As I was reading the Collect for this momentous feast day that falls on August 6, I came across the wonderfully  descriptive word “glistering,” which refers to Christ’s “raiment,” another word appropriate to the occasion.  A Talking Point beloved to Episcopal Church liberals is that no one today understands the “Elizabethan” language of this classic Prayer Book. Oh, come on! Even if we laypersons have never heard or seen these words in today’s classrooms, we easily can put them in context, and be spiritually the richer for it.

Titian’s The Transfiguration: Both human and divine, Christ stands between earth and heaven, one foot on solid rock, the other floating above.

Imagine Christ as he reveals his divinity to disciples Peter, John, and James. What word best describes what he is wearing? Robe? Outfit? Clothing? Reach for a word that describes a garment not to be found anywhere in a box store, the Miracle Mile, or Fifth Avenue. “Raiment” is the right word, evoking something exceptional and glorious. This man is like no other. He is among us, yet above us.

And “glistering!” You have to love this word. Again, imagine Christ on the holy mountain, his Father’s voice booming out of a cloud: “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”

Glittering” doesn’t begin to describe the majesty of Christ’s raiment at this moment; nor does “glistening,” “gleaming,” “glowing,” “shining,” “shimmering,” and so on. “Coruscating” and “lambent” come close, but — no. It has to be “glistering,” a combination of all these earthly adjectives and then some. Regard the texture, the play of light with every movement, now twinkling, now flashing, now all of the above.

It can only be “glistering.”

Sure, we seldom if ever use words like this in our daily speech or writing. That’s the point. We use great words of reverence and supplication to address God, who is greater than family, friend, and neighbor, to whom we speak a more casual language. And, no matter what radical revisionists imply about Episcopalians being too dim-witted to understand words that elevate us above the mundane, I’d wager that every 12-year-old who knows how to read understands exactly what words like this mean: Vouchsafe, beseech,  multitude, oblation, and, yes, glistering. From pre-teen to 100-plus, we who read, memorize, speak, and believe these words understand them exactly.

Consider this: If the 1928 Book of Common Prayer is not to be taught to our confirmands as the standard for worship in the Episcopal Church, why teach them Shakespeare in our schools? Why do people throng to performances of Shakespeare’s plays in theaters during the winter and under the stars in summer? Why are students asked to memorize and recite passages from the plays? They live today because they are anything but obsolete. They speak to the human condition.

Learning Shakespeare elevates us above the commonplace. His work reveals human nature to us and makes us examine our own lives.
His characters help us to understand good and evil. Doesn’t the 1928 Book of Common Prayer accomplish at least that? In reading the words, we nderstand them. In reciting the passages, we experience moments at which cadence and meaning become one.

When Thomas Cranmer wrote the 1549 Book of Common Prayer, he knew that the common folk didn’t use that sort of language. But he wrote it anyway. That book and its successors, culminating in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, have stood as the standard for worship not only in the Episcopal Church, but in other denominations as well. Christians understood it 461 years ago, and we understand it today. The 1928 Book of Common Prayer, word for word, defines who we are as Anglicans and Episcopalians.

Let’s use the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, pages 247-249, on the ETF website Home Page or in book form for our worship on Feast of
the Transfiguration August 6 or the Sunday closest to it, as we see in our minds’ eyes the glistering raiment and the wonder in the eyes
of the disciples as they see before them the eternal truth that Christ is indeed the Son of God.

The Lord hath manifested forth his glory; * O come, let us adore him. — 1928 Book of Common Prayer, page 8

–Jan Mahood, ETF Editor