Provincial Assembly Eucharist

A Spirit of Unity: Reflections on the Provincial Assembly

Posted on July 2, 2024
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The 2024 ACNA Provincial Assembly just wrapped up in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. As the Assembly only happens every five years, this was my first. I honestly didnโ€™t know what to expect. Here at Anglican Compass, we emphasize navigating our tradition with clarity and charity. But Iโ€™m well aware that many online Anglican conversations often lack in…

Mystic Hunger and an Anglican Feast

Posted on May 9, 2024
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I was a young child the first time I encountered the sign of the cross. It must have been on TVโ€”probably watching The Sound of Music for the hundredth time. Having grown up in a staunchly non-liturgical evangelical home, I canโ€™t imagine where else I would have ever seen such a gesture. It captivated me….

Vesper Light: Reflections on the Evening Canticles

Posted on April 12, 2024
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Evening is when one of two things can happen to us as fallen children of Adam. We either thank God for the day’s victories or dread the onset of the night’s terror. We watch as the sun goes to its rest, mirroring us, or we fidget and search for ways to keep the lights on….

Death, Be Not Proud: A Reading of John Donne’s Holy Sonnet X

Posted on March 30, 2024
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“Death, Be not proud,” also known as Holy Sonnet X, is John Donne’s great poem in mockery of Death. Composed in 1609, the poem was published posthumously in 1633. It is fitting that Donne got the final word, laughing at Death from his grave. The power of the poem is its reversal of our experience….

Let Us Sing Unto the Lord: Reflections on the Venite

Posted on March 14, 2024
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Augustinian monk-turned-Magisterial Reformer Martin Luther once called the Psalms a miniature Bible. It was remarked that a Christian could find his entire life experience on display in them. This has been found true throughout the ages, and it is one of the many reasons Archbishop Cranmer thought it fit that Christians should journey through the…

Feasting on God’s Word in the Wilderness

Posted on March 7, 2024
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Have you ever needed to hear something over and over again for it to stick? Probably something a parent or your spouse reminded you of countless times before you realized it was, after all, the best thing for you? When my dad was a teenager, he was pretty rebellious, he told me. He didn’t rebel…

Lent at Antioch: The Spiritual Disciplines of the First Christians

Posted on March 5, 2024
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The first Christians did not have the word Lent, nor did they have a season of forty days before Easter. However, they did practice the spiritual disciplines of Lent: almsgiving, fasting, and prayer. In the New Testament, we see all three practices together at the church at Antioch, where believers were first called Christians. Acts…

Hymn Guide: God Be Merciful To Me

Posted on February 29, 2024
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“God be merciful to me” is a setting of Psalm 51, David’s great hymn of repentance, forgiveness, and faith. More than most hymns and worship songs, it sets forth the stark reality of human sin and turns to God as our only hope for salvation and spiritual renewal. Composed anonymously for the 1912 Psalter, it…

The Liturgical Home: Fasting as a Family

Posted on February 27, 2024
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Lent is a pilgrimage of the soul, an opportunity to walk closely with the Lord in a path of repentance and renewal. From the ashes of Ash Wednesday to the glory of Easter Sunday, Lent is a beautiful narrative of redemption that echoes the enduring love of God and his unwavering desire to draw us…

The History of the Lent Collects

Posted on February 20, 2024
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The theme of the Lent collects is human sinfulness and our need for God. We โ€œacknowledge our wretchedness.โ€ We are โ€œtempted,โ€ and our resistance is โ€œweak.โ€ We have โ€œno power in ourselves to help ourselves.โ€ We have โ€œdisordered affectionsโ€ and โ€œunruly wills.โ€ And so, what we need above all is โ€œnew and contrite hearts,โ€ for…