May 5, 2004
For the Primates of the Anglican Communion
My dear brothers,
Grace to you and peace in our risen Savior Jesus Christ.
I find myself, in these days of Easter in which we contemplate the mystery of the resurrection and its consequences in our lives, living with a sharp awareness of the reality of our being bound together in the Lord because of our baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And, that being thus bound we are called to share one another's sufferings as well as joys. Over these months I have been deeply grieved that recent events in the life of the Episcopal Church in the United States have caused suffering for many of you. I am very clear that what occurred is in accord with our Constitution and is widely regarded as a faithful action. However, as your brother I am profoundly sorry for the wound this has caused within our body.
As I have said many times to the bishops of the Episcopal Church and to others, what we do in one part of the Communion can have significant consequences elsewhere. I remember vividly when we were together last October at Lambeth hearing from some of you about finding yourselves ridiculed and made a laughing stock because of your association with the Episcopal Church. I completely understand why some of you have spoken so harshly about what has occurred here. At the same time, many of us who love you deeply in the Lord are profoundly saddened that our fellowship is so severely strained, and in some cases appears to be broken.
I pray that in spite of our differences, serious as they are, we can discover together in this difficult time the truth of what we said in our statement of last October that "what we hold in common is much greater than that which divides us in proclaiming Good News to the world." The prayer of my heart is that we can discover anew our unity in service to God's mission through these difficulties. Our world, which is so burdened by poverty, disease and civil strife, is much in need of our common witness and action.
I regret that this communication is through a letter rather than a conversation. I hope we as primates will encourage ongoing conversations at all levels between people of our various provinces. I do believe that as we explore what we share across our differences we rediscover our common ground in service to God's continuing work of reconciliation. In conversation our differences do not disappear. Instead we find ourselves grounded upon the rock of Christ whose deathless love is able to transform our mistrust and woundedness into mutual care and affection.
It is my deepest sense that we have much to learn from one another, particularly as we seek to proclaim the gospel in our often very different contexts. The visits I have been privileged to make to several of your provinces have certainly made that very plain, and I have come away with an enlarged and deeper sense of how God is acting in this world to save us all from the power of sin and death.
On another matter, I want to share with you the response of the bishops of the Episcopal Church to the concern expressed in our Lambeth statement of last October that there be "adequate provision for episcopal oversight of dissenting minorities within their own area of pastoral care in consultation with the Archbishop of Canterbury on behalf of the Primates." The bishops of the Episcopal Church are called to be chief pastors for all people in their dioceses. They have continued to shape a plan for pastoral care which they first put forward in 2002. They have addressed how bishops with different perspectives, overseeing dioceses in which there are varying points of view, can bear one another's burdens and uphold one another's ministries for the sake of the gospel and its proclamation. When we met in March of this year we further refined our plan, which was then agreed to by an overwhelming majority. It is set forth in the enclosed document: Caring for all the churches.
I am in conversation with a number of bishops, whose theological perspectives meet the pastoral needs of "dissenting minorities," about making themselves available to provide episcopal oversight at the invitation of the diocesan bishop. As well, I know of several instances where diocesan bishops have arranged or are about to arrange for Delegated Episcopal Pastoral Oversight.
Key to what we are trying to do at this time is the shared understanding of our bishops that an episcopal ministry of care and oversight is not a personal possession of any one bishop but is shared by all bishops for the well being of the church as a whole.
Please pray for us as we pray for you in these days that challenge us all in the various contexts in which the Lord has placed us.
This comes, as ever, with my love and prayers,
The Most Rev. Frank T. Griswold
Presiding Bishop and Primate
The Episcopal Church, USA
Saturday, May 08, 2004
From ECUSA Presiding Bishop to Anglican Primates
The ECUSA & the Anglican Province of S Africa: On sharing a Catechism
It has been widely noted in the last decade or more that it is the Anglican Church in South Africa, through its former and present Primate, which has been the most friendly of all African provinces towards the innovations and the leadership of the Episcopal Church of the USA.
In fact the leadership of the Anglican Province in South Africa is more liberal and less disposed to criticize innovations in sexual partnerships than are the provinces to the north. At the same time, in comparison with the extreme liberalism of the Episcopal Church of the USA, the Church of the Province of South Africa is a semi-conservative church, much less committed to radical innovations than her American sister.
The relation of the two Churches, and the more radical nature of the American, goes back a while and can be seen in the way in which the Catechism of the ECUSA Prayer Book of 1979 is adapted and used by the South Africans in their An Anglican Prayer Book (1989). The latter is in essence a Book of Alternative Services and stands alongside the classic Book of Common Prayer (1662). It is a Prayer Book which has a distinctly Anglo-Catholic flavor and is only partially committed to the rendering of the Bible and ancient Canticles according to the theory of dynamic equivalency in translation of ancient texts. In the Psalter, there is a retention of the literal form of translation since Psalm 1 begins, “Blessed is the man…” (cf. 1979 ECUSA – “Happy are they”).
As Dr Tarsitano and I have shown in some detail in our study of the 1979 ECUSA Prayer Book (see our Neither Orthodoxy nor a Formulary….. [2004] published by the Prayer Book Society, call 1 800 727 1928), the Catechism in the 1979 Prayer Book falls well below what is necessary for an orthodox statement of the Catholic Faith. It is deficient in its doctrines of man, salvation, the Trinity, the person of Christ, and so on.
The South Africans took it over because it was one of the very few recent Catechisms available in the Anglican Communion, but in receiving it they sought to improve it by judicious editing and additions.
Here is what they added:
Further, they cut out of the Catechism the novel ECUSA way (first used in 1967) of referring to the Blessed & Holy Trinity as “God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Their answer to the question as to what we mean when speaking of God as Trinity is as follows: “We mean that we believe in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, three Persons and yet one God.” [It gave me a sense of satisfaction to see the latter as for many years I have protested about the abbreviated and potentially heretical way that ECUSA has spoken and continues to speak of the Triune LORD.]
The Catechism in the 1989 Book is still deficient, but it is less so than is the 1979 Catechism (which remains the expressed doctrine of the ECUSA, and was created as a summary of the content of all the services in the Rite II mode in the 1979 Prayer Book).
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor & St Anne's, Brown Edge
In fact the leadership of the Anglican Province in South Africa is more liberal and less disposed to criticize innovations in sexual partnerships than are the provinces to the north. At the same time, in comparison with the extreme liberalism of the Episcopal Church of the USA, the Church of the Province of South Africa is a semi-conservative church, much less committed to radical innovations than her American sister.
The relation of the two Churches, and the more radical nature of the American, goes back a while and can be seen in the way in which the Catechism of the ECUSA Prayer Book of 1979 is adapted and used by the South Africans in their An Anglican Prayer Book (1989). The latter is in essence a Book of Alternative Services and stands alongside the classic Book of Common Prayer (1662). It is a Prayer Book which has a distinctly Anglo-Catholic flavor and is only partially committed to the rendering of the Bible and ancient Canticles according to the theory of dynamic equivalency in translation of ancient texts. In the Psalter, there is a retention of the literal form of translation since Psalm 1 begins, “Blessed is the man…” (cf. 1979 ECUSA – “Happy are they”).
As Dr Tarsitano and I have shown in some detail in our study of the 1979 ECUSA Prayer Book (see our Neither Orthodoxy nor a Formulary….. [2004] published by the Prayer Book Society, call 1 800 727 1928), the Catechism in the 1979 Prayer Book falls well below what is necessary for an orthodox statement of the Catholic Faith. It is deficient in its doctrines of man, salvation, the Trinity, the person of Christ, and so on.
The South Africans took it over because it was one of the very few recent Catechisms available in the Anglican Communion, but in receiving it they sought to improve it by judicious editing and additions.
Here is what they added:
- The full Ten Commandments (rather than merely a reference to them)
- The full Apostles’ Creed (rather than merely a reference to it)
- A lengthy explanation of “The duty of all Christians” to the section on “The Ministry”
- A new section on Stewardship
- Explanations of meditation and contemplation to the section on “Prayer & Worship”
- A new section on Fasting
- A new section on Angels
Further, they cut out of the Catechism the novel ECUSA way (first used in 1967) of referring to the Blessed & Holy Trinity as “God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Their answer to the question as to what we mean when speaking of God as Trinity is as follows: “We mean that we believe in God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit, three Persons and yet one God.” [It gave me a sense of satisfaction to see the latter as for many years I have protested about the abbreviated and potentially heretical way that ECUSA has spoken and continues to speak of the Triune LORD.]
The Catechism in the 1989 Book is still deficient, but it is less so than is the 1979 Catechism (which remains the expressed doctrine of the ECUSA, and was created as a summary of the content of all the services in the Rite II mode in the 1979 Prayer Book).
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor & St Anne's, Brown Edge
Rogation & Ascension: DAYS OF SOLEMN SUPPLICATION and then A DAY OF JOY AND GLADNESS
Let us think about the Three Rogation Days, being the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday before Holy Thursday, or the Feast of the Ascension of our Lord.
If we follow the old tradition of the Ecclesia Anglicana (& the western Catholic Church) and of the reformed Church of England, then we receive the three days immediately before the Feast of the Ascension as both Rogation Days and as days of fasting and abstinence in preparation for this Festival, which crowns the other festivals of our Lord.
If we are going to have a Harvest Festival (Great Britain) or Thanksgiving Day (USA) in the Autumn/Fall then we should also have Rogationtide [supplication to God for fruitful seasons and a good harvest] in the Spring. And if we are to prepare rightly to celebrate the Ascension of our Lord we need to fast before the festival. So we ought to fast and pray on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
The origin of these Rogation Days seems to be an order by the Bishop of Vienne about AD 470 after an earthquake that special litanies be offered for God’s care and protection, with provision by heaven of the fruit of the earth. The custom spread through Gaul, to England and to Rome. In England the custom was required by Canon 16 of the Council of Clovesho in 747.
It was continued through the Reformation in England so that we find Queen Elizabeth in 1559 by Royal Injunction requiring the restoration of a perambulation of the parish boundaries/fields to pray for a good harvest; and there appeared in the official [Second] Book of Homilies (1562) “An Homily for the Days of Rogation Week”, divided into three parts for the 3 days of Rogation Week. And it is followed by “An exhortation to be spoken to such parishes where they use their perambulation in Rogation Week for the oversight and limits of their town.” This was written by Archbishop Parker. When there was no walking around the boundaries of the parish, the Litany (from the BCP) was sung in church.
A serious proposal made by Bishop Cosin of Durham in 1661 to put a Collect, Epistle [James 5:13-18] & Gospel [Luke 11:1-10] for Rogation in the new edition of the BCP, that of 1662, was not followed through. However, the Collect he wrote provides an insight into how this period of intercession and abstinence was viewed by the faithful then:
“Almighty God, Lord of heaven and earth, in whom we live, move and have our being, who does good unto all men, making thy sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sending rain on the just and the unjust; favorably behold us thy people, who do call upon thy name, and send us thy blessing from heaven, in giving us fruitful seasons, and filling our hearts with food and gladness; that both our hearts and mouths may be continually filled with thy praises, giving thanks to thee in thy holy Church, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
In the 1928 BCP of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA, provision of a Collect (based upon Cosin’s), Epistle [ Ezekiel 34:25ff.] and Gospel [Luke 11:5ff.] is provided for the Rogation Days. There are also two Collects “For Fruitful Seasons,” provided to be used on Rogation Sunday and the Rogation Days, in the section of this Prayer Book called “Prayers and Thanksgivings”.
Let us be fully aware that the members of the Church militant on earth need to be fed both by the fruit of the earth [thus the need for supplication in Rogation and thanksgiving at Harvest] and by the gifts, graces, virtues and characteristics of the Lord Jesus Christ, who ascends into heaven to be our exalted Prophet, Priest and King. The week containing Holy Thursday and the three Rogation Days is thus very important in the relation of earth to heaven!
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor & St Anne's, Brown Edge
If we follow the old tradition of the Ecclesia Anglicana (& the western Catholic Church) and of the reformed Church of England, then we receive the three days immediately before the Feast of the Ascension as both Rogation Days and as days of fasting and abstinence in preparation for this Festival, which crowns the other festivals of our Lord.
If we are going to have a Harvest Festival (Great Britain) or Thanksgiving Day (USA) in the Autumn/Fall then we should also have Rogationtide [supplication to God for fruitful seasons and a good harvest] in the Spring. And if we are to prepare rightly to celebrate the Ascension of our Lord we need to fast before the festival. So we ought to fast and pray on the Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
The origin of these Rogation Days seems to be an order by the Bishop of Vienne about AD 470 after an earthquake that special litanies be offered for God’s care and protection, with provision by heaven of the fruit of the earth. The custom spread through Gaul, to England and to Rome. In England the custom was required by Canon 16 of the Council of Clovesho in 747.
It was continued through the Reformation in England so that we find Queen Elizabeth in 1559 by Royal Injunction requiring the restoration of a perambulation of the parish boundaries/fields to pray for a good harvest; and there appeared in the official [Second] Book of Homilies (1562) “An Homily for the Days of Rogation Week”, divided into three parts for the 3 days of Rogation Week. And it is followed by “An exhortation to be spoken to such parishes where they use their perambulation in Rogation Week for the oversight and limits of their town.” This was written by Archbishop Parker. When there was no walking around the boundaries of the parish, the Litany (from the BCP) was sung in church.
A serious proposal made by Bishop Cosin of Durham in 1661 to put a Collect, Epistle [James 5:13-18] & Gospel [Luke 11:1-10] for Rogation in the new edition of the BCP, that of 1662, was not followed through. However, the Collect he wrote provides an insight into how this period of intercession and abstinence was viewed by the faithful then:
“Almighty God, Lord of heaven and earth, in whom we live, move and have our being, who does good unto all men, making thy sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sending rain on the just and the unjust; favorably behold us thy people, who do call upon thy name, and send us thy blessing from heaven, in giving us fruitful seasons, and filling our hearts with food and gladness; that both our hearts and mouths may be continually filled with thy praises, giving thanks to thee in thy holy Church, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”
In the 1928 BCP of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the USA, provision of a Collect (based upon Cosin’s), Epistle [ Ezekiel 34:25ff.] and Gospel [Luke 11:5ff.] is provided for the Rogation Days. There are also two Collects “For Fruitful Seasons,” provided to be used on Rogation Sunday and the Rogation Days, in the section of this Prayer Book called “Prayers and Thanksgivings”.
Let us be fully aware that the members of the Church militant on earth need to be fed both by the fruit of the earth [thus the need for supplication in Rogation and thanksgiving at Harvest] and by the gifts, graces, virtues and characteristics of the Lord Jesus Christ, who ascends into heaven to be our exalted Prophet, Priest and King. The week containing Holy Thursday and the three Rogation Days is thus very important in the relation of earth to heaven!
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor & St Anne's, Brown Edge
NOW AVAILABLE FOR YOUR EDIFICATION AND DELIGHT
Do please make known to friends in or alongside the Anglican Way!
ANGLICANISM. The Thought and Practice of the Church of England, illustrated from the religious literature of the seventeenth century. Compiled and edited by Paul Elmer More & Frank Leslie Cross, SPCK, London, 1935, reprinted 1951, 811 pages.
This storehouse of classic Anglican teaching on a wide variety of topics is now available on a CD in pdf format (you need Adobe Acrobat Reader to read it) for $12.50 including postage and package (Pa residents add sales tax please). Send a check to The Prayer Book Society, P.O. Box 35220, Philadelphia, PA. 19128-0220 or visit (from May 9th) the website to order there – www.anglicanmarketplace.com
The writings of the 16th century Anglican reformers are exciting and profound and from them we get the Book of Common Prayer, the Articles of Religion and the Ordinal, together with a vast catechetical, expository and devotional writing, not to mention controversial divinity.
By the time of the 17th century, there had been a long time to reflect upon the nature of the Reformed Catholicism (English Protestantism) embraced by the Church of England from 1548 onwards. This Book contains extracts on many topics from those whom we often call the standard divines of the Anglican Way. To read and digest this book is to gain a tremendous insight into the nature and character of the Anglican Way and how as a jurisdiction of the One Church of God it is related to but different from the Roman Catholic, the Presbyterian and the Lutheran Churches.
The extracts from the writers, arranged under various headings, is prefaced by two essays on the nature of Anglicanism in these formative days and then as an appendix there is a brief biography of each of the divines cited in the text.
DON’T MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY TO READ A LONG OUT OF PRINT CLASSIC.
May 5th, 2004
The Rev’d Dr. Peter Toon, Vice-President of the Prayer Book Society of the U.S.A.
ANGLICANISM. The Thought and Practice of the Church of England, illustrated from the religious literature of the seventeenth century. Compiled and edited by Paul Elmer More & Frank Leslie Cross, SPCK, London, 1935, reprinted 1951, 811 pages.
This storehouse of classic Anglican teaching on a wide variety of topics is now available on a CD in pdf format (you need Adobe Acrobat Reader to read it) for $12.50 including postage and package (Pa residents add sales tax please). Send a check to The Prayer Book Society, P.O. Box 35220, Philadelphia, PA. 19128-0220 or visit (from May 9th) the website to order there – www.anglicanmarketplace.com
The writings of the 16th century Anglican reformers are exciting and profound and from them we get the Book of Common Prayer, the Articles of Religion and the Ordinal, together with a vast catechetical, expository and devotional writing, not to mention controversial divinity.
By the time of the 17th century, there had been a long time to reflect upon the nature of the Reformed Catholicism (English Protestantism) embraced by the Church of England from 1548 onwards. This Book contains extracts on many topics from those whom we often call the standard divines of the Anglican Way. To read and digest this book is to gain a tremendous insight into the nature and character of the Anglican Way and how as a jurisdiction of the One Church of God it is related to but different from the Roman Catholic, the Presbyterian and the Lutheran Churches.
The extracts from the writers, arranged under various headings, is prefaced by two essays on the nature of Anglicanism in these formative days and then as an appendix there is a brief biography of each of the divines cited in the text.
DON’T MISS THIS OPPORTUNITY TO READ A LONG OUT OF PRINT CLASSIC.
May 5th, 2004
The Rev’d Dr. Peter Toon, Vice-President of the Prayer Book Society of the U.S.A.
Wednesday, May 05, 2004
Ascent and Descent: Christmas, Ascension Day and WhitsuntideChristmas, Ascension Day and Whitsuntide
(When we talk of Easter as being fifty days - as in the modern Calendar - I worry that the Feast of the Ascension will be neglected for it belongs to the 40 plus 10 scheme! thus...)
Christians think of the festival of Christmas as the arrival of the Son of God in the world, or even as his descent into the world.
In terms of arrival, they are speaking in common sense language as when they say, “Her baby has arrived!” In fact, they mean arrived in a visible way in space and time so that the place and time of birth can be stated.
The Son of God with his divine nature exists from eternity unto eternity in the infinite divine sphere; but in terms of both the divine sense of time and of human chronological time there was a moment when the Son of God in a unique manner arrived in space and time, and that moment was the conception of Jesus by Mary through the presence and action of the Holy Ghost. The act of Incarnation by the Son of God began at the conception by Mary of Jesus and came to its physical completion in the birth from Mary of Jesus. So the arrival of Jesus, Son of God and son of Mary, one Person, we date on Christmas Day. We also say in the Creed, “He descended from heaven and was incarnate of the Virgin Mary.” So his arrival is also his descent.
Christians think of the Feast of the Ascension as the departure of the Son of God from earth and his ascent into heaven.
After his ministry as the Messiah, his death and burial as the sacrificed Lamb of God, and his being raised from the dead as the victorious Saviour, the resurrected Jesus in his new body of glory visited his apostles and disciples for a period of forty days. Then he departed from them, not to be seen again in physical, bodily form. On the last of these forty days, in his final resurrection appearance and described in Acts 1, there was a clear demonstration to the assembled disciples of where precisely Jesus was going and where he would be for the future. The cloud into which he went up was no ordinary white cloud in the sky, but the luminous cloud of glory known in the Old Testament as the sign of the presence of YHWH, the LORD, and called by the Jews, the Shekinah. Thus he ascended as the God-Man, the Incarnate Logos, into heaven, into the immediate presence of GOD, the Father.
The Feast of the Ascension is the festival which crowns that of Easter and prepares us for that of Pentecost.
Before he departed and ascended, he taught his disciples all that they needed to know about his identity and mission, and he promised them the Paraclete (Counsellor, Advocate, Comforter – the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of Christ) to be with them all, wherever they were in space and time.
The descent of the Paraclete to the waiting disciples and for the full creation of the Church of God is what is celebrated on Whit Sunday, the Feast of Pentecost (Acts 2), ten days after the Ascension into heaven. We may say that the Lord Christ came to his people in, with and by the presence of the Holy Ghost, his Paraclete.
However, the exalted Lord Jesus will remain where he is in terms of his perfected human nature - on the throne of glory- until he descends once more into space and time at the end of the age, until, that is, he arrives in glory on earth, in order to judge the living and the dead, consummate the purposes of God and inaugurate the new age of the kingdom of God. His coming and arrival in great glory as the Resurrected, Exalted Lord is the basis of the Christian Hope.
In the interim, the period of the evangelization of the world by the Church, the Holy Ghost is present as the Paraclete to make the Lord Jesus known on earth and to enable the Church to ascend in heart and mind to dwell with the same Lord Jesus in heaven, even as her members are pilgrims on earth.
The ancient Collect for the Feast of the Ascension from the late patristic era is:
"Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty Father, that in the intention of our mind (heart) we may ever tend thither, where the glorious Author of today's festival hath entered in, and that to the place, whither we reach forward by faith, we may come by our holy conversation through Jesus Christ....."
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor & St Anne's, Brown Edge
Christians think of the festival of Christmas as the arrival of the Son of God in the world, or even as his descent into the world.
In terms of arrival, they are speaking in common sense language as when they say, “Her baby has arrived!” In fact, they mean arrived in a visible way in space and time so that the place and time of birth can be stated.
The Son of God with his divine nature exists from eternity unto eternity in the infinite divine sphere; but in terms of both the divine sense of time and of human chronological time there was a moment when the Son of God in a unique manner arrived in space and time, and that moment was the conception of Jesus by Mary through the presence and action of the Holy Ghost. The act of Incarnation by the Son of God began at the conception by Mary of Jesus and came to its physical completion in the birth from Mary of Jesus. So the arrival of Jesus, Son of God and son of Mary, one Person, we date on Christmas Day. We also say in the Creed, “He descended from heaven and was incarnate of the Virgin Mary.” So his arrival is also his descent.
Christians think of the Feast of the Ascension as the departure of the Son of God from earth and his ascent into heaven.
After his ministry as the Messiah, his death and burial as the sacrificed Lamb of God, and his being raised from the dead as the victorious Saviour, the resurrected Jesus in his new body of glory visited his apostles and disciples for a period of forty days. Then he departed from them, not to be seen again in physical, bodily form. On the last of these forty days, in his final resurrection appearance and described in Acts 1, there was a clear demonstration to the assembled disciples of where precisely Jesus was going and where he would be for the future. The cloud into which he went up was no ordinary white cloud in the sky, but the luminous cloud of glory known in the Old Testament as the sign of the presence of YHWH, the LORD, and called by the Jews, the Shekinah. Thus he ascended as the God-Man, the Incarnate Logos, into heaven, into the immediate presence of GOD, the Father.
The Feast of the Ascension is the festival which crowns that of Easter and prepares us for that of Pentecost.
Before he departed and ascended, he taught his disciples all that they needed to know about his identity and mission, and he promised them the Paraclete (Counsellor, Advocate, Comforter – the Holy Ghost as the Spirit of Christ) to be with them all, wherever they were in space and time.
The descent of the Paraclete to the waiting disciples and for the full creation of the Church of God is what is celebrated on Whit Sunday, the Feast of Pentecost (Acts 2), ten days after the Ascension into heaven. We may say that the Lord Christ came to his people in, with and by the presence of the Holy Ghost, his Paraclete.
However, the exalted Lord Jesus will remain where he is in terms of his perfected human nature - on the throne of glory- until he descends once more into space and time at the end of the age, until, that is, he arrives in glory on earth, in order to judge the living and the dead, consummate the purposes of God and inaugurate the new age of the kingdom of God. His coming and arrival in great glory as the Resurrected, Exalted Lord is the basis of the Christian Hope.
In the interim, the period of the evangelization of the world by the Church, the Holy Ghost is present as the Paraclete to make the Lord Jesus known on earth and to enable the Church to ascend in heart and mind to dwell with the same Lord Jesus in heaven, even as her members are pilgrims on earth.
The ancient Collect for the Feast of the Ascension from the late patristic era is:
"Grant, we beseech thee, Almighty Father, that in the intention of our mind (heart) we may ever tend thither, where the glorious Author of today's festival hath entered in, and that to the place, whither we reach forward by faith, we may come by our holy conversation through Jesus Christ....."
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor & St Anne's, Brown Edge
Monday, May 03, 2004
The PAX --instructions from the Vatican
(from Redemptionis Sacramentum. The Pax in the modern Roman Rite is not at the same position as in the vast majority of modern Anglican Rites [where it is the division, as it were, between the Ministry of Word and Sacrament]. In the Roman Rite the Pax is after the Eucharistic Prayer & the Lord's Prayer and is thus part of the "Communion Rite" and is strictly associated with peace and fellowship, for reconciliation between those at enmity is covered at the beginning of the R C Mass by the act of penitence there. In this recent INSTRUCTION the priest is instructed to remain within the sanctuary and not go walkabout and the faithful are to stay where they are also and share the peace in a dignified manner according to local customs in harmony with local cultural norms for such. Further, the Breaking of the Bread after the Pax is to be done with great reverence but also briefly and without worldly show.
BECAUSE OF EXCESSES AND ABUSES IT WOULD SEEM ALSO THAT ANGLICANS USING MODERN RITES NEED TO HAVE SOME AUTHORITATIVE INSTRUCTION ON WHAT IS THE PAX AND HOW IT IS TO BE SHARED -- THAT IS, IF SHARING IT PHYSICALLY IS TO BE PART OF THE RITUAL OF THE EUCHARIST. )
[A FURTHER NOTE - for a copy of THE SERVICE OF HOLY COMMUNION (1928) ANNOTATED from the PBS call 1 800 727 1928. To see the latest edition of The Mandate wherein are some excellent articles on the history of the ECUSA since the 1960s view at the website, www.episcopalian.org/pbs1928. Visit also www.anglicanmarketplace.com for details of the publications and CD's of the Prayer Book Society of the USA.
The latest book, Neither Orthodoxy nor a Formulary, a study of the 1979 ECUSA Prayer Book based upon mature study & reflection, by Dr Tarsitano and Dr Toon, and a CD of the massive & invaluable resource book, Anglicanism, by More & Cross from the 1920s (800 pages), will be available by the middle of May. Call 1 800 -PBS-1928 for help with any matter or visit the website, or both.
BECAUSE OF EXCESSES AND ABUSES IT WOULD SEEM ALSO THAT ANGLICANS USING MODERN RITES NEED TO HAVE SOME AUTHORITATIVE INSTRUCTION ON WHAT IS THE PAX AND HOW IT IS TO BE SHARED -- THAT IS, IF SHARING IT PHYSICALLY IS TO BE PART OF THE RITUAL OF THE EUCHARIST. )
[71.] The practice of the Roman Rite is to be maintained according to which the peace is extended shortly before Holy Communion. For according to the tradition of the Roman Rite, this practice does not have the connotation either of reconciliation or of a remission of sins, but instead signifies peace, communion and charity before the reception of the Most Holy Eucharist. It is rather the Penitential Act to be carried out at the beginning of Mass (especially in its first form) which has the character of reconciliation among brothers and sisters.
[72.] It is appropriate "that each one give the sign of peace only to those who are nearest and in a sober manner". "The Priest may give the sign of peace to the ministers but always remains within the sanctuary, so as not to disturb the celebration. He does likewise if for a just reason he wishes to extend the sign of peace to some few of the faithful". "As regards the sign to be exchanged, the manner is to be established by the Conference of Bishops in accordance with the dispositions and customs of the people", and their acts are subject to the recognitio of the Apostolic See.
[73.] In the celebration of Holy Mass the breaking of the Eucharistic Bread - done only by the Priest celebrant, if necessary with the help of a Deacon or of a concelebrant - begins after the exchange of peace, while the Agnus Dei is being recited. For the gesture of breaking bread "carried out by Christ at the Last Supper, which in apostolic times gave the whole eucharistic action its name, signifies that the faithful, though they are many, are made one Body in the communion of the one Bread of Life who is Christ, who died and rose for the world's salvation" (cf. 1 Cor 10,17).For this reason the rite must be carried out with great reverence. Even so, it should be brief. The abuse that has prevailed in some places, by which this rite is unnecessarily prolonged and given undue emphasis, with laypersons also helping in contradiction to the norms, should be corrected with all haste.
[A FURTHER NOTE - for a copy of THE SERVICE OF HOLY COMMUNION (1928) ANNOTATED from the PBS call 1 800 727 1928. To see the latest edition of The Mandate wherein are some excellent articles on the history of the ECUSA since the 1960s view at the website, www.episcopalian.org/pbs1928. Visit also www.anglicanmarketplace.com for details of the publications and CD's of the Prayer Book Society of the USA.
The latest book, Neither Orthodoxy nor a Formulary, a study of the 1979 ECUSA Prayer Book based upon mature study & reflection, by Dr Tarsitano and Dr Toon, and a CD of the massive & invaluable resource book, Anglicanism, by More & Cross from the 1920s (800 pages), will be available by the middle of May. Call 1 800 -PBS-1928 for help with any matter or visit the website, or both.
Sunday, May 02, 2004
Sacramental Discipline from Rome - Redemptionis Sacramentum
(for your consideration - note that the footnote numbers and the section numbers look alike --P.T.)
CONGREGATION FOR DIVINE WORSHIP AND THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SACRAMENT INSTRUCTION
Redemptionis Sacramentum
On certain matters to be observed or to be avoided regarding the Most Holy Eucharist
Preamble
[1.] In the Most Holy Eucharist, Mother Church with steadfast faith acknowledges the Sacrament of redemption,[1] joyfully takes it to herself, celebrates it and reveres it in adoration, proclaiming the death of Christ Jesus and confessing his Resurrection until he comes in glory[2] to hand over, as unconquered Lord and Ruler, eternal Priest and King of the Universe, a kingdom of truth and life to the immense majesty of the Almighty Father.[3]
[2.] The Church’s doctrine regarding the Most Holy Eucharist, in which the whole spiritual wealth of the Church is contained - namely Christ, our Paschal Lamb[4] - the Eucharist which is the source and summit of the whole of Christian life,[5] and which lies as a causative force behind the very origins of the Church,[6] has been expounded with thoughtful care and with great authority over the course of the centuries in the writings of the Councils and the Supreme Pontiffs. Most recently, in fact, the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, in the Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, set forth afresh certain elements of great importance on this subject in view of the ecclesial circumstances of our times.[7]
In order that especially in the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy the Church might duly safeguard so great a mystery in our own time as well, the Supreme Pontiff has mandated that this Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments,[8] in collaboration with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, should prepare this Instruction treating of certain matters pertaining to the discipline of the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Those things found in this Instruction are therefore to be read in the continuity with the above-mentioned Encyclical Letter, Ecclesia de Eucharistia.
Read the Entire Document
CONGREGATION FOR DIVINE WORSHIP AND THE DISCIPLINE OF THE SACRAMENT INSTRUCTION
Redemptionis Sacramentum
On certain matters to be observed or to be avoided regarding the Most Holy Eucharist
Preamble
[1.] In the Most Holy Eucharist, Mother Church with steadfast faith acknowledges the Sacrament of redemption,[1] joyfully takes it to herself, celebrates it and reveres it in adoration, proclaiming the death of Christ Jesus and confessing his Resurrection until he comes in glory[2] to hand over, as unconquered Lord and Ruler, eternal Priest and King of the Universe, a kingdom of truth and life to the immense majesty of the Almighty Father.[3]
[2.] The Church’s doctrine regarding the Most Holy Eucharist, in which the whole spiritual wealth of the Church is contained - namely Christ, our Paschal Lamb[4] - the Eucharist which is the source and summit of the whole of Christian life,[5] and which lies as a causative force behind the very origins of the Church,[6] has been expounded with thoughtful care and with great authority over the course of the centuries in the writings of the Councils and the Supreme Pontiffs. Most recently, in fact, the Supreme Pontiff John Paul II, in the Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia, set forth afresh certain elements of great importance on this subject in view of the ecclesial circumstances of our times.[7]
In order that especially in the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy the Church might duly safeguard so great a mystery in our own time as well, the Supreme Pontiff has mandated that this Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments,[8] in collaboration with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, should prepare this Instruction treating of certain matters pertaining to the discipline of the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Those things found in this Instruction are therefore to be read in the continuity with the above-mentioned Encyclical Letter, Ecclesia de Eucharistia.
Read the Entire Document
Saturday, May 01, 2004
Sex and the Cities (from The New York Times)
(how the sex market affects the marriage market & implications for the churches)
Sex and the Cities
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: May 1, 2004 NYC
Sex is pretty elemental. We share the same basic biology. We watch nationally broadcast TV shows and movies designed for international audiences. You'd think you'd be able to drive across a few neighborhoods in this country and come across reasonably similar sexual behavior patterns. But you'd be wrong.
Edward Laumann of the University of Chicago and several other academics have recently published a research project called "The Sexual Organization of the City." They've found that people construct highly evolved sexual marketplaces, venues where they go to find sex partners. These marketplaces, at least in cities, are incredibly localized; people are not inclined to cross ethnic, racial, sociological or geographical boundaries when looking for a bed mate. Each of these discrete marketplaces has its own rules, and the sex practices in one neighborhood may look nothing like those in the next.
The authors of the study culled data from thousands of interviews in several Chicago neighborhoods and compared behavior across the communities. For example, one of the neighborhoods they studied is a struggling African-American community they call (pseudonymously) Southtown. This area has seen its jobs disappear, its main commercial strip wither. There are more women than men. The men take advantage of their market power to become polygamous. At any moment, almost 40 percent of the men are maintaining long-term relationships with at least two sexual partners. The more educated the man is, and presumably the more desirable he is to women, the more likely he is to be juggling multiple partners.
If men can have multiple partners, they have little incentive to limit themselves; marriage rates drop. Though they face a shortage of African-American men of equal status, Southtown's women tend not to look outside black neighborhoods.
A few miles away, there is a largely Hispanic neighborhood the academics call Westside. About half the people here are foreign-born, many from rural areas of Mexico. Mores here are traditional. Sixty-four percent of single men and 57 percent of single women say men should work and women should stay home to raise the kids.
While roughly two-thirds of the non-Hispanic men in Chicago reported ever having one-night stands, very few of the men in Westside did. Half of the men and three-quarters of the women believe it is wrong to have sex without love. People here are much more likely to meet future sexual partners in a family member's home, and much less likely to talk openly about sexually transmitted diseases.
Shoreland is an affluent white neighborhood on the near northwest side. There is a large gay and lesbian population, and sex is more likely to be impersonal. About 43 percent of the gay men in Shoreland have had more than 60 partners. This neighborhood, too, has developed its own social institutions. A local softball league has become a place where lesbians can go to meet possible partners. Though people here are better educated, their social lives are still tightly bounded. Over 75 percent of the gays and lesbians interviewed said that most or all of their friends are gay, lesbian or bisexual.
When you step back from this data, you see that, first, there has been a flowering of diverse sexual zones. This spontaneous evolution is so rapid, it is very difficult for big institutions to keep up. How can the city government of Chicago design health and welfare programs for areas as different as Southtown, Westside and Shoreland? How can the churches and other moral authorities keep up?
Second, sexual marketplaces are a rapidly expanding feature of society, and they are becoming more distinct from marriage marketplaces. Furthermore, as the sex markets become bigger and more efficient, people have less incentive to get married. As the scholars Yoosik Youm and Anthony Paik write, "Opportunities in the sex market act as constraints in the marriage market."
The big problem here is that there is an overwhelming body of evidence to suggest that marriage correlates highly with happiness. Children raised in marriages tend to have more opportunities than children raised outside marriage.
Over all, Americans are spending much less time married. They marry later and divorce at high rates, and remarry less and less. We are replacing marriage, one of our most successful institutions, with hooking up. This is a deep structural problem, and very worrying.
Sex and the Cities
By DAVID BROOKS
Published: May 1, 2004 NYC
Sex is pretty elemental. We share the same basic biology. We watch nationally broadcast TV shows and movies designed for international audiences. You'd think you'd be able to drive across a few neighborhoods in this country and come across reasonably similar sexual behavior patterns. But you'd be wrong.
Edward Laumann of the University of Chicago and several other academics have recently published a research project called "The Sexual Organization of the City." They've found that people construct highly evolved sexual marketplaces, venues where they go to find sex partners. These marketplaces, at least in cities, are incredibly localized; people are not inclined to cross ethnic, racial, sociological or geographical boundaries when looking for a bed mate. Each of these discrete marketplaces has its own rules, and the sex practices in one neighborhood may look nothing like those in the next.
The authors of the study culled data from thousands of interviews in several Chicago neighborhoods and compared behavior across the communities. For example, one of the neighborhoods they studied is a struggling African-American community they call (pseudonymously) Southtown. This area has seen its jobs disappear, its main commercial strip wither. There are more women than men. The men take advantage of their market power to become polygamous. At any moment, almost 40 percent of the men are maintaining long-term relationships with at least two sexual partners. The more educated the man is, and presumably the more desirable he is to women, the more likely he is to be juggling multiple partners.
If men can have multiple partners, they have little incentive to limit themselves; marriage rates drop. Though they face a shortage of African-American men of equal status, Southtown's women tend not to look outside black neighborhoods.
A few miles away, there is a largely Hispanic neighborhood the academics call Westside. About half the people here are foreign-born, many from rural areas of Mexico. Mores here are traditional. Sixty-four percent of single men and 57 percent of single women say men should work and women should stay home to raise the kids.
While roughly two-thirds of the non-Hispanic men in Chicago reported ever having one-night stands, very few of the men in Westside did. Half of the men and three-quarters of the women believe it is wrong to have sex without love. People here are much more likely to meet future sexual partners in a family member's home, and much less likely to talk openly about sexually transmitted diseases.
Shoreland is an affluent white neighborhood on the near northwest side. There is a large gay and lesbian population, and sex is more likely to be impersonal. About 43 percent of the gay men in Shoreland have had more than 60 partners. This neighborhood, too, has developed its own social institutions. A local softball league has become a place where lesbians can go to meet possible partners. Though people here are better educated, their social lives are still tightly bounded. Over 75 percent of the gays and lesbians interviewed said that most or all of their friends are gay, lesbian or bisexual.
When you step back from this data, you see that, first, there has been a flowering of diverse sexual zones. This spontaneous evolution is so rapid, it is very difficult for big institutions to keep up. How can the city government of Chicago design health and welfare programs for areas as different as Southtown, Westside and Shoreland? How can the churches and other moral authorities keep up?
Second, sexual marketplaces are a rapidly expanding feature of society, and they are becoming more distinct from marriage marketplaces. Furthermore, as the sex markets become bigger and more efficient, people have less incentive to get married. As the scholars Yoosik Youm and Anthony Paik write, "Opportunities in the sex market act as constraints in the marriage market."
The big problem here is that there is an overwhelming body of evidence to suggest that marriage correlates highly with happiness. Children raised in marriages tend to have more opportunities than children raised outside marriage.
Over all, Americans are spending much less time married. They marry later and divorce at high rates, and remarry less and less. We are replacing marriage, one of our most successful institutions, with hooking up. This is a deep structural problem, and very worrying.
[Folks, What I comment on below is a near perfect specimen of what a Collect -- in the traditional sense -- ought to look & be like. Modern collects, where the relative clause is not used and where God is told things that he already knows to utter eternal perfection, are as very poor relatives to this kind of classic Latin/then Cranmerian Collect.
Kindly note that I have recorded on a CD in British-American English all the Collects in the ECUSA 1928 Prayer Book - about 60 mins -- and it is available from 1 800-PBS-1928 in the USA (= 610-490-0648 from Canada or outside the USA).]
The Fourth Sunday after Easter
O Almighty God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men: Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: James 1. 17-21 The Gospel: John 16. 5-15
This prayer originated in the Gelasian Sacramentary and passed into the Sarum Missal before being translated from Latin into English for the 1549 Prayer Book. Finally, it was revised for the 1662 Prayer Book. As it stands, it is as near a perfect specimen of a Collect form of prayer as one could wish to see.
There is the Address or Invocation – to Almighty God; then there is the Recital of a specific doctrine concerning God’s power in relation to man, achieved grammatically by means of the relative clause; this is followed by the long Petition, beginning with the strong verb, “Grant…”, which petition is wholly based upon the foundation of the doctrine already remembered and rehearsed; and in turn the petition is followed by the Aspiration – “that so… our hearts may surely there be fixed”. The Collect closes with the Pleading in the Name of Jesus Christ the Lord.
The foundation for the petition recalls before God and recites the biblical teaching that he alone, and only he, is able to order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men. These words of the initial relative clause balance perfectly with the two clauses of the actual petition that follows. That is, “the unruly wills” corresponds to the love of that which God commands, while “the unruly affections” corresponds to the desire of that which God promises.
We know from sacred Scripture and the experience of the saints that God the Father brings the wills and emotions/affections of sinful persons into order out of disorder, by the secret and hidden operations of the Holy Ghost. In this way human minds, hearts and wills are transformed by grace, and the change wrought in them is of such a nature that those persons in whom the Holy Ghost has so worked can only say with certainty that they know and feel that a change has taken place. They cannot tell how it occurred for that belongs to the secret operations of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.
The true Christian is one who delights in and loves what God commands. He is also one who seeks to obey God’s holy law, simply because he loves God and wants to do what God declares to be good and true and right. So the petition is “that thy people may love the thing which thou commandest.”
But it is also important that the Christian loves God and his law as, simultaneously, he also desires what God promises to his elect people – thus the aspiration. This will be so when his affections are set upon the heavenly realm where Christ rules at the Father’s right hand and where the society of angels and saints adore and praise Jesus Christ as Lord of lords and King of kings in all his authority and beauty.
The Christian who loves God’s law and desires to be with Christ in heaven will find that, in the varied and many changing circumstances of life, his central focus will be not in this world as such but on Christ Jesus in heaven, the center of all true and lasting joy. And the more he is focused on Christ the more will he be desirous and able to love God and his law and readily and happily obey him. He will rejoice with exceeding great joy as he loves the Lord and does his will, with his eyes of faith looking above where Christ is in all his glory. And with such a godly mind he will be the more useful on earth!
It is by making men loyal to his will, and to the hope of glory which he holds out to them in the Gospel, that God joins them together in the same mind and the same judgment. His precept and promise are the magnetic power which draw them into union one with another, and they are also the cement which holds them there, beginning in this age and being fulfilled in the glorious age to come.
Since there is one High Priest and one Mediator in heaven, Jesus Christ the resurrected Lord, the Prayer is offered to the Father in his Name.
Thus we have here not merely a perfectly formed Prayer but also a perfectly biblical Prayer. All that remains is that we pray it and it is fulfilled in our lives.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor & St Anne's, Brown Edge
Kindly note that I have recorded on a CD in British-American English all the Collects in the ECUSA 1928 Prayer Book - about 60 mins -- and it is available from 1 800-PBS-1928 in the USA (= 610-490-0648 from Canada or outside the USA).]
The Fourth Sunday after Easter
O Almighty God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men: Grant unto thy people, that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed, where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
The Epistle: James 1. 17-21 The Gospel: John 16. 5-15
This prayer originated in the Gelasian Sacramentary and passed into the Sarum Missal before being translated from Latin into English for the 1549 Prayer Book. Finally, it was revised for the 1662 Prayer Book. As it stands, it is as near a perfect specimen of a Collect form of prayer as one could wish to see.
There is the Address or Invocation – to Almighty God; then there is the Recital of a specific doctrine concerning God’s power in relation to man, achieved grammatically by means of the relative clause; this is followed by the long Petition, beginning with the strong verb, “Grant…”, which petition is wholly based upon the foundation of the doctrine already remembered and rehearsed; and in turn the petition is followed by the Aspiration – “that so… our hearts may surely there be fixed”. The Collect closes with the Pleading in the Name of Jesus Christ the Lord.
The foundation for the petition recalls before God and recites the biblical teaching that he alone, and only he, is able to order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men. These words of the initial relative clause balance perfectly with the two clauses of the actual petition that follows. That is, “the unruly wills” corresponds to the love of that which God commands, while “the unruly affections” corresponds to the desire of that which God promises.
We know from sacred Scripture and the experience of the saints that God the Father brings the wills and emotions/affections of sinful persons into order out of disorder, by the secret and hidden operations of the Holy Ghost. In this way human minds, hearts and wills are transformed by grace, and the change wrought in them is of such a nature that those persons in whom the Holy Ghost has so worked can only say with certainty that they know and feel that a change has taken place. They cannot tell how it occurred for that belongs to the secret operations of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity.
The true Christian is one who delights in and loves what God commands. He is also one who seeks to obey God’s holy law, simply because he loves God and wants to do what God declares to be good and true and right. So the petition is “that thy people may love the thing which thou commandest.”
But it is also important that the Christian loves God and his law as, simultaneously, he also desires what God promises to his elect people – thus the aspiration. This will be so when his affections are set upon the heavenly realm where Christ rules at the Father’s right hand and where the society of angels and saints adore and praise Jesus Christ as Lord of lords and King of kings in all his authority and beauty.
The Christian who loves God’s law and desires to be with Christ in heaven will find that, in the varied and many changing circumstances of life, his central focus will be not in this world as such but on Christ Jesus in heaven, the center of all true and lasting joy. And the more he is focused on Christ the more will he be desirous and able to love God and his law and readily and happily obey him. He will rejoice with exceeding great joy as he loves the Lord and does his will, with his eyes of faith looking above where Christ is in all his glory. And with such a godly mind he will be the more useful on earth!
It is by making men loyal to his will, and to the hope of glory which he holds out to them in the Gospel, that God joins them together in the same mind and the same judgment. His precept and promise are the magnetic power which draw them into union one with another, and they are also the cement which holds them there, beginning in this age and being fulfilled in the glorious age to come.
Since there is one High Priest and one Mediator in heaven, Jesus Christ the resurrected Lord, the Prayer is offered to the Father in his Name.
Thus we have here not merely a perfectly formed Prayer but also a perfectly biblical Prayer. All that remains is that we pray it and it is fulfilled in our lives.
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor & St Anne's, Brown Edge
The correct title for next Sunday?
Titles and names matter and behind them can be major theories or hypotheses. Consider the names given to Sundays by the modern Church.
In one of the two small parishes I serve, next Sunday (May 2) is The Third Sunday after Easter (which is the title in The Book of Common Prayer of 1662); in the other it is called, The Fourth Sunday of Easter (which is the title in Common Worship, the alternative to the BCP, of 2000). And the following Sunday will be “the fourth after…” and “the fifth of…” and so on.
The traditional English title of the BCP presumes that there has been the major festival - in fact the feast of feasts – of Easter and that the Sundays, five in all, between the festival day and the next major festival, Ascension Day, are Sundays after Easter; and then after Ascension Day (the fortieth Day after Easter) there is one Sunday after Ascension Day before the next major festival, Whitsuntide (Pentecost) Sunday in ten days time. On this scheme, which the BCP inherited from western medieval Catholicism and the late patristic Church, the Easter (Paschal) Candle where used is put out on Ascension Day, after the reading from Scripture that Christ is ascended. So there are two distinct pieties here – that of the 40 days and that of the 10 days.
The new title, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, presumes that originally in the primitive Church of say the second and third centuries there was a festival of 50 days from Easter Sunday (actually Good Friday) to Pentecost – “the fifty-day Easter”. This Pascha, as it was called, was believed to be a unitary festival that recalled the suffering, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus as well as the gift of the Spirit to the Church. Though centred on Good Friday through Easter Day, with the most important rite being that of Easter Eve in the Great Vigil of Easter, it actually lasted fifty days until Pentecost. Thus it is deemed appropriate to speak of “the great Fifty Days” or the “fifty-day Sunday” and of the seven Sundays of Easter. On this scheme, where there is a Paschal Candle, it remains lit until Pentecost to signify the fifty days of Easter. Further, some insist that there should be standing at all times with no kneeling as the norm and, further, the general confession of sins should be omitted since this fifty-day Sunday is a period of celebration of the resurrection, not of penitence for sins.
[It is interesting to note that this scheme lies at the very basis of the mindset of those who produced the 1979 Prayer Book for the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. In a short but important essay published in 1984, Massey H. Shepherd Jr., a prominent member of the S.L.C., explained that the shape or structure of the 1979 Book owed much to the scholarly reconstruction of the liturgy, and especially of the Easter liturgy, in the ancient Church. He wrote: “The unifying principle of most of the restoration or renewals of liturgy in the 1979 book from the ancient Church is the Paschal Mystery.” (“The Patristic Heritage,” in The Historical Magazine of the Episcopal Church, Vol.53, 1984, pp.22ff.) He went on to explain that he believed that the whole Paschal Mystery was relived by the faithful in those early centuries once a year on the anniversary of the Lord Jesus’ own Passover. This was the very centre of the Christian Year and the festival of festivals and feast of feasts.]
The problem with basing modern liturgy and the names of the Lord’s Day on this theory of “the fifty-day Easter” is that it does not take into account the fact that the Church slowly developed her Year and named her Festivals, and the Festival of the Ascension on the fortieth Day became a major festival by the fourth Century. St Augustine of Hippo highly valued it and saw it as the crown of the festivals of our Lord. The modern commitment to the “fifty-day Easter” in recent liturgy tends to relegate the Feast of the Ascension into a secondary festival and to make no distinction between the liturgical and devotional ethos of the 40 days between Easter Day and Ascension and the 10 days between Ascension and Pentecost (Whitsuntide). Further, the doctrine of the exaltation of the Lord Jesus can be seriously minimized or neglected on this scheme.
There is much to be said for the traditional scheme!
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor & St Anne's, Brown Edge
In one of the two small parishes I serve, next Sunday (May 2) is The Third Sunday after Easter (which is the title in The Book of Common Prayer of 1662); in the other it is called, The Fourth Sunday of Easter (which is the title in Common Worship, the alternative to the BCP, of 2000). And the following Sunday will be “the fourth after…” and “the fifth of…” and so on.
The traditional English title of the BCP presumes that there has been the major festival - in fact the feast of feasts – of Easter and that the Sundays, five in all, between the festival day and the next major festival, Ascension Day, are Sundays after Easter; and then after Ascension Day (the fortieth Day after Easter) there is one Sunday after Ascension Day before the next major festival, Whitsuntide (Pentecost) Sunday in ten days time. On this scheme, which the BCP inherited from western medieval Catholicism and the late patristic Church, the Easter (Paschal) Candle where used is put out on Ascension Day, after the reading from Scripture that Christ is ascended. So there are two distinct pieties here – that of the 40 days and that of the 10 days.
The new title, the Fourth Sunday of Easter, presumes that originally in the primitive Church of say the second and third centuries there was a festival of 50 days from Easter Sunday (actually Good Friday) to Pentecost – “the fifty-day Easter”. This Pascha, as it was called, was believed to be a unitary festival that recalled the suffering, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus as well as the gift of the Spirit to the Church. Though centred on Good Friday through Easter Day, with the most important rite being that of Easter Eve in the Great Vigil of Easter, it actually lasted fifty days until Pentecost. Thus it is deemed appropriate to speak of “the great Fifty Days” or the “fifty-day Sunday” and of the seven Sundays of Easter. On this scheme, where there is a Paschal Candle, it remains lit until Pentecost to signify the fifty days of Easter. Further, some insist that there should be standing at all times with no kneeling as the norm and, further, the general confession of sins should be omitted since this fifty-day Sunday is a period of celebration of the resurrection, not of penitence for sins.
[It is interesting to note that this scheme lies at the very basis of the mindset of those who produced the 1979 Prayer Book for the Episcopal Church of the U.S.A. In a short but important essay published in 1984, Massey H. Shepherd Jr., a prominent member of the S.L.C., explained that the shape or structure of the 1979 Book owed much to the scholarly reconstruction of the liturgy, and especially of the Easter liturgy, in the ancient Church. He wrote: “The unifying principle of most of the restoration or renewals of liturgy in the 1979 book from the ancient Church is the Paschal Mystery.” (“The Patristic Heritage,” in The Historical Magazine of the Episcopal Church, Vol.53, 1984, pp.22ff.) He went on to explain that he believed that the whole Paschal Mystery was relived by the faithful in those early centuries once a year on the anniversary of the Lord Jesus’ own Passover. This was the very centre of the Christian Year and the festival of festivals and feast of feasts.]
The problem with basing modern liturgy and the names of the Lord’s Day on this theory of “the fifty-day Easter” is that it does not take into account the fact that the Church slowly developed her Year and named her Festivals, and the Festival of the Ascension on the fortieth Day became a major festival by the fourth Century. St Augustine of Hippo highly valued it and saw it as the crown of the festivals of our Lord. The modern commitment to the “fifty-day Easter” in recent liturgy tends to relegate the Feast of the Ascension into a secondary festival and to make no distinction between the liturgical and devotional ethos of the 40 days between Easter Day and Ascension and the 10 days between Ascension and Pentecost (Whitsuntide). Further, the doctrine of the exaltation of the Lord Jesus can be seriously minimized or neglected on this scheme.
There is much to be said for the traditional scheme!
The Rev'd Dr. Peter Toon M.A., D.Phil. (Oxon.),
Christ Church, Biddulph Moor & St Anne's, Brown Edge
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