Anglican Cycle of Prayer: Easter VI
In the Anglican Cycle of Prayer this week, we are invited to pray for the following:
Sunday 29 May 2011 Easter 6 Psalm: 106:40-48 Exod. 19:16-25
Northern Michigan – (Province V, USA) Vacant
Monday 30 May 2011 Psalm: 18:20-24 Rev. 6:7-11
Northern Philippines – (Philippines) The Rt Revd Brent W Alawas
Southern Philippines – (Philippines) The Rt Revd Danilo Bustamante
Tuesday 31 May 2011 The Visit of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth
Psalm: 18:25-36 Rev. 6:12-17
Northern Territory, The – (Queensland, Australia) The Rt Revd Gregory Edwin Thompson
Wednesday 01 Jun 2011 Psalm: 89:1-8 Exod. 20:1-21
Northern Uganda – (Uganda) The Rt Revd Nelson Onono-Onweng
Thursday 02 Jun 2011 Ascension Day Psalm: 8 II Kgs 2:1-15
Friday 03 Jun 2011 Psalm: 107:10-22 Exod 24:1-11
Norwich – (Canterbury, England) The Rt Revd Graham James
Norwich – Lynn – (Canterbury, England) Vacant
Norwich – Thetford – (Canterbury, England) The Rt Revd David John Atkinson
Saturday 04 Jun 2011 Psalm: 2 Exod. 24:12-18
Nova Scotia & Prince Edward Island – (Canada, Canada) The Rt Revd Susan Elizabeth Moxley
Nova Scotia & Prince Edward Island – (Canada, Canada) The Rt Revd Ronald Cutler
Our Friends the Saints: Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (31 May)
The Visitation, from Chartres Cathedral, before 1260
This Feast commemorates the visit of the Blessed Virgin to her cousin Elizabeth, recorded in the Gospel according to Luke (1:39-56).
Elizabeth, who was then carrying John the Baptist, greeted Mary with the words, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.” Mary broke into the song of praise which we call the Magnificat, “My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.”
In this scene, the unborn John the Baptist, the prophet who was to prepare the way of the Lord, rejoices in the presence of him whose coming he is later to herald publicly to all Israel, for the Gospel records that when Mary’s greeting came to her kinswoman’s ears, the babe in Elizabeth’s womb leaped for joy.
–from Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 1997, p. 250.
Father in Heaven, by whose grace the virgin mother of thy incarnate Son was blessed in bearing him, but still more blessed in keeping thy word: Grant us who honor the exaltation of her lowliness to follow the example of her devotion to thy will; through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Our Friends the Saints: Augustine of Canterbury (26 May)
Although Christianity had existed in Britain before the invasions of the Angles and Saxons in the fifth century, Pope Gregory the Great decided in 596 to send a mission to the pagan Anglo-Saxons. He selected, from his own monastery on the Coelian hill in Rome, a group of monks, led by their prior, Augustine. They arrived in Kent in 597, carrying a silver cross and an image of Jesus Christ painted on a board, which thus became, as far as we know, “Canterbury’s first icon.” King Ethelbert tolerated their presence and allowed them the use of an old church built on the east side of Canterbury, dating from the Roman occupation of Britain. Here, says the Venerable Bede, they assembled “to sing the psalms, to pray, to say Mass, to preach, and to baptize.” This church of St. Martin is the earliest place of Christian worship in England still in use.
Pope Gregory the Great sending Augustine on his mission to England
Probably in 601, Ethelbert was converted, thus becoming the first Christian king in England. About the same time, Augustine was ordained bishop somewhere in France and named “Archbishop of the English Nation.” Thus, the see of Canterbury and its Cathedral Church of Christ owe their establishment to Augustine’s mission, as does the nearby Abbey of SS. Peter and Paul, later re-named for Augustine. The “chair of St. Augustine” in Canterbury Cathedral, however, dates from the thirteenth century.
Some correspondence between Augustine and Gregory survives. One of the Pope’s most famous counsels to the first Archbishop of Canterbury has to do with diversity in the young English Church. Gregory writes, “If you have found customs, whether in the Roman, Gallican, or any other Churches that may be more acceptable to God, I wish you to make a careful selection of them, and teach the Church of the English, which is still young in the faith, whatever you can profitably learn from the various Churches. For things should not be loved for the sake of places, but places for the sake of good things.”
This counsel bears on the search for Christian “unity in diversity” of the ecumenical movement today.
Augustine died on May 26, probably in 605.
–from Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 1997, p. 248.
O Lord our God, who by thy Son Jesus Christ didst call thine apostles and send them forth to preach the Gospel to the nations: We bless thy holy Name for thy servant Augustine, first Archbishop of Canterbury, whose labors in propagating thy Church among the English people we commemorate today; and we pray that all whom thou dost call and send may do thy will, and bide thy time, and see thy glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Our Friends the Saints: Bede the Venerable (25 May)
While we were away from the blog, the past week saw the commemoration of two extremely important saints for the English Church and hence the Anglican Communion: Bede the Venerable and St Augustine of Canterbury. First, Bede:
From an 8th century manuscript of Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica
At the age of seven, Bede’s parents brought him to the nearby monastery at Jarrow (near Durham in northeast England) for his education. There, as he later wrote, “spending all the remaining time of my life…I wholly applied myself to the study of Scripture, and amidst the observance of regular discipline, and the daily care of singing in the church, I always took delight in learning, teaching, and writing.”
Bede was ordained deacon at nineteen, and presbyter at thirty. He died on the eve of the Ascension, 735, while dictating a vernacular translation of the Gospel according to John. About 1020 his body was removed to Durham, and placed in the Galilee, the Lady Chapel at the west end of the Cathedral nave.
Bede was the greatest scholar of his time in the Western Church. He wrote commentaries on the Scriptures based on patristic interpretations. His treatise on chronology was standard for a long time. He also wrote on orthography, poetic meter, and especially on history. His most famous work, The Ecclesiastical History of England, written in Latin, remains the primary source for the period 597 to 731, when Anglo-Saxon culture developed and Christianity triumphed. In this work, Bede was clearly ahead of his time. He consulted many documents, carefully evaluated their reliability, and cited his sources. His interpretations were balanced and judicious. He also wrote the History of the Abbots (of Wearmouth and Jarrow) , and a notable biography of Cuthbert, both in prose and in verse.
His character shines through his work–an exemplary monk, an ardent Christian, devoted scholar, and a man of pure and winsome manners. He received the unusual title of Venerable more than a century after his death. According to one legend, the monk writing the inscription for his tomb was at a loss for a word to fill out the couplet:
Hac sunt in fossa
Bedae–blank–ossa
(This grave contains
the–blank–Bede’s remains)
That night an angel filled in the blank: Venerabilis.
Heavenly Father, who didst call thy servant Bede, while still a child, to devote his life to thy service in the disciplines of religion and scholarship; Grant that as he labored in the Spirit to bring the riches of thy truth to his generation, so we, in our various vocations, may strive to make thee known in all the world; through Jesus Christ, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
P.S. Bede is also the author of a hymn for the Feast of the Ascension (on the eve of which he died), which is included in the 1982 Hymnal (no. 217):
A hymn of glory let us sing;
New songs throughout the world shall ring:
Christ, by a road before untrod,
Now rises to the throne of God.
The holy apostolic band
Upon the Mount of Olives stand;
And with his followers they see
Their Lord’s ascending majesty.
To them the angels drawing nigh,
“Why stand and gaze upon the sky?
This is the Savior,” thus they say;
“This is his glorious triumph day. “
Again shall ye behold him so
As ye today have seen him go,
In glorious pomp ascending high,
Up to the portals of the sky.”
O risen Christ, ascended Lord,
All praise to thee let earth accord,
Who art, while endless ages run,
With Father and with Spirit one.
Our Friends the Saints: Cyril and Methodius, Missionaries to the Slavs and Co-Patron Saints of Europe (24 May)
Breaking slightly with custom, we present here the lives of two saints and brothers who are of monumental importance for the Christian Church in Eastern Europe. Their feast is celebrated in the Anglican calendar on 14 February, but since most people may be inclined to miss their feast for that of St. Valentine (though in slightly more secular form), we offer it here today, which is the date of their feast in the Orthodox Church, in which these two amazing brothers are venerated as “equal to the apostles”.
Cyril and Methodius, brothers born in Thessalonika, are honored as apostles to the Southern Slavs and as the founders of Slavic literary culture. Cyril was a student of philosophy and a deacon, who eventually became a missionary monastic. Methodius was first the governor of a Slavic colony, then turned to the monastic life, and was later elected abbot of a monastery in Constantinople.
In 862, the King of Moravia asked for missionaries who would teach his people in their native language. Since both Cyril and Methodius knew Slavonic, and both were learned men–Cyril was known as “the Philosopher”–the Patriarch chose them to lead the mission.
As part of his task among the Moravians, Cyril invented an alphabet to transcribe the native tongue, probably the “glagolithic,” in which Slavo-Roman liturgical books in Russian and Serbian are still written. The so-called “cyrillic” alphabet is thought to have been originated by Cyril’s followers.
Pressures by the German clergy, who opposed the brothers’ teaching, preaching, and writing in Slavonic, and the lack of a bishop to ordain new priests for their people, caused the two brothers to seek foreign help. They found a warm welcome at Rome from Pope Adrian the Second, who determined to ordain both men bishops and approved the Slavonic liturgy. Cyril died in Rome and was buried there. Methodius, now a bishop, returned to Moravia as Metropolitan of Sirmium.
Methodius, still harassed by German bishops, was imprisoned at their behest. Eventually, he was released by Pope John the Eighth, on the condition that Slavonic, “a barbarous language,” be used only for preaching. Later, the enmity of the Moravian prince caused Methodius to be recalled to Rome on charges of heresy. Papal support again allowed him to return to Moravia and to use Slavonic in the liturgy.
Methodius completed a Slavonic translation of the Bible and of Byzantine ecclesiastical law, while continuing his missionary activities. At his funeral, celebrated in Greek, Latin, and Slavonic, “the people came together in huge numbers…for Methodius had been all things to all people that he might lead them all to heaven.”
–from Lesser Feasts and Fasts, 1997, p. 160.
Almighty and everlasting God, who by the power of the Holy Spirit didst move thy servant Cyril to a hostile and divided people: Overcome, we pray thee, by the love of Christ, all bitterness and contention among us, and make us one united family under the banner of the Prince of Peace; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Also: Cyril and Methodius were especially dear to the heart of Pope John Paul II (born in Poland Karol Józef Wojtyła), who described himself as “the first son of the Slav race to be called, after nearly two millennia, to occupy the see that once belonged to Peter”. He dedicated one of his fourteen encyclical letters to the brothers, Slavorum Apostoli.