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The Proper Pleasure of Ritual

The modern habit of doing ceremonial things unceremoniously is no proof of humility; rather it proves the offender’s inability to forget himself in the rite, and his readiness to spoil for every one else the proper pleasure of ritual. Clive Staples Lewis, A Preface to Paradise Lost (1942)

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Decently Writ XXVI: For Christmas-tide

Decently Writ XXVI: For Christmas-tide

William Holman Hunt, The Finding of the Saviour in the Temple (1860) The story of the child Jesus in the Temple (St. Luke 2:41 ff) is the second-option Gospel reading for the Second Sunday After Christmas both in the 1979 American Prayer-Book Lectionary and in the (unfortunate) Revised Common Lectionary. Its historic place in Anglican Prayer-Book lectionary cycles was invariably as the Gospel…

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Preaching bands explained, II NEARLY ten years after our original post, the Revd Dane Boston, rector of Christ Church in Cooperstown, N.Y., has given us his own reflections on the vestments, architecture, liturgy of the church.

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Tell the story

On Christmas Day, York Minster does it right.

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Evensong explained An excellent historical and liturgical account of the "winning formula" that is Prayer Book Evening Prayer precedes a BBC broadcast of Evensong from York Minster. Making 1996 seem like a very long time ago indeed.

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Decently habited, CCVII The Rt Revd Dorsey McConnell blesses a chorister at St Andrew's Church, Pittsburgh.

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Ex Maria Virgine

On Christmas morning, the Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, does it right.

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Weeping for her children

VERY few churches–and very few Christians–pay much attention to Holy Innocents’ Day. It is one of the most painful reminders in the church’s calendar. But observance of the day is central to a proper observance of Christmas, especially in this year which bore witness to the most senseless waste of life: 27 people–20 of them children–shot dead in Newtown, Conn. To many, it seemed incongruous to…

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Decently habited, CCVI The Norwich Cathedral Choir.

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How it’s done, XXII The use of a row of six candlesticks on the altar, or on a shelf or gradine behind it, is pure Romanism, and a defiance of the Ornaments Rubric, as of all other authority in the Church of England.1…

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The malady of the irrelevant

The malady of the irrelevant

THIS WEEK, I attended a meeting during which the rector of a parish and his staff reviewed the past program year. On the table were those things done well, and those things where improvement seemed warranted: a good exercise for any parish workforce. I was surprised – perhaps naïvely – to find so much time devoted to what seemed largely symbolic and impractical concerns. One participant noted…

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Decently habited, CCV The Revd Alan Carr, rector of St Giles-in-the-Fields, London.

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The Haven of Our Happiness: Decently Writ, XXV Travelling on the Plain (which notwithstanding hath its risings and fallings) I discovered Salisbury steeple many miles off; coming to a declivity, I lost sight thereof, but climbing up the next hill, the steeple grew out of the ground again.

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Welcome vs. invitation

ONE IS RELUCTANT – as a Yankee – to again highlight a church from Texas. But it is impossible to ignore the compelling way in which St. Mark’s in Irving, Tex., describes what it means to be a member of that parish. We may observe a distinction here, with difference, between welcome for welcome’s sake, or welcome to prove that one is not a bigot, and an invitation into a community of…

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Decently habited, CCIV The Dean of St Paul's installs the Revd Helen O'Sullivan as chaplain in 2016.

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The excellence of Common Prayer We must admit frankly that the Offices of Morning Prayer and of Evensong, as they are performed even today in St Paul’s, Westminster Abbey, York Minster, or Canterbury Cathedral, are not only one of the most impressive, but also one of the purest forms of Christian common prayer to be found anywhere in the world. Even the RCs recognize. Source: Louis Bouyer, Liturgical Piety (South Bend, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1955), 47.

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The Lord’s pot The Lord’s pot must be kept boiling, even if it takes the Devil’s kindling wood. Endicott Peabody, famous as the founding headmaster of Groton School, spent six months in 1882 as minister in Tombstone, Arizona, arriving three months after the gunfight at the O.K.