[Magdalen] Epiphany

[Jim Guthrie]

From: Cantor03--- via Magdalen

>in general.  When I look around during the course of the  reading,
>all eyes are riveted on their own copies in the service leaflet.   It's
>unusual to see anyone just sitting back and listening to the  readings.

They often have to read the shop-a-tree-for-Christ version because the reader is
frequently unintelligible.

>In contrast, RC congregations do not have a written copy to refer to
and are all thus by default looking up and listening.  This is  not to
imply that they understand the aural lessons better than Anglicans,
but only to point out the denominational differences.

Again -- TEC parishes do things in different ways from parish to parish. Some
depend on their group of really fine readers and do not bother with the inserts
or printing the lessons. I really think the Bulletin Inserts are an admission
that the parish's readers gifts are elsewhere.

>The only way I've experienced to get Episcopalians to pay much
>attention to spoken scripture texts is to chant them.  Then they  will
>look up from their written copies.

I used to agree -- chanted the Epistle quite a few times once upon a time. But
I've come the conclusion that chanting does not serve the same purpose as it did
when most all the congregation were illiterate and could remember the lessons
better if they were presented musically.

Just like most of us can remember lyrics to a hundred songs ( let alone a verse
or two of a hundred hymns) accurately, but could not recite a hundred Biblical
Verses. But now we can read so the catchy tune encourages what we can learn.

One of the most interesting examples of this in Anglicanism was embodied in the
change of theology from the God the Hanging Judge to God the friend of Children
(and Jesus Our Brother, for that matter). Amidst the hundreds of "hymns for
children" that spoke of death (in a time when children's deaths were so
common),came Mrs. Alexander with her "Hymns for Children" in 1848.

Many of those hymns survive today, are very popular, and I bet most of us can
sing a verse or two or all of the ones we've encountered in church over the
years. Her goal was to have a hymn for children that would teach, in great
detail, the Apostle's Creed, the Ten Commandments send the Lord's Prayer.

Think:

"Maker of Heaven and Earth" --
405 - All things bright and beautiful

"Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary" --
102 - Once in royal David's city

"Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried" --
167 - There is a green hill far away.

Who here doesn’t know these today, even if we've discounted the aim of Fanny
Alexander in favor of the nice tune and memorable in their own sake lyrics?

And apparently it worked for teaching the basics of faith -- it went through 69 
printings by the end of the Nineteenth Century. How many Hymnals today could 
claim that?

See it all on Google  Books:

https://archive.org/details/hymnsforlittlech00alex

Cheers,
Jim