Ship of Fools: BCP First Day of Lent...

Thread: BCP First Day of Lent... Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

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Posted by Hooker's Trick (# 89) on :

...commonly called Ash Wednesday.

This territory may have been trod before, but if so I don't remember the answer.

What did Ash Wednesday services look like when celebrated according to the BCP prior to the availability of alternative/ supplementary liturgies (imposition of ashes).

One would assume surplice & tippet Holy Communion service.

The 1928 US BCP includes a "Penitential Office for Ash Wednesday" but no ashes, even though I would imagine this is about the time they were creeping in.

So what did we do before ashes, and when did we get them. All these ruminations occurred to me during the very tedious homily at the mid-day Ash Wednesday service I attended today.

Posted by american piskie (# 593) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Hooker's Trick:
...commonly called Ash Wednesday.

This territory may have been trod before, but if so I don't remember the answer.

What did Ash Wednesday services look like when celebrated according to the BCP prior to the availability of alternative/ supplementary liturgies (imposition of ashes).

One would assume surplice & tippet Holy Communion service.

The 1928 US BCP includes a "Penitential Office for Ash Wednesday" but no ashes, even though I would imagine this is about the time they were creeping in.

So what did we do before ashes, and when did we get them. All these ruminations occurred to me during the very tedious homily at the mid-day Ash Wednesday service I attended today.

Well there was the Commination Service for starters...

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :

While you will find the Commination in the 1662 BCP, I can't find it historically in the contents of any of the previous American editions of the BCP. I don't think it was ever part of the liturgy of PECUSA/ECUSA/TEC.

In 1662 it is oddly placed toward the back of the book, just after the Churching of Women.

Posted by leo (# 1458) on :

Also the litany - though that was ordered for any Wednesday.

Posted by Enoch (# 14322) on :

I've never experienced the Commination Service. It's always been one of those things like Golden Numbers, Epacts and the Table of Kindred and Affinity which bored adolescents read to while away sermons. I don't know when it stopped being used.

By the time of my youth, the Litany was becoming a bit rare, though I actually greatly value the CW one. However, I've experienced the BCP Litany sung on Ash Wednesday within the last 15 years or so. Here, BCP means the real 1662 one by the way; we know no other.

Ashing didn't really spread in the CofE until quite recently. My memory would imagine from the end of the 1980s. Wednesday being a working day, before that Ash Wednesday was normally marked by a straightforward evening Communion Service, probably with two or even three hymns, using the prescribed collect, epistle and gospel, much as Ascension Day is. The sermon was quite likely to be the first event in a Lent series of talks, house groups or whatever.

Posted by Hooker's Trick (# 89) on :

The 'Penitential Office' in the 1928 BCP indicates it may be appended to the Litany or used in Morning or Evening Prayer.

If one heeded the rubrics and recited the Litany during Mattins on Ash Wednesday, with the insertion of the Penitential Office, one would be on one's knees for a very long time indeed.

Posted by Thurible (# 3206) on :

We used the Commination as the introduction to the blessing and imposition of ashes last night.

Thurible

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :

I'm rather amazed to read that the 1662 Commination was used at a shack sufficiently high up the candle for our venerable Thurible. My own experience of Ash Wed in the CofE is whatever rite for the day that Common Worship provides (always printed in the service leaflet, however). It seems pretty consistent with the Ash Wed rite supplied by the TEC 1979 BCP. Although the 1928 BCP was still the official liturgy of TEC in my youth, I don't believe I've ever encountered the Ash Wed penitential rite from that book actually being used -- it seems to me that it was always a basic Mass, with blessing and imposition of ashes inserted somewhere in the proanaphora.

The Commination in 1662 strikes the modern mind as excessively negative; it's hard for me to imagine it being used in any but the most doggedly 1662 parishes, of which I doubt there could be many.

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :

Mea culpa -- I guess the contemporary CofE Ash Wednesday liturgy is in Times and Seasons, rather than Common Worship. The basic structure, content, and much of the wording are pretty consistent between the Ash Wed. rites in TEC's 1979 BCP and Times and Seasons, though the latter seems to be a bit more of a pick-and-choose resource than the more parsimonious rite in the '79 BCP.

My guess is that prior to the Oxford Movement and subsequent rise of "ritualism", the CofE service would have been the daily office and commination, quite possibly with the litany in some places; and in TEC, the daily office with litany perhaps, since there was no penitential office specifically appropriate to Ash Wednesday until the introduction of the 1928 BCP. However, by 1928, TEC had already been substantially influenced by the Anglo-Catholic movement and "ritualism" more generally, so I imagine you would have had ashing many places and a celebration of the Holy Communion very widely the norm for the day. I'm not sure the penitential office in the American '28 ever had much popularity or saw a great deal of use.

Posted by Basilica (# 16965) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Mea culpa -- I guess the contemporary CofE Ash Wednesday liturgy is in Times and Seasons, rather than Common Worship. The basic structure, content, and much of the wording are pretty consistent between the Ash Wed. rites in TEC's 1979 BCP and Times and Seasons, though the latter seems to be a bit more of a pick-and-choose resource than the more parsimonious rite in the '79 BCP.

Times and Seasons is part of Common Worship. Common Worship is essentially a library. The main volume is Common Worship: Principal Services. Much seasonal material is in Common Worship: Times and Seasons. Marriage/funerals are in Common Worship: Pastoral Services.

There are others. Many others. I'd love to know who buys them all.

Posted by Magic Wand (# 4227) on :

In the parish I grew up in (suburban Philadelphia, mid-1980s) the rector was a 1928-or-bust man, so for Ash Wednesday the invariable order was Holy Communion at 10 a.m. (surplice and stole) and Evening Prayer, Litany, and the Penitential Office at 7:30 p.m. (surplice and scarf). No ashes were blessed/imposed at either service.

Posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras (# 11274) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Magic Wand:
In the parish I grew up in (suburban Philadelphia, mid-1980s) the rector was a 1928-or-bust man, so for Ash Wednesday the invariable order was Holy Communion at 10 a.m. (surplice and stole) and Evening Prayer, Litany, and the Penitential Office at 7:30 p.m. (surplice and scarf). No ashes were blessed/imposed at either service.

I have been surprised to find recently from RL conversation that much old fashioned low church practice survived in Philadelphia (and perhaps the surrounding Diocese of Pennsylvania) into relatively recent times. Quite surprised to have learnt this -- it sounds like my imaginings of the Diocese of Virginia. I'm confronted by what I didn't know that I thought I knew [Confused]

Posted by Thurible (# 3206) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
I'm rather amazed to read that the 1662 Commination was used at a shack sufficiently high up the candle for our venerable Thurible.

Baptisms and weddings too - although sometimes Series One for weddings. Not sure about funerals - the ones I'm aware of have generally been requiems.

Thurible

Posted by american piskie (# 593) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
the CofE service would have been the daily office and commination, quite possibly with the litany in some places;

I seem to remember in 1964-ish Commination, Litany, Mattins, at 6 (perhaps 5.30?) and Communion at the more normal 8.

Apart from the timing, it was said not to be the officiant's choice; but malicious persons annually reminded him of his obligations to provide daily services according to the rites of the C of E.

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