The Ven. Andrew Brashier is an assisting priest at Christ the King Anglican Church in the Anglican Diocese of the South. He regularly writes on all things Anglican, with a particular interest in catechesis, the traditional prayer book, and practicalities in living what he calls “the prayerbook life” on his substack (https://throughamirrordarkly.substack.com/). He regularly republishes Anglican classics and each are available on Amazon: https://tinyurl.com/4a9jmtwc
Living within the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA) can be quite confusing. Diocese to diocese (even parish to parish within the same metro area) often results in the jarring reality that doctrine differs across the province. This is magnified globally across Anglicanism. It becomes quite wearisome and can edge wary parishioners and clergy alike…
Lent begins ashless in the classic prayerbooks. The trend for well over a century has been to bring back the ashes, which I do not personally object to. However, I wish we moved towards placing ashes upon the crown of our heads instead of marking a cross on our foreheads, as was common in…
Do the red, read the black. It’s the common refrain of long-time Anglicans who remember a time when the Book of Common Prayer’s rubrics were printed in red and the prayers in black. This long-lost tradition makes it easier for clergy and laity to discern what is prayed and what acts are required. However, contemporary…
The one-year Sunday and holy day lectionary educated, catechized, and marked the days year by year and century by century for the Western Church. When the traditional one-year lectionary was replaced during mid-20th-century prayer book revisionism, we lost the pattern of catechesis and marking of time that formed and molded Western Christianity for well over…
In order to rebuild and restore what is lost, we must provide a firm and steady foundation upon the rock of Christ in a world gone mad. We cannot build new institutions, nor trust old ones, unless the men and women are working from a solid discipline and desire to become saintly and not merely saints-in-name-only….
Resetting, Reforming, Renewing in Epiphany Over the past year, I have taken up the 1662 Book of Common Prayer’s daily office lectionary.1 It has a simplistic pattern long lost in the American tradition, namely, the lessons are organized by chapter, thereby making it easier for clergy and laity alike to keep up with the readings with…
Pursuing Christ through the Prayerbook Life: A Catechetical Resource North American Anglicanism has long faced an identity crisis. Anglicanism has reinvented itself into three streams, old catholicism, Presbyterianism with prayerbooks, etc. Trendy soundbites are the extent of the theology of clergy and laity alike, typically ranging from an ambiguous and muddy “via media” between Rome…
“I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (Romans 12:1 ESV). St. Paul is the theologian of the body. How we use our the bodies our Maker gives us reflects our faith in Him…
God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds. Hebrews 1:1 KJV One of the great, if not…
The Sunday Next before Advent Stir up, we beseech thee, O Lord, the wills of thy faithful people; that they, plenteously bringing forth the fruit of good works, may of thee be plenteously rewarded; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Jesus shall reign where’er the sun Does his successive journeys run; His kingdom stretch from…