Christ Church

The Anglican theologian and scholar E.B. Pusey wrote this prayer for Lent:

God, give us grace, this coming Lent, so to lay to heart our ways, that we may weary of all which is not His, from Him, to Him: and may, through Him, the Living Way, by new love and obedience, attain to Him, Who, with the Father and the Holy Ghost, is the End of our being, the Fulness of bliss of all creation, “the Eternal Infinite Truth, the origin, fountain, measure, end, and cause of all created truth,” the ever-blessed, beatific Life; to which He, of His mercy, bring us sinners, to Whom be all glory and thanksgiving and adoration and praise, for ever and ever. Amen.

Edward Bouverie Pusey (1800-1882) was one of the most prominent figures in the Church of England during the 19th century. At the age of 28, he was appointed Regius Professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, positions he held for the rest of his life. Together with John Keble and John Henry Newman (later Cardinal Newman), he was one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement or Tractarian Movement.

Pusey co-founded the first Anglican sisterhood in 1845, helping to revive monastic life in the Church of England. The practice of confession in the Anglican Church stems from his 1846 sermon “The Entire Absolution of the Penitent“. Later in his life, he fought the growing influence of liberalism in the church and successfully opposed proposals to truncate or omit the Athanasian Creed.

He was known as a wise, humble, and compassionate man, who built a parish church in Leeds at his own expense and served the sick during the 1866 cholera epidemic in London.

Two years after his death, friends and admirers established in his honour Pusey House, an Anglo-Catholic house of worship, prayer, and learning. His personal library formed the basis of Pusey House Library, now one of the leading theological libraries at Oxford.

A collection of Pusey’s writings and sermons is posted at Project Canterbury.

Source of prayer: Give Us Grace: An Anthology of Anglican Prayers, compiled by Christopher L. Webber. Anglican Book Centre, Toronto, 2004.