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Fr John Hunwicke
was for nearly three decades at Lancing College; where he taught Latin and Greek language and literature, was Head of Theology, and Assistant Chaplain. He has served three curacies, been a Parish Priest, and Senior Research Fellow at Pusey House in Oxford. Now incardinated into the Personal Ordinariate of our Lady of Walsingham, he has his base within the Oxford Ordinariate Group. This blog now replaces the Blog Father Hunwicke's Liturgical Notes. Its main purpose is to explore, ad mentem Summi Pontificis, the possibilitiesfor mutual enrichment between three forms of the Roman Rite: the Extraordinary Form, the Ordinary Form, and the Anglican Use. I have been told that my previous blog was disliked because of some the comments on the 'thread'. I take the point. In this blog, all comments will be moderated, and anything which is even implicitly critical of the English Hierarchy or of any member of it, will not be published.
NEW: Click below to order the 2013 ORDO
The purpose of this ORDO is to serve the needs of both Anglicans and Roman Catholics. For the former it provides for the recitation of Morning and Evening Prayer and the celebration of Holy Communion in accordance with modern forms authorised or encouraged in the Provinces of Canterbury and York. These forms are selected, arranged, and interpreted in the the spirit of what has become generally customary in Western Christendom since the Second Vatican Council; but notes draw attention to Orthodox insights. It also provides a full Calendar according to the modern Roman Rite, together with explanatory and catechetical notes. Anglicans who prefer forms of Liturgy based on the Book of Common Prayer will find a lectionary designed for use with the BCP.
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Raffaello's Madonna di Foligno
The original once graced the high altar of the church of Sancta Maria in Ara Coeli on the Capitoline Hill. A fine copy is at the centre of the great baroque reredos at S Thomas the Martyr, Oxford.
8 comments:
Oh yes Father, it was a great big affair right smack dab in the middle of things on a very, very lofty platform - very Calvinesque - something like the pulpit in Moby Dick.
I seem to remember that it was an African custom for the preacher to sit while the congregation stood. Supposedly this is why Augustine's later sermons are shorter; he was having mercy on his congregation.
Bishops only were permitted to preach—St Augustine was given extraordinary permission while still only a priest.
So I assume that if Augustine was a bishop at the time, he was sitting on his throne to preach.
Correction: Fr Zed's doctoral subject IS St Augustine; 'cause Fr Zed ain't got no doctorate. Just like St Augustine didnee have no pulpit...
In his later years, when Bishop Eric Kemp arrived to pontificate at Lancing, his chaplain would quietly explain "We preach sitting now .... just like the Holy Father ..."
Sometimes Catholics talk of the pulpit when they may mean pretty well anything on the 'sanctuary' (which we usually call the 'altar'!) so it could have meant a lectern or a platform near/on/attached-to/associated with the sanctuary. But then again it might not ...
Augustine does refer to a movable pulpit, which I imagine had some sort of sounding board attached to help him better be heard...
I was told of this by a Dominican, but don't have any proof to hand - I suppose one could search his online opera omnia for "pulpitum"...
Thanks most recently to Uwe Michael Lang, we have this wonderful image of S. Augustine concluding every sermon with "Turning towards the Lord," and actually turning from the people toward the Altar as he says so. I can picture a great congregation then thundering to its feet, although in those days they were probably afoot anyway.
I'm sure Fr Zed's comment was a slip of the finger. I remember whilst writing my dissertation quite some time ago (on mediaeval religion) I used the phrase 'the man in the pew.' Historically inaccurate, of course, but I knew what I meant.
Still, a lesson to think when we type.
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