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Anna

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Evening

How peculiar…

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All sorts of unexpected… results of my starting to read Evening Prayer from the Book of Common Prayer, to myself, on the internet rather than in the tiny print volumes at home. Starting on Advent I Sunday, I decided I would read something every day from the Book of Common Prayer. For one year. As a sort of intellectual emotional and spiritual religious experiment.

So I fluttered around with this collect and that, and Mid Day Prayer, and then Evening Prayer, first on the Canadian Prayer Book Society app, then on the Church of England app. And found to my surprise that the readings differed on each app, and then again on You Tube showings. And found out that there are various editions of the Prayer Book, including one with modernized language.

Well, fine. Confusing but also a bit unnerving.  Shouldn’t there be uniformity in the readings? Or will any reading suffice, on a particular day? And who chooses the readings? Can I choose my own?

Believe me, I would choose different ones. In BCP Evening Prayer I find  gloomy, tedious passages from Isaiah (although Isaiah has so many beautiful, uplifting sections). And wild passages from Revelations, which sound like LSD ravings, making no sense to me. And psalms full of violence and strife. So much nastiness, particularly in the Old Testament readings. Well, yuck.

 

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Edmonton sidewalk

Sadly I had just finished the collected works of St. John of the Cross. And I had put aside Divine Intimacy to make time for Evening prayer. And I often was uninspired to meditate from anything I had read in Evening Prayer.

Worst of all, I began to have nightmares, which I do when I get stressed. And three times in the past week I have lost my temper. When I lose my temper it is very unpleasant to others, as well as to myself. I have been so at peace for so long… And nothing awful is happening in my life to upset me. So I am tempted to point a finger at the Book of Common Prayer readings and psalms.

Yesterday I resumed reading from Divine Intimacy. I’ll make time. And after rooting through my bookcase I discovered Abandonment to Divine Providence by Jean Pierre de Caussade, which I read years ago. I’ll carry on with the Book of Common Prayer but cautiously and perhaps selectively. And see how it goes. 

The Prayer Book Challenge

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Advent Angel

Advent Angel

Here we go. 2 days from Advent. I have been waking up full of ideas. One is to grab the ball and run. After much thought and a couple of emails and a phone chat, I have decided to make a personal commitment to pray with the Book of Common Prayer once a day. Perhaps it will end up being the short snappy Midday Prayer every day but I plan to make it part of my day. Every day. For one year. 

I have also decided to “hang in with” the local Anglican Church, despite my not wanting to attend services there at the moment. I suffer from what may be something now called Avoidance Syndrome. I find social situations trying and need a little space right now. It is not just the newer liturgy that makes me jumpy. It is the gearing up for the event almost more that the actual event itself that makes me anxious.

So I am going to take on a year of devotion with the Book of Common Prayer because I am liking it more and more and find it helpful in a way I cannot understand, or care to understand even. 

Off I go on my little journey. Last Sunday I met my former Catholic pastor on his way to Mass. I explained that I would have to confession before I could receive Communion because I have been receiving Communion in the Anglican Church. And that because I would receive Communion in the Anglican Church again I couldn’t go to confession. Click goes the door into the Catholic Church.  I don’t make the rules.

I don’t believe in that kind of Holy Communion. So away I go on my challenge, a little frightened, a little sad, but ever trusting and hopeful that I am not abandoning God, and that God is not abandoning me. 

Waves

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It was back in April that I became an overseas member of the Prayer Book Society. I had considered becoming a member of the Prayer Book Society of Canada. Canada was cheaper, and I am Canadian. But England was the source of the Book of Common Prayer and seemed more safe.

Safe? Well, I like the old services. They are predictable. No danger of crazies. The Anglican Church where I live is great, love it, but I feel restless there. I have stopped driving to in-person communion services, and withdrawn from Zoom morning prayer services. 

So I do doubt my faith on one hand. That the superficiality of the frosting on the cake is what I want. Not the cake itself. The cake itself is  day to day life for me. Living from one day to the next. Surviving. Doing my best and so on. 

 

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The icing though is what I need to get through the days of bland cake. I love the intricate harmonies of anthems, the exquisite beauty of a well-played pipe organ, the blunt sincerity of the words of the older liturgies,  the grand spaciousness of the huge churches. Even through videos I feel so transported, so calmed, so inspired. Safe too. 

I can manage through the day with a verse of music  running through my head, a crutch, a narcotic perhaps? Rather a lifeline to God, I think. Anyway, so it be. And, so be it, too. 

 

 

At night I still read from St. John of the Cross, though I am nearly finished and his writing has become very difficult because he writes now about the unobtainable. The unobtainable for me. A life without attachments. 

Today a bit of Faure’s Requiem Offertoire runs through my head. I could push it aside and struggle all day not to hear it. But instead I recall it when I am washing dishes, typing on the computer, out walking on the icy roads.

“O Domine, Jesu Christo Rex Domine”

The Offertoire is a prayer to Christ for the souls of the dead. I have become very attached to hearing it in my mind, in spite of  St. John’s admonitions.  I just can’t let it go. Too beautiful.