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When to sing the “Gloria in excelsis”

After the penitential rite at the beginning of the Communion service follows this rubric:

The Gloria or some other song of praise may be sung or said, all standing.  It is appropriate to omit the song of praise during penitential seasons and days appointed for fasting.

Placement of the Gloria…

For those who grew up accustomed to the Roman Rite or the 1979 Prayer Book, this is expected – the Gloria is the standard historic hymn of praise following the Kyrie, signalling the movement from penitence to absolution, from abjection to joy, from unworthiness in God’s sight to worthiness, from fear to perfect love.  What many don’t realize is the peculiar tradition of the classical Anglican Prayer Books in placing the Gloria after the Communion and Post-Communion Prayer!

Thus, when we read in the rubric on page 107 & 125 that the Gloria “may be sung or said”, what we ought to see here is the permission to save it for its traditional placement near the end of the liturgy.  The reason for saving the Gloria for that point in the liturgy is that there it functions as an expression of unadulterated praise to God in light of his saving work on the Cross that we have just memorialized in prayer and received in the Sacrament.  So the flow of penitence-to-praise at the beginning of the service doesn’t really apply, but the celebration post-communion is certainly much grander.  It’s also interesting to note that in Lutheran tradition they tend to keep the Gloria in its traditional (Roman) position near the beginning after the Kyrie but also have a special post-communion canticle like the Prayer Book tradition, though in their case the Nunc dimittis.  Now that’s a much more sober (or sobering) way to reflect upon the reception of the consecrated elements!

Instead of the Gloria…

I know lots of congregations that have a contemporary “praise and worship set” in place of the Gloria.  Although this provokes the ire of hymns-only traditionalists, this can rightly capture the spirit of the modern prayer book (and traditional Roman) rite, as the Gloria is a song of pure praise.  Indeed, in my own church, we long had a hymn or contemporary song of praise in addition to the Gloria.  As long as you find lyrics that are very God-centered, they’ll fulfill the same function as the Gloria.  But keep in mind, how many times does the Gloria mention “us” or “me”?  If you’re appointing songs in its place, try to make sure that they live up to that standard of pure and undistracted adoration.

During Advent and Lent, though, it is customary to omit the Gloria, whether you’ve got it near the beginning or the end of the liturgy.  The 1940 hymnal even has, in its liturgical index, suggestions for which hymns could replace the Gloria during those seasons.  This is an excellent place to use a season-specific hymn, as they typically capture the tone and mood of the season in a very appropriate manner, and thus support the shift of emphasis that the liturgical calendar is meant to convey to us.

Singing the Gloria…

Last of all, it’s worth noting that the rubric states “sung or said“, as if to imply that it’s more appropriate to sing the Gloria than to read it.  This is where the otherwise-bloated 1982 hymnal can be a valuable resource, as it provides a number of musical settings for the contemporary translation of the Gloria that our new Prayer Book continues to use.  The Book of Common Praise 2017 has only one setting in the contemporary language, which is original to that edition, I believe, and has worked pretty well with my own congregation.  But sometimes it’s nice to have options.

You could even take a page out of medieval tradition and change the musical setting of the Gloria for different times of year or occasions!  For example, my congregation sings it on major feasts and high Sundays, but just says it on ‘normal’ Sundays.

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Don’t neglect the Litany

The Great Litany was the first liturgy put out by the Church of England, before the Prayer Book as a whole was compiled.  It has undergone little edits since then in just about every edition of the prayer book, yet is arguably the least-changed piece of the prayer book to this day.  I suspect this is due, in part, to the fact that it has been slowly declining in prominence.  The fewer people pray it, the fewer changes people bother to make to it.

You can even trace this decline in prominence from book to book.  In 1662 the Litany was appointed to be read after the three collects in Morning Prayer every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday.  By the American prayer book of 1928, it was broadened to be after the three collects in either Morning or Evening Prayer, with no directions of how often it was to be used.  The 1979 prayer book broadened the options further by allowing it to be used immediately before the Eucharist (which is probably how it’s best-known in American parishes right now – as a solemn procession maybe once a year if at all).  But in that book, it’s physically located in a very cluttered part of the volume between the Daily Office and the Communion services, physically isolating it, sending the tacit message that it’s just window-dressing and there for the sake of tradition.  They didn’t even bother updating its language to match “Rite II.”

The 2019 Prayer Book, now, keeps the broad options open but provides a little more direction and accessibility.  The Litany begins on page 91, between the Office and Communion liturgies which is not quite so cluttered compared to the 1979 book.  There is also this suggestion on page 99:

It is particularly appropriate to use the Great Litany on the First Sunday of Advent and the First Sunday in Lent.  It is also appropriate for Rogation days, other days of fasting or thanksgiving, and occasions of solemn and comprehensive entreaty.

In one sense this is a “toothless” rubric.  It’s not rule, not even an authorization, but merely a suggestion.  The phrase “it is appropriate” appears in a few such rubrics, and is so gentle that it almost doesn’t count as a real rubric (or rule).  But as a suggestion, it does help point us in the direction of how we might implement the Litany in parish life in accord with some semblance of tradition.  Originally the Litany was supposed to be a thrice-weekly affair at the end of Morning Prayer, so having two Sundays and a short list of other occasions when the Litany is “appropriate” is extremely gentle indeed.  But, as things stand in the American church, once a year is about as often as the Litany is used, if at all, so by making these suggestions explicit in the book, and by making the Litany a bit easier to find (and connect to the primary liturgies) there is a definite intention here to restore this excellent service of prayer.

In your own devotions, I heartily encourage you to pray this Litany often.  Every Sunday, between Morning Prayer and Holy Communion, is a good place to start; or perhaps every Friday as a sort-of-penitential discipline.  It is longer than modern worshipers tend to be used to, so it can be an overwhelming experience for some.

But if you can bring it into your church, definitely start with the rubric’s suggestion: the beginning of Lent and Advent.  From there you can also add it to Epiphany II (when the festive part of the Christimas-Epiphany cycle has ended), Lent V (Passion Sunday, signalling the approach of Holy Week), the Sunday after the Ascension (following the apostolic spirit of prayer between the Ascension and Pentecost), and periodic Sundays after Trinity such as Propers 10 and 20 (even spaced out between Ascension and Advent).  The more, the better, in my opinion, but it’s usually easier to introduce new & different things to people when there’s an easy liturgical explanation.

Anyway, today’s a Wednesday, so how about you give it a go in your own prayers after Morning Prayer?

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Let’s pray Morning Prayer together right now!

Okay, we’ve got a daily hymnody plan available, an order for using the Occasional Prayers, and some advice on the use of Canticles so far.  Let’s put it all together and see what Morning Prayer can be like. Listen and pray along!

Order of service (so you can get your books ready)…

  1. Opening Sentence (BCP 11)
  2. Morning Hymn (#229) *
  3. Invitatory with the Venite (BCP 13-14)
  4. Psalms 79, 80, 81 (BCP 373-377)
  5. 1 Samuel 7
  6. Canticle 8 Ecce Deus (BCP 85-86)
  7. 1 Corinthians 15:1-34
  8. The Benedictus (BCP 18-19)
  9. The Apostles’ Creed (BCP 20)
  10. The Prayers (BCP 21-24)
  11. The Anthem (Hymn #439)
  12. Occasional Prayers #25, 35-37
  13. The General Thanksgiving (BCP 25) **
  14. Closing Sentences (BCP 26)

* The first rubric on page 31 allows for the Confession and the Creed to to be omitted in one Office provided it is said in the other that day.  On my own I tend to say the Creed in the morning and the Confession in the evening.

** I tend not to pray the Prayer of St. John Chrysostom when alone, as the rubric on page 25 indicates it’s optional, and because its language of being gathered for corporate prayer is not exactly fulfilled in private.

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Sing the Hymnal in a Year!

When it comes to liturgy, I’m a completionist, meaning I want to make use of all the legitimate options afforded in the Prayer Book in their proper times.  That means I want to say the Daily Offices and minor offices every day (not that my success rate is so high yet), and use each choice of prayer and canticle at appropriate opportunities.

I’m also a completionist when it comes to Bible-reading, and that includes the Ecclesiastical Books.  That’s why I made a supplementary lectionary (best used in Midday Prayer) to cover the various corners of the Bible that the Daily Office Lectionary had to leave out.  (I recently discovered that I’d neglected to fill in the missing chapters of Ezekiel, so I updated the file!)

And so, in this mindset I set out, a couple years ago, to figure out how I could accomplish a similar mission: sing all the hymns in the hymnal!  I made a rough year-long plan using the 1940 hymnal, which I can share if you really want it, though it is definitely quirky and personalized.  And when my congregation and I got our hands on the 2017 hymnal I began the slow process of starting all over again, aiming to make a cleaner, simpler, more logical plan for Daily Hymnody that could be used by anybody.  It took quite some time to “get it right” but now I’m happy to release:

DAILY HYMNODY
for the Book of Common Praise (2017) and the Book of Common Prayer (2019)
(formatted to be printed in “booklet” format if you’ve got a fancy printer)
(formatted to be printed as double-sided landscape that you can fold into a booklet)

Here are some explanatory notes of how this works.

Morning & Evening Hymns

The collection of Morning Hymns and Evening Hymns are treated separately.  They are placed on their own rotations (two-week and one-month, respectively), and thus will be sung several times in a given year.  Especially memorable or historical hymns are repeated more often in these cycles, to avoid awkward 17-day cycles or something silly like that.  Their frequent repetition also allows them to be replaced if there happens to be a large number of Daily Hymns in a given day.

How the Daily Hymns Work

The liturgical calendar has both fixed-date feasts (like Christmas) and moveable feasts (like Easter), which necessitates a daily hymnody plan that operates on both calendar styles in tandem.  This is managed by presenting hymns for fixed dates in either a parallel column or at the bottom of the page near the moveable-date hymns they’ll typically line up with.

As I mentioned in my review of the 2019 hymnal, there are more hymns in here that fit Advent and Lent compared to other books, making this project a lot easier than its 1940 hymnal version.  And, I think, more satisfying to use.  Here’s a quick commentary on how this order for Daily Hymnody uses the 2019 hymnal.

The Advent Hymns (#1-26) are spread throughout the Advent season, generally matched to the theme of the Collect each week.

The Christmas Hymns (#27-82) are sung through most of the 40 days from Christmas Eve until February 2nd (the feast of The Presentation).  Hymns that reference “today” or “this happy morn!” are placed earlier, in the actual twelve days of Christmas.  Hymns that pay particular attention to Mary are placed later, as a topical lead-up to the Presentation.

The Epiphany Hymns (#83-94) are sung January 6th through 11th.

The Lent Hymns (#95-104) are sung in the first week and a half of the season.  The Passiontide Hymns (#105-122) cover Holy Week, and also most of weeks 4 & 5.

The Easter Hymns (#123-146) are sung through Easter Week and the beginning of each subsequent week in Eastertide.  The Rogation Day Hymns (#147-8) are on the Tuesday and Wednesday before Ascension.

The Ascension Hymns (#149-161) cover the ten day of that period, and the Pentecost Hymns (#162-166) cover most of Pentecost Week.  The Trinity Sunday hymn is appointed on its Eve.

The various Saints Days hymns (#168-198) are appointed on their proper (or similar) days.  This includes a couple extra saints days and an All Saints’ Week November 1st-7th, using the Burial Hymns (#318-320) to add an “All Souls” flavor along the way.

The Thanksgiving Hymns (#199-209) are sung on November 21st-29th, ensuring that Thanksgiving Day will be enveloped in that spread of time.

The National Hymns (#210-218) are appointed for Memorial Day, July 1st-4th (covering both Canada Day and Independence Day), and November 8th-11th (giving a lead-up to Veteran’s/Remembrance Day).

The Baptism Hymns (#252-262) adorn the Sundays “Proper 8” through Proper 18 (basically all summer).  The Confirmation Hymns (#300-305) cover Propers 19-23 (and December 5th, because that’s my confirmation anniversary), and the Church Dedication Hymns (#313-317) finish the line on Proper Sundays 24-28.  The Sundays through this time of year also have General Hymn appointed, specially chosen to match its Collect of the Day.

The Communion Hymns (#263-299) are sung on nearly every Thursday from Maundy Thursday through Advent.

The Matrimony Hymns (#306-308) are appointed for the 5th of June and August, highlighting the popular “wedding season” in our culture today.  The Ordination Hymns (#309-312) are sung on the Wednesday of each set of Ember Days throughout the year.

The General Hymns, then, fill out the remaining gaps in the church year.

  • The Trinity section is mostly devoted to Trinity Sunday and the weekdays following.
  • Most of the “Praise to God” and “… God’s Works” section occupies Fridays & Saturdays from Proper 7-17.
  • Most of the “Jesus: Advent” section is sung in the days leading up to the First Sunday in Advent.
  • Most of the “Name…” and “Life & Ministry of Jesus” sections are sung in Epiphany 4-8 (Proper 3-7), with a few entries dotting the final days before Lent, a day in Eastertide, and a few in the week of Proper 8.
  • The “Mission” hymns cover Thursdays in Epiphany 4-7 or Proper 3-6.
  • The “Praise of Jesus” section mostly fills out Eastertide.
  • Most of the “Penitence” section is sung through the middle of Lent.
  • The “Jesus: Helper” section covers Mondays through Wednesdays in the weeks of Propers 9-13.  This is continued with the Holy Spirit, Holy Scripture, and Church sections, taking you to Proper 18.
  • Starting with the week of Proper 18, the split between MTW and FS ends.  The “Christian Vocation” section covers most of 18, “Christian Walk” is sung through Proper 22, continued by “Christian Warfare” and “Christian Duty” through Proper 25.
  • Propers 26-29 end the church year with the “Kingdom of God” and “Church Triumphant” sections.

Anyway, the two links above will get you booklets that give you these orderings in a neat and readable fashion.  I just offer this explanation as background for the curious.  Go, sing, worship, enjoy!

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Book Review: Liturgical Theology

Welcome to Saturday Book Review time!  On most of the Saturdays this year we’re looking at a liturgy-related book noting (as applicable) its accessibility, devotional usefulness, and reference value.  Or, how easy it is to read, the prayer life it engenders, and how much it can teach you.

Let’s start with a confession: I didn’t read all of the books in seminary that I was supposed to read.  But I did start catching up immediately after I graduated.  One of those books was Liturgical Theology by Simon Chan.  I was already a confirmed Anglican and in the discernment process for Holy Orders, and it was only then, in reading this book, that I began my deep love for the liturgy which has continued with me to this day.  I was so impressed by this book (and still in a note-taking mode like a seminary student) that I actually made outline notes of each chapter of the book.  So if you want to go into greater depth you can look at those notes here:

As you can see there, the first four chapters lay the foundation for a liturgical theology, and the last three set out concrete practices by which that liturgical theology can be expressed.  This is very helpful for those who are not familiar with liturgical worship, and need to see “why liturgy matters” before they can be bothered to learn about liturgy itself.  And even if you are familiar with liturgical worship, sometimes it’s helpful to go back to examine the foundational purposes for this way of life we share.

It should be noted, too, that Simon Chan is not an Anglican.  He’s not even from a liturgical tradition himself; he’s an Assemblies of God Pastor.  This has the disadvantage that this book doesn’t really deal with particularly Anglican liturgical practices, but it does have the advantage of a common-ground approach to liturgical worship that highlights the similarities across several particular traditions.  When he does give a walk-through of the Communion service, it is largely identical to the shape of the 1979 Prayer Book and the modern Roman Mass, not the Tridentine Mass or the classical prayer book tradition.  This may be a let-down for the traditionalist reader, but more relatable to the modern-liturgy fan.

I’ve noticed that the website for an ACNA diocese actually has a review of this book, which you may find useful for reflection on the nature of the Church.  There’s also a review of this book on the well-known The Gospel Coalition blog which makes a number of unfounded criticisms (such as that Simon Chan does away with sola scriptura and promulgates the doctrine of transubstantiation!) which I can only tell you to disregard.  I think that reviewer either had a chip on his shoulder against the liturgical tradition, or didn’t read the book very carefully.

On the whole, I would still recommend this book quite happily.  It won’t give you an Anglican education, but its principles are sound and its commentary is insightful.  In fact, the fact that this is a pentecostal author arguing for historic liturgy makes his exhortation all the more earnest and significant.  This is no patronizing Anglo-Catholic telling the evangelical world how to fix their problems, as we often imagine liturgical theologians to be!

The ratings in short:

Accessibility: 4/5
Although this book was an assigned text for one of my seminary courses, it is not a dense scholarly read.  It is intended, I think, for pastors, worship leaders, and interested laymen who do not necessarily have any higher education.  It’s clearly organized, logically written, and peppered with citations for further reference.  (Except they’re endnotes, yuck!)

Devotional Usefulness: N/A
This is a book to read, not pray.

Reference Value: 3/5
If you’ve never read a book about liturgy and liturgical worship before, this is probably the best place to start.  It’s informative, covers a lot of ground, and gets you connected with plenty of biblical and Early Church quotations.  It won’t really improve your knowledge and understanding of the Prayer Book tradition, or English spirituality, but you can save that for another book.  From analyzing the Creed to outlining the three-year catechumenate, this is a great place to begin your foray into liturgical studies.

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Psalm 67 in Evening Prayer

Since at least the 1662 Prayer Book, Psalm 67 has been an alternative option to the Nunc dimittis – the second canticle in Evening Prayer.  When Thomas Cranmer first compiled the Prayer Book, he telescoped the 7-fold daily monastic office into two: Morning and Evening, so that anyone could pray them.  The service of Evening Prayer thus ended up with the traditional Vespers (evening) canticle: the Magnificat, and the traditional Compline (night) canticle: the Nunc Dimittis.  He then appointed a psalm as an alternative to each canticle, usually with the express purpose of standing in for the canticle when the text of the canticle is found in one the day’s lessons.

Modern Prayer Books, however, following popular Anglican devotion since the beginning, bring Compline back as a minor office, and the Nunc dimittis is therefore a dual resident: it lives both in Evening Prayer and in Compline.  If you regularly pray both Evening Prayer and Compline most days, then it may be a good idea to substitute the Nunc for a different canticle, as I’ve suggested before here.

However, today may not be the day to do that.  Psalm 67 is the typical replacement for the Nunc through the majority of the year, but tonight Psalm 67 is one of the regular psalms at Evening Prayer.  So unless you want to say Psalm 67 twice in the same office tonight, perhaps it’s best you don’t use it as a canticle today!

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The Penitential Rite in the Communion liturgy

Early in the Communion liturgy, on page 106 and 124 of BCP 2019, we come to the “penitential rite” portion.  The rubric there states:

Then follows the Summary of the Law, or The Decalogue (page 100).

The Kyrie or the Trisagion follows.  A “vanilla” use of this page of the liturgy would therefore go as follows: Collect for Purity, the Celebrant reads the Summary of the Law, the Kyrie follows, then on to the Gloria.  But with this option of the Decalogue (or Ten Commandments), what should we do?

We should begin with a little history.  This part of the original Prayer Books contained the Decalogue only.  And it wasn’t a shortened version with congregational responses; it was the full text of the Decalogue in Exodus 20 plus congregational responses.  That was the norm, every Communion.  By 1928 in the US, more options had arisen.  The Decalogue was still the default, but shortened versions were suggested, so it wouldn’t be quite so belabored.  The Summary of the Law was added as an option after, and the Kyrie was to follow the Summary of the Law if the Decalogue was omitted.  So there were three primary choices for the penitential rite in the 1928 Prayer Book:

  1. Decalogue (full text or shortened)
  2. Decalogue (full or short) + Summary of the Law
  3. Summary of the Law + Kyrie

A rubric also noted that The Decalogue may be omitted, provided it be said at least one Sunday in each month.  There was also this optional prayer that concluded the penitential rite:

O ALMIGHTY Lord, and everlasting God, vouchsafe, we beseech thee, to direct, sanctify, and govern, both our hearts and bodies, in the ways of thy laws, and in the works of thy commandments; that, through thy most mighty protection, both here and ever, we may be preserved in body and soul; through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  Amen.

Proponents of the historic prayer book tradition often complain that modern books have too many choices and options… this is one area where a classic book actually has more options than the 2019 prayer book!

With this background in mind, we should acknowledge that even though The Summary of the Law is implicitly the default penitential rite in the two 2019 Communion services, we should continue to make use of the Decalogue, conveniently provided on the pages immediately before the Communion liturgy begins.  It would be wise to adopt at least the rule of thumb of the 1928 prayer book: that we use the Decalogue at least one Sunday a month.  This Customary would add to that the weekly (and weekday) use of the Decalogue throughout the seasons of Advent and Lent, and on other appropriate times such as feasts of St. John the Baptist (a very Law-heavy preacher), or other penitential occasions.

One other observation that should be made is the text of the congregational responses in the Decalogue.  As I observed in January of last year, “The Decalogue has undergone some significant rewording.  Instead of asking God to “give us grace to keep this law” we ask for him to “incline our hearts to keep this law”, which is (again) more faithful to the old Prayer Books, and is more theologically specific.  We don’t just need “grace” to do better, but our hearts need reorientation.”  If you’re accustomed to the language of the 1979 prayer book, make sure you take note of this improvement, and perhaps point it out to your congregation (which I believe I did by the beginning of Lent that year).

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What does “Proper 9” mean, anyway?

You have probably seen reference to this before, on this blog if nowhere else lately, that the previous two Sundays have been called “Proper 8” and “Proper 9”.  If you look inside our 2019 Prayer Book (as well as the old 1979) you’ll see these names in the Collects and Calendar sections.  There’s a further bit of explanation in the new book, which you might find handy – “PROPER 9 Week of the Sunday from July 3 to July 9” – but still doesn’t answer the question – what does “Proper” mean?

The term proper originally referred to parts of the Mass that changed from day to day or week to week: it was a feature of the Mass that was proper to a particular occasion or date.  Traditionally this included things like the Introit, Collect, Epistle, Gradual, Gospel, Offertory Sentence, Communion Sentence, and so on, but in the Prayer Book tradition the Propers were simplified to three things: Collect, Epistle, Gospel.  These three things are printed together, for each Sunday and Major Holy Day of the year, in the Prayer Book, such that you don’t actually need a Bible in hand to follow the entire Communion service.  The advent of the three-year lectionary, with its further addition of an Old Testament lesson and Psalm, has made such a feature much too large to fit in the Prayer book, so now our Communion lectionary is just a table of lessons, rather than the actual texts themselves.

With the radical revisions of the 1970’s came a revolutionary new liturgical calendar.  Pre-Lent was gone, Epiphanytide was almost completely revamped, and the season after Trinity Sunday was utterly rewritten.  You can read a little about how the historic Trinitytide season worked on this page.  The modern calendar, which our 2019 Prayer Book has inherited (this is my only significant complaint about the new book), does not build on “Sundays after Trinity” like the historic one, but instead has a set of “Propers” – that is, collects and lessons, tied to the secular calendar dates from late May until about four weeks before Christmas when Advent starts.  This means, given the shifting date of Easter from year to year, that although “Proper 29” will always be the last one before Advent, the first Proper Sunday will be different each year.  On average it starts around Proper 5 in roughly the second week of June.

One odd feature is the fact that Proper 1 is the week of the Sunday from May 8 to May 14, which is so early that neither it nor Proper 2 will ever be used on a Sunday!  They exist solely to provide for weekday Communion services of those weeks when Pentecost is that early, because the modern calendar has (again, sadly) one away with the Pentecost Octave.  Don’t worry, the Scripture lessons aren’t wasted, as they are duplicated with the corresponding Sundays in the latter weeks of the modern Epiphanytide.  Yes it’s complicated, but thankfully most people don’t have to worry about the mechanics of all this.  I only explain it here because someone out there is bound to be curious!

You can also look at the rubrics on page 614 for a few further notes about this portion (half) of the year.

To attempt to summarize this long answer into a short one… when you see “Proper 9”, don’t imagine it has any great special meaning.  It’s merely the 9th set of Propers (Collect & Lessons) in a line of Sundays spanning from May through November.  There are 29 in all, and we just jump right in to them after Trinity Sunday each summer.

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Sanctoral Calendar

When you look at the liturgical calendar of the Roman Church, with all its various types, classes, or ranks of feast days, you will quickly appreciate the simplicity of the Prayer Book tradition.  It’s either a “red-letter day”, that is, a holy day mandated in the book, or it is a “black letter day”, a commemoration that you can celebrate if you want to, or ignore if you want.

But the priest may find, after considering how best to celebrate some of the names in our calendar, that not all commemorations ought to be treated equally.  Certainly, yes, all God’s children are equal in His sight, but as we look to the examples of those who have gone before us, there is a marked difference in the impact of Augustine of Hippo and, say, Samuel Shoemaker.  Pastorally, it’s worth helping our flocks identify who the ‘major players’ are in church history, who the great theologians and teachers are, who lived truly holy lives that we can strive to emulate.  And thus we stumble back into the Western tradition of feast days of different ranks.

The Saint Aelfric Customary sets forth a four-tired rank of saints days, and it’s very simple.

  1. The Major Feast Days (“red-letter days”) are the ones specifically named and mandated in the prayer book.  They each have their own set of Collect and lessons for Holy Communion that day, and usually impact the Daily Office Lectionary with at least one special reading.
  2. The Minor Saints Days are “black letter days” which are identified as the most prominent.  If you have a weekday communion service on one of these days, they ought to be celebrated, as if they were a major feast.  Unlike major feasts, though, these aren’t celebrated on Sundays, and don’t impact the Daily Office.
  3. The Commemorations are the “black letter days” entirely unchanged – they’re still optional, at the discretion of the celebrant to observe or not.
  4. The Memorials are the “black letter days” that are set aside as not for observance at Holy Communion.  This is born out of a respect for the liturgical tradition of not naming new Saints without either due process or clear consensus.  And since the Anglican tradition has no official process, we can only gain new saints by martyrdom or by clear consensus.  The names in our calendar that do not meet these terms are therefore categorized as Memorials.

You can download the Saint Aelfric Customary version of the Sanctoral Calendar here.

Note also that this calendar “elevates” three commemorations to Major Feast Day status:  Aelfric, Augustine of Canterbury, and King Charles I.  This is due to the fact that they are the three “patron saints” of this Customary, and therefore ought to be especially available to those who use this Customary.

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Looking Ahead: Holy Days in late July and early August

We’re in a quiet couple weeks right now, but let’s take a look at the “red-letter days” that are coming up toward toward the end of the month.  Because none of these are on Sundays, and therefore are not likely to directly impact the life of most congregations (as the sad reality is that our culture rarely considers going to church on weekdays), it is all the more helpful and important to take note of these dates beforehand as they approach, so we can be prepared to give due consideration to these commemorations when they arrive.

July 22nd is the feast of St. Mary Magdalene.  The Gospel at the Communion service is a little Easter flash-back, and the special Gospel lesson at Morning Prayer is the story of the the women who washed Jesus’ feet, whom for much of church history was identified as Mary Magdalene.  She sinned much, was forgiven much, and therefore loved much, devoutly anointing the feet of her dear Lord and scrubbing them with her own hair.  Modern exegesis doesn’t seem to share this assumption that she’s the same person, but it’s certainly in keeping with her physically-expressive character in John 20.

July 25th is not Christmas in July, but actually St. James’ Day.  As you’ll read in the beginning of Acts 12, which takes the part of the Epistle at the Communion that day, James was the first of the apostles die, martyred for the faith.

There are also some optional commemorations at the end of the month whose days this Customary would especially point out as worthy of celebration.

  • The Parents of the Virgin Mary, traditionally given the names Joachim (or Heli for short) and Anne, are commemorated on July 26th.  Depending on the flavor of the spirituality of different cultures, they are sometimes known instead as the grandparents of Jesus.  In either case, they are people we know nothing about from the Bible, yet must have had a tremendous impact on our Lord’s early life.
  • Lazarus, Mary, and Martha of Bethany are commemorated on July 29th.  They are prominent characters in the Gospel books, particularly that of St. John, and are known as beloved friends of Jesus.  Some people in history have even identified Mary of this family with Mary Magdalene, though again this is an assumption widely disregarded today.  The similarity of their affections for our Lord, however, is noteworthy.
  • St. Joseph of Arimathea is commemorated on August 1st.  He is the rich Jewish elder who donated his tomb for Jesus’ body on the day of the crucifixion, rather than let him be tossed into a mass grave for common criminals.  This showed great (even risky) devotion on his part, substantial reverence for our Lord, and made the proof of the resurrection all the more clear, as a common mass grave would have been harder to guard, and the accusation of the disciples stealing the body harder to refute.

August 6th, finally, is the feast of the Transfiguration of our Lord.  The modern calendar does kind of double it at the end of the Epiphany season, but if you take the time to compare the Collects and lessons for that day and this, you’ll notice a marked difference in emphasis.  The former sets out the transfiguration as a precursor to the passion and death of Christ; this feast day simply revels in the divine glory of Jesus.  Eastern Orthodox custom calls for a 40-day fast beginning at Transfiguration Day, which we don’t have in our tradition, obviously, but can give us pause for thought concerning our spiritual devotions at that time of year.