The Prayer Book Society of Canada NewsletterThe Prayer Book Society of Canada Newsletter Easter 2011 Easter 2011 In Memoriam: The Revd. Dr. Robert Crouse I NSIDE By the Rt. Revd. Anthony Burton medieval worlds that now has the last tracker organ in Nova 2 The Revd. Dr. Robert Crouse, an international following. Scotia, installed it in his tiny PBSC Annual one of the most influential rural church and started a General Meeting Canadian theologians of his Many of his students baroque concert series that has generation, died Jan. 15 in discovered in themselves attracted musicians to summer 3 his rural childhood home on a vocation to holy orders. concerts for 47 years. About The PBSC – 25 Crouse Road, Crousetown, His sermons continue to be the same time he started a Years On Nova Scotia, where his family a touchstone for preachers university choir that continues had lived for more than 200 around the world. For all to flourish. 7 years. He was 80. that, it was neither his Bible Translation academic career nor his Later he would help found in Eastern He had left the house tireless voluntary service to an annual theological Malaysia 70 years before to attend the Church that set him apart conference, an academic King’s Collegiate School journal, and a publishing in Windsor, Nova Scotia, house, all of which survive where he would later be him. He gave popular judged the most brilliant talks on theology as it was student in its 263- embodied in the church year history. Academic architecture of Europe, distinction followed, which he loved to explore, with degrees from King’s, camera in hand. In his Tübingen, Toronto, and idyllic garden he cultivated Harvard; and teaching 129 varieties of roses, and posts at the universities a vast collection of herbs of Harvard, Toronto, and rare plants from which Bishop’s (Lennoxville), and he would produce for his Dalhousie. He taught for friends salads of 30 or more 32 years at King’s College. ingredients. A world authority on The Revd. Dr. Robert Crouse His roommate at Harvard Augustine and Dante, was Tom Lehrer, who wrote he was in great demand from his generation. A master “The Vatican Rag” and set the internationally as a lecturer. without a masterpiece, it was Periodic Table of Elements to For many years he served his personality that affected so song. Crouse shared this sense as the first non-Roman deeply those who knew him. of fun. With encouragement Catholic visiting professor (and his friends encouraged at the Augustinianum of the He was a quiet, somewhat him often) he would oblige Pontifical Lateran University shy man with a deep, with a comic ditty or incorrect in Rome. With James Doull he smoky voice, a wide range old anthem like the “Maple established a school of thought of interests, a great depth of Leaf Forever”. concerning the theological knowledge, and a twinkling, mischievous wit. He rescued tradition of the ancient and – Continued on page 2 Visit our web site: www.prayerbook.ca Easter 2011 The Prayer Book Society of Canada Newsletter In Memoriam – Continued from page 1 that piety, liturgy, and philosophy In a dissolving civilization he was an depend on each other. Philosophy unmovable force for stability, prophetic He had a great gift for friendship. To would be abstract without liturgy: in his determination to refocus the children he was comfortable as an liturgy put before the mind of the Church he loved on things heavenly old sweater, to those who sought him worshiper authorized images to be and eternal. When he preached at my out for spiritual counsel he was the employed by the Holy Spirit in the consecration, he spoke of Gregory the kindliest of fathers, to his students he soul. Great: “In the midst of the unsteady was a velvet hand in a velvet glove — flow of time,” said Gregory, “the man invariably merciful on those whose His home was famous for its hospitality, of God knows how to keep steady the essays came to him late. wonderful food, wine and conversation. steps of his mind” (Moralia in Job, xxxi, But most of the time it was effectively a 28, 55). But just how is that possible? The whole was greater than the sum hermitage, without telephone, internet, I think the Venerable Bede penetrated in this man of many parts. It was television or radio: carved over the the secret of it, when he reported how the interrelation of those parts that mantelpiece were the Latin words Gregory, “amid the incessant battering inspired people to want to be around St. Bernard chose for his monasteries: of worldly cares,” strove to be “fastened, him. While uncommonly rooted in “The solitary place shall be glad, the as by the cable of an anchor, to the one place, his primary community was desert shall rejoice and blossom as the peaceful shore of prayer” (Historia neither Crousetown, nor the Canadian lily … and a highway shall be there and ecclesiastica, II, I). Church, nor the Anglican Communion a way, and it shall be called the way of but the Church throughout time. One holiness” (Isa. 35:1-9). Happily an increasing quantity of had a sense that as he celebrated the Robert Crouse’s writing is appearing Eucharist the entire spiritual world A contemplative, Crouse understood online to inform and bless generations opened up before him. Paradoxically that material things conceal in their to come, and I hope that much that is it was exactly this relation to the depths a sign of their divine origin. unpublished will now be gathered and Church catholic that rooted him to his His contemplative life was the hidden receive the public attention it deserves. particular community, denomination wellspring in him to which so many and theological tradition. were instinctively drawn. His old (The Rt. Revd. Anthony Burton is the colleague Wayne Hankey, to whom I He was not the kind of Anglo-Catholic rector of the Church of the Incarnation, owe some of these observations, wrote who would set aside the insights of the Dallas, Texas. This article originally on his passing: “No student of his ever Reformation, but saw them as necessary appeared in “The Living Church”, January ceases to hear him and so to walk in the moments under the providence of God 28, 2011.) presence of the Logos”. for Christian theology. He understood PBSC ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING The Annual General Meeting of the Prayer Book Society of Canada will be held on Saturday, June 25, 2011, at St. George’s (Round) Church in Halifax, beginning at 2:00 PM. The annual Chairman’s and Treasurer’s reports will be presented, and the meeting will elect up to fifteen Councillors to serve as members of the National Council alongside the officers and the branch chairmen. The meeting will conclude with Evensong at 4:00 PM. Nominations are invited for the positions of National Chairman, Vice-Chairmen, Treasurer, Membership Secretary and Recording Secretary. Nominations for these positions must be received by the end of April, since these officers are elected by the branch chairmen prior to the AGM. Nominations are also invited for the positions of Councillor and Honorary President, and these may be either submitted beforehand or presented at the AGM. Nominees for all positions must be members of the PBSC, and nominations require a mover and a seconder, both of whom must also be members of the PBSC. Nominations are to be sent to the national Recording Secretary, Mr. Ronald Bentley, at 737 Hot Springs Way, Gloucester, Ontario, K1V 1W8. E-mail: [email protected]. 2 Visit our web site: www.prayerbook.ca The Prayer Book Society of Canada Newsletter Easter 2011 The PBSC – 25 Years On By Desmond Scotchmer Bartholomew’s Church in Toronto, the (BAS p.10); “theology as the statement I am sitting down to write this with two Revd. Ken Scott, a retired clergyman of the Church’s belief is drawn from events on my mind: one is the founding who had helped found Royal St the liturgy”. It followed, then, that the of the Prayer Book Society of Canada, George’s School in Toronto, and Jack purpose of the introduction of the BAS, 25 years ago, the other the recent death Webb, a retired school principal. Out since it involved such radical change to of the Revd. Dr Robert Crouse. of their own pockets, they had put liturgy, must also be to change doctrine! up the money for a series of excellent Beginnings lectures on the Book of Common In the BAS, the relationship between The origins of the PBSC are, of course, Prayer at St Paul’s Bloor Street, Toronto. church and Scripture is radically connected deeply with the arrival of And so it was in January 1986 that reinterpreted, with the Scriptures the Book of Alternative Services. I I sat down with four others at the becoming no more than “a repository of remember clearly the first time I picked University of Toronto Faculty Club, to the Church’s symbols of life and faith”. up a copy of the book: a cursory glance organize an infant Prayer Book Society The implication is clear: as no more through it filled me with alarm. It was of Canada. Ken Scott became our first than a “repository” of “symbols”, what clear to me that the book was intended President, Jack Webb our first Treasurer, was regarded by previous generations to re-shape Anglicanism, and I didn’t Wayne Hankey our Vice President of Anglicans (indeed, by orthodox much like what I saw. I expressed my and theological advisor, Fr Greene our Christians everywhere, and in all ages) concerns to church-going friends, and chief gadfly and cheerer-on.