combination of materials in one book, say psalter and antiphoner or hymnal. Indeed, psalters were the most multifunctional early books, usually containing additional matierals like liturgical calendars, antiphons (sometimes in place before and after the psalms), and a collection of other prayers. Likewise, breviaries contained a wide variety of material and are the clerical version of a book of hours. As the liturgy became more complex, breviaries got not so brief, and became difficult to handle.
I think its a shame that antiphons have been largely forgotten and collects have become rather cookie cutter. I hope to post some new collects here in time.
