the anglican digest – summer 2016

8/16/2019 The Anglican Digest – Summer 2016

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SUMMER A.D. 2016

VOL. 58 NO. 2

Te Church of the IncarnationDallas, exas

Member of the Parish Partner Plan


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SUMMER A.D. 2016

VOL. 58 NO. 2

Te Church of the IncarnationDallas, exas

Member of the Parish Partner Plan


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5 F E9 A P G I H12 S S14 E D18 W J I F22 D W L23 L O D

26 P’ P C36 U M40 C B C43 R O S46 L H E I M49 A C I N A53 C P

55 O P L58 E S B S.

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For fify-eight years, Te Anglican Digest (AD) has been theleading quarterly publication serving the Anglican Communion.From its inception, AD’s mission has been “to reflect the wordsand work o the aithul throughout the Anglican Communion.”At a time when print editions are becoming an endangeredspecies, AD remains a amiliar presence in the homes andoffices o many Episcopalians.

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F E

For this issue, we asked people to choose a prayer rom theBook o Common Prayer and write about it. We wanted bothto celebrate the treasure that is our prayer book, and encour-age our readers to stop and think about the words we say eachweek. As my ather once said, “We are least likely to hear whatwe are most amiliar with. Repetition o liturgy is good to in-grain it in our minds, but we need to think about what we are

saying.”

For a little more than ten years now, I have been serving as a verger at my parish church. Several years ago, my ellow vergersand I sat down to re-work the way our Servers’ Guild unctions;one o the things we decided to do was reinstate testing or theservers each time they rise in rank, and one o the things wedecided to include in those rank tests was recitation o a prayer

rom memory. (For the first test, they must recite the Prayero Humble Access [p. 337]; or the second, the General Con-ession [p. 331]; or the third, the Nicene Creed [p. 327-328].)We try to make it as unintimidating as we can — the vergertesting them will say the first ew words, and then recite theprayer along with the server, so it’s very similar to the way theywill say the prayer during a service — but we decided that we

wanted our servers to know these prayers by heart. (Initially,they were supposed to memorize the Post Communion Prayer[p. 339], as well as certain prayers rom Morning Prayer, aswell — specifically, the Conession o Sins [p. 41-42] and theApostle’s Creed [p. 53-54] — but we eventually dropped thatrequirement once our parish no longer had Choral Matins onSundays.)


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Tree years ago, poet and novelist Brad Leithauser wrote a col-umn or Te New Yorker in which he argued in avor o mem-

orizing poems; in the course o his column, he mentioned hisormer colleague at Mount Holyoke College, Soviet dissidentand poet Joseph Brodsky. According to Leithauser, Brodsky re-quired his students to memorize hundreds o lines o poetryeach semester; he did this because he “elt he was preparingthem or the uture; they might need such verses later in lie.His own biography provided a stirring example o the virtueso mental husbandry. He’d been grateul or every scrap o po-etry he had in his head” during the years when he was beingarrested, interrogated, put in mental institutions, charged withsocial parasitism, sentenced to five years o hard labor in anArctic village (his sentence was commuted afer 18 months),and finally effectively expelled rom his native land. Leithaus-er argued that “memorized poems are a sort o larder, laid upagainst the hungers o an extended period o solitude.” Memo-

rization, he said, “provides us with knowledge o a qualitativelyand physiologically different variety: you take the poem in-side you, into your brain chemistry i not your blood, and youknow it at a deeper, bodily level than i you simply read it … ‘Iwe do not learn by heart, the heart does not eel the rhythms opoetry as echoes or variations o its own insistent beat.’”

Te Atlantic Monthly has run a series o articles under theheading “By Heart”, in which authors share and discuss theiravorite passages in literature. American poet Billy Collinsdescribed the effect o memorizing poems as “the pleasure ocompanionship”: “When you internalize a poem, it becomessomething inside o you. You’re able to walk around with it. Itbecomes a companion … something you take with you, all the

anglicandigest.org6


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time. It’s no longer just something in a textbook — it’s some-thing that you’ve placed within yoursel.” In another entry or

the same series, essayist Caleb Crain wrote that the dangero memorizing something “is that it works into the way youthink.”

When people ask me why we require our servers to memorizeprayers, these are among the things that occur to me. Yes, wewant them to participate in the service, to join with their ellowparishioners in prayer, and to be able to do so without having

to dive or a prayer book and find the right page, at short no-tice and while wearing gloves. More importantly, though, wewant these prayers to work their way into our servers’ heartsand minds, to become part o them, something they carry withthem always, something they can draw on, that can come tothem unbidden when they ace difficulties and losses, trialsand tribulations, when they or those they love are “in trouble,sorrow, need, sickness, or any other adversity”. [p. 329] LikeBrodsky with his students, we eel that we are preparing themor the uture.

It isn’t hard to appreciate the beautiul, artul language givento us by Tomas Cranmer. Many people have written on thesubject — including, again in Te Atlantic Monthly , James Fal-lows and Benjamin Schwarz, the latter reviewing “Te Book o

Common Prayer”, in which Brian Cummings argued that ourprayer book “has seeped into the collective consciousness moreprooundly than that o any other book written in English, eventhe Bible.” Fallows wrote that it “permanently shaped my ideao how an English sentence should sound. … [the] wordingmay seem antique but [the] rhythms retain a classic beauty.”He reerred to passages that “have stuck in my mind as the pure


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idea o how sentences should be paced, should repeat or em-phasis yet also vary, should end.”

I know exactly what Fallows means, but that is just a side ben-efit o the Book o Common Prayer — it’s the gravy, not themeat. Te soaring, majestic, searingly beautiul language weencounter in its pages is truly wonderul, and is o great valuein and o itsel, but the real value o our prayer book lies in whatelse it gives us. o borrow again rom my ather, worship givesus a workable structure or our lives and our relationship toGod, it centers our decisions on God, and makes everything fittogether. Te Book o Common Prayer provides the structureand order o our worship, and does so with dignity, humility,and beauty, in words that have brought comort and soothedtroubled souls or centuries. Tere are words contained withinit that have become engraved upon my heart and my mind,have become a part o me, have indeed helped to orm me. I am

endlessly grateul. And I know that I am not alone.

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A PRAYER GRAFTEDINWARDLY

IN THE HEARTD OB, M

Almighty God, Father o allmercies, we thine unworthy ser-vants do give thee most humble

and hearty thanks or all thy goodness and loving-kindnessto us and to all men. We blessthee or our creation, preser-vation, and all the blessings othis lie; but above all or thineinestimable love in the redemp-tion o the world by our Lord

Jesus Christ; or the means o grace, and or the hope o glory. And, we beseech thee, give usthat due sense o all thy mer-cies, that our hearts may beuneignedly thankul; and thatwe show orth thy praise, not

only with our lips, but in ourlives, by giving up our selves tothy service, and by walking be-

ore thee in holiness and righ-teousness all our days; through

Jesus Christ our Lord, towhom, with thee and the Holy

Spirit, be all honor and glo-ry, world without end. Amen.

— Te General Tanksgiving(BCP, pp. 58-9 and 71-2)

O all the prayers in the prayerbook, there’s one I keep com-ing back to. It’s not my ault— really — I blame the book

entirely. Te General Tanks-giving ends both Morningand Evening Prayer so, like itor not, I literally keep comingback to it every day.

Since I’m a scholar o texts,I would be remiss i I didn’t

say that I like it or its wordsand its meanings; I certainlydo. But there’s more to it thanthat. I like the eel o it in mymouth. Tere’s a certain aes-thetic pleasure in the rhythmo the lines. Tere’s a certain

internal thrill when you mas-ter the cadence to make “butabove all or thine inestimablelove” synch properly with theimmediately ollowing “in theredemption o the world byour Lord Jesus Christ.”


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In a world that privileg-es communication in short,

terse words or even shorterabbreviations, each time I en-counter it is an opportunityto bask in the complexities oconstructions composed inan earlier age: not only “in-estimable” but “uneignedly.”And, yes, I coness that thereare mornings beore the coffeehas kicked in where its utter-ance takes on the character opolysyllabic glossolalia rollingover my tongue rather thansober, thoughtul prayer.

Tis is a prayer that makesmuch o sound. Tis isn’t aprayer chiefly written to beread but to be heard and ex-perienced both orally and au-rally; there are plays o soundthat work best when you eel

your mouth make them andhear and appreciate the re-sults with your ears. While therhyme o “creation, preserva-tion” in the sixth line is themost obvious, the alliterationis what always gets to me.

I you’ll remember back topoetry class, we’re all used to

rhyme. Rhyme is standard; wethink o it as normal. Rhyme— where two words share asingle ending sound — is acommon eature o the ends olines in English poetry. Tat’sthe way it’s been or severalhundred years. Alliterationis a little different; it’s wherewords or blocks o words startwith the same sound. Less a-miliar to modern ears, it wasthe chie poetic device o OldEnglish poetry (no, I don’tmean Shakespeare, and I don’t

even mean Chaucer — you’restill our hundred years tooclose to the present).

We hear the alliteration firstin a couple o little runs:the “h” in “humble and

hearty thanks”, the “g” in “orthe means o grace and orthe hope o glory.” Where itreally comes into its own,though, is towards the end othe prayer. Afer our initial“blessing,” we move to “be-


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seech[ing]” and there we praythis:

… and that we may show orththy praise, not only with ourlips but in our lives, by givingup our selves to thy service…

Meaning-wise, we’re ussingwith what it means to really be

thankul. We’re working withwhat praise looks like once westop talking and have to putit into action. What does itlook like to stop talking aboutpraise, and to actually incar-nate it? Sound-wise, we’regetting into a rhythm here— we’re creating an expecta-tion. We have the “l” in both“lips” and “lives,” then the “s”in “selves” and “service;” withtwo alliterative passages inclose conjunction like that, itleaves us itching or a third to

complete the pattern and thenwe get:

… and walking beore theein [it must be right aroundthe corner now!] holiness andrighteousness all our days;”

But — that’s an “h” and an “r.”Tat’s not alliteration by any

stretch; rather, we get a poet-ic bait and switch. “Walkingin holiness and righteousnessall our days” is a call-back tothe key canticle o MorningPrayer, the Song o Zechariahand, turning on the prayer’suse o the word “serve” inthe last alliterative “service”swings us into a quotationrom the canticle: “Tat we …might serve him without ear,in holiness and righteousnessbeore him, all the days o ourlie.”

In short, the prayer says, i youwant to know what truly livedpraise looks like, you have togo back to the Scriptures. Youhave to go back to that call tolive a holy and righteous lie.

You need to go back to Zech-ariah’s hope and prayer or hischild (John the Baptizer), achild who lived holiness andrighteousness not in a cloudo sanctimoniousness but inrebellion against a spiritu-


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al system that wasn’t hittingpeople hard enough where

they lived. Holiness and righ-teousness isn’t about prissysuperiority, but the honestcomprehension and commu-nication o hard spiritual real-ities. It’s about being the kindo preacher who drew andaffected the harlots and theRoman collaborators, the taxcollectors and soldiers whoLuke shows us asking John oradvice.

Not only that, I hear thisprayer inviting us to takeupon ourselves that same call-ing to which Zechariah calledhis son: to share the knowl-edge o salvation, that it’sabout remission o sin, thatthe message with which we’vebeen entrusted is one o God’stender mercy breaking upon

us to give us light and lead oureet into the paths o peace.

Te prayer’s repetition osound sets us up or some-thing important, but insteado perpetuating the allitera-

tive pattern, we receive a pro-ound redirection back to the

canticle to ponder our spiritu-al purpose.

Tis right here: this is why theprayer book is so important tome. Meaning and sound andScripture are bound so tightlytogether that there’s no pointin attempting to determinewhere one ends and the otherbegins. Tis is the prayer thatclogs my ears and gets stuckin my head, that digs its rootsinto my soul, and insists thatit’s not done until it’s grafed

inwardly in my heart to bringorth the ruit o good livingto the honor and glory o God.

Q Q Q

SUNDAY SCRAMBLE

Holt M. Jenkins, inTe EpiscopalianRe-printed rom the Summer 1971issue o AD

On Sunday mornings beorewe leave home or church,things are pretty wild: Jim-


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my isn’t out o bed yet, John-ny can’t find his shoes, Mary

can’t find her hat, somebodyhas hidden the offering en- velopes, and Daddy can’t getinto the bathroom.

Everybody is running around— out to the car, back to thehouse; doors slam and chil-dren cry; mother is yellingat the children; and Daddyis growling about being lateagain. All o it makes Sundayseem like the worst day in theweek — it’s enough to makeyou lose your religion.

By the time all o us finallyget into the car, everybody’sexhausted, tempers are hot,harsh words have been ex-changed, some o God’s peo-ple aren’t speaking to others,

and we’re not eeling ready tosay the General Conession —but that’s what we all need.

Sometimes, it seems that weall go to meet the Lord inchurch in the worst possible

rame o mind; it can take thewhole ride to cool us off and

calm us down.

We don’t seem to be ableto solve the Sunday scram-ble —even getting up earlierdoesn’t help. Tere is some-thing we can do, though, a-ter we get into the car: As wepull away rom the curb, letsomeone in the amily say,“Te Lord be with you”; thenall can answer, “And withthy spirit.” Ten, the amilycan recite the Collect or theday — it’s right there in your

Prayer Book, and it’s easy tofind. [Or pull up http://www.stbedeproductions.com/bre

viary/.]

Tat is one way to get to knowthe Collects better; it also

helps do something with allthat haste and hurry and badeeling. It makes or a muchhappier ride to church, and ithelps us get ready or our partin the service. ry it sometimeand see i it doesn’t.


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EVEN THE DOGS…FINDING MERCY IN

HUMILITY V R. K MR, C A-, R C, NY

In the Gospel o Mark, a Gen-tile woman throws herseldown at the eet o Jesus andbegs him to cast a demon outo her daughter. (7:24-30) Atfirst, Jesus hesitates, saying,“Let the children be ed first, or it is not air to take the chil-dren’s ood and throw it to thedogs.” In Matthew’s version o

the same scene, Jesus statesmore plainly, “I was sent onlyto the lost sheep o the houseo Israel .” Jesus is very clear-ly a devout Jew, through andthrough: he keeps kosher, heworships in the synagogue

and at the temple, he is ex-tremely well versed in the He-brew scriptures, and despitequibbling with the sect o thePharisees over how the lawshould be observed, there isno question that he believes

that it should be. Yet thisGentile woman is not easily

discouraged; kneeling beorethe Lord she says, “Sir, eventhe dogs under the table eat thechildren’s crumbs.”

Jesus has mercy on her andreplies, “For saying that, youmay go — the demon has lef your daughter .”

I think o this scene ofen,because in my parish beoreCommunion each Sunday, wekneel down and say the Prayero Humble Access, which

evokes the image o someonegathering the crumbs rombeneath God’s table:

We do not presume to cometo this thy table, O merciulLord, trusting in our ownrighteousness, but in thy

maniold and great mer-cies. We are not worthy somuch as to gather up thecrumbs under thy table.But thou art the same Lordwhose property is alwaysto have mercy. Grant us


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I think it is a great pity thatthis prayer is so ofen ne-

glected and underused in somany o our churches. I sus-pect that or many people it isthe phrase “we are not wor-thy” that hangs on the tongueor leaves a bitter taste in themouth. Maybe this is a symp-tom o our church havinglived through a long period oinfluence by “I’m OK, You’reOK” popular psychology, or obeing more ocused on ther-apy than theology. But i welament our church being leddown the road o “Moralistic

Terapeutic Deism” —that is,being more concerned witheeling good about ourselvesthan having a living relation-ship with God — then maybethe Prayer o Humble Accessis precisely the prayer that we

need to be praying, erventlyand regularly.

Te phrase “we are not wor-thy” is not sel-flagellation,but a necessary statement oact. We broken, sinul, and

thereore, gracious Lord,so to eat the flesh o thy

dear son Jesus Christ, andto drink his blood, thatwe may evermore dwell inhim, and he in us. Amen.

I must admit that this is myavorite prayer in the entireBook o Common Prayer. Asour prayers go, it’s not terriblyancient; Archbishop Cran-mer wrote it in 1548, with theintention that it would be aprivate prayer recited by thepriest, not by the entire con-gregation. Part o his inspira-

tion or this prayer came romthe exchange between Jesusand the Gentile woman. Inour current prayer book, thisprayer is said immediatelybeore the congregation is in-

vited to receive Communion;

kneeling down and sayingthis prayer beore we receiveCommunion is meant to in-

voke the image o the womanwho had no reason to expectanything rom this Jewishpreacher.


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ragile human beings are notworthy to approach the Lord

Jesus. We need to admit that.As Gentiles living in oreignlands in the 21st century(most o us), we have no rea-son to expect any attentionrom a Jewish preacher in the1st century. We need to recog-nize that, too. Like the Gentilewoman in Mark’s gospel, wehave no right to the grace thatcomes rom God; we receiveit by one thing and one thingalone: God’s mercy.

Te most important part o

the Prayer o Humble Access,and the part I think manypeople miss, is not what itsays about us, but what it saysabout God:

“We do not presume to come tothis thy table, O merciul Lord,

trusting in our own righteous-ness, but in thy maniold and great mercies.”

“Tou art the same Lordwhose property is always tohave mercy .”

“Grant us thereore, graciousLord …”

Tis prayer has so much moreto say about God than it doesabout us. It is true that we arenot worthy, but Jesus is gra-cious and merciul to us any-way, because that is his nature;that is who he is. Furthermore,we take his body and his bloodinto ourselves so that we maybe partakers o that merciulnature. Our hope, our desire,is to be transormed by thoseelements o flesh and blood sothat we may “share the divine

lie o him who humbled him-sel to share in our humanity,”as the Collect o the Incarna-tion puts it[p. 200], so that wetoo can learn to act with mer-cy like his.

Te Gentile woman in Mark’sGospel doesn’t trust in herown worthiness or deserving;she trusts in Christ’s mercyand grace. She shows Jesusthat she is willing to acceptwhatever he is willing to offer

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and every week I kneel downand acknowledge my un-

worthiness, that’s true — butmore importantly, I proclaimGod’s mercy. Te true joy inbeing a Christian comes romknowing that I don’t have tobe worthy, because I worshipa God who is merciul. I do,however need to learn to re-ceive this gif, this grace romGod, so that I can then showit and give it to others.

I am not worthy to receiveGod’s grace, nor am I worthyto receive Christ’s body and

blood at the altar, but thatdoes not turn me away romthe altar or lead me downpaths o sel-condemnation,because I know and proclaimevery week that Christ o-ers himsel to me anyway, in

spite o all my aults. No oneis worthy o eating at God’stable. Who could be? It is allthe grace o God. God’s loveand mercy are ree gifs, theyare not things that we earnor buy. I give thanks to God

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her, even i it is just a crumb,and to do so gladly. It is her

proound humility that moveshim to grant her request. Jesus values the commandments oGod, and he teaches his disci-ples to ollow them. He teach-es his disciples to make good

judgments in their actionsand in their behaviors — but,more than that, by his wordsand deeds, he teaches thosewho ollow him that mercyalways triumphs over judg-ment.

I we are to be aithul ol-

lowers o Christ, then it ismore important or us toshow mercy than good judg-ment. We may not be able tobe consistently good, but wecan be consistently merci-ul. It was not Christ’s good

judgment that the woman inthe gospel was appealing to;it was his mercy. And it washis mercy that moved himto grant her request, not herworthiness. Te same is trueor us as his ollowers. Each


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or calling me to his table, butevery week I am also grateul

or the chance to kneel besidethat Gentile woman and re-member that it is the mercyand grace o God alone thatallows us to evermore dwellin him and he in us.

Q Q Q

WHERE TRUE JOYIS FOUND

R. D C, SSCC HC, C, SC

I have ollowed bumper-stick-er theology or years now,

gauging the intellectual tenorand aith oundation amongthe American public. I haveseen “My karma ran over yourdogma”. “He who dies withthe most toys wins”, and theindicative “My kid beat up

your honor student”. Te Je-sus fish is tailed closely by theDarwin amphibian as a trunkornament, but the dark horseo the highways has to be thealmost innocuous “Questionauthority” sticker, which or


me seems to resonate bestwith all my off-road experi-

ences – where two or three aregathered to talk about what’strue and what’s not. Ours isa climate o questions, o un-tutored ree thought, and oindividual rights ofen unen-cumbered by concomitant re-sponsibilities, perhaps equallyin Church and outside it. Uni-ty in the Faith is not as popularas it once was: we are proud oour party spirit. I imagine thiscould be declining now — Idon’t get out much — but ithas been true in my adult lie

since 1970, and it may just aswell not be declining.

Imagine my encouragementthis year, then, to round thecorner onto the Fifh Sun-day in Lent and to pray thatmarvelous Collect o the Day

again:O Almighty God, whoalone canst order the un-ruly wills and affections osinul men: Grant unto thy

people that they may love


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the thing which thou com-mandest, and desire that

which thou dost promise;that so, among the sun-dry and maniold changeso the world, our heartsmay surely there be fixedwhere true joys are to be

ound; through Jesus Christour Lord, who liveth andreigneth with thee and theHoly Spirit, one God, nowand or ever. Amen.(BCP p. 167)

Te 1979 prayer book movedthis collect rom the Fourth

Sunday afer Easter, whichis where it had been in everyprayer book since 1549, andwhere it stood in prefix to thetraditional Eastertide Epistleand Gospel lessons o that day,which point toward the gif o

the Holy Spirit on Pentecost –that bright, fiery gif o God,by whom the unruly wills andaffections o sinul men willbe ordered in the post-Pente-costal Catholic Church, theone gif o God who could by

his grace conorm our minds(and our wills and our hearts)

away rom their unruliness— their disordered, unau-thorized attachments — intoa likeness, a unity, a teleolo-gy which is according to theWill o God. He was the Au-thority o the Apostles, thisHoly Spirit, and the brethrenwho heard Peter on Pente-cost Day heard the Holy Spiritspeaking through him. Teirresponse was not to insist thattheir karma had overriddenPeter’s dogma o the Resur-rection, nor that they would

just like to count their toyswithout so many uncomort-able ideas at once, nor thatthey would like to get hold oPeter and beat him up or hisassumed authority. By somemiracle — you and I might

say, by the miracle o the HolySpirit resonating in them atPeter’s preaching o Jesus —the response o the gatheredcrowd was to be convicted,to be cut to their unruly willsand affections, and to ask the


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Apostles, “Brethren what shallwe do?” How will you direct

us aithully in ollowing whatwe have heard and seen inyou? Teirs was a questioningo authority which asked ormore rather than less: “Breth-ren, what shall we do now thatwe have heard you speak withauthority?” And St. Peter gavethem the age-old answer othe Church which has beenechoed through all the Chris-tian centuries over the ace othis planet.

Repent, and be baptizedevery one o you in thename o Jesus Christ orthe orgiveness o your sins,and you shall receive the

gif o the Holy Spirit. Forthe promise is to you andto your children and to allthat are ar off, every one

whom the Lord our Godcalls to him.(Acts 2:38-39)

Being baptized into JesusChrist, being taught all thingsthat have been commanded

by him through the pillar andground o truth which is his

Church, having the testimonyo the holy Scriptures in wit-ness to the Church’s teaching,and knowing that there is anAuthority we call the Blessedrinity over, around, through-out, and within this Body oChrist: is there any possiblegreater guarantee that theunity o the Church is a gifcoming rom both inside andoutside her, rom the HolySpirit? What gathering omen and women — raggedand ornery and fissiparous

as we know ourselves to be— what gathering o human-kind, anywhere or at any time,has stood like the one, holy,catholic and apostolic Churcho our Creed through theages or two thousand years?

What other group composedo such pride-filled, arrogant,corrupt, selfish, venal, mur-derous, lusting, obnoxious,silly human beings like youand me has been able to sur- vive us? Only the Church,


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mightier than empires, hasthe gif o the Holy Spirit

within her to see her past allour crusades and inquisitions,our Henry VIIIs and our Ol-iver Cromwells, our classicaldiversifiers and their mod-ern-day epigone — the sun-dry and maniold changes othe world. Only the gif o theHoly Spirit can pull us romthe quagmire o our doubtsand questionings, our partyspirit, our private likes anddislikes, our ear o authority.Only the Holy Spirit can or-der our hearts and minds and

wills, heal the wounds in ourpsyches which set us on out-ward trajectories, and remakeus in and afer the pattern oour Savior Jesus Christ, whereit is no longer the doubtul,questioning, autonomous I

who live, but Christ who livesin me. Ten — and long be-ore that ultimate day! — I canlove the thing which Christcommands and desire thatwhich he promises.

Our intellectual and spiritualclimate may need such heal-

ing today – although, since Idon’t get out much, I may bebehind the times; it may bethat the return to Faith andHope and Love is well underway. I hope it is, I pray it is. Ican only join those who puttheir trust in Christ’s Mer-cy, because I know not onlythat is where my own heart isfixed, but also where true joysare to be ound.

“Prayer Book Spiritualityis a discipline o humility,

submitting our subjec-tivity to a liturgy that islarger than we are insteado bending the liturgy tofit our subjectivity, there-by insuring we are nev-er challenged. Some o

the prayers that are mostcentral to my aith todayare the ones I would havepreerred to change oromit in days gone by.”

~ Dan Edwards,Fourth Bishop o Nevada


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DO WE LISTEN?

ne Sunday, whileserving at the altar, Irealized how little I

actually listen to the wordso the Prayer Book, and howinrequently I am ully awareo their meanings. We hadreached that point in the Eu-charist when we recite thebeautiul prayer that Christgave us; as I was repeating thewords “Forgive us our trespass-es, As we orgive those whotrespass against us,” I seemed

to hear those words anew,and wondered i I do orgivethose who trespass againstme. I have known the prayerall my lie, have said it count-less times, and the words slipeasily rom my mouth. Care-

less repetition had allowed theprayer to become mere wordswithout meaning; but nowthey are rich and rewarding.Because o my experience thatSunday morning, I am redis-covering parts o the Creed,

and the Prayer o Consecra-tion, and the Gloria. o slide

over the amiliar and repeatit inattentively is, I suspect, acommon and human ailing,and we are into the habit be-ore we notice it. I am learningto shake off my lethargy, tocall it that, to pay attention towhat I am saying, and to listento what the priest reads romthe prayer book each Sunday.I am being restored, rereshed,and renewed – and, more thanever, I look orward to partic-ipating in our lie o worship.

Q Q Q

connecting

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LIGHTENING OURDARKNESS

R. C D CR, S. G’ EC, B, IL

I grew up in a home in whichthe Savior’s presence was pal-pable. In the Salvation Armyo my youth, my mother (anofficer, as my dad was) sawto it that we prayed to givethanks at meal times. We alsohad amily devotions everyday afer supper. One o usour children would read romthe King James Version o the

Bible — was there any other?— then each o us would prayextemporaneously, beore myather or mother leading usin the Lord’s Prayer. Tis wasour daily routine. At night,my mother would pray beore

going to bed, and we wouldsneak in to listen — sheprayed aloud — and gener-ally try to distract her, whichshe took good-naturedly. Weheard her pray or each ous, as well as or myriad oth-

er concerns. (I can’t tell youhow strong a sense o saety

this gave her children.) Whenmy parents were stationed (asthe Salvation Amy calls it)in Ottumwa, Iowa, our am-ily devotions so impressedthe Divisional Command-er (somewhat like a bishop)Colonel Birger Justvig, that heasked us to go on stage at thenext Divisional Council andshow others what we did. Somuch or Jesus’ caution aboutnot praying beore others as“play actors” or hypocrites!

For our amily, everythingmoved toward Sunday, whenwe had Sunday School at 10am, Holiness Meeting at 11,and the Salvation service at7 pm. Except or the Lord’sPrayer, every prayer was ex-

temporaneous and in true“holiness” style — offereddramatically, earnestly, andwith great emotion. I oundthis suffocating to my spir-it, and filled with the “Jesusweejus lif up blah, blah, blah”

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23summer 2016


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wordiness. Since the SalvationArmy didn’t have a ormal, set

lectionary, I never heard any-one read our Lord’s teachingabout prayer in St. Matthew6:5-7 — our “lectionary” waswhatever the officer believedGod wished or the peopleto hear, which generally hap-pened to be the officer’s avor-ite passages.

I was in my late teens when Ifirst encountered C. S. Lew-is’ comments on prayer. Hewrote that he didn’t like ex-temporaneous prayer in wor-

ship, because he was con-stantly judging the theologicalcontent o what was beingsaid, and thus not able to joincompletely in the prayer. Healso distinguished between“liturgy” — the public prayers

o the Church — and privatedevotions or an individualor group, taken rom what St.Paul writes in I Corinthians11-14. o this day, this is howI distinguish between publicprayer and private prayer.

When I was first invited to anEpiscopal Church, I was liv-

ing and studying in Madison,Wisconsin. (o my mother,Madison was the unholy city;i I had to go to college, shewanted me to go to Asbury orGreenville.) A pretty studentby the name o Mary Beth toldme about Evensong, whichwas held every Saturday nightat 6 pm at Grace EpiscopalChurch on the capitol square,and they offered supper afer-wards. I went. I heard some othe most beautiully phrasedprayers I had ever encoun-

tered, and all sung or said ina dignified way. I had discov-ered Anglican liturgy. Usingthe plainsong, we sang theMagnificat and Nunc dimit-tis rom the 1928 BCP. “Lordnow lettest thou thy servant

depart in peace, according tothy word”. One prayer, sung very simply, was this:

Lighten our darkness, webeseech thee, O Lord; andby they great mercy deend



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25

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summer 2016

us rom all perils and dan- gers o this night; or the

love o thy only Son, ourSavior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

I began crying, which I knowis against custom in the Epis-copal Church. I loved thisworship. It wasn’t dry or “or-mal” in a way that at times Ihear the Book o CommonPrayer derided. I had comehome. Since the age o nine,I had known God was call-ing me to be a minister — Isimply hadn’t known whichchurch!

In the Episcopal Church, Iound a community o aithin Christ, one which knewhow to pray. I was baptized ayear later, and loved receivingChrist’s very Body and Blood.

I learned to listen to God, es-pecially in the music o allis— his “Spem in Alium” alwaysblows me away. Te hymnalenables me to pray, “I bindunto mysel today the StrongName o the rinity, by invo-

cation o the same, the Treein One, and One in Tree”.

oday, I pray as a priest theChurch’s prayers — the O-fices: Morning and EveningPrayer — or the basis o myprivate prayer. I am led toprayer while studying the

Scriptures o the lectionaryon which my sermon will bebased, by listening to sacredmusic, at the hospital, visitingshut-ins, during counselingsessions, when someone asksabout becoming a Christian,silently when I don’t knowhow to pray and I wait uponGod, at Blessings beoremeals, even the Angelus whenrunning errands tries my pa-tience to its limit!

I pray in bed and ask God’shelp or sleep, and to placein God’s hands my constantanxieties. (I read about JohnUpdike doing the same thingin one o the obituaries abouthim.)


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And I have my avorite prayersmemorized rom the treasury

that is the Book o CommonPrayer. “Forasmuch as with-out thee, we are not able toplease thee. Grant that thyHoly Spirit may in all thingsdirect and rule our hearts, orthe love o thy Son, our Sav-ior Jesus Christ, Amen.” (BCPp. 182) And I pray Rite II aswell: “O God, you maniestin your servants the signs oyour presence: Send upon usthe Spirit o love, that in com-panionship with one anotheryour abounding grace may

increase among us; throughJesus Christ our Lord. Amen.”(BCP p. 125)

Finally, I pray in the gif oChristian community onSundays in the chie orm o

worship, the Holy Eucharist.Sunday by Sunday, I am grate-ul or this gif o our Lord’s inwhich we remember the actsby which he saved us and allthe whole world. My weekstill moves toward the Day o

our Lord’s Resurrection, andthe opportunity to join with

others in thanking God orthe means o grace and thehope o glory.

Q Q Q

THE PRIEST’S

PERSONAL COLLECT:A PRAYER TO

RENEW THE PASTOR

R. M CR, S. M AA E C,S B, IN

At the heart o the inductionceremony in a Celebration oa New Ministry (BCP p. 559-565), the priest who has beennewly called to lead the con-gregation kneels in the midsto the church and offers apersonal prayer to God, wit-nessed by the people. It is atonce an humble submissionto the call o priestly leader-ship and a personal cry ordivine assistance in ulfill-


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ing that call. Te prayer giv-en or this purpose (BCP pp.

562-563) is, regretully, rarelyheard or recalled beyond thatsingular moment. Given thatthese ceremonies are onlyconducted once in a priest’stenure and that, these days,new rites o institution areofen employed, it is perhapsnot surprising that this littlegem is not more requentlyin a priest’s mind. However, Ibelieve this Collect, however,provides a particularly per-sonal and pastoral prayer orthe priest that, with more reg-

ular use, properly reorientsand renews the pastoral call.

Admittedly, this prayer doesnot flow as well as other, morelong-lived Anglican stan-dards. Te richer, more well-

known Prayer o Sel Dedica-tion, (“..so draw our hearts tothee, so guide our minds…”,BCP 832) flows better andcan absorb the intentions othe heart with greater ease.Yet, while that prayer asks

or similar spiritual gifs withmore fluidity than the prayer

said by the priest in Celebra-tion o a New Ministry , it isnot unique to the presbyteraloffice. No other personal, li-turgical prayer in our Angli-can tradition is. Te prayersaid by the priest in New Min-istry is the only prayer withsuch long, liturgical use that isspecifically said by the prieston behal o his or her priestlyministry.

Tis prayer originated withWilliam Smith in 1799, who

composed it or use in thethen-newly-written Con-necticut liturgies. Previousrites or the institution o newrectors had been mostly legal-istic ceremonies that reflectedthe medieval history o eu-

dal land ownership. Te newAmerican church, however,gave the older rituals o in-duction a more personal, evenemotional, slant, one thatreflected the more effusiveAmerican spirituality. Tis


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28 anglicandigest.org

prayer, written to be prayedby the priest to God or oth-

ers to hear, uses the pronouns“I” “me” and “my” no lessthan ourteen times. It begins“with an allusion to Matthew8:8, [and] centers on the pri-mary duties o the priest as aminister o the word and sac-raments, as a teacher, and asa person o prayer.” (Marion J.Hatchett: Commentary on the American Prayer Book, 538)

In such personal use, those“primary duties o the priest”orm a litany o eleven

sel-reerencing pleas that,when read with all humility,reveal the ragile nature owhat it means to be a humanbeing called to do the work oordained leadership. Behindthese pleas, we can hear the

concern o a very human pas-tor who hopes to be able to re-call scripture stories as need-ed when tending to the flock,and to have a holy sensitivityto be able to apply them well.We can also hear the desire to

have the right words to preachor sermons and the lively at-

titude or prayers so that peo-ple will be moved to see Godmore clearly. In contempo-rary English, the priest praysthis prayer:

O Lord my God, I am notworthy to have you comeunder my roo; yet youhave called your servant tostand in your house, andto serve at your altar. o you and to your service Idevote mysel, body, soul,and spirit. Fill my memo-

ry with the record o yourmighty works; enlightenmy understanding with thelight o your Holy Spirit;and may all the desires omy heart and will centerin what you would have

me do. Make me an instru-ment o your salvation orthe people entrusted to mycare, and grant that I may aithully administer yourholy Sacraments, and bymy lie and teaching set


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29spring 2016

orth your true and livingWord. Be always with me

in carrying out the dutieso my ministry. In prayer,quicken my devotion; in praises, heighten my loveand gratitude; in preach-ing, give me readiness othought and expression;and grant that, by theclearness and brightnesso your holy Word, all theworld may be drawn into your blessed kingdom. Allthis I ask or the sake o your Son our Savior JesusChrist. Amen (BCP 562-

563)

It is true that a priest is ullydependent on God or thesegifs. It is also true that busyclergy, especially rectors orpriests in charge, ofen orget

that these gifs are the “prima-ry duties” to which they arecalled. Te holy gifs o re-calling relevant scripture, andthe ability to provide quick-ening prayer, inspired speech,and aithul administration

o the sacraments, are ofenconsidered secondary gifs o

priestly leadership – particu-larly when the church needsa new roo, the conflict in thekitchen is calling or mana-gerial change, and the budgetis crying or more money orministries.

Te gifs and benefits askedor in this prayer are not aseasily calculated as are a well-run church committee or so-cial-service ministry project.A member o the flock morereadily notices an error in the

bulletin than an inerior ser-mon. An adequate recitationo a amiliar prayer is moreto be expected or clergy thanan attempt to inspire renewedpiety through study and re-hearsal o other authorized

prayers. Clergy may be tempt-ed to spend more time in pre-paring the vestry agenda withthe wardens than looking tosee where the vestry’s currentstories will have parallels inscripture.


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Te great gif o this Collect

is that it reminds the priest othe primary work o the pas-tor. Tis prayer offers a cor-rective or the too-busy priestwho may have orgotten thepurpose or which she or he isordained. It ought to be recol-lected and prayed more ofenthan just at the institution onew ministry. Used regular-ly, perhaps at the start o apriest’s work week, this Col-lect can assist properly re-or-dering the priest’s priorities. Itprovides a significant, liturgi-

cal reminder to the priest othe more subtle, yet nonethe-less primary, work o prayer,preaching, study, teaching,sacramental administration,and pastoral care. Tis Collectalso reminds the priest that

these holy gifs arise out o thepastor’s humble dependenceon God. Prayed regularly, thisCollect properly renews thepastoral call.

Alas! our weakness is verygreat, our wants are very

many, our dependenceon God or all things, allour lives long, is entire,and absolutely, and neces-sary, and there is no wayin the world to gain helpand supplies rom God,

but by prayer; so that itis as easy and as possibleto preserve a natural liewithout daily bread, as aChristian lie without dai-ly prayer.

You cannot imagine the

great benefit o learn-ing psalms by heart; orwhen you are under anytemptation, or are in anyaffliction, or when you liewaking in the night, orwhen sick, these psalms

will come into your mind;and the devout repeatingthem, will yield most sea-sonable consolations.

~ Tomas Ken, 1637-1711;Bishop o Bath and Wells

1684-1691


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ANGLICANBOOKSTORE

We offer many titles or sale through our in-house book supplier, the Anglican Bookstore.We also offer bargain books, which are priced at $3.00 each. You may also order by calling800-572-7929


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THE COLLECTS OF THOMAS CRANMER

By C. Frederick Barbee & Paul F. M. Zahl

Tomas Cranmer’s Prayer Book o 1549is a oundational document o the An-glican Church and a priceless part o En-glish-speaking Christianity. His unique gifor expressing theological substance withsimple, humble, and moving clarity hasmade the Collects essential not only to our

liturgy but also to the pastoral tradition othe Church. More than 450 years afer they

were first composed, these prayers remain a source o inspiration.Each Collect is ollowed by succinct commentary on their histor-ical context and an insightul meditation.Item E1249 (paperback, 139 pages, $18)

THE LORD AND HIS PRAYER

By N.. Wright

In a series o pastoral reflections, Wright ex-plores how the Lord’s Prayer sums up Jesus’own agenda within his first-century setting.Working his way through the text o the

prayer, Wright provides context rom thehistorical lie and work o Jesus, and allowsthe prayer’s devotional application to grow out o its historical context. He demonstrates how grasping theLord’s Prayer in its original setting can be the starting point or aresh understanding o Christian spirituality and the lie o prayer.Item E1248 (paperback, 85 pages, $11)


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A BOOK OF HOURS

By Tomas Merton

Some o Merton’s most lyrical and prayer-ul writings have been arranged into a richresource or daily prayer and contemplationbased upon the ancient monastic practice o“praying the hours”, with prayers arrangedor Dawn, Day, Dusk, and Dark or each o the days o the week. Tis book provides a

slice o monastic contemplation in themidst o hectic modern lie, with psalms, prayers, readings, andreflections.Item V0115 (hardcover, 224 pages, $22)

FOR CHILDREN

SONG OF CREATION

By Paul Goble

Every element o creation, rom the magpieto the minnow, glorifies God in its own wayin this bold and brightly illustrated work,adapted rom the Book o Common Prayer.Goble invites readers to join with the landand the animals in singing praise to God.Item E1250 (hardcover, 32 pages, ages 5-10, $17)


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OUR FATHER

By Sabrina Bus & Xavier Deneux

With clear, simple language and sweet il-lustrations, this board book explains themeaning o one o the best-loved Christianprayers, the Lord’s Prayer. Brie explanatory

text relates the words o the prayer to young children’s everydaylives and teaches them how to talk to God like a ather.Item E1251

(board book, 10 pages, ages 1-4, $8)

THE LORD’S PRAYER

By im Ladwig

Tis book endeavors to illustrate how the words o the Lord’s

Prayer can have real meaning in our lives today. In the paintings,a young girl and her ather spend a day together helping an elder-ly neighbor. Te love and guidance the childexperiences in her relationship with her dadreflect the heart and will o our Heavenly Fa-ther in concrete ways children o all ages willunderstand.Item E1252 (paperback, 32 pages, ages 5-10,$8.50)

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UNWORTHY OFMERCY

V R RE. BS, VA

We do not presume to cometo this thy able, O merciul

Lord, trusting in our own

righteousness, but in thy maniold and great mercies.

We are not worthy so much asto gather up the crumbs under

thy able. But thou art thesame Lord whose property isalways to have mercy. Grant

us thereore, gracious Lord, soto eat the flesh o thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink hisblood, that we may evermore

dwell in him, and he in us. Amen.

— Te Prayer o HumbleAccess (BCP, p. 337)

When asked to write a shortreflection on my avoriteprayer in the Book o Com-mon Prayer, it was easy todecide which one to choose.

Written by Archbishop Tom-as Cranmer as part o the de-

votions just beore receivingHoly Communion, what isnow known as the Prayer oHumble Access was given thatname in the Scottish revisiono 1764.

It is drawn rom the 1548“Order o the Communion”.According to Massey Shep-herd, “It was an original com-position o Cranmer, thoughphrases were suggested tohim by amiliar medieval Col-lects and some passages in the

Greek Liturgy o St. Basil.”

During the arguments overthe current Book o CommonPrayer (1979), many peo-ple singled out the Prayer oHumble Access or special crit-

icism. Some published lettersand lectures by proponents othe 1979 edition said it meant“groveling beore God.” I re-member the first time I heardthat statement, and thinkingthey had missed the point o


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changed our entire thoughtprocess o how we approach

the Eucharist. I was in semi-nary rom 1975 to 1978, andthe first General Conventionto vote on the “new prayerbook” was in 1976. I was notinvolved in any o the argu-ments over the prayer book.Te Church voted, and I ac-cepted the changes — and,having gone to Sewanee, i Ihad any questions, I had theprivilege o having access toMarion Hatchett.

Somehow we can still cele-

brate the Eucharist as a com-munal meal and acknowledgethe great privilege o receivingthe Body and Blood o ourLord and Savior, Jesus Christ.Tis is Almighty God, creatoro heaven and earth, coming

into our lives, “that we mayevermore dwell in him, and hein us.” God’s very being comesinto the depths o our being.Surely we can acknowledgethat, although we are unwor-thy o it, how glorious it is that

his mercy continues to reachout to us whenever we receive

Communion. When we ac-cept unto ourselves his Bodyand Blood, it really is not acasual encounter that is doneby rote.

In the world’s discussions oour common lie on this plan-et, the word mercy has beenbrought to the oreront, notonly by the circumstanceswe ace but by Pope Francis’calling or the “Jubilee Year oMercy.” What better prayer oours to reflect on every time

we approach the altar to re-ceive the meal which sustainsus and empowers us to carryout God’s work in the world.Te Eucharist is an astonish-ing way or us to interact withGod. Te phrase “but thou art

the same Lord whose propertyis always to have mercy” ringsthrough my soul whenever Ireceive communion.


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CHANGED BYCHANGELESSNESS

R. R N. MM,J., S. A’ EC, E, IL

Be present, O merciul God,and protect us through thehours o this night, so that wewho are wearied by the changesand chances o this lie may restin your eternal changelessness;through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen. — From the Order orCompline (BCP, p. 129)

One o the abiding dynam-

ics o human living is change.However, our attitude toward,and our perspective o, thischange varies throughout ourlie, and may even be alteredduring one given day. We be-gin lie by undergoing rapid

and truly lie-orming chang-es. Our parents are changed byour changing, and we progressthrough the years only know-ing a changing physical, emo-tional, and intellectual lie. Weknow ourselves as changing

persons. And yet, this senseand reality o always chang-

ing does not last. We reach astate whereby what changesis not our physical selves, butthe circumstances in which welive, how we live. We change jobs and homes, we marry anddivorce, we have children, wehave deaths in the amily. In-stead o being the change inour own lives, now it seems thelives o others change us. Oldage is another stage o change.Tere are changes o addition,and there are changes o sub-traction. We learn that change

is not always welcomed orcelebrated; change can leadto grieving, to sadness, and toweariness.

Te weariness brought on“by the changes and chances

o this lie” could lead us to aresignation that lie is just likethat. We have this one lie,and that means enduring thechange that this peculiar liebrings. We can be stoic or de-pressed by these changes, but


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either way they are not go-ing away. We could develop a

keener sense o optimism, orwe could heighten our powerso distraction, all or the sakeo making it through thesechanges with some semblanceo sanity and normalcy. Or,we could pray to “rest in youreternal changelessness.” Wecould place our changing liebeore the unchanging lie oGod, but why would this bringrest, and is this rest an escaperom changing? Is our turningto God in prayer the attemptto stop change rom happen-

ing in our lives? Will God keepus rom changing?

Te incarnation o the Sono God, the Word becomingflesh, the lie o Jesus o Naz-areth, brought God’s radical

difference into our lives inorder to make a difference.God’s difference arrives tomake different lives, to make adifferent world. God so lovedthe world that he sent his Sonto change it, by the power o

the Holy Spirit. God is notan escape rom the world, or

someone we turn to when weare tired o living; Jesus cameto bring abundant lie, not astatic one. Jesus entered intothe changes and chances othis lie not so they would nolonger exist, but so that theymay become the occasions toenter into his lie, the lie giv -en to him rom the unchang-ing Father, by the Holy Spiritwho changes everyone, whois “the Lord and giver o lie.”Te Father by the power o theHoly Spirit changed Jesus. We

call it the resurrection. Tis isthe change that overcomes allthe changes o this lie. Godnever changes, God is alwaysthis God. Yet, who this Godis changes everything. God isnot some object stuck in heav -

en. God’s very lie is always onthe move, always alive amongthe three persons. So, whenwe are introduced to God’seternal changelessness, we areswept up into a lie-changingreality and truth, into the love


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that raises the dead.

We are baptized into the lieo the rinity. We are made amember o the Body o Christ.We receive the gif o the HolySpirit. Baptized persons arenever lef alone with theirchanges. Tey are not to en-dure lie the best they can. Tearc o their lie is not goingrom more to less; it is alwaysentering into the more, themore o God’s lie or them.Baptized into a death andresurrection like Jesus, we nolonger have to come up with

strategies to adapt to change,coping mechanisms, or elab-orate methods o distraction;instead, we can take the rad-ical step o acknowledging alack o control over our ownlives. Tus, we are not called

to manage our lives but to o -er them. We are called to bechanged by the unchangingGod. How do we offer our-selves in this way?Since we live each day in thepresence o God, as members

o the Body o Christ, we canace our days with honesty and

hope. We can acknowledgethat the changes and chanceso this lie do indeed make usweary. Tis weariness at theend o a day can be offered as aprayer that will accompany usthrough the night. When weenter the night with the prayero the weary, those on whomchange has been visited, weenter into the tomb o Jesus,into a death like his. Te nightthen becomes not the end othe day, a dark and orebod-ing conclusion to this lie, but

a night that keeps vigil or therise o the morning star, thedawn o the resurrection, rais-ing us into a lie like his. Tedays o this lie are ended, theeternal day o resurrection be-gins. We rest now in the eter-

nal changelessness o the Godwho never rests rom seekingus out in the night to raiseus into that day when tombsare emptied and that amiliarstranger shows up in our ear-ul rooms: “Peace be with you.”


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RETURNING TOOUR SOURCE

R. A N, O

LORD o all power and might,who art the author and givero all good things: Graf in ourhearts the love o thy Name,

increase in us true religion,nourish us with all goodness,and o thy great mercy keepus in the same; through JesusChrist our Lord. Amen.— Te Collect or the SeventhSunday afer rinity, Canadi-an BCP, 1962, p. 228 & p. 615

YHWH is beyond a word, ora cluster o words. Te or-mer Archbishop o Canter-bury Rowan Williams, in hisbook Christ on rial, quotesAnita Mason’s novel Te Illu-

sionist , in which Jesus is an-cied as saying the ollowing tothe Apostle Peter: “Tere is akind o truth which, when it issaid, becomes untrue.” Withour God especially, this truthabout untruth is true.

Tere is olly in wisdom, inknowing. In his ministry,

Paul repeatedly attests to thisrequired humility in the aceo the unsayable and the un-knowable: “Te Lord knoweththe thoughts o the wise, thatthey are vain” (1 Corinthians3. 20; see also Psalm 94. 11).

Te human problem is thatwe think we’re so smart! Wethink we know the acts o thematter. Tis is the “originalsin” rooted in the orbiddentree o knowledge in Eden.Te ruit o such hungry

grasping at knowledge is ourown destruction. So much orbeing like God! Our oolishwisdom is so oolish, in act,that we think we can knowGod and represent God in our“knowing.” Yet the Name o

the Lord cannot even be spo-ken. What are we to do withthis utter, inescapable ailingon our part?

Tis prayer is an answer tosuch ailing. Our Lord is the


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One o “all power and might.”We don’t have it, but God’s got

it — and God, “the author andgiver o all good things,” giveswhat he has to us.

How? By way o grafing.Nothing short o DivineSurgery is called or in thisprayer. Grafing is a horti-cultural term reerring to the

joining o vascular tissues oone plant with another, sothat the two may share one lietogether: it allows the weakerone to benefit rom the inu-sion o the rooted lie o the

stronger one. One o the ad- vantages o grafing is “pre-cocity,” which is “the abilityto induce ruitulness withoutthe need or completing the

juvenile phase.” Does this notsound like a amiliar necessity

or us?And so, by way o grafing, wecan love the Name we can’teven speak. Tis is wherehumility sharply comes intoplay, and as such it makes

sense why this prayer shouldappear at the end o “A Pen-

itential Service” in the Cana-dian Book o Common Prayer(1962).

I we can’t speak, we shouldlisten. We should be receptiveto Lie. Tis is how we canhave an increase o true reli-gion and be nourished withgoodness. Only the Giver’smercy will grant us this.

Sharing the Divine Lie (asin grafing) does not involvetalking at God as i we know

what we are talking about.Jean Vanier, in his book FromBrokenness to Community ,writes:

Our people are close toGod, and yet they are solittle and poor. Tey have

known rejection and havesuffered a great deal. I amalways moved as I hearthem speak o God. Whensomebody asked one oour men, Peter, i he likedto pray, he said that he


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did. So the person contin-ued and asked him what

he did when he prayed.He replied: “I listen.” Tenthe person asked whatGod says to him. Peter,a man with Down’s Syn-drome, looked up andsaid: “He just says, “‘Youare my beloved son.’”

Te poor in spirit have re-ceived richness which we,who are too ull o words andourselves, cannot yet athom.

Tis prayer puts us firmly on

the receiving end o grace. Assuch, it is about experience oGod above anyone’s impov-erished explanation o God— that is, an explanation oan experience o what Godshould be, or might be or oth-

ers, or could be or us. Tereare many lovers o words —entrenched in the saety o so-called “lef-brain” thinking —who will out-o-hand dismissthe notion o direct-experi-ence contact with God as easy,

sof, and unserious. I suspectthey ear what God might say

should they stop long enoughto listen! Te ear humanshave o love is certainly not anew phenomenon.

YHWH is beyond a word.Tus, by grace, “the Word wasmade flesh, and dwelt amongus” (St. John 1. 14). In a direct,living, human relationship weknow how to live the DivineWord in a way that takes usbeyond all mortal images andwords.

I believe that meditativeprayer needs to be revivedamong the aithul i we areto be a people transormed bygrace in a stunning way. Con-templative prayer is a real wayo knowing that God alone

is All in All, and that we, bygrace, are incorporated intothat All. Only by returning toour Source shall we know andlive the promises o Christ.


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LEARNING HOW TOENGAGE IN MISSION

R. P BS. C C, F, CA

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretchedout your arms o love on thehard wood o the cross that ev-eryone might come within thereach o your saving embrace:So clothe us in your Spirit thatwe, reaching orth our hands inlove, may bring those who donot know you to the knowledgeand love o you; or the hon-or o your Name. Amen. — A

Prayer or Mission (BCP, pp.58, 101)

When I think o prayers inthe BCP, one that bubblesto the surace o my mindmore and more these days is

the third prayer or missionused during Morning Prayer(ound on p. 58 and 101.) Teprayer was written by BishopCharles Henry Brent while hewas serving as a missionarybishop to the Philippines in

1907, so considering the his-tory o our prayer book tra-

dition, it’s a airly recent ad-dition. As a missionary in thePhilippines, it was expectedthat Brent would either min-ister exclusively to the Amer-icans who were moving to theislands, or that he would reachout to the locals in the Philip-pines and try to convert themrom Roman Catholicism toAnglicanism. Bishop Brentchose the third option and in-stead went to the non-Chris-tian areas o the Philippines,prioritizing conversion to

Christianity rather than conversion to Anglicanism. WhatBishop Brent wrote in thisprayer at that time serves as asummation o his view o mis-sion, a view which we woulddo well to pray and meditate

on more ofen.

Te prayer starts as many oth-ers do, by addressing God anddescribing him in some way;in this case, the collect gives abrie summation o Jesus’ role


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their lives. Tat’s only a smallpart o what’s going on here.

You see, we’re “reaching orthour hands in love.” Reachingisn’t an imitation o Jesus romthe first part o the prayer, thefirst part o the prayer saysthat Jesus “stretched out” hisarms. Reaching in the firstpart o the prayer is used todescribe our response to God.So in a way this has a doublemeaning. We should reach outto God in love, in response tohis love or us, and one o themany ways we can accom-plish this is by reaching out to

those in the world who don’tknow God. Tis creates a shifin how many today wouldunderstand missions. It’s notrom one individual to anoth-er or one group to another, it’sus in and out o our love or

God sharing that love withothers. It’s us stirring this loveor God in them. It’s less aboutus individually and moreabout the Church as a whole.We get that confirmed at theend with the last bit o the

prayer, “or the honor o yourName.” Tis is all about God.

Looking at the prayer as awhole you can see that thisis all about love. Our love orothers is an extension o thelove we have or God, notsomething more importantor the love we have or Godor even something rivaling it.Our love or God comes first,but the love or others is an il-lustration o that love.

Te other big thing we shouldget rom this prayer is that

love isn’t easy – God’s love orus isn’t something that’s donewithout any difficulties. Godloves us enough to die or us,and God loves us despite theact that many people won’treturn that love. And that’s

something we need to remem-ber in our lives: our love orothers, in this case exempli-fied by evangelism and shar-ing the gospel o Jesus Christ,is something that is ofen hardor us, and we may meet with


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people who turn us away. Inthis prayer, the ocus isn’t on

improving the mission field orbringing more people to God,it’s a prayer that God maystrengthen us to do this work.Tis isn’t a prayer asking orthe work to be easier; it’s ask-ing or an increase o the Spiritto enable us to do the work.

You can see rom this oneprayer how all o us as Chris-tians should engage in mis-sion in our lives. Sure, thereare proessionals, missionariesand evangelists like Bp. Brent

who do this or a living, but allo us as Christians should beinvolved in mission in our ownsetting. All o us as Christians,caught up in this relationshipo love between Christ and hisChurch, need to respond to

this love by sharing it, and wecan with God’s help.

A CHRISTIAN ISNEVER ALONE

V R. A F. M.CV: S. ’ EC, G C, S. B’ EC, G C, IL

O GOD, orasmuch as with-out thee we are not able

to please thee; Merciul-ly grant that thy Holy Spiritmay in all things direct andrule our hearts; through Je-sus Christ our Lord. Amen— Proper 19, the Sunday closest

to September 14 (BCP, p. 182)

Te door burst open and asing-song voice, a sort o in-toned speech, recited whatwas then the Collect or theNineteenth Sunday afer rin-ity. Tere ollowed a hugepair o untended eyebrows

attached to a large, sham-bling, purple-clad figure. Itwas Michael Ramsey, thenArchbishop o York. He hadreturned to Durham to givea series o public lectures.Within two years he would


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succeed his old headmasteras Archbishop o Canterbury.

Whenever I read this prayer,now assigned, prosaically, tothe Sunday nearest to Septem-ber 14, I hear Dr. Ramsey’s voice. Aside rom that happymemory, and the fluidity oits traditional language, this

collect is a model or goodprayer writing. It is short, itconcentrates on a single pe-tition, and it is memorable.Tat it is short is, in itsel, amercy. Tat it concentrates ona single theme allows us to digdeeply into the petition. Tatit is easily memorized en-ables us to recollect it at will.

Tere is a (probably inaccu-rate) rule o thumb that sug-gests that the urther we getrom the prayers composed

or compiled by ArchbishopCranmer, the longer, moremulti-petitioned, and lessmemorable they become. Iimmediately think o “Keepwatch, dear Lord, with thosewho wake, or watch, or weep

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tonight…”, but it was writtenby St. Augustine o Hippo, who

knew how to write well even ihe didn’t know when to stop.Tank God he didn’t have aword processor. Tere may besomething to my theory aferall. Even the modern versiono the collect we are consider-ing ails the memorable test.Why didn’t the revisers mere-ly substitute “you” or “thee”?

Tere’s something extraor-dinarily exciting about over-turning long used rites,prayers and ceremonies. It

takes a certain hubris to pro-pose one’s own compositionsas substitutes or habitual cus-tom. Cranmer was one suchinnovator. However, he alsohad a acility or translatingancient Latin prayers into

memorable English prose,or borrowing prayers romother authors, and occasion-ally even composing his own.Te language he used was notthat employed in the mar-ketplace or at home; it was


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tinged with an appropriatepiety, which, within a centu-

ry was no longer the languageo the people, and yet bothlanguage and the rhythm opublic liturgical piety restoredand rereshed the hearts andminds o millions, until as lateas the mid twentieth century,when it was declared obsolete.

However lovely, accessible, ormemorable a prayer may be,however comortable it maybe to recite, an important ac-tor is what it means. Note thatI said “an important actor”;

prayer is valid, effective, eveni not always intellectuallygrasped. During our secularrituals, we don’t always investwhat we say or do with intel-lectual content. We may say“How are you?” without re-

ally wanting to hear a catalogo ills. “I love you” isn’t alwaysanything much more thana mantra. But even mantrascontain deep reality. Noth-ing annoys the French morethan oreign tourists who ail

to begin and end a requestwith the usual preludes to and

conclusions o a sentence. Tepoint o liturgical language isnot that we are ully engagedin its meaning – proponentso extempore prayer are right:we don’t always mean what weare saying – but we do intendwhat is being said. Te intentis expressed by participationmore than recollection. Tehabit o corporate worshipis essential in the same man-ner as the habit o privateprayer, even i the contentnever varies. All o which is

not to say that recollectedprayer isn’t very important.

Without God, we can’t pleaseGod? Surely that can’t be true?aken in a very narrow sense,perhaps the beginning state-

ment isn’t very helpul. I youthink this opening statementmeans that you are God’s spe-cial riend so he will hear you,whereas – add your list o per-sons, or groups – those whoaren’t on God’s side, according


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to the advice you give God asto those with whom he should

beriend, and those he shouldreject, pray in vain. Howev-er, that is not what is meant.

Te first part o the prayer putsus firmly in our place. We de-pend on God. It is only by liv-ing under mercy that we can

please God. We can’t bargainwith God, or do special thingsto please him. God loves us,period. Humbling ourselvesto accept what God gives usis the only way to please him.In a sense there is no greaterassault on our pride than toaccept unconditionally whatis offered unconditionally.

We continue by praying thatthe third Person o the rinitywill direct and rule our hearts.Remember that in Cranmer’s

day, the heart was associatedwith motivation. It is God theHoly Spirit who inhabits theChurch and because, throughbaptism, we also inhabit God’sChurch, our motivation,that which directs and rules

the way we “live, move andhave our being”, is possessed

and driven by God’s Spirit.

It is extraordinary that somuch is contained in one sen-tence, but there is one moreessential part to add: we praythat we may please God by re-lying on him. We pray that theFather will grant us, throughthe Holy Spirit, direction inthe manner we live every parto our lives, sacred and secu-lar; that God will be the sov-ereign o our motivation, howand why we make decisions.

All this is made possible orus “through Jesus Christ ourLord.” Tat amiliar ending toprayers is ofen overlooked.It’s not a necessary ending. Wesay the Lord’s Prayer without aconcluding attribution. In this

case perhaps it is necessary. Itreminds us that we have ac-cess to the Father, through theSon, by the Holy Spirit. Telonger ending, “to whom withthee and the Holy Ghost…”makes this even clearer.

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In an age when so many litur-gical prayers ail the memory

test, it is wonderul to haveaccess to a collect like this,crammed ull as it is with deepaith. I say it ofen, and par-ticularly when I think I can’tcope, and thus am in dangero trying to cope in my ownallible or ear-filled manner.o remember that it is God Itrust, that in accepting God Iplease him, and that God willshow me the way orward bydirecting and ruling my mo-tivation, is such a relie. Terelie is greater still when I

recollect that this is a prayero the Church. Trough bap-tism, the Church is my amily.I live in the context o a amilywhich prays all over the world,a Church which prays in Para-dise and in Heaven. I am nev-

er alone. I have no discrete orpersonal problems unknownto other Christians, whetheralive or dead. Many Chris-tians ace the very same prob-lems I do, or have aced them,and their prayers mingle with

my own. As God is my Father,the Church is my mother.

o God be praise and glory.

Q Q Q

COLIN POWELL

On his reaction to themodernized liturgy at his

mother’s uneral, inMy American Journey,

pp. 17, 290

I had definite ideas o what achurch was supposed to be,like high Anglican church inwhich my amily was raised

in Jamaica, with spires, altars,priests, vestments, incense,and the flock genuflectingand crossing itsel all over theplace. Te higher the church,the closer to God; that washow I saw it. …

I can still remember con-firmation, watching thosesweet, scrubbed children andthe bishop seized them oneby one by the head: “Deend,O Lord, this thy Child with


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Oliver Sacks

In Te Man Who Mistook HisWie or a Hat, (pp23-42),On the Power o Liturgy

In Te Lost Mariner , OliverSacks wrote about a patienthe called Jimmie, who su -

ered rom “the severest, mostdevastating Korsakov’s” syn-drome, meaning that he couldnot “remember isolated itemsor more than a ew seconds,and … a dense amnesia goingback to 1945”. Patients like

Jimmie, Sacks wrote, are “os-silised in the past, can only beat home, oriented, in the past.ime, or them, has come toa stop.”

One tended to speak o him,

instinctively, as a spiritualcasualty — a ‘lost soul’: wasit possible that he had reallybeen ‘de-souled’ by a disease?‘Do you think he has a soul?’I once asked the Sisters. Teywere outraged by my question,

but could see why I asked it.‘Watch Jimmie in chapel,’ they

said, ‘and judge or yoursel.’ I did, and I was moved, pro- oundly moved and impressed,because I saw here an intensityand steadiness o attention andconcentration that I had neverseen beore in him or conceivedhim capable o. I watched himkneel and take the Sacramenton his tongue, and could notdoubt the ullness and totali-ty o Communion, the perectalignment o his spirit with thespirit o the Mass. Fully, in-tensely, quietly, in the quietude

o absolute concentration andattention, he entered and par-took o the Holy Communion.He was wholly held, absorbed,by a eeling. Tere was no or-

getting, no Korsakov’s then, nordid it seem possible or imagin-

able that there should be; orhe was no longer at the mercyo a aulty and allible mecha-nism — that o meaningless se-quences and memory traces —but was absorbed in an act, anact o his whole being, which


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carried eeling and meaningin an organic continuity and

unity, a continuity and unityso seamless it could not permitany break.

Clearly Jimmie ound himsel, ound continuity and reality,in the absoluteness o spiritualattention and act. Te Sisterswere right — he did find hissoul here. And so was Luria,whose words now came backto me: ‘A man does not con-sist o memory alone. He has

eeling, will, sensibility, moral

being … It is here … you maytouch him, and see a prooundchange.’ Memory, mental activ-ity, mind alone, could not holdhim; but moral attention andaction could hold him com-

pletely.

… Seeing Jim in the chapelopened my eyes to other realmswhere the soul is called on, andheld, and stilled, in attentionand communion. …

Jimmie, who was so lost in ex-tentional ‘spatial’ time, was

perectly organized in … ‘in-tentional’ time; what was ugi-tive, unsustainable, as ormalstructure, was perectly stable,

perectly held … Moreover,there was something that en-dured and survived. I Jimmiewas briefly ‘held’ by a task or

puzzle …, held in the purelymental challenge o these, hewould all apart as soon as theywere done, into the abyss o hisnothingness, his amnesia. Buti he was held in emotional andspiritual attention … the atten-

tion, its ‘mood’, its quietude,would persist or a while, andthere would be in him a pen-siveness and peace we rarely, iever, saw during the rest o hislie at the Home.

… I had wondered, when I firstmet him, i he was not con-demned to a sort o ‘Humean’

roth, a meaningless flutter-ing on the surace o lie, andwhether there was any way o


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Q Q Q

In the Collects, thepriest “collects or com-prises all the wants othe people and pres-

ents them unto God.Te same reason willapply to the Collector the day, which hasalways reerence tosome sentiments thatmay be collected romthe Epistle and Gos-pel.”

~ John Henry Hobart,1775-1830; Tird Bishop oNew York (1816-1830), one

o the ounders o General

Teological Seminary, in ACompanion or the Book oCommon Prayer, 1805

Q Q Q

transcending the incoherenceo his Humean disease. Empir -

ical science told me there wasnot – but empirical science,empiricism, takes no accounto the soul, no account o whatconstitutes and determines per-sonal being. Perhaps there is a

philosophical as well as a clin-ical lesson here: that in Kor-sakov’s, or dementia, or othersuch catastrophes, however

great the organic damage andHumean dissolution, there re-mains the undiminished possi-bility o reintegration by art, bycommunion, by touching the

human spirit; and this can be preserved in what seems at firsta hopeless state o neurologicaldevastation.


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Over the last nine years, Iserved as rector o two parish-

es – St. Andrew’s, in Green- ville, SC, and Grace Episco-pal, in Georgetown, exas.Between the two parishes, Iconducted almost sixty uner-als; it wasn’t until afer the firstseveral that I discovered thisprayer. For me, it shows theimmense love God has or usby allowing us to be aided bythe prayers o the saints andstrengthened by their ellow-ship. Death, the great equal-izer, not only reminds theliving o our own mortality,

but also takes people rom us— some ar beore their time;or others, we pray or a q

the anglican digest – summer 2016

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