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The appointed Psalm reading for Christmas Day is Psalm 89:1-30. In the Podcast Homily I explore the traditional understanding of the Psalm, especially its Christological symbolism. I’ve attached three illustrations. The first is an illumination on Psalm 89, verses 6 to 14a, from the Stuttgart Psalter, in which Christ stands at center with King David at left and two Hebrew scholars on the right. The second is the upper portion of an 11th C. mosaic of Isaiah at Neo Moni Monastery, Chios, Greece. The third is an illumination of Luke writing his Gospel from the Ada Gospels. The Podcast Homily for the series will be posted on both the Welcome/Home page and the Podcast Homilies – Morning Prayer pages by the end of the day on Friday, Dec. 23rd.

Stuttgart Psalter, circa 820 A.D., Cod. Bibl. Fol.23, Folio 103v, Wurttembergische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart, Germany. The image is used with Psalm 89 in the AIC Bookstore Publication, The Prayer Book Psalter: Picture Book Edition, to be published early in 2023 A.D. As it stands now the book will have 448 pages with over 200 illustrations from 820 A.D. to the 16th C.

I’m also pleased to report progress on the proposed book, The Prayer Book Psalter: Picture Book Edition. Three proof copies are in circulation for purposes of proof-reading and general commentary. It seems it is possible to publish the book in a single volume. It is now possible that the book could be available earlier in A.D. 2023 than I thought possible.

Thank you for supporting the AIC into its second decade on the Web. On behalf of everyone associated with the AIC, I wish each of you a Merry Christmas.

The Podcast Homily for Fourth Sunday in Advent, now linked from the Welcome and Podcast Homiles-Morning Prayer pages, is focused on the appointed Psalm reading for the day, Psalm 80, a lament by the sons of Asaph concerning bad things happening to the faithful and the endurance of those who maintain their faith in the Lord. This image will be used on page 232 of the new AIC Bookstore Publication, The Prayer Book Psalter: Picture Book Edition, to be published during Epiphany season 2023 A.D. The book in its present form has 163 images from the Stuttgart Psalter plus another 49 images from twenty-two other Psalters or Books of Hours from the 10th to the 16th C.

The Podcast Homily for Second Sunday in Advent was uploaded to our Podbean site earlier today. There are links to it on the Podcast Homilies-Morning Prayer and Welcome pages.

The appointed Psalm is Psalm 25 and the illustration for the episode is from the Psalter of Henry VIII, made for King Henry in southeast England, probably London, between 1540 and 1541. Some scholars date the work to a decade or more earlier.

Early next year I expect to publish a companion book with about 450 pages in two volumes, with illustrations from 23 historic documents. In its present form there are illustrations of pages from eight Psalms from the Psalter of Henry VIII. For each Psalm, the opening letter will be a colored scroll and initial designed by Corkie Shibley for this publication. I’ve been busy this week inserting the Scroll/Initial letter in the book.

As always, I thank you for interest in the AIC and its web site. Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

The first Podcast Homily in our new series of homilies based on the Psalm reading for each Sunday or selected Feast Day is now linked from both the Welcome page and the Podcast Homilies for Morning Prayer pages. We’re having a technical difficulty that resulted from our name change earlier this year and are working with Podbean on a solution. If you get Podbean’s 404 Error message, please click on the suggested alternative: front page.

Image: Page from the Stuttgart Psalter, Cod. bibl. fol.23, Folio 62r, Wurttembergische Landesbibliothek, Stuttgart, Germany. circa 820 A.D.

The Psalm reading appointed for First Sunday in Advent is Psalm 50, a Psalm of David. I’ve attached an image related to Psalm 50 from the Stuttgart Psalter, produced in the Scriptorium at the Abbey of Saint-German des Pres, Paris, France, in 820 A.D. The Abbey enjoyed the personal patronage of the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne (or Charles Magnus, Charles the Great). Charlemagne was crowned as Holy Roman Emperor on Christmas Day, 800 A.D. At his side was his principal religious mentor, the Blessed Alcuin of York. He was the first Holy Roman Emperor in Europe since the sacking of Rome by the Vandals in the mid-5th C.

In association with this series of Podcast Homilies for Morning Prayer, the AIC Bookstore will publish a companion volume early in 2023 A.D. The present plan is for two volumes of about 225 pages each. Volume 1 will be focused on Psalm 1 to Psalm 75. It will contain a Preface and an Appendix with Bibliography and list of Sources of Illustrations. With each Psalm there will be an illustration from one of 23 historic sources from 820 A.D. to the 17th C..

Thank you for your interest in the AIC ministry. Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

I’ve been very busy assembling material for the planned Podast Homilies for Morning Prayer series. So far, I have material for the first four Podcasts, all for the Sundays in Advent. Since the Podcasts are audio files, I’ve decided to prepare visual material as companions to the MP3 podcasts. For each Podcast Homily I will post a Blog entry with illustrations/illuminations based on the actual Psalm that is read in the Podcast or closely-related material. For this blog, I thought to provide readers with a glimpse of the quality of material I have assembled.

In the illuminated Psalters that were popular in continental Europe and England beginning around the second half of the 9th C., most of the illuminations were focused on events in only a select, small number of Psalms. Among the most common were Psalms 1, 23, 27, 39, 44, 52, 69, 80, 97, 110, 138 and 145. Many of these mark the traditional start of each of the five books of the Psalms. The numbers can be very confusing. The Vulgate Bible, the official Bible of the Roman Catholic Church since the Council of Trent, merged Psalms 8 and 9 into a single Psalm, which has the effect of making Psalms 10 t0 150 be off by one number compared to the Book of Common Prayer version. Some libraries mark the pages with Vulgate numbers but others use the English system, and one can only be certain by comparing the opening words in Latin in the BCP with the document.

It’s early days for the project but I expect to publish the Homily for First Sunday in Advent, which in 2022 is Nov. 27th, about a week before the official start of Advent and then publish one per week through the season, hopefully always being one month ahead of need!

The AIC Bookstore’s publication for this Fall and early Winter, Christmas: The Nativity of Our Lord in Scripture, Art & Christian Tradition is now available in paperback (8.5 x 8.5″ 112 illustrations in 172 pages) using the link to my Amazon Author Central page: https://amazon.com/author/ronald-e-shibley. Royalties from all AIC publications are contributed to the AIC.

Thank you for you continuing interest and support. Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

I received notice via email this morning that Christmas: The Nativity of Our Lord in Scripture, Art & Christian Tradition is now available through my Amazon Author Central page (linked from this site at the bottom of the Welcome page.

My wife and I just returned from a very relaxing vacation at our daughter’s rental house in Frisco, N.C. The house is called Sounds Frisky. rented through Surf or Sound Realty. It is the last house on the last street in Frisco before crossing the road along Sandy Bay on NC 12 headed toward Hatteras Village. Above are two views from the 3rd floor deck. The first view sweeps from the view south toward the Atlantic Ocean and runs 180 degrees toward the northward view across Pamlico Sound. Sandy Bay and Hatteras village are straight ahead from the right center. The second view is from the back deck (with a 90 degree turn, showing more of Pamlico Sound starting the with private beach (and private dock) behind the house toward Buxton (site of Hatteras Light) and Avon.

Upon our return I discovered an error in the cover of Christmas: The Nativity of Our Lord in Scripture, Art & Christian Tradition, the newest publication of the AIC Bookstore. The correct cover was used earlier in this blog but the first potential cover, a stained glass window by F. X. Zettler in Stockholm, Sweden, was used in the first edition. The actual cover is a much bigger window, at a location not disclosed by the photographer, showing many more scenes of the Nativity. I have corrected the book, which should be available again in the next couple of days. Apologies for the error.

Finally, I’ve been working on the first homilies in the new series focused on the Psalm reading appointed for Morning Prayer. I hope that I can find an example of historic art to be posted on this blog annoucing each Podcast.

As always, thank you for your interest and support.

A new Church Year begins on First Sunday in Advent, which is always the Sunday closest to Nov. 30th, the Feast of St. Andrew. With the start of the new Church Year, I will introduce a new series of Podcast Homilies for Morning Prayer. Since each of the existing Podcast Homilies on this site includes references to the appointed Epistle or “For the Epistle” reading, these new homilies will be focused on themes found in the appointed Psalm reading for the day in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer. In this new series I will explore both the theological and historical importance of each set of Psalm verses, especially looking for verses traditionally considered as evidence of Christ in the Psalms.

These new Podcast Homilies will be produced beginning in early November, but will only appear in conjunction with the appropriate Sunday. My plan is to stay about four weeks ahead of the calendar. Where possible, the homilies will include art work from the many English Psalters of the period around the 10th to the 15th C. This rich treasure of Christian art is rarely seen in the 21st C. Their appearance is made possible by the digitization of the collections of major libraries in England, the United States and continental Europe. I will use illumnations from several of these Psalters in the upcoming AIC Bookstore Publication, Easter: The Resurrection of Our Lord in Scripture, Art & Christian Tradition.

As always, thank you for your interest and support of this online ministry. Glory be to God for all things! Amen!

Last week’s blog post announced the release of the AIC Bookstore’s 18th publication, Christmas: The Nativity of Our Lord in Scripture, Art & Christian Tradition. What I failed to do was to add the book information to the Virtual Bookstore page. I’ll be changing the graphic re the Bookstore to reflect the newest book.

And I am pleased to announce that work is well underway on the volume celebrating Easter. The Easter volume will have about 100 illustrations from the 6th to the 20th C., presented in about 140-150 pages. I will share more about it later this year.

As always, thank you for your interest and support. Glory be to God of all things! Amen!