Emily Lyons

Dear Friends,

Following the Episcopal calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts, today we commemorate American priest and educator Father James de Koven.

Like the founders of the Oxford movement a generation before him, de Koven was a proponent of reintroducing elements of Roman Catholic ritual into Anglicanism—what Episcopalian hagiographer James Kiefer summed up as “incense, candles, bowing and kneeling, and the like.”

These elements are a regular part of worship at many Episcopal churches today, Saint Philip’s included. But during de Koven’s lifetime, ritualism was a divisive issue. Detractors were strongly suspicious of these practices, which struck them as disconcertingly Catholic.

When I first began attending Saint Philip’s, the ritual of the Eucharist was a stumbling block for me, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that I was raised Roman Catholic.

“What are these Protestants doing waving their hands around over the altar?” I thought. The practices I took for granted as traditional in a Catholic context seemed to me, in this context, to be vaguely superstitious and meaningless choreography.

But even though intellectually I was resistant to the ritual, on a deeper level I found the familiar rhythms comforting. Because of these rhythms, I could orient myself to what was happening in the service, and my attention was repeatedly drawn back to the altar.

For de Koven, this was exactly the point of ritualism. The priest’s gestures over the bread and wine are not a magic trick to conjure the presence of Christ. Rather, they draw our attention to the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, so we may properly acknowledge and reverence that presence.

The parable from Luke assigned for James de Koven’s feast day is a tricky one. Having been dismissed by his master, an unscrupulous steward cuts a deal with his master’s debtors, in hopes that when he is turned out of his master’s house they will remember and repay his generosity. Surprisingly, the master does not punish the steward, but instead praises his shrewdness.

“You cannot serve God and wealth,” Jesus says. But ill-gotten wealth can be used for good ends, seems to be the lesson.

Perhaps we can understand ritualism in this light. Treading the middle way, we can embrace what is good from Roman Catholicism while rejecting its excesses and errors—if, in doing so, we remember, as James de Koven urged us to, “only Christ matters.”

In Christ,

—Emily