“Twelve defiant Puritans were locked in a hotel room with twelve irritated Episcopalians …” It sounds like the start of a strange joke that requires the presence of a duck to pull off the punch line, but it actually happened.
Charles II, the king just-returned from exile, issued a proclamation on October 25, 1660, calling for a meeting of “learned divines” to decide the fate of the Book of Common Prayer. Their numbers were drawn from two opposed camps: the ranks of the moderate Puritans and presbyterians who wanted to remain within the Church of England but loathed the Prayer Book, and the Anglicans, represented by the surviving Bishops of the Church which the king’s return had just freed from fifteen years of persecution (by the Puritans they were now called to sit down with). Not only were the Bishops determined to preserve the Prayer Book; they wanted to force the Puritans to digest it whole. The King ordered the Commissioners “to advise upon and review the Book of Common Prayer, comparing the same with the most ancient liturgies, which have been used in the Church in the primitive and purest times.”
To the Puritans and presbyterians, who had no desire to bring the Prayer Book more in line “with the most ancient liturgies,” the king’s words weren’t promising. They wanted not the “ancient liturgies” but the liturgies most recently concocted and approved in Geneva, the mother-city of Calvinism. Of course, some of the Puritans wanted no liturgy at all, seeing any set form as “an enemy to the spirit of true and godly prayer.”
The King’s Letter Patent called for the appointed Commissioners (twelve Bishops and twelve Puritan and presbyterian clergymen, each side to have nine assistants called "coadjutors") to “meet together within the space of four calendar months now next ensuing, in the Master's lodgings in the Savoy in the Strand.” They weren’t locked into a room (though from the descriptions left to us of the meetings of what we now call the Savoy Conference, some of them felt as if they were) and the only ducks present were those that arrived already cooked on dinner plates, but for four months the Commissioners did battle for the future of the Book of Common Prayer.
The results were a foregone conclusion, though the Puritans seemed blithely unaware of the fact. The Book of Common Prayer authorized by the king’s martyred father had already been restored to use throughout the country. Before the Conference held its first session, Oxford printers complained to the king that “uncouth men of all sortes” were engaged in unlicensed printing of the “Old Book.” Before the “new book” was authorized in 1662, five licensed editions of the old appeared in London bookshops. Meeting with some Puritan clergy about the upcoming Conference, the king answered their concerns saying he would “never, not in the least degree, allow the good old order of the Church in which he had been bred" to be disparaged. The Commissioners were told their work would require the approval of “the Archbishops, Bishops and Doctors” of the Church of England, as well as the Parliament—the Parliament now sitting, crowded with the survivors of the unlamented late Lord Protector Cromwell and his Puritan allies. Only blind men could fail to see the outcome.
The Conference opened on April 15th, 1661 and met in the rooms of Gilbert Sheldon, the Bishop of London (where the Savoy Hotel now stands). Bishop Sheldon called on the Puritans and their presbyterian partners to present their objections and criticisms of the Prayer Book. They were prepared. They laid before the Bishops almost 200 hand-written pages of what they called “Exceptions” to the book. From these pages a London printer produced a 35 page pamphlet. The Puritans prefaced this with a l-o-n-g letter, addressed not to the the Commission but to the King, summarizing their grievances with the “Church once in this realm established.” Since the topic of the Commission was limited to The Book of Common Prayer and “ancient liturgies,” the Puritans used the Preface to complain about all the other things about the Church they found “contrary to God’s Word.” Worst of all were Bishops, Priests and Deacons and the “papistical notions and corruptions” of the church they embodied (small wonder they addressed their opening letter to the King rather than the Bishops who sat across the table from them).
All in all, it set the tenor for the proceedings of the next four months. Somebody should have brought a duck.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
A History of the Book of Common Prayer in Four-Minute Chunks (Part the Third)
Charles II, the son of the Royal Martyr, was crowned King of England, Ireland and Wales at Westminster Abbey on April 23, 1661. The royal chronicler of the day’s events waxed enthusiastic in his description of the crowds lining the way of the King’s route to Westminster: “Infinite and innumerable were the acclamations and shouts of joy from each and every part of the city and each and every person thereof.”
Not everyone joined in the day’s merriment, though. For 15 years the Puritan Parliament and stern Lord Protector Cromwell imposed their vision on the Three Kingdoms. They banished Prayer Book religion, imprisoned its bishops, outlawed its words, and suppressed its feasts. They had forbidden most public sports, recreations and festivals, closed every theater in the country, and even a Sunday walk—except to or from church—could result in a fine. They saw their Redeemed City on a Hill swept away with the accession of the "Merrie Monarch." The nine surviving Anglican Bishops, in cloth-of-gold copes, processed before the King down the long nave of the Abbey, as the Te Deum from The Book of Common Prayer resounded through the church. For the Puritans, it was a grim day.
The first of many. Within two weeks, Charles’ Parliament, the so-called “Cavalier Parliament” was in session. The old supporters of Charles’ father, the Martyr King, and loyalists to the old Church of England held the seats—and the votes. The Prayer Book was restored, the exiled and imprisoned Bishops re-instated (Matthew Wren, Bishop of Ely, had been locked in the Tower of London for 18 years) and the Presbyterian and Puritan ministers who’d been placed in the parish churches of England were booted out the doors of their parsonages unless they swore submission to the Act of Uniformity. Among other injunctions the Act declared that “all and singular Ministers, in any Cathedral, Collegiate, or Parish-Church or Chappel, or other Place of Publick Worship within this Realm of England, Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick upon Tweed, shall be bound to say and use the Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Celebration and Administration of both the Sacraments, and all other the Publick, and Common Prayer, in such order and form as is mentioned in the said Book...” Twenty-four hundred Puritans (give or take a baker’s dozen) refused the oath. In English Church History the result of their refusal is known as The Great Ejection.
The King was an Anglican. His staunchest supporters were Anglicans. He had restored the monarchy and re-established the Church. But no one who knew him was under the illusion the King was either pious or even much interested in religion except as a tool of State. Charles was a practical man: the Royal Martyr had not been. If he didn’t much care about religion himself, he understood many of his new subjects did. The Puritans, by walking away from the parishes, made plain they didn’t want anything to do with the restored Church. But many moderate Puritans did want to “conform.” Was there some way, they delicately inquired of the King, that the Prayer Book could be “modified” so as to allow them to keep their consciences intact? If the remnants of the First Prayer Book could be “stipp’d cleane,” they would be willing to consider taking the oath of Uniformity.
On the other side, the Anglican Bishops and clergy, who had suffered deprivation and imprisonment for their devotion to the Prayer Book, had made their wishes known to the King. Many of them looked back to the First Prayer Book as the ideal and wanted to restore as much of it as they could. During their banishments they hadn’t been idle. Many had studied the Prayer Book, written about it, and made plans for its revision when the day of Restoration came.
In response to these requests, the King issued a Royal Warrant, calling for a “conference of learned divines, of both persuasions” to meet and debate “sundry alterations and improvements” to The Book of Common Prayer. They were to meet at the Savoy Palace.
It was to be quite a debate.
Not everyone joined in the day’s merriment, though. For 15 years the Puritan Parliament and stern Lord Protector Cromwell imposed their vision on the Three Kingdoms. They banished Prayer Book religion, imprisoned its bishops, outlawed its words, and suppressed its feasts. They had forbidden most public sports, recreations and festivals, closed every theater in the country, and even a Sunday walk—except to or from church—could result in a fine. They saw their Redeemed City on a Hill swept away with the accession of the "Merrie Monarch." The nine surviving Anglican Bishops, in cloth-of-gold copes, processed before the King down the long nave of the Abbey, as the Te Deum from The Book of Common Prayer resounded through the church. For the Puritans, it was a grim day.
The first of many. Within two weeks, Charles’ Parliament, the so-called “Cavalier Parliament” was in session. The old supporters of Charles’ father, the Martyr King, and loyalists to the old Church of England held the seats—and the votes. The Prayer Book was restored, the exiled and imprisoned Bishops re-instated (Matthew Wren, Bishop of Ely, had been locked in the Tower of London for 18 years) and the Presbyterian and Puritan ministers who’d been placed in the parish churches of England were booted out the doors of their parsonages unless they swore submission to the Act of Uniformity. Among other injunctions the Act declared that “all and singular Ministers, in any Cathedral, Collegiate, or Parish-Church or Chappel, or other Place of Publick Worship within this Realm of England, Dominion of Wales, and Town of Berwick upon Tweed, shall be bound to say and use the Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Celebration and Administration of both the Sacraments, and all other the Publick, and Common Prayer, in such order and form as is mentioned in the said Book...” Twenty-four hundred Puritans (give or take a baker’s dozen) refused the oath. In English Church History the result of their refusal is known as The Great Ejection.
The King was an Anglican. His staunchest supporters were Anglicans. He had restored the monarchy and re-established the Church. But no one who knew him was under the illusion the King was either pious or even much interested in religion except as a tool of State. Charles was a practical man: the Royal Martyr had not been. If he didn’t much care about religion himself, he understood many of his new subjects did. The Puritans, by walking away from the parishes, made plain they didn’t want anything to do with the restored Church. But many moderate Puritans did want to “conform.” Was there some way, they delicately inquired of the King, that the Prayer Book could be “modified” so as to allow them to keep their consciences intact? If the remnants of the First Prayer Book could be “stipp’d cleane,” they would be willing to consider taking the oath of Uniformity.
On the other side, the Anglican Bishops and clergy, who had suffered deprivation and imprisonment for their devotion to the Prayer Book, had made their wishes known to the King. Many of them looked back to the First Prayer Book as the ideal and wanted to restore as much of it as they could. During their banishments they hadn’t been idle. Many had studied the Prayer Book, written about it, and made plans for its revision when the day of Restoration came.
In response to these requests, the King issued a Royal Warrant, calling for a “conference of learned divines, of both persuasions” to meet and debate “sundry alterations and improvements” to The Book of Common Prayer. They were to meet at the Savoy Palace.
It was to be quite a debate.
Saturday, July 16, 2011
A History of the Book of Common Prayer in Four-Minute Chunks (Part the Second)
After the beheading of King Charles, the outlawing of the Prayer Book and the removal of bishops, priests and deacons from their posts across the country, the Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, was convinced the Anglican Church had been “throughly purged” from the land. In the churches of England, Altars were burned, communion rails hacked to pieces, paintings of Christ and the Saints defaced (wander through Westminster Abbey—the results of Puritan vandalism can still be seen), vestments were cut into table napkins, chalices smashed, crosses from the Altars hammered into bits and bridles. The Book of Common Prayer disappeared from the churches; in 1645 Parliament passed a series of laws banning the use of the Prayer Book either publicly or privately. To own a copy was a criminal offense.
The Puritans congratulated themselves. The Prayer Book they so despised, “culled and picked out of the popish dunghill, the Mass booke full of all abominations,” was dead. But what to take its place? Puritanism, it turned out, was a catchword for all sorts and conditions of opinions, and united men mainly in its hatred of Anglicanism. At one in loathing “Prayer Book and Prelate Religion,” they found themselves at odds about how to replace it and what to replace it with. “Far easier,” Cicero said many centuries earlier, “to say what you are against than what you are for.”
Some wanted no books of prayers at all, claiming all written or liturgical prayer “casts out true prayer,” which must be extemporaneous to be “true.” Their heretofore Presbyterian allies, though, distrusted extemporaneous public prayer and insisted on a book. Even those who agreed about the permissibility of a book, however, disagreed about what it should say. Some wanted specific prayers with options left to the minister as to how and when they should be used, others wanted a book of general directions only with no set forms—it seemed there were more suggestions than suggestors.
In the end, Parliament did authorize a book. Use of A Directory for the Publique Worship of God throughout the Three Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland was required in every church of the realm. To satisfy the Presbyterians, set orders and forms of services were given, with prayers. To satisfy the more rigid Puritans, no one was required to use the prayers and services of the Directory except as guides and models. The one prayer the Presbyterians held out for, the Lord’s Prayer, was rejected by the Puritans as not being a real prayer, since it had a set form. The Directory ended up “strongly favoring and commending”—but not requiring—its use.
In 1658, the Lord Protector died. His son tried to rule in his stead, but was forced to resign within a few months. Attempts of various factions of the Army or Parliament to seize power all collapsed for lack of support. The people wanted “the old King, the old Church, the old ways.” On May 25, 1660, Charles II, son of the Royal Martyr, landed at Dover from his long exile in France. His chaplain publicly carried with him the Book of Common Prayer as the royal party traveled to London. The King met with a group of Puritan ministers during his journey. When one protested the presence of the forbidden book, Charles answered, “Sir, I believe it to be one of the best of books!”
It was a foretaste of things to come.
The Puritans congratulated themselves. The Prayer Book they so despised, “culled and picked out of the popish dunghill, the Mass booke full of all abominations,” was dead. But what to take its place? Puritanism, it turned out, was a catchword for all sorts and conditions of opinions, and united men mainly in its hatred of Anglicanism. At one in loathing “Prayer Book and Prelate Religion,” they found themselves at odds about how to replace it and what to replace it with. “Far easier,” Cicero said many centuries earlier, “to say what you are against than what you are for.”
Some wanted no books of prayers at all, claiming all written or liturgical prayer “casts out true prayer,” which must be extemporaneous to be “true.” Their heretofore Presbyterian allies, though, distrusted extemporaneous public prayer and insisted on a book. Even those who agreed about the permissibility of a book, however, disagreed about what it should say. Some wanted specific prayers with options left to the minister as to how and when they should be used, others wanted a book of general directions only with no set forms—it seemed there were more suggestions than suggestors.
In the end, Parliament did authorize a book. Use of A Directory for the Publique Worship of God throughout the Three Kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland was required in every church of the realm. To satisfy the Presbyterians, set orders and forms of services were given, with prayers. To satisfy the more rigid Puritans, no one was required to use the prayers and services of the Directory except as guides and models. The one prayer the Presbyterians held out for, the Lord’s Prayer, was rejected by the Puritans as not being a real prayer, since it had a set form. The Directory ended up “strongly favoring and commending”—but not requiring—its use.
In 1658, the Lord Protector died. His son tried to rule in his stead, but was forced to resign within a few months. Attempts of various factions of the Army or Parliament to seize power all collapsed for lack of support. The people wanted “the old King, the old Church, the old ways.” On May 25, 1660, Charles II, son of the Royal Martyr, landed at Dover from his long exile in France. His chaplain publicly carried with him the Book of Common Prayer as the royal party traveled to London. The King met with a group of Puritan ministers during his journey. When one protested the presence of the forbidden book, Charles answered, “Sir, I believe it to be one of the best of books!”
It was a foretaste of things to come.
Friday, July 8, 2011
A History of the Book of Common Prayer in Four-Minute Chunks (Part the First)
The first Book of Common Prayer was printed during the spring of 1549 and was authorized for use “throughout this realm of England” on Whitsunday of the same year. It was not popular. Riots erupted across the country; one priest in Wales was hanged outside his church for insisting on its use.
For all the excitement, it was a conservative Liturgy. It preserved the structure of the medieval Mass (which, for the most part, it still does), along with almost all its ceremonies, vestments and practices. But it was in English, and that scared people. He was All-Knowing, but would God tolerate prayers not said in Latin?
The 1549 book and the tradition of worship it continued, angered those anti-Roman reformers (who would eventually come to be called “Puritans”); they saw the Prayer Book as a “Romish rag.” The Puritans found a spokesman on the Privy Council of the young King, Edward VI. The Duke of Somerset, Edward Seymour, pushed for a new book, one which would enshrine the protests of the Puritans. Somerset forced their demands through Parliament and in 1552, a hastily-revised new Prayer Book was approved. Nobody liked it: conservatives attacked it as a Calvinist production; the Puritans complained it still “reeks with the stench of popery.” At any rate, the book barely saw public use. Shortly after it was issued, the Boy King died and “Bloody Mary” Tudor, Henry VIII’s daughter by Katherine of Aragon, ascended the throne. England returned to the Roman fold and the Book of Common Prayer was consigned to the dustbin.
But five years later, when Queen Mary died childless, Elizabeth I, the daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn, became Queen. Elizabeth called herself a “reformed Catholic” (not in the sense of a “reformed alcoholic,” but meaning a “Catholic but not Roman”). Her inclination was to restore the Book of 1549, but the hardening of attitudes in England as the result of Queen Mary’s persecution of all manner of protestants made Elizabeth’s hopes of taking a conciliatory approach impossible (Pope Pius IV offered to approve the English Liturgy of the Prayer Book if Elizabeth would recognize his universal authority over the Church). In 1559 the third Book of Common Prayer was approved, made by blending elements of the two previous Books, removing some things to which the Puritans objected in the first Book and some things conservatives disapproved in the second. This Book of Common Prayer was used through the forty years and more remaining of Elizabeth’s reign.
James VI of Scotland became James I at the death of Elizabeth. You know him from the King James Bible, which he authorized and paid for. James, reared in Calvinist Scotland, disliked Puritans and Calvinists with an intensity probably only a former Calvinist could appreciate. He became an enthusiastic Anglican—like Elizabeth, he spoke about Anglicanism as “Catholicism, purified and refined.” Under the early Stuart kings, James I and his son, Charles I, the Prayer Book was used to solidify Anglicanism as the “established Church, Catholic and Reformed,” throughout the Kingdom. Archbishop William Laud (1573-1645) roused the ire of Puritans across England when he promulgated a Book of Common Prayer for the Episcopal Church of Scotland which virtually restored the 1549 Book.
England erupted in Civil War. In part at least, the Civil War was a war of religion. Anglican “cavaliers,” supporting the king, and Puritan “roundheads,” supporting the Parliament, fought a nine-year war for control of the English Crown and the English Church. In the end, the King lost the war. After the war, the king lost his head. On January 30, 1649 in front of a London crowd at Whitehall Palace, the king was "decollated." Ever since, January 30 has been marked on the Prayer Book calendars of the Church of England as the day of “King Charles I, the Royal Martyr.”
Oliver Cromwell, the head of the Parliamentary army, became Protector of England and dictator for life. The Book of Common Prayer and the open practice of the religion of the Prayer Book was outlawed everywhere in England. Bishops and priests were imprisoned; Common Prayer Books were burned. No Christmas, no Easter, no altars, no kneeling for communion—in fact, Holy Communion itself became a rarity.
Anglicanism and its Prayer Book were about to become extinct.
For all the excitement, it was a conservative Liturgy. It preserved the structure of the medieval Mass (which, for the most part, it still does), along with almost all its ceremonies, vestments and practices. But it was in English, and that scared people. He was All-Knowing, but would God tolerate prayers not said in Latin?
The 1549 book and the tradition of worship it continued, angered those anti-Roman reformers (who would eventually come to be called “Puritans”); they saw the Prayer Book as a “Romish rag.” The Puritans found a spokesman on the Privy Council of the young King, Edward VI. The Duke of Somerset, Edward Seymour, pushed for a new book, one which would enshrine the protests of the Puritans. Somerset forced their demands through Parliament and in 1552, a hastily-revised new Prayer Book was approved. Nobody liked it: conservatives attacked it as a Calvinist production; the Puritans complained it still “reeks with the stench of popery.” At any rate, the book barely saw public use. Shortly after it was issued, the Boy King died and “Bloody Mary” Tudor, Henry VIII’s daughter by Katherine of Aragon, ascended the throne. England returned to the Roman fold and the Book of Common Prayer was consigned to the dustbin.
But five years later, when Queen Mary died childless, Elizabeth I, the daughter of Henry and Anne Boleyn, became Queen. Elizabeth called herself a “reformed Catholic” (not in the sense of a “reformed alcoholic,” but meaning a “Catholic but not Roman”). Her inclination was to restore the Book of 1549, but the hardening of attitudes in England as the result of Queen Mary’s persecution of all manner of protestants made Elizabeth’s hopes of taking a conciliatory approach impossible (Pope Pius IV offered to approve the English Liturgy of the Prayer Book if Elizabeth would recognize his universal authority over the Church). In 1559 the third Book of Common Prayer was approved, made by blending elements of the two previous Books, removing some things to which the Puritans objected in the first Book and some things conservatives disapproved in the second. This Book of Common Prayer was used through the forty years and more remaining of Elizabeth’s reign.
James VI of Scotland became James I at the death of Elizabeth. You know him from the King James Bible, which he authorized and paid for. James, reared in Calvinist Scotland, disliked Puritans and Calvinists with an intensity probably only a former Calvinist could appreciate. He became an enthusiastic Anglican—like Elizabeth, he spoke about Anglicanism as “Catholicism, purified and refined.” Under the early Stuart kings, James I and his son, Charles I, the Prayer Book was used to solidify Anglicanism as the “established Church, Catholic and Reformed,” throughout the Kingdom. Archbishop William Laud (1573-1645) roused the ire of Puritans across England when he promulgated a Book of Common Prayer for the Episcopal Church of Scotland which virtually restored the 1549 Book.
England erupted in Civil War. In part at least, the Civil War was a war of religion. Anglican “cavaliers,” supporting the king, and Puritan “roundheads,” supporting the Parliament, fought a nine-year war for control of the English Crown and the English Church. In the end, the King lost the war. After the war, the king lost his head. On January 30, 1649 in front of a London crowd at Whitehall Palace, the king was "decollated." Ever since, January 30 has been marked on the Prayer Book calendars of the Church of England as the day of “King Charles I, the Royal Martyr.”
Oliver Cromwell, the head of the Parliamentary army, became Protector of England and dictator for life. The Book of Common Prayer and the open practice of the religion of the Prayer Book was outlawed everywhere in England. Bishops and priests were imprisoned; Common Prayer Books were burned. No Christmas, no Easter, no altars, no kneeling for communion—in fact, Holy Communion itself became a rarity.
Anglicanism and its Prayer Book were about to become extinct.
Saturday, July 2, 2011
Summertime Spirituality
I’ve been gone from Texas for a long time—and in thirty years one forgets some things. I forgot the heat. My cool, breezy home on the California beach, like the mythical sirens that seduced Odysseus’ men, erased from my memories of Texas a fact living here won’t let you forget—it’s hot as the hinges of hell in the summer. And like those hinges, the heat is unremitting: day and night, rain and wind notwithstanding. Siestas aren’t options for a lazy afternoon. Here, they’re a necessary tool for survival.
“To everything there is a season,” writes the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, “and a time for every purpose under heaven.” Summer in this part of the world is a time for us to slow down. The constant heat is an ever-present reality, ignored only to our peril. When I was a Boy Scout, I spent many a summer in a camp outside Wimberly, with a few hundred other excited boys. One of my memories is assembling every morning for prayers and the Pledge of Allegiance (are they still allowed to do that?). And every morning we’d have a casualty or two—one of us would literally collapse to the ground of heatstroke.
We’re sacramental creatures. God made all of us that way. That means what affects our bodies also affects our souls, our spirits; equally, what affects our spirits affects our bodies. The heat of summer has a spiritual impact (just look at how many people are “too tuckered” to come to Mass in the morning but manage to make it to a Sunday afternoon barbeque!).
Most churches here cut back their programs during the summer. I understand why. At St Joseph’s, I’ve bowed—albeit reluctantly—to common sense and we’ve cut back some weekday activities for the summer.
“To everything there is a season.” For us, as sacramental beings, that means every season has its time and purpose. Spring, with its rebirth, is particularly in evidence where I live: the brown fields burst green; the long row of trees that line both sides of the road from my gate within a few weeks provide a shaded canopy of sheer delight. Fall’s cooling breezes and soft evenings, winter’s cold chill that drives us inside to find the warmth of human companionship. “To everything there is a season.”
So what about the sizzle of summer?
Here’s my suggestion: find a good book, a comfortable chair and an afternoon fan. Take a spiritual siesta. We need to refresh and nourish both body and soul. We nourish our souls when we feed on the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. How about taking a few afternoons during the summer to refresh our minds and hearts too?
We call it “spiritual reading.” Find a good book—there are many great Christian classics written on the spiritual life, from the Confessions of St Augustine to the novels of C S Lewis. Choose a book of the Bible—say, one of the Gospels or the Book of Genesis. You might be surprised at what you find. Or, if you want a book to lull you into a summer’s nap, open the Book of Leviticus! Any of our parish clergy would be happy to make a suggestion—no doubt each of us has his favorite. Every week on this site, I post a chapter from one of mine—Tito Colliander’s work on the spiritual life.
A small little book, like The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence, with its short, pithy selections or something a bit longer—St Teresa of Avila’s Way of Perfection (not as terrifying as it sounds—she originally wrote it for young women just entering a convent to explain some of the bald facts of living as a Christian with other people)—find something which suits you, something which will turn your mind, three or four times a week for ten or fifteen minutes, to those things which are eternal, which will outlast the summer’s heat! –Fr Gregory Wilcox
“To everything there is a season,” writes the Preacher in Ecclesiastes, “and a time for every purpose under heaven.” Summer in this part of the world is a time for us to slow down. The constant heat is an ever-present reality, ignored only to our peril. When I was a Boy Scout, I spent many a summer in a camp outside Wimberly, with a few hundred other excited boys. One of my memories is assembling every morning for prayers and the Pledge of Allegiance (are they still allowed to do that?). And every morning we’d have a casualty or two—one of us would literally collapse to the ground of heatstroke.
We’re sacramental creatures. God made all of us that way. That means what affects our bodies also affects our souls, our spirits; equally, what affects our spirits affects our bodies. The heat of summer has a spiritual impact (just look at how many people are “too tuckered” to come to Mass in the morning but manage to make it to a Sunday afternoon barbeque!).
Most churches here cut back their programs during the summer. I understand why. At St Joseph’s, I’ve bowed—albeit reluctantly—to common sense and we’ve cut back some weekday activities for the summer.
“To everything there is a season.” For us, as sacramental beings, that means every season has its time and purpose. Spring, with its rebirth, is particularly in evidence where I live: the brown fields burst green; the long row of trees that line both sides of the road from my gate within a few weeks provide a shaded canopy of sheer delight. Fall’s cooling breezes and soft evenings, winter’s cold chill that drives us inside to find the warmth of human companionship. “To everything there is a season.”
So what about the sizzle of summer?
Here’s my suggestion: find a good book, a comfortable chair and an afternoon fan. Take a spiritual siesta. We need to refresh and nourish both body and soul. We nourish our souls when we feed on the Blessed Sacrament of the Altar. How about taking a few afternoons during the summer to refresh our minds and hearts too?
We call it “spiritual reading.” Find a good book—there are many great Christian classics written on the spiritual life, from the Confessions of St Augustine to the novels of C S Lewis. Choose a book of the Bible—say, one of the Gospels or the Book of Genesis. You might be surprised at what you find. Or, if you want a book to lull you into a summer’s nap, open the Book of Leviticus! Any of our parish clergy would be happy to make a suggestion—no doubt each of us has his favorite. Every week on this site, I post a chapter from one of mine—Tito Colliander’s work on the spiritual life.
A small little book, like The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence, with its short, pithy selections or something a bit longer—St Teresa of Avila’s Way of Perfection (not as terrifying as it sounds—she originally wrote it for young women just entering a convent to explain some of the bald facts of living as a Christian with other people)—find something which suits you, something which will turn your mind, three or four times a week for ten or fifteen minutes, to those things which are eternal, which will outlast the summer’s heat! –Fr Gregory Wilcox
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