Well, in the absence of a choir, Our Place has used Murray's A New People's Mass as the default setting for some years now. It's simple enough, we know it quite well, and new peeps seem to be able to pick it up easily.
On the odd occasion when we have no organist, and rely on the Parish Laptop, we use the Kyries and Sanctus from Malcolm Archer's Missa Simplex (the recording is much better!).
We also sometimes use metrical versions of the Gloria , just for a change.
My local church uses the Addington Mass (I think it's called) for their Parish Communion - nicely singable, though they do have a small choir to help lead.
Oooh, is the Addington Service still extant? I was brought up on it for ASB Rite A, later modified for Common Worship.
Well, in the absence of a choir, Our Place has used Murray's A New People's Mass as the default setting for some years now. It's simple enough, we know it quite well, and new peeps seem to be able to pick it up easily.
On the odd occasion when we have no organist, and rely on the Parish Laptop, we use the Kyries and Sanctus from Malcolm Archer's Missa Simplex (the recording is much better!).
We also sometimes use metrical versions of the Gloria , just for a change.
My local church uses the Addington Mass (I think it's called) for their Parish Communion - nicely singable, though they do have a small choir to help lead.
Oooh, is the Addington Service still extant? I was brought up on it for ASB Rite A, later modified for Common Worship.
The parish where I was supposed to go, rather than my hidey-hole, alternated Appleford and Wilcox's setting - which were OK, but dated back to Series 3. Both were acceptable, but not exactly wonderful. At the end of the day they did the job, and lasted at least 25 years. I do not know what they are using now, but I would not be surprised if Appleford has survived as it was the more popular of the two. I just hope they have got their timing problems under control. There were far too many Sundays when we started ten minutes late (9:40am) and did not get out until after 11:00am!
It is a little bit easier than Merbecke. A good cantor, or knobbing a few good singers in the congregation works wonders when one introduces it as the rest of the congo will pick it up quite quickly. I introduced it in Lent in my old parish and it worked well.
I have no idea how easy it is, but what about Martin Shaw's Anglican Folk Mass setting of the BCP?
Is that the one at the end of the NEH? St Sanity used that regularly. Madame and I rather like it. It sounds good and is within the singing ability of a congregation. Have a look at the Dudman setting, written for the 1995 APBA 2nd Order - again, easy for a congregation.
I have no idea how easy it is, but what about Martin Shaw's Anglican Folk Mass setting of the BCP?
Is that the one at the end of the NEH? St Sanity used that regularly. Madame and I rather like it. It sounds good and is within the singing ability of a congregation. Have a look at the Dudman setting, written for the 1995 APBA 2nd Order - again, easy for a congregation.
No, I don't think it is - NEH 541 is 'A New English Folk Mass', written for ASB Rite A, and doesn't appear to be the same as Martin Shaw's. I'm no musician, so I can't say for certain, and the NEH doesn't name the composer. I agree that it seems eminently singable.
NEH 542 is Merbecke, re-arranged slightly to concur with the order of Rite B. Personally, I think much of Merbecke is reasonably easy to sing, so could still be suitable for younger peeps...though the question might be asked as to why those younger peeps are at a 1662 BCP service in the first place. Not a common occurrence, I should think, unless it's one of those parishes which has a varied rota of 'main' services week-by-week.
I prefer traditional language services because the range of music is better.
In the US Episcopal Church, you can use service music from Rite I (traditional) in an otherwise Rite II (modern) service. Can you do this in the C of E?
Yes, you can (there's no law about it!), though you'd probably have to produce a specific (perhaps one-off) service booklet, in case peeps got muddled up with the words.
That is to say, if you were using Common Worship Order 1 (the modern rite), but wanted to sing at least some of it to Merbecke, you'd have to make sure that everyone had the 'old' words to Gloria, Sanctus etc., even if you weren't printing out the music as well.
Yes, you can (there's no law about it!), though you'd probably have to produce a specific (perhaps one-off) service booklet, in case peeps got muddled up with the words.
That is to say, if you were using Common Worship Order 1 (the modern rite), but wanted to sing at least some of it to Merbecke, you'd have to make sure that everyone had the 'old' words to Gloria, Sanctus etc., even if you weren't printing out the music as well.
IYSWIM.
You can (or at least you can if you are musical) sing Latin mass settings too, whatever the rite of the rest of the service. Most cathedrals do so regularly.
I get some moans from members of the congregation if we sing a setting where the words aren't exactly the same as in the OoS, but since members of the congregation are given a copy of the music if its a setting they can join in singing I'm afraid its water off a duck's back. Besides, the same people moan about "no knowing the meaning of the words" when we sing in Latin - a naughty member of the choir said its as if they suspect we might use a foreign language to sneak part of a Black Mass past them
(Purely for information, they are our most evangelical congregation members - won't kneel for anything, stand for all prayers, undoing the light fitting gesture and all.)
I prefer traditional language services because the range of music is better.
In the US Episcopal Church, you can use service music from Rite I (traditional) in an otherwise Rite II (modern) service. Can you do this in the C of E?
I have not had much to do with the CW forms of service, but with the ASB it was definitely kosher at MP and EP, and I got the general impression that no-one was going to get too upset if you did it at the Communion service provided you were using a genuinely 'well-known setting.' A neighbouring parish used to sneak in bits of mass settings by Haydn and Mozart often enough that it was considered quite normal, or at least quite normal for them.
It's also something scripture is completely silent about.
This may be slightly off topic (since this is Ecclesiantics) but I fail to see the significance of this point. Scripture is completely silent on a whole barrage of historical issues. We don't hear anything about either St. Paul's or St. Peter's martyrdoms in Scripture, yet we don't doubt that they were indeed martyred in Rome. We don't hear anything about the life of Martin Luther King, jr. in Scripture, yet we don't doubt that he existed. What makes the historical event of the dormition of the Virgin Mary so special that this historical event had to be recorded in Scripture?
There are two Anglican churches where I live now. One is quite small, conservative, and uses traditional language and has an average age of around 45-50, and actually has 18-30 y.o. members. The other parish is fairly progressive and entirely modern language. At present it is much larger, but has an average age of around 65-70, but one wonders where they will be in about twenty years time. I don't think modern versus traditional language predetermines the age group necessarily.
@kmann I seem to remember that you are a Norwegian Lutheran with some experience of having lived in England. So this may be a bit unfamiliar.
In the CofE, whether something is or is not mentioned in scripture is important. That becomes particularly so if it is something from the period of scripture. It's significant if something could potentially could have been in scripture but isn't. That makes it a matter of personal opinion, adiaphora, something people can have their own opinions on, but which cannot be stated categorically or required of people (or for that matter forbidden) as a matter of belief. It also means that it should not be regarded as something essential. See as explanatory material Article 6.
So it is significant for us, even if it isn't for you. Arguably, its absence might in itself be an argument against its being significant.
<snip>Scripture is completely silent on a whole barrage of historical issues. We don't hear anything about either St. Paul's or St. Peter's martyrdoms in Scripture, yet we don't doubt that they were indeed martyred in Rome. <snip>
Speak for yourself. There has been sufficient research over the years to cast great doubt over the presence in Rome, never mind the martyrdom, of both Peter and Paul.
In the case of Peter there is no evidence of him ever leaving Palestine, and the discovery over ten years ago of an ossuary in Jerusalem with the inscription Shimon Bar Jonah is likely to contain his bones. The so-called "evidence" of the limited research permitted over the years by the vatican is highly questionable: for example, some bones that were "definitely" Peter's that were allowed to be independently examined in the 19th century proved to be from a dog.
There is some evidence for Paul's journeys around the middle east and his being in Malta but again, nothing to show him in Rome.
Faith may be enough for some, but the inconvenient truth is that the Romans were meticulous record keepers and there were sufficient good historians writing at the time that it is surprising that nothing is heard of the either Peter or Paul being in Rome until you get to Christian writers hundreds of years later.
The Romans were meticulous record keepers, but we only have something like one document in 10,000 or less. When dealing with Imperial Rome, or early mediaeval Europe it is usually a good ideal to work on the hypothesis that if there is an old, and well-attested tradition about something do not reject it until there is clear evidence proving the tradition wrong, or significantly misstated.
Personally, I am a lot more confident about St. Peter having been martyred in Rome than I am about him ever having an extended ministry there, or of having been bishop of that city. I tend to think that if you want to associate St Peter with any see it has to be that of Antioch, rather than Rome. However, it has to be said that the early history of the Church in Rome is not all that clear even now. For example, we have no decent chronology of the early bishops. However, it is clear that the Church is of early date - Paul dropped them a line about 55AD - and being in the Imperial City relatively important.
Of course, the disclaimer here is that I tend to work from the premise that most of the New Testament is early (50 to 80AD) and generally reliable allowing for authorial agendas, etc.. Of course, I share the basic bias of the authors which is the belief that Jesus is Lord, but that did not have much influence on my thinking when I was first looking at Scripture and making up my mind about it.
The Romans were meticulous record keepers, but we only have fragments of their records.
In relation to both Peter and Paul there is first and second century Christian evidence of them being in Rome.
There is early Christian anecotal evidence - otherwise known as hearsay, just as there is anecdotal evidence for the presence of an alien in Area 51.
The Acts of the Apostles is early evidence that Paul was in Rome.
Acts states that Paul travelled throughout the Roman world - which was dead easy because to travel outside the sphere of Roman influence he would have had to do a time-equivalent of extra--terrestrial travel. It is stated that he left on a journey with the intention of going to Spain, and it was possible that the route would give him the opportunity to go to Rome, depending on which of the routes he chose.
However, there is rather more evidence for St Paul having been shipwrecked somewhere on the coast of Malta, and that is significant (I'll discount the proposition that it might have been a much smaller island, then known as Melida near the Coatian coast) because shipping routes that went so close to Malta as to allow for Paul to be shipwrecked there would indicate a route towards Spain, which was Paul's intended destination, that bypassed Rome.
There are suggestions in the Epistles that Peter May also have spent time in Corinth and Antioch.
A suggestion is just that, a suggestion. Equally there are suggestions - no, I do not mean as suggested by Dan Brown - that Mary Magdalene ended up in France, in fact there is rather more evidence (to use your word) that she did so than not: it is just as likely that some of what is in the Gnostic writings is true.
BF: " the question might be asked as to why those younger peeps are at a 1662 BCP service in the first place".
We are building a bridge between our popular Family Service, and BCP Communion, our main service. In Family Communion all the words are BCP, but some have been omitted, and children do as much as possible. So far it's working well.
BF: " the question might be asked as to why those younger peeps are at a 1662 BCP service in the first place".
We are building a bridge between our popular Family Service, and BCP Communion, our main service. In Family Communion all the words are BCP, but some have been omitted, and children do as much as possible. So far it's working well.
I thought such might be the case. Interesting, as I suspect there aren't that many churches with BCP Communion as the main Sunday service, but if the new Family Communion is working well, good!
The Romans were meticulous record keepers, but we only have fragments of their records.
In relation to both Peter and Paul there is first and second century Christian evidence of them being in Rome.
There is early Christian anecotal evidence - otherwise known as hearsay, just as there is anecdotal evidence for the presence of an alien in Area 51.
‘Anecdotal’ and ‘hearsay’ are two different things. ‘Anecdotal’ evidence can often be first hand eyewitness evidence. The problem with it is not in the truth or otherwise of that statement, but in its value in establishing a general case.
Acts 28.11-30 states in terms that Paul arrived in Rome and spent two years there.
The Acts of the Apostles is early evidence that Paul was in Rome.
Acts states that Paul travelled throughout the Roman world - which was dead easy because to travel outside the sphere of Roman influence he would have had to do a time-equivalent of extra--terrestrial travel. It is stated that he left on a journey with the intention of going to Spain, and it was possible that the route would give him the opportunity to go to Rome, depending on which of the routes he chose.
However, there is rather more evidence for St Paul having been shipwrecked somewhere on the coast of Malta, and that is significant (I'll discount the proposition that it might have been a much smaller island, then known as Melida near the Coatian coast) because shipping routes that went so close to Malta as to allow for Paul to be shipwrecked there would indicate a route towards Spain, which was Paul's intended destination, that bypassed Rome.
See above.
There are suggestions in the Epistles that Peter may also have spent time in Corinth and Antioch.
A suggestion is just that, a suggestion. Equally there are suggestions - no, I do not mean as suggested by Dan Brown - that Mary Magdalene ended up in France, in fact there is rather more evidence (to use your word) that she did so than not: it is just as likely that some of what is in the Gnostic writings is true.
I agree that there is much less evidence of Peter having been in Rome. There is a letter of Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35–c. 107); a reference in Irenaeus of Lyons (c.130–c.202) Against Heresies Bk III; and a reference in Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–c. 215) Church History Book VI. While none of these three (with the theoretically possible exception of Ignatius) is eyewitness evidence, none of them is tainted with later arguments about the primacy or otherwise of the See of Rome. If we are going to simply dismiss their testimony, we need to consider what good reason there is centuries later for doubting them.
My point is nonetheless that Scripture cannot record anything that happened after it was last written. The historical text - the Acts of the Apostles - stopped in the late 50s or early 60s. Mary could have been alive at that point. Whether or not she was assumed is, then, not a Biblical question but an historical one.
My point is nonetheless that Scripture cannot record anything that happened after it was last written. The historical text - the Acts of the Apostles - stopped in the late 50s or early 60s. Mary could have been alive at that point. Whether or not she was assumed is, then, not a Biblical question but an historical one.
@kmann I'm not sure you're as persuasive there as you might imagine.
Without wishing to be irreverent, even if the Most Blessed Theotokos was, say, only 18 in 0 AD or 4 BC, by the early 60s either she would either be in her early 80s or mean the event which scripture does not cover had already happened.
Furthermore, the books themselves were collected together later than that. If it had been biblically important that this was defined, there would have been the opportunity to include it.
... One point that has to be made is that both Elijah and Enoch were assumed into heaven, so why not Our Lady?
The point I've been trying to make is that as scripture is silent on what happened to her at the end of her earthly journey. That may have happened. It may not. And what happened to Elijah is a lot clearer than what happened to my namesake.
So
(a.) no specific belief about this is prescribed,
(b.) people can make up their own minds,
(c.) people are entitled not to make up their minds at all,
(d.) nobody can insist that they are right and everyone else must conform to their own take on this, and
(e.) this is an adiaphora.
Is that shocking?
I still think there is an Ecclesiantic question as to what in the CofE one is celebrating on the 15th August, how one marks it other than reading the passages for the day, or in what way it is different from the last Sunday of Advent.
Point of accuracy. The doctrine of the assumption of Mary into heaven is akin to the doctrine of the assumption of Moses in that both the individual is believed to have died but their body is assumed into Heaven. The assumption of Moses is based on a paragraph from Deuteronomy:
5 And Moses the servant of the Lord died there in Moab, as the Lord had said. 6 He buried him in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.7 Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died, yet his eyes were not weak nor his strength gone. 8 The Israelites grieved for Moses in the plains of Moab thirty days, until the time of weeping and mourning was over.
Well that and an oblique quote in Jude but you will get more about that from this article.
... One point that has to be made is that both Elijah and Enoch were assumed into heaven, so why not Our Lady?
The point I've been trying to make is that as scripture is silent on what happened to her at the end of her earthly journey. That may have happened. It may not. And what happened to Elijah is a lot clearer than what happened to my namesake.
So
(a.) no specific belief about this is prescribed,
(b.) people can make up their own minds,
(c.) people are entitled not to make up their minds at all,
(d.) nobody can insist that they are right and everyone else must conform to their own take on this, and
(e.) this is an adiaphora.
Is that shocking?
I still think there is an Ecclesiantic question as to what in the CofE one is celebrating on the 15th August, how one marks it other than reading the passages for the day, or in what way it is different from the last Sunday of Advent.
Absolutely not shocking from my point of view, even though I am inclined to accept the Assumption as being an historical event, but Article 6 applies and it cannot be required doctrine, or dogma for Anglican because of the lack of Biblical evidence.
Without wishing to be irreverent, even if the Most Blessed Theotokos was, say, only 18 in 0 AD or 4 BC, by the early 60s either she would either be in her early 80s or mean the event which scripture does not cover had already happened.
She was more likely 13 or 14, but yes, she would be in her 70s.
I still think there is an Ecclesiantic question as to what in the CofE one is celebrating on the 15th August, how one marks it other than reading the passages for the day, or in what way it is different from the last Sunday of Advent.
I was brought up, both by the revered ordained parent and by the chaplain at school, to believe that if there was any feast on 15th August it was The Falling Asleep of the Blessed Virgin Mary. So, similar to the orthodox but without the bodily assumption bit.
Both Papa and the chaplain were Mirfield trained, with the chaplain having done further study at St Stephen's House.
I'm currently reading a book about the importance
of keeping your own spiritual life alive if you're a priest. At one point the (Anglican) author talks about the importance of Morning and Evening Prayer, and asserts that this is a unique gift that Anglicanism can offer the rest of the Church. Is this true? Surely other denominations have patterns of daily prayer that their clergy are required/encouraged to follow?
Two things the boundary of cleric/lay for being required to do daily prayer is pretty rare. Traditionally the distinction has been religious/secular rather than cleric/lay. In more Protestant circles there is no such distinction.
Equally, the pattern Morning and Evening is pretty unique. Monastics are traditionally seven times a day while even secular Catholic devotions seem to be several times (e.g. three times if you do the Angelus properly). More Protestant have tended towards a long session once a day.
I say this as a layperson with a Reformed background who has always been morning and evening prayer.
Two things the boundary of cleric/lay for being required to do daily prayer is pretty rare. Traditionally the distinction has been religious/secular rather than cleric/lay. In more Protestant circles there is no such distinction.
Equally, the pattern Morning and Evening is pretty unique. Monastics are traditionally seven times a day while even secular Catholic devotions seem to be several times (e.g. three times if you do the Angelus properly). More Protestant have tended towards a long session once a day.
I say this as a layperson with a Reformed background who has always been morning and evening prayer.
The BCP picked up on the late mediaeval parish priest habit of accumulating the offices into two groups with Matins, Lauds, Prime and Terce being said as a lump, and likewise Vespers and Compline. Sext and None tended to be hurried through after the daily Mass leaving the middle of the day free for pastoral work, or farm work. On the grader scale, the Old Foundation Cathedrals tended to have a daily round in the 15th century that started with Matins, Lauds and Prime starting a little before dawn, followed by the Lady Mass. Terce and Sext earmuffed the High Mass; None followed a late morning meal, which is how it came to be connected with the English word Noon. Vespers and Compline were sung in the late afternoon.
Elements of Matins (opening responses, Venite, Te Deum), Lauds (Benedictus and Preces), and Prime (Benedicite, Creed, third collect), find their way into BCP Morning Prayer, and elements of Vespers (Opening Responses. Psalms and Mag) and Compline (Nunc Dimittis, Creed, third collect) into Evensong. Terce, Sext, and None quietly disappeared, as they did in Lutheranism. The Lutherans basically retained Lauds, which they expanded slightly to include the Invitatory Psalm, and Vespers, though this was one of the elements in their tradition that did not fare well in the 18th century, and has only been half heartedly revived.
The Lutherans basically retained Lauds, which they expanded slightly to include the Invitatory Psalm, and Vespers, though this was one of the elements in their tradition that did not fare well in the 18th century, and has only been half heartedly revived.
Did all the different Lutheran national churches follow a similar pattern in what elements of the Daily Office they retained until the 18th century, or were there differences? Which of them, if any, required clergy to pray its version of the office? And how have the churches (now including the Lutheran churches in North America and elsewhere) differed in their readoption of it?
Do any Lutheran churches today require clergy to pray a daily office?
The 1928 Prayer Book had an order for Prime (most of which was not included in the 1662 Matins, plus a short Devotion before Holy Communion which contained the set psalm from Terce; it also had an order for Compline.
Of course, we have the more evangelical of our (then) MPs to thank for the fact that the 1928 proposal, which had been passed by both Convocations and the Church Council, was rejected by Parliament.
In the 16th and 17th centuries they tended to be similar, but not the same. The usual structure for Lutheran Matins was
O Lord, open thou our lips, & c.
Ps. 95
1 to 3 Psalms
Short Lesson
Te Deum or Benedictus - often in Latin
(Creed)
Lord's Prayer
(Preces)
Collect of the Day
Benedicamus
Vespers lacked Ps.95 and swapped the morning canticles for the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis. On the whole rural churches used the Offices less than major town churches, as the personnel to offer the Offices often derived from Grammar Schools.
The revival of Vespers and then Matins tended to see the old 17th century forms being revived, and then tweaked a little. Vespers was a little more popular than Matins, having never been completely dropped. In the USA the Swedish-origin Augustana Synod tended to be the most hospitable to the idea of reviving the Daily Office, whilst the German-origin synods seem to stick it in the Hymnal and then forget about it except on Wednesdays in Lent - maybe.
Augustana's influence was very noticeable in the 1958 Service Book and Hymnal (Red Book) in that the form provided there was enriched by the addition of optional responsoraries, and the hymnal section included quite a few office hymns. In more recent times they have started messing around with things like the Service of Lights following the same line of development as the 1979 BCP in the USA, and the ASB and CW in the UK.
AFAIK, the European Lutheran churches all have their versions of Matins and Vespers, and in certain circles this is expanded to include the Day Hours and Compline. Some of these liturgies are official; others are published by para-Church organisations, but meet with widespread acceptance by the PTBs. The revival has been strongest in Sweden, and weakest in Germany as far as I can tell.
The obligation to read the office did not survive in Lutheranism as it is rather contrary to the spirit of Lutheranism. None of the major Lutheran denominations in the USA requires the clergy to read the office, though it is evident that a minority do. High Church and Evangelical Catholic groups within Lutheranism tend to promote the use of the office.
I shall probably be burned at the stake for saying this, but I much prefer Lutheran-style, or RCC, Vespers to Anglican Evensong...
...especially if Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament is to follow.
It is, of course, quite easy to shorten Anglican Evensong, so that it becomes 'Vespers'...
The 1928 Prayer Book had an order for Prime (most of which was not included in the 1662 Matins, plus a short Devotion before Holy Communion which contained the set psalm from Terce; it also had an order for Compline.
Of course, we have the more evangelical of our (then) MPs to thank for the fact that the 1928 proposal, which had been passed by both Convocations and the Church Council, was rejected by Parliament.
According to Hensley Henson, who was then Bishop of Durham, it would have passed handily had the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs decided not to vote on a measure that concerned the English Church. He also noted that the extreme Anglo-Catholics also voted against it because they were afraid that the bishops might actually impose some discipline and clamp down on the use of things like the English Missal and Benediction. It has to be said that around these parts quite a few parishes used it anyway when it became clear the Bishop was not going to discipline anyone who used it. Until they fell apart the desk BCPs in my home parish were 1928s.
I shall probably be burned at the stake for saying this, but I much prefer Lutheran-style, or RCC, Vespers to Anglican Evensong...
...especially if Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament is to follow.
It is, of course, quite easy to shorten Anglican Evensong, so that it becomes 'Vespers'...
The American 1928 BCP is quite open (as in you do not have to hunt all over the book to find the rubric) in allowing MP and EP to be shortened by one lesson and one canticle, so I assume that that arrangement enjoyed quite a bit of official favour at one point. On weekdays, if we have the offices in church, I will generally use the shorter version mainly because it hangs together very well, but partially because quite a few of my congregation grew up Lutheran anyway.
I shall probably be burned at the stake for saying this, but I much prefer Lutheran-style, or RCC, Vespers to Anglican Evensong...
...especially if Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament is to follow.
It is, of course, quite easy to shorten Anglican Evensong, so that it becomes 'Vespers'...
This RC thinks Choral Evensong in one of our medieval cathedrals is one of life's sublime experiences. I was in a university chapel choir that sang evensong using the normal cathedral repertoire three times a week. Later I was in a RC cathedral choir (Liverpool) that sang evening prayer (modern vespers) twice a week. Before all that I was in a seminary for 5 years that sang latin vespers daily.
Of the three, my vote goes to choral evensong every time. It has matchless beauty and calm - providing the choir is top-notch.
I prefer the full Anglican Matins or Evensong on Sundays and the shorter version on weekdays when I am at home at St Oddball's. I find folks will come to short simple service on weekdays, but that MP and EP in their full versions are a bit too long for that purpose.
I will always have a soft spot for choral Evensong (except when force fed Howells) but my wife is not so keen as I lived for four years in a cathedral city, and was able to attend Choral Evensong 3 to 5 times a week.
The Gloucester Service is one of the slack handful of Howells' settings that I like. Coll: Reg: on the music sheet was usually taken as an excuse to read EP at home when I lived in Ripon. I think the third time I heard it was one too many.
Comments
Oooh, is the Addington Service still extant? I was brought up on it for ASB Rite A, later modified for Common Worship.
The parish where I was supposed to go, rather than my hidey-hole, alternated Appleford and Wilcox's setting - which were OK, but dated back to Series 3. Both were acceptable, but not exactly wonderful. At the end of the day they did the job, and lasted at least 25 years. I do not know what they are using now, but I would not be surprised if Appleford has survived as it was the more popular of the two. I just hope they have got their timing problems under control. There were far too many Sundays when we started ten minutes late (9:40am) and did not get out until after 11:00am!
Is that the one at the end of the NEH? St Sanity used that regularly. Madame and I rather like it. It sounds good and is within the singing ability of a congregation. Have a look at the Dudman setting, written for the 1995 APBA 2nd Order - again, easy for a congregation.
No, I don't think it is - NEH 541 is 'A New English Folk Mass', written for ASB Rite A, and doesn't appear to be the same as Martin Shaw's. I'm no musician, so I can't say for certain, and the NEH doesn't name the composer. I agree that it seems eminently singable.
NEH 542 is Merbecke, re-arranged slightly to concur with the order of Rite B. Personally, I think much of Merbecke is reasonably easy to sing, so could still be suitable for younger peeps...though the question might be asked as to why those younger peeps are at a 1662 BCP service in the first place. Not a common occurrence, I should think, unless it's one of those parishes which has a varied rota of 'main' services week-by-week.
In the US Episcopal Church, you can use service music from Rite I (traditional) in an otherwise Rite II (modern) service. Can you do this in the C of E?
That is to say, if you were using Common Worship Order 1 (the modern rite), but wanted to sing at least some of it to Merbecke, you'd have to make sure that everyone had the 'old' words to Gloria, Sanctus etc., even if you weren't printing out the music as well.
IYSWIM.
You can (or at least you can if you are musical) sing Latin mass settings too, whatever the rite of the rest of the service. Most cathedrals do so regularly.
(Purely for information, they are our most evangelical congregation members - won't kneel for anything, stand for all prayers, undoing the light fitting gesture and all.)
I have not had much to do with the CW forms of service, but with the ASB it was definitely kosher at MP and EP, and I got the general impression that no-one was going to get too upset if you did it at the Communion service provided you were using a genuinely 'well-known setting.' A neighbouring parish used to sneak in bits of mass settings by Haydn and Mozart often enough that it was considered quite normal, or at least quite normal for them.
In the CofE, whether something is or is not mentioned in scripture is important. That becomes particularly so if it is something from the period of scripture. It's significant if something could potentially could have been in scripture but isn't. That makes it a matter of personal opinion, adiaphora, something people can have their own opinions on, but which cannot be stated categorically or required of people (or for that matter forbidden) as a matter of belief. It also means that it should not be regarded as something essential. See as explanatory material Article 6.
So it is significant for us, even if it isn't for you. Arguably, its absence might in itself be an argument against its being significant.
Speak for yourself. There has been sufficient research over the years to cast great doubt over the presence in Rome, never mind the martyrdom, of both Peter and Paul.
In the case of Peter there is no evidence of him ever leaving Palestine, and the discovery over ten years ago of an ossuary in Jerusalem with the inscription Shimon Bar Jonah is likely to contain his bones. The so-called "evidence" of the limited research permitted over the years by the vatican is highly questionable: for example, some bones that were "definitely" Peter's that were allowed to be independently examined in the 19th century proved to be from a dog.
There is some evidence for Paul's journeys around the middle east and his being in Malta but again, nothing to show him in Rome.
Faith may be enough for some, but the inconvenient truth is that the Romans were meticulous record keepers and there were sufficient good historians writing at the time that it is surprising that nothing is heard of the either Peter or Paul being in Rome until you get to Christian writers hundreds of years later.
In relation to both Peter and Paul there is first and second century Christian evidence of them being in Rome.
The Acts of the Apostles is early evidence that Paul was in Rome.
There are suggestions in the Epistles that Peter May also have spent time in Corinth and Antioch.
Personally, I am a lot more confident about St. Peter having been martyred in Rome than I am about him ever having an extended ministry there, or of having been bishop of that city. I tend to think that if you want to associate St Peter with any see it has to be that of Antioch, rather than Rome. However, it has to be said that the early history of the Church in Rome is not all that clear even now. For example, we have no decent chronology of the early bishops. However, it is clear that the Church is of early date - Paul dropped them a line about 55AD - and being in the Imperial City relatively important.
Of course, the disclaimer here is that I tend to work from the premise that most of the New Testament is early (50 to 80AD) and generally reliable allowing for authorial agendas, etc.. Of course, I share the basic bias of the authors which is the belief that Jesus is Lord, but that did not have much influence on my thinking when I was first looking at Scripture and making up my mind about it.
Acts states that Paul travelled throughout the Roman world - which was dead easy because to travel outside the sphere of Roman influence he would have had to do a time-equivalent of extra--terrestrial travel. It is stated that he left on a journey with the intention of going to Spain, and it was possible that the route would give him the opportunity to go to Rome, depending on which of the routes he chose.
However, there is rather more evidence for St Paul having been shipwrecked somewhere on the coast of Malta, and that is significant (I'll discount the proposition that it might have been a much smaller island, then known as Melida near the Coatian coast) because shipping routes that went so close to Malta as to allow for Paul to be shipwrecked there would indicate a route towards Spain, which was Paul's intended destination, that bypassed Rome. A suggestion is just that, a suggestion. Equally there are suggestions - no, I do not mean as suggested by Dan Brown - that Mary Magdalene ended up in France, in fact there is rather more evidence (to use your word) that she did so than not: it is just as likely that some of what is in the Gnostic writings is true.
We are building a bridge between our popular Family Service, and BCP Communion, our main service. In Family Communion all the words are BCP, but some have been omitted, and children do as much as possible. So far it's working well.
I thought such might be the case. Interesting, as I suspect there aren't that many churches with BCP Communion as the main Sunday service, but if the new Family Communion is working well, good!
Acts 28.11-30 states in terms that Paul arrived in Rome and spent two years there.
See above. Here is the statement that Peter went to Antioch and the suggestion (I agree it is no more than that) that he may have been to Corinth
I agree that there is much less evidence of Peter having been in Rome. There is a letter of Ignatius of Antioch (c. 35–c. 107); a reference in Irenaeus of Lyons (c.130–c.202) Against Heresies Bk III; and a reference in Clement of Alexandria (c. 150–c. 215) Church History Book VI. While none of these three (with the theoretically possible exception of Ignatius) is eyewitness evidence, none of them is tainted with later arguments about the primacy or otherwise of the See of Rome. If we are going to simply dismiss their testimony, we need to consider what good reason there is centuries later for doubting them.
So what is the historical evidence for her assumption?
By and large, the Protoevangelium of James. Grossly flawed as it is.
Without wishing to be irreverent, even if the Most Blessed Theotokos was, say, only 18 in 0 AD or 4 BC, by the early 60s either she would either be in her early 80s or mean the event which scripture does not cover had already happened.
Furthermore, the books themselves were collected together later than that. If it had been biblically important that this was defined, there would have been the opportunity to include it.
One point that has to be made is that both Elijah and Enoch were assumed into heaven, so why not Our Lady?
So
Is that shocking?
I still think there is an Ecclesiantic question as to what in the CofE one is celebrating on the 15th August, how one marks it other than reading the passages for the day, or in what way it is different from the last Sunday of Advent.
Well that and an oblique quote in Jude but you will get more about that from this article.
Absolutely not shocking from my point of view, even though I am inclined to accept the Assumption as being an historical event, but Article 6 applies and it cannot be required doctrine, or dogma for Anglican because of the lack of Biblical evidence.
Both Papa and the chaplain were Mirfield trained, with the chaplain having done further study at St Stephen's House.
of keeping your own spiritual life alive if you're a priest. At one point the (Anglican) author talks about the importance of Morning and Evening Prayer, and asserts that this is a unique gift that Anglicanism can offer the rest of the Church. Is this true? Surely other denominations have patterns of daily prayer that their clergy are required/encouraged to follow?
Equally, the pattern Morning and Evening is pretty unique. Monastics are traditionally seven times a day while even secular Catholic devotions seem to be several times (e.g. three times if you do the Angelus properly). More Protestant have tended towards a long session once a day.
I say this as a layperson with a Reformed background who has always been morning and evening prayer.
The BCP picked up on the late mediaeval parish priest habit of accumulating the offices into two groups with Matins, Lauds, Prime and Terce being said as a lump, and likewise Vespers and Compline. Sext and None tended to be hurried through after the daily Mass leaving the middle of the day free for pastoral work, or farm work. On the grader scale, the Old Foundation Cathedrals tended to have a daily round in the 15th century that started with Matins, Lauds and Prime starting a little before dawn, followed by the Lady Mass. Terce and Sext earmuffed the High Mass; None followed a late morning meal, which is how it came to be connected with the English word Noon. Vespers and Compline were sung in the late afternoon.
Elements of Matins (opening responses, Venite, Te Deum), Lauds (Benedictus and Preces), and Prime (Benedicite, Creed, third collect), find their way into BCP Morning Prayer, and elements of Vespers (Opening Responses. Psalms and Mag) and Compline (Nunc Dimittis, Creed, third collect) into Evensong. Terce, Sext, and None quietly disappeared, as they did in Lutheranism. The Lutherans basically retained Lauds, which they expanded slightly to include the Invitatory Psalm, and Vespers, though this was one of the elements in their tradition that did not fare well in the 18th century, and has only been half heartedly revived.
Did all the different Lutheran national churches follow a similar pattern in what elements of the Daily Office they retained until the 18th century, or were there differences? Which of them, if any, required clergy to pray its version of the office? And how have the churches (now including the Lutheran churches in North America and elsewhere) differed in their readoption of it?
Do any Lutheran churches today require clergy to pray a daily office?
Of course, we have the more evangelical of our (then) MPs to thank for the fact that the 1928 proposal, which had been passed by both Convocations and the Church Council, was rejected by Parliament.
O Lord, open thou our lips, & c.
Ps. 95
1 to 3 Psalms
Short Lesson
Te Deum or Benedictus - often in Latin
(Creed)
Lord's Prayer
(Preces)
Collect of the Day
Benedicamus
Vespers lacked Ps.95 and swapped the morning canticles for the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis. On the whole rural churches used the Offices less than major town churches, as the personnel to offer the Offices often derived from Grammar Schools.
The revival of Vespers and then Matins tended to see the old 17th century forms being revived, and then tweaked a little. Vespers was a little more popular than Matins, having never been completely dropped. In the USA the Swedish-origin Augustana Synod tended to be the most hospitable to the idea of reviving the Daily Office, whilst the German-origin synods seem to stick it in the Hymnal and then forget about it except on Wednesdays in Lent - maybe.
Augustana's influence was very noticeable in the 1958 Service Book and Hymnal (Red Book) in that the form provided there was enriched by the addition of optional responsoraries, and the hymnal section included quite a few office hymns. In more recent times they have started messing around with things like the Service of Lights following the same line of development as the 1979 BCP in the USA, and the ASB and CW in the UK.
AFAIK, the European Lutheran churches all have their versions of Matins and Vespers, and in certain circles this is expanded to include the Day Hours and Compline. Some of these liturgies are official; others are published by para-Church organisations, but meet with widespread acceptance by the PTBs. The revival has been strongest in Sweden, and weakest in Germany as far as I can tell.
The obligation to read the office did not survive in Lutheranism as it is rather contrary to the spirit of Lutheranism. None of the major Lutheran denominations in the USA requires the clergy to read the office, though it is evident that a minority do. High Church and Evangelical Catholic groups within Lutheranism tend to promote the use of the office.
...especially if Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament is to follow.
It is, of course, quite easy to shorten Anglican Evensong, so that it becomes 'Vespers'...
According to Hensley Henson, who was then Bishop of Durham, it would have passed handily had the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish MPs decided not to vote on a measure that concerned the English Church. He also noted that the extreme Anglo-Catholics also voted against it because they were afraid that the bishops might actually impose some discipline and clamp down on the use of things like the English Missal and Benediction. It has to be said that around these parts quite a few parishes used it anyway when it became clear the Bishop was not going to discipline anyone who used it. Until they fell apart the desk BCPs in my home parish were 1928s.
The American 1928 BCP is quite open (as in you do not have to hunt all over the book to find the rubric) in allowing MP and EP to be shortened by one lesson and one canticle, so I assume that that arrangement enjoyed quite a bit of official favour at one point. On weekdays, if we have the offices in church, I will generally use the shorter version mainly because it hangs together very well, but partially because quite a few of my congregation grew up Lutheran anyway.
This RC thinks Choral Evensong in one of our medieval cathedrals is one of life's sublime experiences. I was in a university chapel choir that sang evensong using the normal cathedral repertoire three times a week. Later I was in a RC cathedral choir (Liverpool) that sang evening prayer (modern vespers) twice a week. Before all that I was in a seminary for 5 years that sang latin vespers daily.
Of the three, my vote goes to choral evensong every time. It has matchless beauty and calm - providing the choir is top-notch.
I will always have a soft spot for choral Evensong (except when force fed Howells) but my wife is not so keen as I lived for four years in a cathedral city, and was able to attend Choral Evensong 3 to 5 times a week.