Bit of Bitter

Second Sunday of Advent

Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to
preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation:
Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins,
that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our
Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy
Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Seeing this Collect, we know the gospel reading for the day will be about the coming of John the Baptist, and indeed it is. In fact, the Gradual for the day, the response to the Old Testament reading, is not a psalm as usual, but the Benedictus Dominus Deus, the Song of Zechariah. Singing it to Anglican Chant was a regular part of Morning Prayer. 

Benedictus Dominus Deus. St. Luke i. 68. 

BLESSED be the Lord God of Israel; * for he hath

visited and redeemed his people; And hath raised up a mighty salvation for us, * in the house of his servant David; 

As he spake by the mouth of his holy Prophets, * which

have been since the world began; That we should be saved from our enemies, * and from the hand of all that hate us. 

To perform the mercy promised to our forefathers, * and

to remember his holy covenant; To perform the oath which he sware to our forefather Abraham, * that he would give us;

That we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies * might serve him without fear; In holiness and righteousness before him, * all the days of our life.

And thou, child, shalt be called the prophet of the Highest: * for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways;

To give knowledge of salvation unto his people * for the remission of their sins,

Through the tender mercy of our God; * whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us; To give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death, * and to guide our feet into the way of peace.

There was a time when one could rightly say that “Anglicanism is a sound, a sound in worship.” It is no longer true, and the Episcopal Church’s abandonment of proper Anglican Chant is a tragedy. A tragedy for the church’s identification as we remolded ourselves into plain vanilla, and a personal tragedy for me.

TW+