Attribution of a Prayer

Today, the commencement speaker) at my graduation, the Administrator of NASA, (did you know he is an Episcopalian?) quoted from the Prayers of the People of The Book of Common Prayer. Or so he claimed... (I know the Prayers of the People well enough to tell his attribution was incorrect).

I initially thought it was a prayer from Enriching Our Worship . My father thought it was from the New Zealand Prayer Book. A little work with Google suggested It was a slightly modernized version of a prayer of Sir Francis Drake re-posted here and quoted as such in very recently published collections of prayers. (Other prayers are attributed to Drake, including an adaptation of one of his prayers used for propaganda purposes during World War II.)

The earliest reference I can find to the prayer is in a 1985 issue of the newsletter of the National Cathedral. It's quoted in The Witness the next year. Unfortunately, I can't figure out to whom the prayer was attributed in those publications. But its origins do lie at the door of the Episcopal Church, just not in The Book of Common Prayer .

Fulmen E Cantuaria Salutandum Est Fulgure Ex America

Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby. --Hebrews 12:11

I met Katherine Grieb once. She is an exceptionally well-spoken and charming woman of a certain age. I am unsure whether I would like to be the Secretary-General of the Anglican Communion, Ken Kearon, right now. If Katherine Grieb is still a consultant to the many-lettered acronymous beast from which she has been partially disaffiliated, he still might have to look her in the face once in a while. Hopefully, by that time, he will have discovered that there is all manner of Anglican border crossing occurring in this country. I need only lift mine eyes unto the hills to see ecclesiastical Bolivia, just a few kilometers to my west.

A long time ago, Rev. Fr. Prof. Dr. AKMA asserted it was necessary that he be in communion with Canterbury and that he might consider leaving the Episcopal Church to continue in that communion. Well, while the present discipline measure of the Archbishop of Canterbury is not a full rupture of communion, it is clear that whatever rupture has been made, it is against the Episcopal Church as a whole. You cannot obey the moratoria on your own, as the Bishop of Montana has learned, and expect to remain in +Rowan Cantuar's good graces.

For the moment, I am willing to bear all things for Christ's sake. If it is necessary to maintain a Communion by a rather niggling sort of disapprobation once in a while, I am willing not to stir up a stink, being in the main unaffected by it and fairly sure that those "fairly" or unfairly injured by this action suffer no physical harm. I am far more concerned that this kind of disapprobation is not also applied to those who stymie the Communion-wide Listening Process by remaining neutral or actively encouraging gays and lesbians to remain in fear and concealment.

But I will allow our gracious Primate to set the terms of his own discipline within reason. If the border crossing actions of Rwanda, the Southern Cone, and Nigeria (and others unknown to this blogger) are not met with similar discipline, I would very much like there to be a stink. Here's the form it could take:

1. Funding by General Convention of the Anglican Communion Office and similar organs should be cut off entirely. Big fat goose egg. Money should be transferred to Episcopal Relief and Development or other line items connected with joint evangelism or relief work with other Provinces of the Communion. If a little of this money ended up in the hands of Changing Attitude Nigeria or Integrity Uganda, so be it.

2. We should encourage our brothers and sisters in the Church of England to pursue whatever means the Archbishop of Canterbury might be censured, disciplined, or otherwise suffer consequences through action of General Synod or Parliament.

3. The faculties of the Archbishop of Canterbury or any of the college of Bishops in the Church of England unwilling to disavow his iniquitous, inequitable, and hypocritical (and still entirely potential) actions should not be honored in the United States.

We Anglicans claim to belong the particular churches of particular places that is part of One visible and invisible Church whose Head is Jesus Christ. When we do naughty things to one another, we ought not to bear it as divine sanction or the fury of the powers but as the actions of our fellow sinners that require resistance. Some say that the Archbishop of Canterbury thinks himself a Pope. Well, we have no Pope but Our Father in Heaven. +Rowan Cantuar is Our Primate and so subject to our discipline as we are to his.