Sarah Buell Hale,
Editor and Prophetic Witness, 1879
April 30, 2020
One writer of the Hebrew Scriptures is clear in that we inhabit an environment not of our making: “houses filled with all sorts of goods that you did not fill, hewn cisterns that you did not hew, vineyards and olive groves that you did not plant...”
(Deuteronomy 6:11)
In other words, we enjoy and are shaped by the work, efforts, gifts, and spiritual fruits of those that came before us.
In the New Testament, in a passage that I identify as one of my guiding principles, the Apostle Paul writes eloquently of humanity’s mystical union with Christ, praising the gift of prophecy and the ecstatic gift of speaking in tongues. But (and pay close attention here!) he nonetheless insists that worship be conducted “decently and in order.”
(1 Corinthians 14:39–40)
This instruction reveals Paul as an Anglican to my way of thinking.
Anglican liturgy is like a steady, unrelenting stream that slowly shapes the banks of a great river. Through its biblical language and aesthetic sensibility, it trains the human soul, as St. Augustine would say, informing and forming human discernment, behavior, and cultivating a response to God’s creation. Even in this time of Eucharistic fasting we can still be deeply involved in the story of redemption as it has unfolded from a time of penitence and self-denial to a time of great feasting and celebration. We have just the resource we need.
No example of our Deuteronomic inherited legacy shines more brightly to us than the
Book of Common Prayer.
The
Book of Common Prayer
is our primary worship resource, but it is also the quintessential book of decency and order. The Apostle Paul would be proud!
When we open our prayer books to read the daily Offices of Morning, Noonday, and Evening Prayer, there is nothing
virtual
about it. This is the real thing! It is organic and authentic. It is powerful and transformative. Yes, we are fasting from the Holy Eucharist in these days of isolation, but the sacramental presence of Jesus Christ is revealed to us each day through the recitation of the Daily Offices.
Today in the church calendar we commemorate the life and work of Susan Buell Hale, a New Englander who was central to the nationalization of the holiday that we know as Thanksgiving. Though we are in quarantine and the calendar says we are in the springtime of the year, let us pause, think of Susan Buell Hale, and give thanks for the many blessings that are The Church of St. Michael & St. George. As the Collect for today says, let us also be “grateful for thy many blessings, that we may come closer to Christ in our own families.”
Rob Lehman
Organist and Choirmaster
