Well, yesterday would have been the day we commemorate Lancelot Andrewes — if it had not been a Sunday.  I guess I would have the option of either dropping this celebration or transferring it to Saturday (along with Wilson Carlile — the founder of the Church Army).  Today I really should be celebrating Vincent de Paul and Thomas Traherne, but I’ll have to do that at home, tonight, because I don’t have information about the new saints to use here at church.

I have trouble taking anyone with a name like Lancelot seriously — he sounds like he should be a character in the Arthurian mythology.  But he seems to have been a very serious fellow (though with a good sense of humor).  Some have said that if he’d been Archbishop of Canterbury, not just a bishop, there might have been reunification with Rome during his lifetime.  He seems to have been as much the voice and moving force behind the King James translation of the bible as Cramner was the voice and moving force behind the original Book of Common Prayer.  He is said to have been the first great preacher in the Church of England.  He is supposed to have spent five hours a day in private prayers and devotions.  He wrote a book of devotions (in Latin, which he later translated into Greek — it seems to have been translated into English after his death).

I’m really into using language as it is spoken by real people in their lives.  But during his lifetime, that was the Elizabethan English of the King James Bible.  And he had a way with words.  Here are just a few excerpts from his private devotions for Sunday:

Through the tender mercies of our God, the Day-Spring from on high hath visited us …

Thou who didst send down on thy disciples on this day thy thrice-holy Spirit, withdraw not thou the gift, O Lord, from us, but renew it in us, day by day, who ask thee for it …

Open thou mine eyes that I may see, incline my heart that I may desire, order my steps that I may follow, the way of thy commandments …

Let us lift up our hearts unto the Lord, as it is meet and right, and fitting and due, in all things, at all times, in all places, by all means in every season, every spot, ever, everywhere, everyway, to make mention of thee, to worship thee, to give thanks to thee, who art the Maker, Nourisher, Preserver, Governor, Protector, Author, Finisher of all things.