The Anglicans have a lot of good music for Advent. This past week I discovered the music on Canterbury Cathedral's website.
One of the treasures that my friend Betty and I most enjoy is Morning Prayer with the Dean in the Deanery Garden. We especially enjoy Saturday when he is joined by all his animal friends. On other days it is mostly the vegetation and one of the house cats.
DIRECT LINK TO MORNING PRAYER WITH THE ANIMALS
Morning Prayer – Saturday, 28th November 2020 | Canterbury Cathedral
Join Dean Robert – and friends 🐖🐖🐓🐓 - for today’s Morning Prayer from The Deanery Gardens at Canterbury Cathedral
On this anniversary of the birth of the visionary poet, artist and social reformer, William Blake, we give enormous thanks for his enormous breadth of creative talent that he shared with the world.
Morning Prayer – Thursday, 26th November 2020 | Canterbury Cathedral
Join Dean Robert – and friends 🐖🐖🐓🐓 - for today’s Morning Prayer from The Deanery Gardens at Canterbury Cathedra.
Thank you, Jack. The links to Canterbury Cathedral are great.
ReplyDeleteHappy thanksgiving to you and to all!
Thanks, Jack. Beautiful music and interesting virtual tour.
ReplyDeleteHappy Thanksgiving!
Thanks, Jack! Love the virtual tour. I will have to go read up on Canterbury Cathedral now.
ReplyDeleteI caught morning prayer a day late, but still within the aura. Thanks, Jack. Nice of the folks there to think of us, and a joy to see Sir Winston. As morning prayer I thought it held together remarkably well, duck call and all.
ReplyDelete“As morning prayer I thought it held together remarkably well, duck call and all.”
ReplyDeleteCatch morning prayer tomorrow and every Saturday. He does it in the midst of feeding the animals, pigs, a turkey, pheasants, ducks, chickens. A raucous group and sound! To which he adds events from history, church and civil, good and bad. And a good commentary on the Book of Revelations. Yet it all hangs together.
The NT encourages Christians to pray, daily and constantly, whether alone, together, or separate, at home, in the temple, or synagogue. The most frequent mention of psalms and hymns is in conjunction with meals (however no explicit mention of Eucharist even breaking of the bread).
The separation out of prayer into morning prayer and evening prayer occurs later as people are summoned from their homes to common meeting places at the beginning and end of the work day.
I think his incarnation of morning prayer in the deanery garden is just as valid as when he celebrates choral evening prayer within Canterbury Cathedral each evening. From early centuries very different forms of liturgical prayer arose in Cathedrals and among the desert monastics. The modern forms of the office in both East and West have been influenced by both the Cathedral and monastic traditions.
Liturgical scholars give the Book of Common Prayer high praise for distilling these traditions for the people. I think the Anglican Tradition has continued in the last century to be creatively innovative with common prayer.
Dorothy Day used the BCP for private devotions.
DeleteI prefer Catholic liturgies in Latin because it spares me from having to listen to the twisted English.
The BCP and Psalter were written in a way that reflected early English poetic forms, which makes them sound natural to a native English speaker. ECUSA got rid of the godawful King James archaisms in the revised BCP of 1978.