laudable Practice

Taylor the Laudian, echoing Hooker, reminding us why the Prayer Book has but few ceremonies: And therefore there is reason to celebrate and honour the wisdome and prudence of the Church of England, which hath in all her offices retain'd but one ritual or ceremony that is not of Divine ordinance or Apostolical practice, and that is, the Cross in baptisme: which though it be a significant ceremony, and of no other use, yet as it is a compliance with the practice of all ancient Churches, so it is very innocent in it self, and being one and alone is in no regard troublesome or afflictive to those that understand her power and her liberty and her reason. I said, she hath one onely ceremony of her own appointment; for the Ring in marriage is the symbol of a civil and a religious contract, it is a pledge and custome of the nation, not of the religion: and those other circumstances of her worship, are but determinations of time and place and manner of a duty; they serve to other purposes b...

In January and February 1548, by order of the Privy Council, at the urging of Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the ceremonies of Candlemas candles, ashing on the first day of Lent, palms on the Sunday before Easter, and creeping to the cross on Good Friday were abolished in the realm of England. Eamon Duffy writes of this, "the entire edifice of Catholic culture and liturgy was being dismantled in England". Many contemporary Anglicans, and not only Anglo-Catholics, agree with Duffy: the abolition of such ceremonies is to be deeply regretted, removing drama and imagery from the observance of the Christian year. Generations of Anglicans over centuries, however, would consider such a view to be distinctly odd and a rejection of the goodly order of the Book of Common Prayer. The purpose of this post is not to criticize those Anglicans who use and value such ceremonies. It is, rather, to encourage those of us for whom these ceremonies are not part of our liturgical observance and to be...

To continue the ' Old High/New Low ' theme, words from Richard Mant's 1845 Charge, Horae Ecclesiasticae; The Position of the Church with Regard to Romish Error , a critique of Tractarianism.  Amongst the Tractarian errors challenged by Mant was the desire restore "ceremonies which our Church has abolished or disused in her reformed Liturgy".  He provides examples of such ceremonies: the innumerable and reiterated gesti culations of the officiating priests, and the variety  and continual changes of the sacerdotal vestments:  of the exorcisms and chrisms, and the mixing of  oil and balsam with the water used in holy bap tism: of the reserving, carrying about, lifting up,  and worshipping of the consecrated bread and  wine in the holy communion: of the creepings to  the cross: of the multitudinous bowings and cross ings of the person: of the sprinkling of holy  water: of the ringing of little hand bells, and the  lighting of numerous c...

The singing of Psalms has been on my mind recently, for two reasons.  The first is the reference to psalm singing in Matthew Myer Boulton's excellent Life in God: John Calvin, Practical Formation, and the Future of Protestant Theology (2011).  He describes the importance of signing the Psalter in Calvin's reform of the Genevan churches: Accordingly, for many in the sixteenth-century reform movements, the psalms became identified as the music of the people, God's Word once only accessible to a few, now sung by one and all.  Indeed, in an era when women's voices were prominently heard in public worship only in convents, and children's voices only in specialist choirs, the joyous roar in Genevan churches rose from the entire assembly, men, women, and children singing together (p.34). Secondly, The Observer last weekend had a wonderful story on a new album, ' The Edge of the Sea ', of Gaelic psalm singing from the western isles of Scotland: In the north-weste...

Taking this quiz yesterday, I was informed that I am 'Prayer Book Low Church' Anglican.  This was defined as follows: If you're in the United States you're probably the most likely to emphasize that you're part of the PROTESTANT Episcopal Church in the United States of America and you still refer to the 1979 BCP as the "New Prayer book" regardless of how old you are. And yes you probably would like an American Flag hanging behind the altar, all things considered. If you're in Britain you're the early service 1662 spoken service type. You have a strong sense of Christian duty, but you don't want to get into the messiness of "evangelism" or too much "liturgy" and you definitely don't want any of that High Church nonsense. For you, regular Sunday services are your main exposure to Morning Prayer, except for the four Sundays a year that you add communion on to it. It's certainly OK if your priest preaches more than 20 m...