laudable Practice

Our  Advent series of Marian reflections from Jeremy Taylor's The Great Exemplar today comes to the Visitation. Taylor offers a beautiful, rich meditation, rejoicing in the meeting of "two mothers of two great princes": It is not easy to imagine what a collision of joys was at this blessed meeting: two mothers of two great princes, the one 'the greatest that was born of woman' and the other was his Lord, and these made mothers by two miracles, met together with joy and mysteriousness; where the mother of our Lord went to visit the mother of his servant, and the Holy Ghost made the meeting festival, and descended upon Elizabeth, and she prophesied. Never but in heaven was there more joy and ecstasy. The persons who were women, whose fancies and affections were not only hallowed, but made pregnant and big with religion, meeting together to compare and unite their joys and their eucharist, and then made prophetical and inspired, must needs have discoursed like serap...

In this Advent series of Marian reflections from Jeremy Taylor's The Great Exemplar , we turn to the Blessed Virgin's post-Annunciation journey to Saint Elizabeth. At this point, Taylor evokes one of the most significant aspects of the Protoevangelium : Her haste was in proportion to her joy and desires, but yet went no greater pace than her religion. For as in her journey she came near to Jerusalem, she turned in, that she might visit his temple, whose temple she herself was now; and there, not only to remember the pleasures of religion, which she had felt in continual descents and showers falling on her pious heart, for the space of eleven years' attendance there in her childhood, but also to pay the first fruits of her thanks and joy, and to lay all her glory at his feet, whose humble handmaid she was in the greatest honour of being his blessed mother. Having worshipped, she went on her journey, 'and entered into the house of Zacharias, and saluted Elizabeth.' It...

Throughout Advent, I will be posting some Marian extracts from Jeremy Taylor's Great Exemplar , demonstrating how in Taylor we see that a thoroughly Protestant understanding (evident, for example, in his Dissuasive , with its robust critique of Tridentine Marian practices) is no barrier to a tender reverence for the Blessed Virgin Mary.  We begin today with words from the outset of Taylor's account of 'The History of the Conception of Jesus'. Here we see how Taylor's depiction of the Blessed Virgin evinces love and reverence, a quiet joy that the grace of God had prepared her for "a full measure of honour": In the days of Herod the king, the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a holy maid called Mary, espoused to Joseph; and found her in a capacity and excellent disposition to receive the greatest honour that ever was done to the daughters of men. Her employment was holy and pious, her person young, her years florid and s...

In some parts of the Anglican Communion, 15th August is marked as 'Saint Mary the Virgin' (TEC BCP 1979), 'The Blessed Virgin Mary' (Common Worship), or 'The Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary' (Canadian BCP 1962). In the Church of Ireland, today is merely the Thursday of the Eleventh Week after Trinity. Our equivalent Marian observation is 8th September, celebrating the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary (a provision also permitted as an alternative to 15th August in Common Worship). This wisely avoids any confusion which may arise, in the Irish context, in light of our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters celebrating the Assumption on this day. Whether we, as Anglicans, are observing this day a Marian observance or not, however, is rather beside the point. We all rejoice that the Blessed Virgin Mary shares in the heavenly glory with "all thy saints departed this life in thy faith and fear", the hope of "all thy whole Church". This is se...

Not out of envie or maliciousnesse So I forbear to crave your speciall aid:                                           I would addresse My vows to thee most gladly, Blessed Maid, And Mother of my God, in my distresse. Thou art the holy mine, whence came the gold, The great restorative for all decay                                           In young and old; Thou art the cabinet where the jewell lay: Chiefly to thee would I my soul unfold: But now, alas, I dare not; for our King, Whom we do all joyntly adore and praise,                                           Bids no such thing: And where his pleasure no injunction layes, (’Tis your own case) ye never move a wing. George Herber...

As our Mother, you love us and know us: no concern of our hearts is hidden from you. Mother of mercy, how often we have experienced your watchful care and your peaceful presence! ...We now turn to you and knock at the door of your heart. We are your beloved children. In every age you make yourself known to us, calling us to conversion ... You are able to untie the knots of our hearts and of our times. In you we place our trust ... O Mother, may your sorrowful plea stir our hardened hearts. May the tears you shed for us make this valley parched by our hatred blossom anew ... Accept this act that we carry out with confidence and love. Grant that war may end and peace spread throughout the world ... Our Lady of the “Fiat”, on whom the Holy Spirit descended, restore among us the harmony that comes from God. May you, our “living fountain of hope”, water the dryness of our hearts ... You once trod the streets of our world; lead us now on the paths of peace. Amen - the Act of Consecration of ...

Cranmer's decision to use the pre-Reformation post-communion prayer for the Annunciation as the collect of the feast bequeathed to Anglicans a prayer of great theological richness.  This post-communion prayer came to the pre-Reformation Latin rites from the 8th century Gregorian Sacramentary .  It was a prayer which shaped over centuries how Latin Christians had celebrated the Annunciation. In using it as the collect for the feast in the Book of Common Prayer, Cranmer no doubt was attracted by how the emphasis on grace reflected his Reformed theological agenda: "We beseech thee, O Lord, pour thy grace into our hearts".  It is the grace of God which is the cause of the Blessed Virgin's fiat .  This also points to Augustine's insight: Yes, of course, holy Mary did the will of the Father. And therefore it means more for Mary to have been a disciple of Christ than to have been the mother of Christ. It means more for her, an altogether greater blessing, to have been ...

A final extract from The Great Exemplar , a beautiful and deeply patristic meditation from Taylor on the sanctity and perpetual virginity of Our Lady, indicative of Laudian Marian piety: As there was no sin in the conception, neither had she pains in the production, as the church from the days of Gregory Nazianzen until now, hath piously believed; though before his days there were some opinions to the contrary, but certainly neither so pious, nor so reasonable.  For to her alone did not the punishment of Eve extend, that "in sorrow should she bring forth": for where nothing of sin was an ingredient, there misery cannot cohabit.  For though amongst the daughters of men many conceptions are innocent and holy, being sanctified by the word of God and prayer, hallowed by marriage, designed by prudence, seasoned by temperance, conducted by religion towards a just, a hallowed, and a holy end, and yet their productions are in sorrow; yet this of the blessed Virgin might be otherwise,...

"The more widely used form."  That is the description in   Common Worship: Time and Seasons  of the usage by which the Advent antiphons begin on the 17th December rather than the 16th, as in the Kalendar of the BCP 1662. Now, of course, the statement is factual - the 17th is "the more widely used form", normative in the Latin rite.  The 16th was the use of Sarum, an oddity in a local rite.  But there is something richer here than liturgical antiquarianism. The 16th allowed for an addition to the Advent antiphons, on the 23rd: O Virgin of virgins, how shall this be? For neither before thee was any like thee, nor shall there be after. Daughters of Jerusalem, why marvel ye at me? The thing which ye behold is a divine mystery. Here the Church's Advent prayer rejoices in the fulfilment of the yearnings expressed from  O Sapientia .  The fulfilment comes not in abstractions, but in the swollen belly of the Maiden.   There , the Church's Advent pray...

... though we have rebelled against him: neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God - Sentences, Daniel 9:9-10. But, unlike us, the Daughter of Sion has heard and kept the word of God. As Augustine says, "Mary, too, is blessed, because she heard the word of God and kept it. She kept truth safe in her mind even better than she kept flesh safe in her womb. Christ is truth, Christ is flesh; Christ as truth was in Mary's mind, Christ as flesh in Mary's womb". And there is no health in u s - General Confession. We rightly hesitate to say this of the Blessed Virgin: a respectful reserve and reticence is called for.  Hooker declares regarding her sanctity and the presence of sin, "we say with St. Augustine, for the honour’s sake which we owe to our Lord and Saviour Christ, we are not willing, in this cause, to move any question of his mother". ... that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure, and holy - Absolution. We pray that we may be pure and h...

Now follows a remarkable and interesting song of the holy virgin, which plainly shows how eminent were her attainments in the grace of the Spirit ... She announces that this kindness of God will be kept in remembrance throughout all generations. But if it is so remarkable, that it ought to be proclaimed everywhere by the lips of all men, silence regarding it would have been highly improper in Mary, on whom it was bestowed ... Let Papists now go, and hold us out as doing injury to the mother of Christ, because we reject the falsehoods of men, and extol in her nothing more than the kindness of God. Nay, what is most of all honourable to her we grant ... We cheerfully acknowledge her as our teacher, and obey her instruction and commands - from Calvin's Commentary on Luke 1 , on the Magnificat. Twelve: that is the number of times Calvin uses the term "holy virgin" in his commentary on Luke 1.  In Luke 2, he uses the term on four occasions. It is testimony to Calvin's rev...

Is it the case that those of us who - faithful to the Reformed Catholicism and classical Prayer Book tradition of Anglicanism - did not celebrate the Assumption on Sunday past have a 'low' view of the Blessed Virgin Mary? The question comes to mind after I saw the above illustration shared on Twitter.  The illustration, needless, to say, entirely ignores the Reformed tradition's reverence for the Blessed Virgin.  (And, we might add, it is hardly a convincing depiction of Roman Catholic teaching.)  Leaving that aside, the idea that the Assumption is somehow necessary in order to have a rich and reverent understanding of the Blessed Virgin is, at the very least, odd. It is odd because the participation of the Blessed Virgin in redemption does not in any way require the Assumption for that participation to be profoundly and deepy glorious, what the Apostle proclaims as "the riches of the glory of this mystery".  The Blessed Virgin participates in the hope of the Lord...

Mark Frank's sermons ( First and Second Sermons) for the feast of the Purification of Saint Mary the Virgin exemplify how Laudian Marian piety was warm and unembarrassed while yet doctrinally Reformed.  The reverence with which he addresses the Lord's Mother - "blessed Mary", "Mary the blessed", "holy Mary" - was entirely conventional.  Not only did it reflect the works of the Reformers themselves (see, for example, Calvin ), it also was seen in the preaching of Donne, hardly a representative of the avant-garde .  One of Donne's sermons for the feast opened with the words, "The church ... celebrates this day, the purification of the blessed Virgin, the mother of God".  (It is worth noting at this point that the term 'Mother of God' does not appear in Frank's sermons from the Purification or the Annunciation, an indication of the conventional Reformed modesty of Laudian Marian piety.) Similarly, even Frank's referenc...

One of the most striking features of the collect Cranmer composed for Christmas Day (and to be prayed daily until the feast of the Circumcision) is its reference to the Blessed Virgin Mary: "to be born of a pure Virgin".  Of the three collects for the Masses of Christmas Day in the Sarum rite (they can be read in the Prayer Book Society's commentary ), none make reference to the Blessed Virgin Mary.  This alone is worthy of comment.  Cranmer's reformed rite introduces a Marian dimension to the liturgical celebration of Christmas not found in the pre-Reformation rite. Then there is the term Cranmer uses for the Blessed Virgin: "pure Virgin". It is not a term explicitly found in Scripture.  'Blessed Virgin Mary' is, of course, based on Luke 1:42 and 48.  Cranmer, however, did not choose it for his Christmas collect.  Instead he choose a term well known to medieval Latin Marian piety.  Take, for example, its use by Thomas Aquinas.  While a 'maculis...

Some Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics on Twitter on Tuesday - the feast of the Immaculate Conception in the Roman tradition - could be found suggesting that Thomas Ken believed in the Immaculate Conception because of a verse in his poem ' Sion: or, Philothea ': The Holy Ghost his Temple in her built, Cleans’d from congenial, kept from mortal Guilt; And from the Moment that her Blood was fired Into her Heart celestial Love inspir’d. Colin Podmore - the former Director of Forward in Faith and editor of an excellent collection of Roger Greenacre's Marian writings - has stated rather straight-forwardly that Ken is here affirming the Immaculate Conception: This is poetry, not prose, but surely we have here the doctrine that at the moment of her conception – ‘the Moment that her Blood was fired’ – Mary was cleansed from original sin in order that she might become the mother of Our Lord. More cautiously, Paul Williams in Mary: The Complete Resource suggests that this "a...