spirituality

Today, as we continue working through prayers from Christian Eucharistic liturgies we come to one of the most venerable and beloved prayers from the Anglican tradition, known as the Collect for Purity. While its most early attestation is from continental Europe in the 10th century, the prayer is most strongly associated with England, appearing in … Continue reading Cleanse the Thoughts of Our Hearts: The Collect for Purity

I write often — because the Gospels speak often — about the difference between the kingdoms of this world and the Kingdom of God. The former are about the domination of the many for the benefit of the few, and are run on fear and violence and a desire for control masquerading under the name … Continue reading Blessed is the Kingdom!

I mentioned the other day that for several centuries, Morning Prayer became the normal form of Sunday morning worship in much of the Anglican world. Trying to go back to the more traditional, Eucharistically-focused model of worship, sparked an inevitable backlash — though an ironic one, since the move towards the more traditional model was … Continue reading Like Lost Sheep: General Confession, Morning Prayer

It’s safe to say that we live in a hedonistic society. Our culture values ease, comfort, and pleasure above all else. What makes this interesting to me is that we may be the first society to actually try this. Most ancient societies rejected hedonism as a viable option, and it wasn’t because they valued discomfort … Continue reading What Satisfies: A Reflection on John 4:5-42

Today we shift gears from the evening and nighttime prayers to start morning prayers, and specifically the Anglican Morning Prayer tradition, which combined elements of different morning-time prayers of the Hours. One of the strange peculiarities of Anglican worship was that for several centuries, its Sunday morning liturgical life was dominated by Morning Prayer, with … Continue reading The Sheep of His Hand: The Venite