Derek Olsen, a member of the Episcopal Church’s Standing Committee on Music and Liturgy, has given us another fantastic, strategic, and theologically rich piece on the so-called Rite III in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer (see pp. 400-05). The 78th General Convention made provision for parishes to go beyond the rubrics of the BCP, or at least read provided a reading of them that allows this option to be used on Sundays or weekday services with the permission of the bishop. Go read it first!
[Crossposted over at Covenant.]
Derek Olsen, a member of the Episcopal Church’s Standing Committee on Music and Liturgy, has given us another fantastic, strategic, and theologically rich piece on the so-called Rite III in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer (see pp. 400-05). The 78th General Convention made provision for parishes to go beyond the rubrics of the BCP, or at least read provided a reading of them that allows this option to be used on Sundays or weekday services with the permission of the bishop. Go read it first!
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[Originally at Covenant on October 24, 2014] St. Benedict’s liturgical scheme for the Daily Office had a profound impact on the ever-developing pattern of prayer throughout the Western Church. While the claim that Anglican liturgy is “Benedictine” is historically dubious (since Cranmer’s primary influence was the Sarum rite of the Western office, which in turn reflected Benedictine, Roman, Gallican, and a whole host of other influences), it is true that Cranmer’s vision of a “nation-as-monastery” has a certain Benedictine ring to it. In particular, the combination of Mass, Office, and private devotion — which Martin Thornton has so eloquently described in his classic works English Spirituality (a true gem) and Pastoral Theology (all priests and seminarians who have not read: attend!) — may be integrated into the life of any Christian of any state, as a pattern of life and means of grace. [Originally posted over at Covenant & one of the top 10 posts from its first year. After this was written, the Episcopal Diocese of Dallas elected the Rev'd Dr George Sumner to be its seventh bishop] One of the oddities of ecclesial life is that priests can’t be members of a parish. When ordained, the new cleric’s “residency” moves from a parish to the diocese; more specifically, the residency moves to the clericus, the body of clergy within a diocese. The same holds for a bishop, who upon ordination leaves the diocesan clericus to join the college of bishops (not simply the Episcopal House of Bishops, mind you, but the college of bishops of the Catholic Church of Christ, however infrequently they actually meet!). My ecclesial or canonical residency is in the Diocese of Dallas, even though I live in Milwaukee. Dallas is where I was ordained and where I served in parish ministry for eight years. Since I didn’t move to Milwaukee for a parochial job but for doctoral studies, it made sense to remain resident in Dallas (the legal process is that a priest in my situation makes a formal request to the local bishop for a license to function as a priest within his diocese, which Bishop Miller has kindly granted). All of the clergy of the Diocese of Dallas, along with lay representatives from each parish and mission, will elect the seventh Bishop of Dallas on Saturday, May 16, 2015. This election is critical, since Dallas is one of the largest dioceses associated with Communion Partners, and it contains some of the most vibrant and growing parishes in the Episcopal Church . What I want to suggest are a few aspects of episcopal ministry that I believe all of us might do well to consider. These are the kinds of priorities that we should hope for and expect in our bishops, which means that we need to provide them the means to undertake them. I present them in the form of seven theses: This post on confirmation is something of a companion piece to my post from two weeks ago: “How radical a revision?” See also last week’s post by Stewart Clem: “Feed the children.” One of my students sent me an email to get my thoughts on the short “Preface Concerning the Confirmation Liturgy Draft Text Proposed by the Bishops Review Committee” of the Anglican Church in North America (ACNA). It’s not clear whether this is the preface to a liturgy already written, or if this was meant to be a summary statement regarding the committee’s approach that they first put to the bishops for their approval before beginning their task. Either way, it’s worth reading the statement to see where our ACNA brethren are thinking regarding the hotly debated question of Confirmation. [Originally posted over at Covenant] I just reread a slightly obscure essay by the late Urban T. Holmes, sometime dean of the School of Theology of the University of the South. The essay, “Education for Liturgy,” comes from the festschrift Worship Points the Way (1981), written for the great liturgical scholar and Episcopal priest, Massey Shepherd, who, among other things, wrote the definitive commentary on the 1928 American Prayer Book. Holmes’s contribution describes some of the processes, scholarship, and theological considerations that led to the construction of the Episcopal Church’s current 1979 Book of Common Prayer (BCP), as well as the significant role that Shepherd played in that process. What has stayed with me is how Holmes described the theological currents that drove those tasked with that enormous project of revision. |
AboutLaudate Dominum is the blog devoted to liturgy and theology, hosted by Fr Matthew Olver, Assistant Professor of Liturgics and Pastoral Theology at Nashotah House Theological Seminary. Archives
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