Psyche, by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Featured, PoetryLeave a comment

I recently read Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s short poem Psyche for the first time. In spite of its brevity, its address is deep and rich. Psyche was composed in 1808 and published first in Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria (1817). I do have a certain fellow-feeling for Coleridge, my fellow Devonian republican. And so, to the text

 
Psyche
The butterfly the ancient Grecians made
The soul’s fair emblem, and its only name –
But of the soul, escaped the slavish trade
Of mortal life! – For in this earthly frame
Ours is the reptile’s lot, much toil, much blame,
Manifold motions making little speed,
And to deform and kill the things whereon we feed.

The form of this poem is unique. It is closest in shape to the rhyme royal stanza form championed by Chaucer in his Troilus and Criseyde. It was also employed by Shakespeare in his Rape of Lucrece. Thus, the form suggests a passionate tragedy. A standard rhyme royal is like a half-sonnet, consisting of seven lines of iambic pentameter, rhymed ababbcc. In Psyche, Coleridge follows this form with one exception: the final line is extended into an alexandrine, by the addition of an extra beat.

The initial idea of the poem is the Greek word ψυχή (psychē), which is most usually translated ‘soul’, but can be ‘breath’ or even ‘butterfly’. Coleridge extends this metaphor as the butterfly for the free soul (in some Neoplatonic afterlife) and the caterpillar for the embodied soul in captivity on earth. Coleridge does not mention the caterpillar directly, and even uses the word ‘reptile’ to describe it. I found that word wrong-footed me at first reading, but the effect makes me think of the Serpent of the Garden of Eden. However, the word, from the Late Latin reptilis ‘creeping’, used to be used to cover any sort of creeping thing (and sometimes still does). The Latin myth of Psyche and Cupid would be obvious material for a romantic poet to use here (Keats does so in his 1819 Ode to Psyche), but Coleridge focuses more simply on the soul–butterfly image.

The phrasing of Psyche is ternary: the first two lines make the statement about the Greek idea of the butterfly as an image of the soul, the third line and the beginning of the fourth extend this by noting that this is true only for the post-mortal soul, with the rest of the poem dwelling on the situation of the earth-bound, embodied soul. The ternary phrasing of Psyche makes me think of the various philosophical, theological and psychological anthropologies: spirit, soul and body; reason, emotion and desire; superego, ego and id. It is this third movement of the poem that packs the real punch, with the preceding two thirds setting the scene. Yet still, each of these movements has a little surprise for the reader. The first movement presents us with the butterfly image. The second gives us the timely wording ‘escaped the slavish trade’. Coleridge was an avowed abolitionist, and Psyche was written a year after William Wilberforce’s 1807 Slave Trade Act. However, many radical abolitionists, like Coleridge, felt this was something of a pyrrhic victory (too little, too late), as slavery itself was not abolished. Psyche appears to reflect on the arduous, seemingly never-ending struggle as an image of the wider romantic idea of Weltschmerz (world weariness) or mal du siècle (sickness of the [early-19th] century). For the romantics, their Weltschmerz was a realisation that their fully aware minds could never be satisfied by their experience of the world. Coleridge knew guilt, failure and depression (‘much toil, much blame’), and so the ‘slavish trade of mortal life’ suits both Coleridge’s romantic reading and his own experience.

The clearest poetical device used in Psyche is the alliteration that begins at the end of the fifth line — ‘much toil, much blame’ — and flowing onto the beginning of the sixth line — ‘manifold motions making’. On the fifth line these ‘m’s fall on offbeats, but the repeated word strengthens them and slows the poem recitation down. On the sixth line, these ‘m’s fall on the beats and create an initial inversion of the metre. The letter shape — ‘M’ — is reminiscent of the motion of a caterpillar or a snake, as is the DUM-di-di-DUM rhythm of the initial inversion. In fact, the word ‘reptile’ is introduced on the fifth line with a similar inversion.

A weaker initial inversion appears in the third and last lines. These lines begin with three unstressed syllables, which can be read as regular iambic rhythm, yet the contrastive stress seems to fall on the words ‘but’ and ‘and’ respectively, giving BUT of the SOUL … AND to deFORM. Well, I did read the third line a few times as regular iambic rhythm, but I think the initial inversion sounds better.

A Cabbage White.
A Cabbage White.

The diction of Psyche is quite contemporary for a 200-year-old poem. There are only two words that strike me as a bit dated: ‘Grecian’ and ‘fair’ (there is also the unusual sense of ‘reptile’ which I have already mentioned). I do not mind the word ‘Grecian’ so much: it fits with the schoolish opening phrase about the dual meaning of ψυχή. I find the use of ‘fair’ took more acclimatisation. As it occurs as a stressed syllable on an offbeat in the metre, it does have a tripping effect, slowing the line right down. The ‘fair emblem’ does make me think of the Cabbage Whites that flitted around my dad’s vegetable garden in the summer months of my childhood. Its large white wings make it quite a suitable ‘fair emblem’ for the soul. It is also considered by gardeners to be a pest for what its caterpillar-children do to plants!

Speaking of the demotion of the syllable ‘fair’ in the second line, Coleridge makes use of unstressed beats (‘promotion’) to pick up the pace in a couple of places. In the second line, the slowing over ‘the soul’s fair emblem’ is then accelerated by placing the beat on the unstressed first syllable of ‘and its only name’, propelling us onward. Coleridge does this again in the second phrase of the fourth line: placing the beat on the unstressed second syllable of ‘for in this earthly frame’ to catapult us into the realisation delivered in the final three lines of the what the existence of the unfree soul means.

The most striking aspect of the scansion, though, is that final alexandrine. This metrical extension avoids the poem coming to a neat, clackity-clack conclusion. It draws out the poem, and makes us wait for the end, which is very much the point. It is difficult not to think of French poetry when the alexandrine is deployed, which makes me think it a subtle comment on Napoleon’s perceived betrayal of the bright hopes of the French Revolution. With that and the slow progress of abolition, Coleridge channels his particular Weltschmerz into this poem.

The final image of that pest the caterpillar deforming, destroying, devouring its leaf stands for humanity’s parasitical lust for earthly resources. In the 21st century, Coleridge’s poem reads with a strong environmentalist message. I was first attracted to this poem by its opening two lines — a clever bit of classics — but my interest was deepened by this possible environmentalist reading. Psyche’s melancholic hopelessness about human life does not chime with my personal feelings, although there are plenty of opportunities for us to read current affairs in this light. The Neoplatonic anthropology of the freedom of the disembodied soul is not to my Christian taste either. My biblical theology is of the human being as a psychosomatic unity: the soul (נפש nephesh, ψυχή psychē) is the God-given life of the person, not the person’s distillated self. Thus, I have plenty to argue against Psyche’s heretical hopelessness, but it also highlights for me the central importance of salvation, without which we might as well be caterpillars destroying all before us. Yet, I am drawn — moth to flame! — back to this poem, charmed by its supple simplicity and high-blown romantic melancholy.

Addition: I just came across Alexander Pope’s description of the alexandrine in his 1709 poem An Essay on Criticism: ‘That, like a wounded snake, drags its slow length along’ (which, of course is an alexandrine itself, with a medial inversion). This would almost certainly have been known by Coleridge.

Old picture of the author wearing Anglican choir habit.

A spotter’s guide to Evensong

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Featured, Liturgy23 Comments

Evensong is a peculiar Anglican creature. It is the liturgy that has become the most distinctively Anglican and has become a treasured bulwark of tradition. This article is a little, geeky exploration of what is Evensong and its sub-species.

The word ‘Evensong’ is first documented by the OED in the Old English of the Canons of Ælfric (c. 1000) as æfen-sang. Until the Reformation, this English word was used to describe the office of Vespers, the seventh of the round of eight daily offices, said just before sunset.

Archbishop Thomas Cranmer produced two drafts of how the reformed Church of England should pray each day. The first, more radical plan was to consolidate the eight offices down to two. When, eventually, Henry Tudor junior died, Cranmer was free to produce the first Book of Common Prayer, published 1549. Its two daily offices were named ‘Matins’ and ‘Evensong’ (the former being the name of the first of the pre-Reformation offices, which also had the colourful Old English name uht-sang, which persisted as ‘Oughtensong’ in Middle English). With Cranmer’s revised Prayer Book of 1552, the quaint (or poetic) names of the two offices were officially replaced with the more robust (or prosaic) ‘Morning and Evening Prayer’. Yet the old names continued to live on, to the extent that it is rather daft to speak of ‘Choral Evening Prayer’.

Because of the pressures on Sunday mornings, especially with the restoration of the Parish Eucharist as the main Sunday mid-morning service, major celebrations of Matins have become rather few and far between. However, in twilight isolation Evensong has remained strong. In the nineteenth century, the ‘Fully Choral Service’ became a sign of aspirational excellence in neo-gothic, middle-class churches, aping cathedrals with their processions and besurpliced choirs. I believe that movement has skewed our understanding of  Evensong to assume that only a proper Choral Evensong will do, when we have forgotten how to do a good — liturgically and musically — Evensong that is suited to a church that cannot really cope with the demanding choral repertoire.

What about those sub-species?

Continue reading “A spotter’s guide to Evensong” →

Sermon for Remembrance Sunday

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn AnglicanismLeave a comment

Here is the recording of my sermon for Remembrance Sunday, given in Hertford College Chapel, Oxford, on Sunday 10 November 2013. In the context of an Oxford college, I touch on a couple of philosophical issues about war, something I most probably would not do in a church. I find this subject difficult, and am still not sure I put this in the best way I could.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/119514647″ width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

Campra Requiem

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn LiturgyLeave a comment

Hertford College, Oxford: performance of Campra's Requiem
Hertford College, Oxford: performance of Campra’s Requiem

Last night, I had the great privilege of celebrating our annual requiem mass here at Hertford College Chapel, Oxford. The Chapel Choir, Soloists and Players, conducted by Senior Organ Scholar Ed Whitehead performed André Campra‘s Messe de Requiem. Listen to the recording below.

Because of it themes of death and mortality, risen life and immortality, many composers have set the liturgical texts of the requiem to music. The requiem takes its name from the first line that is sung in the service: Requiem æternam dona eis, Domine, ‘Give them eternal rest, Lord’. The second line is et lux perpetua luceat eis, ‘and let light perpetual shine upon them’, and Campra focuses on the repetition of luceat, ‘shine’, as his keyword for the entire work. These two lines begin the introit, or entrance antiphon, but are repeated at various points in the service.

André Campra (1660–1744) was variously maître de musique in Toulon, his home town of Aix, Arles, Toulouse, Montpellier, Notre Dame de Paris and the chapelle royale of Louis XV. He excelled in composing opéra-ballets, and this musical style influenced his sacred music, much to the ire of his ecclesiastical patrons.

Campra’s Requiem is scored for a baroque chamber orchestra, choir and at vocal trio consisting of haute-contre, tenor and bass. Its movements include the usual ‘ordinary of the mass’: the Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei. Alongside these staples, he set the four proper antiphons for a requiem mass: the Introit, Gradual, Offertory and Communion antiphons. Strikingly, Campra omitted music for the lengthy requiem sequence Dies Iræ, with its fire-and-brimstone vision of the day of judgement, which had come to be seen as pastorally inappropriate. Neither did he set an excerpt from it, such as Lacrimosa or Pie Jesu. Instead, Campra’s glorious Offertory antiphon — the Domine Jesu Christe — takes centre stage, with surging, uplifting music as the priest goes to the altar and prepares bread and wine.

[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/playlists/14043722″ width=”100%” height=”450″ iframe=”true” /]

Ancient & Modern: history and future

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Anglicanism, Featured, Liturgy, Music2 Comments

As the ninth edition of the hymnal Ancient & Modern has been published — the most popular stable of hymnbooks in the Church of England — here is a little Ancient & Modern history, followed by a few thoughts on what the 21st century holds for hymnbooks.

For my review of the ninth edition of Ancient & Modern, see Ancient & Modern: a review.

A little Ancient & Modern history

The history of Hymns Ancient & Modern begins with a chance meeting on a train between two hymnal editors. In 1852, Francis Murray had published the Hymnal for Use in the English Church; William Denton had produced his Church Hymnal in the following year. Both were Tractarians, and their publications were part of a great flood of hymnals that rode in the wake of the Oxford Movement. Much of the content of these hymnals were archaeological recoveries of ancient and mediaeval hymns in Latin and Greek. John Mason Neale‘s Hymnal Noted (1852 & 1854) is the prime example of this tradition. Murray and Denton’s conversation on the train seems to have been about the problem of a profusion of hymnals targeted at the various niche congregations within the church. They gathered a group of hymnologists to form the future ‘proprietors’ of Hymns Ancient & Modern. Denton only remained with the project for a few months (possibly because the 1855 second edition of the Church Hymnal was starting to sell more copies), but the proprietors were now ably led by Henry Baker with William Henry Monk as music editor. They produced a trial selection of 138 hymns in 1859. In 1861, most of these found their way into the collection of 273 hymns that was the first edition of Hymns Ancient & Modern. The name of the hymnal referred to the fairly even division between the ‘ancient’ — patristic and mediaeval hymns mostly translated from Latin — and the ‘modern’ hymns of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

‘Eternal Father, strong to save’ with the tune Melita.

The subsequent appearance of the Appendix to the hymnal in 1868 showed a desire to keep the book fresh. In 1875, Monk produced the second edition, being the first in a line of composers to steer the project, and it was this edition that cornered the hymnal market in the church. It was so popular that the 1904 New and Revised Edition, which was otherwise a perfectly decent third edition, was roundly rejected for rearranging hymns and giving them new numbers. This forced the proprietors to abandon it and return to the popular, previous edition of Monk, bound with its supplement by Charles Steggall (1889), which became known contrastingly as the ‘Old Complete Edition’. In 1916, a second supplement was added by Sydney Nicholson, and, in 1922, he lightly edited the hymnal to produce the Standard Edition.

Gerald Hocken Knight and John Dykes Bower took over as editors, producing the more heavily edited Revised Edition in 1950, adding new hymns and removing those that had not stood the test of time. In 1983 the pruning continued, with almost half of the hymns in the Revised Edition being removed and all 200 of the combined contents of 100 Hymns for Today (1969) and More Hymns for Today (1980) being uncritically added without being dispersed among the remnant, producing the New Standard Edition. Both the Revised (AMR) and the New Standard (AMNS) editions remain in use in many churches. In 2000, the hymnal was rebranded Common Praise as an accompaniment to the liturgy of Common Worship. Common Praise included a fair number of hymns that were traditionally indicative of the rival stable of the New English Hymnal, which encouraged some churches and cathedrals that used the latter to make the switch, and continued the concept of it being a single hymnal of broad appeal. The supplement Sing Praise was produced in 2010 (New English Praise, a similar supplement to New English Hymnal came out in 2006). In 2013, these two were combined and edited together as Ancient & Modern, dropping the Hymns from the title.

A 21st-century hymnal?

Some might question the need for hymnals in the digital age. A minority of churches use digital projectors to ‘shew forth’ hymn and liturgical texts for their congregations. Though this emphasizes the corporate nature of worship — singing from the same hymn sheet! — it can make worship something observed, something virtual. Only once in my life have I been to an Anglican church where everyone had a single volume of the Prayer Book bound with a hymnal, and that was in rural Co. Antrim. Most other churches present the worshipper with more or fewer books, booklets and sheets. Increasingly, hymn texts for the service are printed on a pew sheet, and hymnbooks have become the preserve of the choir and organist, and a resource directory for those who select hymns for services. The trend for ever larger hymnals (the latest edition of Mission Praise has 1250 entries) suggests that compilers recognise that the hymnbook has become more of a resource than an aid in worship, placing inclusion ahead of exclusion. It would be good to have a large scale survey of churches using this hymnal, at some point in the future, to see what the usage rate of each item is.

I commented before that it would take 2½ years to sing through all 847 items without repeating one, given four hymns every Sunday morning and three in the evening. Of course, there are always going to be some hymns that are not to the taste of clergy, musicians and congregations, and others that are repeat favourites. Some of the liturgical items might be used week in, week out, or not at all. The question is how many hymns does an individual church need at any given time. A cheeky answer might be: only the few that we are singing in this service. However, my question is how big can an individual church’s repertoire of hymnody be. I am sure there is some variation here. One response would be to create print-on-demand hymnals tailored to a church’s choices and traditions, yet perhaps this might take us back to the disunity that Francis Murray and William Denton deplored when they met that day on the train.

For my review of the ninth edition of Ancient & Modern, see Ancient & Modern: a review.

Ancient & Modern: a review

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Anglicanism, Featured, Liturgy13 Comments

My copy of Ancient & Modern: Hymns and Songs for Refreshing Worship (2013) has just arrived. It is the ninth edition of what is the most enduring and popular lineage of hymnals in the Church of England. We currently use Common Praise (2000, the eighth edition of A&M), in the College Chapel. My former churches have used Sing Glory (1999), Ancient & Modern New Standard Edition (1983) and New English Hymnal (1986) as their main hymnbooks, which is progress of sorts! Unlike some churches, the Church of England has never had an official hymnbook, but the Ancient & Modern stable comes closest to a standard.

For some background and a couple of thoughts about hymnals in the 21st century, see Ancient & Modern: history and future.

Ancient & Modern has 847 items: the largest inventory in this hymnbook’s history, beating the 779 hymns of the Standard Edition (1916 & 1920). Not all of these are hymns, some are liturgical songs and ‘short chants’. It is not too much of a surprise that this is an increase on the 628 hymns of Common Praise. However, seeing that the intermediate supplement Sing Praise (2010) has 330 entries, there has been a bit of a cull. I guestimate that around 150 hymns in Common Praise have been cut (inexplicably, the cloying ‘In a world where people walk in darkness’ (CP 476, AM9 677) has survived!). I confess to some alarm that so many hymns that were thought necessary of inclusion 13 years ago have proved disposable. It makes me wonder how many in the current volume will last as long. The proprietors actually suggest that those who already have Common Praise should make the lesser investment in Sing Praise rather than switching directly to the new edition. I believe, though, that would mean that there would be around fifty or more items in the ninth edition that those with the two previous volumes would be missing.

Physically, the full-music editions of the two hymnals, eighth and ninth editions, are about the same size. Although this is perhaps due to my old Common Praise being stretched with use, the paper used for the ninth edition is clearly thinner, yet this has not led to a reduction in print quality. Unlike some poorly produced editions of Hymns Old & New (nothing to do with Ancient & Modern), verso print does not obviously show through on the recto, and vice versa. The same typesetter and music engraver, the laudable Andrew Parker, worked on the two editions, yet there has been progress toward a brighter, clearer printing. Music and textual credits have been moved to the bottom of the page, into space, allowing for a little more information to be given. For the three translations of Phos hilaron are given their Greek title in Greek script: a nicely revived tradition that flatters the singer. These three are John Keble’s text set to John Stainer’s Sebaste at 17, Christopher Idle’s more recent offering at 18 and Robert Bridges’s at 20, with the latter being the preferred translation of the rival English Hymnal tradition.

It would take 2½ years to sing through all 847 items without repeating one, given four hymns every Sunday morning and three in the evening. Of course, there are always going to be some hymns that are not to the taste of clergy, musicians and congregations, and others that are repeat favourites. Some of the liturgical items might be used week in, week out, or not at all.

The arrangement of the hymns follows the tried and tested pattern of the A&M stable: the diurnal of morning and evening, the seasons of the church year, saints’ days, a few service themes and the lucky dip of ‘Hymns throughout the Year’ (the odd name of the category used in Common Praise) or ‘General’ (the more sensible title in the ninth edition). The ninth edition’s categories are a joy: after the saints’ days, there are decent selections of hymns for Christian initiation, marriage, and funerals and the departed. Then there are selections of hymns chosen for use in a generalised sequence of sections of church services: gathering, penitence, the word of God, canticles and affirmations of faith, prayer and intercession, Holy Communion, and sending out. These mix hymns with liturgical texts, like the three modern Kyries (370–2) in the penitence category; the first is that from James MacMillan’s Mass of the Blessed John Henry Newman. The word category begins with the traditional sixth-mode Alleluia (374), and goes on to provide an Alleluia setting by Bernadette Farrell (376) and James Walsh’s Pilgrim’s Alleluia (377) — I am left to wonder why the Stanbrook Abbey hymn ‘Bright as fire in darkness’ intrudes at 375. There is also a Marty Haugen song that can be used as an Alleluia at 385, demonstrating the problem that items are arranged mainly in alphabetical order within categories rather then rational groupings. Thankfully the metrical Magnificats and other canticles are grouped together. The category for prayer and intercession includes a number of simple, modern chants that can be used as sung responses to supplications. It is not necessarily obvious, but four metrical settings of Gloria in excelsis Deo (413–16) are in the Holy Communion category, followed by two settings of Sanctus (417, 418) and one Agnus Dei (419). The 61 items in this category could really have done with a finer level of grouping within the category.

The later categories of themes — the church’s ministry and mission, wholeness and healing, sorrow and lament, creation and the environment, justice and peace, and national and remembrance — are welcome, if still slightly thin. Even with all of these categories, there are still 246 ‘general’ hymns (29 % of the inventory). Still, this is an improvement on the like category of 265 hymns in Common Praise (42 %). There are hymnals, like Mission Praise, Sing Glory and Hymns Old & New, that take the unimaginative approach of arranging all their entries in alphabetical order of their textual incipits (though I do remember some old copies of Mission Praise took a unique approach to the alphabet!). Given a decent index, and the ninth edition has indexes aplenty (read on if you, like me, sadly spend more time in hymn indexes than with the hymns themselves), it makes sense to organise things by sensible categories and relationally. Thus, I am sure the compilers saw the need to keep the lucky dip to a minimum, recognising it as a sign of methodological laxity. A rough grouping of these hymns by theological themes would have been a welcome change, alongside better grouping of items within the other categories. The group of 17 ‘short chants’ at the end, mostly from Taizé and Iona, alongside some in other categories, will be a welcome addition in many churches.

The indexes include the now standard and practical parade of biblical index, hymn suggestions for each Sunday and major feast, alphabetical index of tunes, metrical index of tunes, index of composers, index of authors, and the index of first lines and tunes. Alongside these there is a list of hymns ‘suitable for all-age worship’ that some might use, but also a particularly handy thematic index that lists hymn numbers appropriate to a wide range of theological and other themes. Some of these (e.g. marriage) exactly reproduces a category, adding the belt to the braces. Yet this extra index shows an appropriate response to the problem of categories: what to do with those items that fit multiple categories. It also allows for themes that are too vague to have been categories (e.g. water).

The influence of Hymns Old & New (first Anglican Edition in 1986, with the popular New Anglican Edition a decade later, now superseded by others) can be seen in the ninth edition. Although Hymns Old & New has had major flaws in its musical arrangements and production quality, it brought together favourite hymns with choruses, praise songs and chants. Its coup was to provide what many churches wanted. Starting with Sing Praise, the Ancient & Modern tradition began to incorporate this wider repertoire, and the ninth edition includes symbols for guitar chords above the music for some items, thankfully not following Hymns Old & New in providing them for all items, even where they conflict with the musical arrangement.

For controversialists, Stuart Townend and Keith Getty‘s ‘In Christ alone my hope is found’ is included (678), with its words ‘the wrath of God was satisfied’ in the second verse. Whereas some have rewritten the line, Getty has, understandably, refused to allow it to be used with an altered text. While American Presbyterians have recently decided to omit the hymn because of that line, it now makes Ancient & Modern look doctrinally brave/timid for including it.

For some background and a couple of thoughts about hymnals in the 21st century, see Ancient & Modern: history and future.

Let us pray the collect

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Featured, Liturgy1 Comment

The collect (stress on the first syllable: KOL-ekt) is a traditional, formal short prayer of Western Christianity. The Latin missal simply calls it oratio (‘prayer’). However, the Gregorian Sacramentary has oratio ad collectam, and then, in two places, simply collecta. In the earlier Gallican use, the term is first collectio, before becoming collecta. The term remained in popular use among churchgoers while missals chose oratio. Perhaps it is no surprise that the Book of Common Prayer chose the popular vernacular name ‘collect’, but more surprising that the new translation of the Catholic missal has opted for ‘collect’ where its predecessor had a prosaic ‘opening prayer’. The collects of the Church of England and the Catholic Church preserve many old Latin models.

The structure of collects are widely discussed and well known — being

  1. invocation, e.g. Almighty God
  2. divine attribute (qui–clause), e.g. unto whom all hearts be open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid
  3. petition, e.g. cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit
  4. consequence (ut-clause), e.g. that we may perfectly love thee, and worthily magnify thy holy name
  5. doxology, e.g. through Christ our Lord

The major division of the collect is between clauses 1–2 and 3–4, often marked with a semicolon. In collects for saints, the second clause says something about the saint in question rather than describing a divine attribute. Rather wonderfully, this shows the holy life as a glimpse of divine revelation. Most collects address God the Father, and so the doxology (which is often not written out in full) declares that our prayer is made through (per) Christ (or ‘the same’ Christ if he is mentioned in the body of the collect), and may add the unity of the Holy Spirit too.

Some have remarked that the quality of the collect is frame for our petitionary prayer which should flow from an understanding of God’s nature. It is a snapshot of how lex orandi models lex credendi, or, put another way, how doctrine should feed into our spiritual life.

At the eucharist, the praying of the collect concludes the gathering rite, the first part of the liturgy, and thus heralds the Bible readings. The placing of collects for Sundays and holy days together with the epistles and gospels in the Book of Common Prayer (which makes sense, because one reads the collect, epistle and gospel in order) has led to some Anglicans, particularly evangelicals, to desire collects that reflect the readings or themes of the day. I think this is wrong, seeing as the collects are designed succinctly to draw divine qualities into our daily lives, and so belong to our gathering and preparation rather than an introduction to the readings. The gathering rite at its simplest (and ‘tis a joy to be simple) has just a liturgical greeting (The Lord be with you) and a collect, although prayers of penitence usually occur between the two.

The Catholic Church developed a series of other collect-like presidential prayers: the prayer over the gifts and the post-communion prayer. Common Worship has fully embraced post-communion prayers, gathering them with the collects proper, and it suggests some ‘prayers at the preparation of the table’ that cover some elements of the traditional offertory prayers.

In daily prayer, the collect comes at the end of the intercession. In the Book of Common Prayer, three collects (or four during Advent and Lent) follow the preces toward the formal conclusion of matins and evensong. Common Worship has followed the modern practice of retaining just one collect where a series of such had previously been used. However, its structural framework means that an unchanging ‘opening prayer’ is also used.

Let us pray, and its praxis

Modern liturgical sensibility around the collect can be summarised

  1. The bidding ‘Let us pray’ (oremus) is important
  2. The use of silence between bidding and collect is important
  3. The collect should be prayed deliberately: it is important
  4. The congregational ‘Amen’ is important

It has taken fifteen years of ministry for me to begin to internalise and practise this. It is not as simple as it sounds. I might bid ‘Let us pray’, but it was as if I were saying ‘I shall now read a prayer out of the book’. There is still the problem that some hear those words as a direction to get on their knees, but there are some relics of an instruction flectamus genua for the silence with levate for the collect. Knowing that oremus could be expanded into a more fullsome bidding, I would sometimes select a bon mot from the collect and say something like ‘Let us pray that God might cleanse our hearts that we may worship him’. It was a good idea, but it ended up like a liturgical wink: ‘see what I did there? I can read ahead!’

The silence proved a problem too. How long should it be? If it were too long, people would fidget, or think that I had forgotten the book of collects. The fundamental problem with my praxis was that is was superficial, skin-deep. The bidding, even if it be the simple ‘Let us pray’, should convey a call to deep, heartfelt prayer. As Romans 8.26–27 has it

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words. And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Romans 8.26–27

If the bidding can convey the merest sense of those verses, then the silence just works. The bidding then is not an introduction to the collect, but to the silence. The collect then is a voicing of an aspect of the heartfelt silent prayer. A good trigger that works for me is a simple bidding like ‘Let us pray deeply’ or ‘From the depths of our hearts, let us pray’. Words alone are not enough; as a priest I need to model this deep prayer. I must not be looking at the book or looking around, but I must pray with bowed head. Whether the silence is ten or twenty seconds, or more, does not matter, as quantity of silence is replaced by quality. In a church full of people who want to be led in prayer, this works well. However, at weddings, funerals and baptisms, among those who may not be regular churchgoers, and who may not be focused mainly on spiritual things, the collect becomes transformative. There is a witty saying when people see me in a cassock — ‘Say one for me’ — and this is ‘Say one with me: it’s deep within you, and you want to pray’.

The orans gesture.

The celebrant faces the people squarely during all this in modern rites. Hands are folded for the bidding and silence. The arms are raised to the orans position for praying the collect. At the doxology, the hands are folded once more. The orans position is somewhat Y-shaped. The hands are raised upward, but no higher than the shoulder. The expansion of the gesture should be determined by whatever looks natural (not too tight and Tridentine, not too large and theatrical) and by the space (it can be larger at a high altar, smaller in cosy chapel).

The Lord be with you

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Featured, Liturgy6 Comments

The phrase ‘The Lord be with you’, in various languages and in its Latin Dominus vobiscum, has been the greeting that gathers Christians together in worship for over a millennium. I might say that it is the church’s Hello, and I quite like that jolly interpretation. Nevertheless, it is important not to dumb it down: this phrase has power.

‘The Lord be with you’ is a presidential greeting, which is most often encountered at the beginning of the a liturgy and and the beginning of the eucharistic prayer. It is also found before the reading of the Gospel, before a blessing, before blessing baptismal water, in the middle of Exsultet, and before praying a collect.

The biblical references of Ruth 2.4, II Chronicles 15.2 and Matthew 28.20 are given in support of this phrase. It can be clearly dated back to the 6th century (Council of Braga and, later, Gelasian Sacramentary), but can be inferred from the Apostolic Tradition and other early texts.

Grammatically, of course, the Latin original has no verb: Dominus vobiscum means, more literally, ‘Lord with you’. English needs the verb ‘to be’ to act as a copula. An obvious choice would have been to translate the phrase with ‘The Lord is with you’ (this is in the indicative mood). Instead, our English reformers chose ‘The Lord be with you’, in the subjunctive mood. Unlike much spoken English, and indeed written English, the subjunctive mood is on quite frequent duty in the Book of Common Prayer. The subjunctive is often used in blessing formulas, and this shows an important interpretation of this phrase: it is not about stating a fact — the Lord’s presence — but is the blessing of the Lord’s presence. A major feature of a lot of liturgical language is that it is performative: it does something. This particular phrase is the greeting — the benediction — that constitutes the Christian assembly for worship.

The Eastern churches have ‘Peace to all’ / ‘And with thy spirit’, but its use is different.

And with thy spirit

The Latin response to Dominus vobiscum is Et cum spiritu tuo. The traditional English translation of this is ‘And with thy spirit’, and the agreed ecumenical translation into contemporary English is ‘And also with you’. The modern translation is clearly more of a paraphrase than a direct translation of the Latin. This paraphrase understands the use of the word ‘spirit’ as metonymy for the minister’s person or self.

The Epistles use this phrase at Galatians 6.18, Philippians 4.23, Philemon 25 and II Timothy 4.22.

The new Catholic translation of the missal has taken us back closer to the original by using ‘And with your spirit’. A friend who is a Catholic priest commented to me that he finds the former translation — ‘And also with you’ — more affirming of his whole person than the new translation.

Et cum spiritu tuo is clearly not a direct reference to the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit does not belong to the minister. At its simplest, ‘your spirit’ is metonymy for ‘you’, and avoids the short, ungainly Et tecum, ‘And with you’ (even ‘And also with you’ uses extra syllables). Other commentators have described the phrase as an acknowledgement of the spiritual grace given the ordained minister by the Holy Spirit. It is similar to the Eastern affirmation of a priest’s ordination by the acclamation of the people: axios, ‘worthy’.

Praxis

It is important to speak about how we do, and should do, Dominus vobiscum. This is where I believe that the choice of the subjunctive in English is informative. The greeting is not a statement that Jesus is here so let’s get on with it. It is a benediction that recognises the icon of Christ in the assembly of the baptized, and draws out this image, verbally constituting the ekklesia. At the commencement, and at other high points of liturgy, the minister thus constitutes the church, and the people, in response, declare the human being before them to be their minister by grace.

Some principles

  1. It is important: do not rush it or belittle it.
  2. It is the greeting that constitutes the liturgical assembly.
  3. It should not be preceded or followed by more colloquial stock phrases of greeting, like ‘hello’, ‘good morning’, etc.
  4. The only thing that should preface the opening greeting is the Trinitarian invocation.
  5. Giving notices, and even announcing a hymn, before the greeting takes away from its impact.
  6. It is easy to remember, so it should not be read from a book.
  7. It can lead into words of welcome and introduction (the ‘intention’).
  8. It should be accompanied by the appropriate gesture: arms open in a welcoming embrace.
  9. The gesture should not be either poky or overlarge.
  10. The gesture should not be stiff or vague.
  11. Traditionally, a deacon makes no gesture with these words.
  12. The priest or deacon should be attentive to the people’s response, and drink in their affirmation before proceeding.
Continue reading “The Lord be with you” →

Bosco Peters’s Thoughts

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn Liturgy3 Comments

If you are interested in Anglican liturgy, or indeed liturgy generally, you may have already come across Bosco Peters’s video talk Some Thoughts on Liturgy. It is a thought-provoking paper on how we, as Christian ministers, use liturgy, and understand liturgy.

Bosco Peters begins by describing liturgy as a language. Indeed a linguist’s approach to its ‘grammar’ and ‘vocabulary’ might bear fruit, particularly when we distinguish between the prescriptive and descriptive methodologies — between what one should do and what one actually does. The analogy is good, but Bosco Peters immediately points out the major misunderstanding that is likely to occur: that, when we think of liturgy as language, we think it is all about words. Thus, he heads that train of thought off at the pass

So let’s be clear: The basic building blocks of liturgy are actions and gestures and people and space and symbols and signs and vesture and music and silence and movement and – yes – and words. Jesus said do this to remember me. Do this. And we turn his command into “read pages 404 to 429 out loud to remember me”. In lots of places, we come together for an hour or so on Sundays and read lots of lovely poetic stuff to each other, and sing four bits of poetry – and many of us give the impression that that’s liturgy.

This is what captured the imagination of commentators on the Anglican Communion LinkedIn group where I posted the video. An ECUSA priest spoke of a desire to share this video on a training day with fellow clergy. She added

This is the first time someone has supported my desire to be rid of ‘reading’ the liturgy instead of participating in it…body, mind, heart, spirit, gesture, Amens, over time becoming a Body of Christ which celebrates ‘by heart and body’ Reading the words gets in the way of prayer, of ‘inwardly digesting’.

Perhaps there is something of the Reformation in the wordiness and bookishness of many a liturgical approach. Yet, to be fair, the mediaeval catholic concept of ex opere operato treats the liturgy as a mutterance without social context that simply does the grace. I think our liturgical formation is perhaps better than it was in the past. Modern liturgies with their variations and choices demand our attention to certain details. Yet still, our churches publish liturgies and their rubrics in books, not videos, and thus emphasize the literary quality over the physical instances of liturgy. Even so, we would practice, hesitate, and even consider ourselves unworthy if we were tasked with an intricate poem to recite to maximum effect. Yet we do not treat each collect and eucharistic prayer with such sensitivity. Perhaps we cannot do so: it would impair our ability to function. An incarnational theology of the liturgy is simple: the Word became flesh, and so the literary must become performative action. We note that the Word does not cease to be the Word, but yet is outwardly transformed. The liturgy is performative action rather than performed action, as the latter points to the liturgical action as the drama, whereas the former shows that the action makes that drama in us, and in heaven.

Another commentator, from England, wrote

All to often reading is seen to be the norm. One of the brethren told me that he saw no point in liturgical “training days” because “all you have to do is open the book and read.” Liturgical formation of both clergy and congregations is weak. Clergy training in liturgy is so often history and no praxis: “They will pick it up from their training incumbents.” Liturgy is action, action, action; something that has so often become lost. The liturgy is also where many members of the church do theology together; they may not realise it but they are formed by the liturgy (by a sort of osmosis). that is why liturgical formation of worship leaders is so important.

I have heard similar comments about a local Anglican theological college, where experimenting with liturgy is encouraged above training, with the effect that bad habits are continued and showcased as the norm. I had a great training incumbent who taught me good liturgical practice and principles — and he is now a canon precentor — but we cannot expect every training incumbent to provide this.

Bosco Peters describes how environment, against our default formation, actually trumps words

But changing the environment, or changing our actions, I think often can have even more impact than changing the words.

Think of how differently the same words of a confession can be experienced in two different services. You can imagine one service with just a few people and they are kneeling spread around a large building. Now imagine another community where the people are all standing close together, and they are using the same words, and they are singing them. One is about being conscious of personal sinfulness – the other, with exactly the same words, is about a sense of community and maybe is experienced more as an acknowledgement of the communal
responsibility we all share for evil in the world.

Many of us get so caught up in thinking that changing the words is what will change the liturgy. But I’m emphasising that most of liturgy isn’t the words at all.

He goes on to describe how we treat liturgy like a foreign language, and we fail to progress to fluency. If it is foreign to us, we rely on the phrase book, struggle to produce a chain of awkward syllables, that, when they manage to get the message across, we feel are adequate. Perhaps one of the most valuable, simple liturgical education I received was a list of the prayers I have to learn off by heart. It is a cornerstone of catholic liturgical formation, and sounds oh-so trad, and yet it can lead to a deep internalising and naturalising of basic elements of liturgy.

I disagree with some things that Bosco Peters says, of course. Liturgical debate can be so factious that we often end up disagreeing with ourselves! I would point out that the concept of register in language has great validity to our discussion: liturgy need not model the register of everyday social interaction, and, perhaps, should not.

One thing that I take away from this talk is Bosco Peters’s insistence on uncluttered liturgy and the use of silence before the collect. These are things I know and do, but his description of the “deep silent prayer” before the collect, reminded me of this important dimension. I all too often consider how long I can hold the silence, and not how deep we can take it. Perhaps it takes little more than a good bidding to pray deeply, while modelling to our fellow worshippers one who takes this opportunity for deep prayer. As he says, “There’s the basic framework for gathering: greeting; singing; deep silent prayer”.

Watch Bosco Peters’s Some Thoughts on Liturgy

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu36pFEYK6w]

I am inspired; thank you. This article, thus, kicks off a series off liturgy bits.

Passion Carols by Hertford College Chapel Choir

On By Gareth Gilbert-HughesIn ChristianityLeave a comment

Here at Hertford College, Oxford, we sing Passion Carols on the last Sunday of term before the Easter vacation (Sunday of 8th Week of Hilary term, in Oxford-speak). We call them ‘Passion Carols’ because we insist that ‘carols’ are more than ‘Christmas carols’, and that Lent and Passiontide have elicited much popular devotional music on the suffering and death of Jesus Christ. Below, you can listen to the five choral pieces sung at that service. During the last piece — the African-American Spiritual Were you there? — the clergy remove their white robes and strip the altar and sanctuary of all furnishings and decoration.

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