The Holy Spirit in the Prayer Books: Part 4

This was published in the Summer 2016 issue of Anglicans for Renewal, the Anglican Renewal Ministries Canada magazine—follow the link the ARM Office to subscribe here. 

So far we have seen that the Holy Spirit is truly present and recorded in our foundation documents, in daily prayer, Baptism and Confirmation in both The Book of Common Prayer (BCP) and The Book of Alternative Services (BAS). The Holy Spirit brings us God’s love and power. He also sanctifies, regenerates, strengthens, fills, sustains, seals and renews us, more and more, and daily.

Anglican Renewal Ministries (ARM) Canada promotes the Anglican Prayer Book tradition of prayer, both private and corporate. Holy Spirit filled prayer books ensure that all the important devotional bases are covered: confession, worship, intercession, petition and Scripture reading. Holy Spirit filled people, even introverted Anglicans, faithfully and systematically praying the words in Holy Spirit filled and inspired prayer books cannot but be a powerful, spiritual force to be reckoned with. They are The Church of Jesus Christ at prayer.

Absolutely

The Holy Spirit’s power and presence are consistently invoked. Even, for example, in the Prayer of Absolution, in the Orders for Morning and Evening Prayer “DAILY THROUGHOUT THE YEAR” the priest prays that Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, would “grant us true repentance and his Holy Spirit, that those things may please him which we do at this present, and that the rest of our life hereafter may be pure and holy; so that at the last we may come to his eternal joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord” (The Book of Common Prayer, Anglican Book Centre, 1962, pp 5 & 20). The benefits of true repentance and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives are amazing: the things we do please God, our lives become pure and holy and our final destination is “his eternal joy.” What could be better?

Glory Be…

Then we pray the Lord's Prayer, ask the Lord to open our lips so we can praise him, and to save and help us before giving God glory in a brief declarative statement of worship—a worship “capsule” that can be used anywhere, no matter whether you’re alone or with someone else, even when you don’t have a band or organ handy. It’s like a mini hymn or worship song, only without music:

GLORY be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen. (BCP, p6)

This deceptively short, but profound, hymn is then repeated after the VENITE and BENEDICTUS in MORNING PRAYER and the MAGNIFICAT and NUNC DIMITTIS in EVENING PRAYER. We respond to inspired words of Holy Scripture with properly Trinitarian worship. The Holy Ghost/Spirit is worshipped and glorified along with the Father and the Son.

It is all too easy to say it routinely and without thinking, of course, just as I am likely to do with my prayer ending amens. It’s one of the dangers of liturgical worship. The words become familiar as we wear our habitual path through them day by day or week by week. They become part of what critics call “empty ritual.” The solution is to fill them by applying my heart every time I read, say or sing them. Worship can be hearty even with no music or in silence. The Helper (John 14.16) himself helps with that.

The BAS has these worship capsules, too. I prefer the BCP version with its “world without end.” It just seems to roll off the tongue more smoothly, but either works. God is verbally worshipped and glorified in Three Persons.

Te Deum 

As we continue through THE ORDER FOR MORNING PRAYER DAILY THROUGHOUT THE YEAR in the BCP, we come to TE DEUM LAUDAMUS and

The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge thee, The Father, of an infinite Majesty; Thine honourable, true, and only Son; Also the Holy Ghost, the Comforter. (BCP, p8)

Not Scripture, but inspired nonetheless. Sound Trinitarian worship in prose from the fourth century reminding us of how Jesus described the Holy Spirit as Comforter (John 14.16, KJV)—rendered as Advocate, Counsellor or Helper in later translations. This is The One who, indeed,

over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.
(Gerald Manley Hopkins, God’s Grandeur) 

AB Simpson, Canadian preacher, author and founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Benjamin_Simpson) described the Holy Spirit as the “mother heart of God.” “I will not leave you as orphans,” Jesus said, “I will come to you” (John 14.18). Every morning TE DEUM LAUDAMAS reminds me that he didn’t and he has.

Believing It

Among others, the Apostle’s Creed (BCP, pp 10 & 22) calls for two key tenets of belief about the Holy Ghost/Spirit: that Jesus was conceived by him and that we believe in him as the Third Person of the Holy and Eternal Trinity—One God. Again, I prefer the BCP version because it comes every day; rain or shine, feeling spiritual or not, without options, for ever and ever. Amen. I believe it does my soul good to repeat the words so I confess my faith over and over again. What I believe gets into my bones and helps my unbelief (Mk 9.24).

Can it be monotonous? Yes, but monotony has benefits. In “Knit Your Way to a More Prayerful Life,” a wonderful Her.menuetics blog post for Christianity Today magazine, Rachel Marie Stone quotes GK Chesterton who explains why:

Children have abounding vitality… they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. 

But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. 

It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. 

Just so, the offices and the liturgy, including The Creed, bear repeating. Lots of it.

Gene+

Evening Prayer in the Twenty-First Century and Blowing on My Embers

I posted this photograph on Twitter last Wednesday: the brightness of his presence through the clouds seen in the reflection of the trees and the sky on the iPad page. Pleasing. I noticed the photograph before I noticed verse 7 near the bottom of the page. 

It comes from the Daily Prayer feed from the Church of England via Aimer Media's Daily Prayer app and my iPad camera. 

Daily Prayer gives me Morning, Evening and Night Prayer each day. I don't have to look up what day it is, or the readings, it's all there so I can follow my nose through the office without even switching apps. It is Scripture set to prayer and two readings from Scripture morning and evening. I don't have to be feeling spiritual or holy, it just picks me up wherever I am and however I'm feeling and carries me along in that mysterious yet absolutely trustworthy and true  holy stream which is the Daily Office. Brilliant. 

Then, there came this message on Twitter: 

Maple Anglican ‏@MapleAnglican  Jun 25

@kiwirev It's an Ember Day?!?!?! #WasntThatTwoWeeksAgo

…to which I replied: 

Gene Packwood ‏@kiwirev  24h

@MapleAnglican According to the CofE Daily Prayer iPad- iPhone app it is.

Maple Anglican then pointed out, correctly, that we'd just had Ember Days two weeks ago during Whitsuntide (BCP for "just after Pentecost") and wondered whether there was an error in the app. The makers of the Daily Prayer app then entered the conversation: 

Aimer faith apps ‏@AimerFaith  14h

@kiwirev I have found it is correct - EDs are normally observed Wed, Fri & Sat in the week before Sunday nearest to 29 June

…which a little Googling showed is true for the CofE. Concerning Ember Days, Rules to Order the Christian Year states: 

Traditionally they have been observed on the Wednesdays, Fridays and Saturday within the weeks before the Third Sunday of Advent, the Second Sunday of Lent and the Sundays nearest to 29 June and 29 September.

The intriguing thing is that what Maple Anglican says is true also. For Canadian Anglicans,

Ember Days of solemn prayer and fasting are traditionally kept at the turn of the four seasons (Wednesday, Friday and Saturday after Advent 3, Lent 1; the Day of Pentecost and Holy Cross Day). The origins of the tradition are obscure, but in time Ember Days came to be associated almost entirely with solemn prayer for ordinands. In this case the BAS suggests they do not need to be kept at the traditional times, but in relation to local diocesan ordination arrangements. The Ember Days, like Rogation Days, have been de-emphasized in liturgical revision since the 1970s, but there seems to be a reviving sense of their pastoral usefulness. They can be helpful in engaging the church in intentional and deep prayer for its whole ministry: for peace in the world, missionary work, Christian unity and economic justice. (From here)

Who knew? So far I haven't found why we do the week after Pentecost and they do the week before the Sunday nearest June 29. It's one of those lovely, odd Anglican things. Perhaps The LORD thought we need an extra set of Ember Days. 

To me, the important thing is that we just keep praying whatever the day. Ember Days are a lovely idea for prayer whatever the week—special days to drill down a bit deeper, to keep the devotion-to-Jesus-Christ embers burning, to fan them into flame (2 Tim 1.6) and to be a nice dry bit of Anglican kindling for Jesus, ready to burst into flame should he come to baptize me with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Luke 3.16). 

Many thanks to Maple Anglican and Aimer Faith Apps for the conversation and for making me do a little extra blowing on my embers. 

From There to Here and Not Having to Come Back from My Summer Holidays

If these were my holidays they would be over or close to it. But they're not. I'm retired (I know, I've been bleating on about it for some time now). I won't be back. I don't want to go back (although we are looking forward to returning to StB as parishioners, LORD willing and when the time is right). I believe it was God's timing to go when we did. But still. After forty-eight years of deadlines and appointments and struggling to fit what most often seemed to be too many things into my calendar, this is strange new country. Sometimes I like the openness. At other times I feel adrift. 

A good deal of my sense of being for the last forty-eight years has come out of what I did for a living. I won bread for my family. I really felt made for that. 

For twenty of those years I was enormously blessed to earn our living by telling stories with moving pictures in glowing phosphors. There were stresses and strains, but what a wonderful way to make a living! 

Then, after a brief foray into teaching television production and three years in seminary, it was ordination and parish priesting—Jesus and real life in his church—a big, messy family with all the gatherings, joys, sorrows, squabbles, beginnings and endings that go with it. 

What is like moving from there to here? Three images come to mind: 

From television days: so far retirement feels like going from the stress and hype of the shoot to the peaceful, dimly lit editing suite where you have time to look at everything you’ve shot, reflect and get it all to make sense so the story gets told—only there is no longer any deadline to keep me moving. 

Parenting: retirement’s like going from parenting’s challenging intensity to grandparenting's freer, more relaxed pace. 

Daily Devotions: retirement is going from praying the Daily Offices (Morning, Evening and Night Prayer) with the doings and anxieties of vocation and the parish and Sunday's worship and preaching always in mind, to worshipping and reading Scripture and praying non-productively, just because, just being present to The One in whom I live, and move (rather less often than before), and have my being. 

Towards Another Great Awakening: 'Tis the Season to Pray for Revival—Decently, In Order and Daily—with The Church of England

It's official. The CofE is praying for revival! Morning Prayer from the day after Ascension Day until the Day of Pentecost begins with the usual,

O Lord, open our lips

and our mouth shall proclaim your praise.

Great first words for the day and then we pray,

Send your Holy Spirit upon us,

and clothe us with power from on high. Alleluia.

O, yes! And after the scripture readings we pray, 

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your people

and kindle in us the fire of your love.

All who are led by the Spirit of God

are children of God and fellow-heirs with Christ.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your people.

Renew the face of your creation, Lord,

pouring on us the gifts of your Spirit,

and kindle in us the fire of your love.

For the creation waits with eager longing

for the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your people

and kindle in us the fire of your love. (cf Romans 8)

Let the renewed filling and kindling proceed!

Join in here. 

Going to The Office—Daily.

For the last two weeks I've been led to talk prayer; at StB two Sundays ago and in Saskatchewan last weekend at Emmanuel, St Louis; St Stephen's, MacDowall and St George's, Prince Albert. On October 20th at StB it was the gospel of the day and Jesus telling the parable about the "need to pray always and not to lose heart" in Luke 18:1. Last weekend in Saskatchewan it was The Following Jesus Weekend which culminated in the Rule of Life on page 555 of The Book of Common Prayer with its reference to "the practice of private prayer, Bible-reading and self discipline."

We Anglicans have no excuse. The Daily Offices; Morning and Evening Prayer, with their associated lectionaries, are simply brilliant. It doesn't matter how I feel, how articulate I am, how holy or spiritual I am feeling, the offices in either book, The Book of Common Prayer, The Book of Alternative Services, not to mention the Church of England's online offices, will pick me up with words of Holy Scripture set to prayer and carry me aloft into the heavenlies where the winds of God can whip through my hair. They will for you, too.

In "Breaking the Habit," over at The Community, Laura Marie Piotrowicz writes of the importance of "going to the office" every day:

My daily office is important to me; it keeps me grounded and connected and helps me find a holistic spirituality to my day. Establishing the habit of the daily office took some discipline, and I do my best not to break it. It doesn’t necessitate a lot of resources (there’s an app for that!), it doesn’t take a lot of time, but there is much benefit. As one person recently said at our bible study, it’s a chance to be “close and sweet with God.” 

So I live the habit. I pray, daily, because I choose to. It’s important to me to include prayer in my daily routine, as the practice enhances my day.

You can read Laura's whole piece here.

The offices, of course, are liturgy. Some people find liturgy repetitive and, therefore, tedious. Too bad. I need repetition because I leak and I forget. Some people call liturgy empty ritual. So fill it. Matt Marino over at his excellent The Gospel Side blog has something to say about liturgy and repetition in his "Spiritual Baseball: the unlikely path to intimacy with Jesus":

What I discovered was that the power is precisely in the repetition…that, as a rough rock in a stream becomes a smooth stone from years of water flowing over it, the Christian is formed into the image of God when we surrender ourselves to the three-fold pattern of daily immersion in the Scriptures, weekly feeding in the Eucharist, and the annual cycle of the Christian year, combined with contemplative practices like those of the desert fathers. I have found that these are re-orienting my perception of reality, the way I view time, life, and the world around me, in ways that words on a page cannot fully capture. It is freeing me to love those who oppose me and work for the good of those who seek my harm.

You may not be interested in walking the path to the ancient Church, known in Anglicanism as “the Canterbury trail.” I was not either. Ironically it is a journey that has given a depth to my walk with Christ that I never imagined. Like someone who has never tasted ice-cream, I didn’t know what I was missing.

His whole piece is worth a read, as usual, especially since it's World Series time.

Going to the office, daily, is a great way to pray always and not lose heart whether I feel like it, or not.