Letโs stop using wafers! Letโs return to regular bread. Pita bread from the store is better than wafers from an online store, but homemade bread is even better!
46 Theses on Lectio Divina
There are many excellent books on Lectio Divina, the sacred reading of Scripture. The problem with these books is that they are booksโlong and easily divorced from the actual contemplative practice. Instead, I offer a list of 46 โthesesโ or โchaptersโ on Lectio Divina. Each thesis is short, distilling thoughts and quotations into a single…
A Rule of Life: What It Is and How to Make One
What is a Rule of Life? Monks living in community live by a common Rule. Benedictine monks, for instance, live by the Rule of St. Benedict. The Rule governs every element of a monkโs life: when they sleep, work, pray, and eat, as well as how they work out community issues, etc. Oblates of monasteriesโlay…
A Self-Examination of Sin with the 10 Commandments
Try to be as practical as possible in making your list of sins in preparation for confession. Think concretely. Think about what several sins may have been involved in a single act. Be sure to distinguish proclivities and temptations to sin from actual acts of sin (acts that may be mental or physical). If there is ambiguity, feel free…
How to Make a Self-Examination of Sin
When a leech wants to snack on your leg, it secretes a local anesthetic so you do not become aware of its bite. This way, the leech can remain undetected and keep leeching. Leeches are horrible critters; I only bring them up as an analogyโsin is the same way. When we commit a sin, we…
E.B. Pusey: Knowing and Reading Oxford’s Priest-Scholar
The Life of E.B. Pusey Early Life Edward Bouverie Pusey was born in 1800 to a devout aristocratic family. Late in his life, when he was famous (and infamous) as a great theologian, he would often say that all of his theological convictions had their root in the faith that he learned from his mother…
Explaining Our New Prayer Book
When the first Book of Common Prayer was released on Pentecost in the year 1549, it was such a shock to the liturgical and theological intuitions of some portions of the Church in England that riots and rebellions broke out over the matter. Especially in Norfolk and in Devon, and most memorably in the city…
Where Did Christ Descend To? The Rationale Behind the BCP 2019โs Translation of the Apostlesโ Creed
Where did Christ descend to? If you worshiped in an Anglican Church between 1552 (when the Creed was first printed in full in the Prayer Book) and 1979 you would answer โhe descended to hellโ because in the Apostlesโ Creed as you would have learned it, that is what it says: โ[He] was crucified, dead,…
The Bible in the Book of Common Prayer
From its inception in 1549, the Book of Common Prayer (BCP) has always been a text intertwined with the text of the Bible. Many of the prayers utilize phrases that have been extracted from the Bible. Verses of the Bible are quoted directly (for example, Opening Sentences in the Daily Office and Offertory Sentences in…