Description: ¶ Writings on Anglicanism, liturgy, sacred music, and the life of the church.
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.
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 reading for the First Sunday after the Epiphany, and also the reading at Morning Prayer on the 27th Day of March.
Nahum Tate, English Poet Laureate from 1692 until his death in 1715 (and author of the beloved Christmas hymn “While Shepherds Watched Their Flocks”), penned The Blessed Virgin’s Expostulation , which must surely be not only one of the most remarkable examples of Restoration-era Anglican devotional poetry, but also one of the most moving monologues placed in the mouth of the Virgin Mary in all of literature.