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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.

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Happy Birthday, John the Baptist!

This is one of the big feast days of the year, in some country’s traditions the most-celebrated of all Saints’ Days (especially in Scandinavia for some reason).  Rather than give you a single write-up about this feast day in Prayer Book tradition, we’re offering you a variety of angles to explore at your leisure.

#1 – the Natural Connection

https://leorningcniht.wordpress.com/2017/06/24/the-gospel-according-to-astronomy/

#2 – the Christmas Connection

nativity

#3 – the Calm Before the Storm

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“Corpus Christi” Anglican Style

In Western tradition, the Thursday after Trinity Sunday is the feast of Corpus Christi.  It and Trinity Sunday are, as far as I recall, the only holidays that primarily celebrate a doctrine rather than a person or event.  In its original (and present) Roman setting, Corpus Christi is a celebration of the doctrine of transubstantiation, which is the official Roman explanation for how the Body and Blood of Christ is present in the Sacrament of Holy Communion.

It is often incorrectly assumed that transubstantiation is the same as the doctrine of the corporeal real presence; that is incorrect.  The former is an explanation of how the latter works; there are other theological theories that explain the doctrine of the real presence.  If that confuses or surprises you, or you want to look at this in a little more detail, check out this summary.

Anyway, transubstantiation is explicitly ruled out in our formularies, so why would we ever want to celebrate Corpus Christi?  Among the particularly high-church Anglo-Catholics, there have been a number of movements toward both reviving pre-Reformation tradition and aping the Church of Rome in the present.  Corpus Christi was a major holiday in popular devotion as well as the calendar of the church, and in light of how lax many (perhaps most) Protestants treat Holy Communion, it seemed necessary to some to re-emphasize the holiness of Holy Communion with a restored feast day in its honor.  Appropriated into Anglican tradition, one might call it “Thanksgiving for the gift of Holy Communion”, in a manner not unlike last week’s “Thanksgiving for the Promulgation of the First Prayer Book.”

Another angle of how and why Corpus Christi can be re-appropriated in Anglican tradition is the fact that the traditional Collect for this holiday was appointed by Thomas Cranmer to be the Collect for Maundy Thursday, and has remained unchanged ever since.  Seriously, compare the Latin Mass propers in English with ours; it’s the same prayer!  Combine this with the fact that one of the Scripture lessons is the same (Epistle is from 1 Corinthians 11), and you find that Corpus Christi is basically just a reiteration of Maundy Thursday outside the context of Holy Week, just as Holy Cross Day is a reiteration of Good Friday outside the context of Holy Week, and the (modern) Last Sunday of Epiphanytide is a reiteration of the feast of the Transfiguration in a different context.

If you want to commemorate an Anglican-style Corpus Christi, the easiest way to do it under the auspices of the 2019 Prayer Book is to do a Votive Mass of the Holy Eucharist according to the Various Occasion Propers on page 733, which instructs you to imitate Maundy Thursday.  That would turn out as follows:

Almighty Father, whose most dear Son, on the night before he suffered, instituted the Sacrament of his Body and Blood: Mercifully grant that we may receive it in thankful remembrance of Jesus Christ our Savior, who in these holy mysteries gives us a pledge of eternal life; and who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.  Amen.

Exodus 12:1-14; Psalm 78:15-26; 1 Corinthians 11:23-26(27-34); Luke 22:14-30

I took the liberty of removing the John 13 Gospel option as that is about the “maundy” and not about the Eucharist per se.

You might also consider other traditional Communion-related Psalms such as 34 or the latter part of 116.  John 6:47-58 is also traditional Corpus Christi material, if you don’t mind applying that text to Eucharistic doctrine.  Don’t forget, also, to grab a hymnal and sing or read some Communion hymns!  Anglican hymnals have some truly wonderful entries in this category that you can’t find in most of the rest of the Protestant world, and a couple of my all-time favorite songs are Communion hymns.  It’s definitely worth celebrating in song, too.

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Thanksgiving for the First Book of Common Prayer

On the day of Pentecost in 1549, churches across England cracked open a book to engage in common prayer in their own language for the first time in history. That Sunday was when the first Book of Common Prayer was appointed by royal authority to replace the various versions of the Sarum and Roman Mass that previously held sway.  As we noted recently, this is a significant event that can be worth celebrating in our own worship services on Pentecost.  Or, as we hinted a couple days ago, we could celebrate this anniversary today (Thursday) instead.

In the book Lesser Feasts and Fasts (2006) put out by the Episcopal Church (USA), the following Collect and Lessons are offered for this commemoration:

Almighty and everliving God, whose servant Thomas Cranmer, with others, restored the language of the people in the prayers of your Church: Make us always thankful for this heritage; and help us so to pray in the Spirit and with the understanding, that we may worthily magnify your holy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Acts 2:38-42, Psalm 96 or 33:1-5,20-21, John 4:21-24

If you are so inclined you could add 1 Corinthians 14:6-19 as an Epistle lesson, as it is a verse that is referenced in the Collect (“to pray in the Spirit and with the understanding“).

Why recommend this for Thursday?  Simply, every other day is taken, according to Anglican tradition.  Monday & Tuesday [used to] have their own Pentecost-themed propers, and Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday are Ember Days; only Thursday is left.

So if you get the chance to celebrate the Eucharist today, or just choose to pray Antecommunion, consider giving this commemoration a whirl!

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This is not when the disciples were scared

We’re sort of cheating today… this isn’t liturgical advice so much as it is Bible-teaching and preaching advice.  Now that we’re in Ascensiontide and Pentecost is approaching, you need to make sure you don’t mess this up for your congregations: this is not when the disciples were hiding and scared.  I see this error on the internet almost every year, and it’s even in my sons’ otherwise-pretty-good children’s Bible.  After Jesus ascended into heaven the disciples were not hiding behind locked doors in fear, wondering what was to happen next.  The biblical account we have of these ten days is Acts 1.  There we read of the ascension of Jesus following his final instructions:

to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”

So while yes, the disciples were waiting for the Holy Spirit to descend, they were not hiding away and frightened.  Furthermore, there were not waiting passively either, but actively preparing for that gift from on high.  In particular:

All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.

In those days Peter stood up among the brothers (the company of persons was in all about 120) and said, “Brothers, the Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit spoke beforehand by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. For he was numbered among us and was allotted his share in this ministry.… So one of the men who have accompanied us during all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,beginning from the baptism of John until the day when he was taken up from us—one of these men must become with us a witness to his resurrection.”

They then proceeded to identify who the new twelfth apostle would be, chose Matthias, and ordained him so.  (Some modern calendars place St. Matthias Day on May 14th, which generally lands around this time of year, making a stronger link between his story and its situation in the time between the Ascension and Pentecost.  Our calendar, however, keeps him in a more traditional date, February 24th.)  So, far from scared and hiding, the apostles were active during these days between Ascension and Pentecost; make sure you don’t misrepresent them in your Pentecost sermon!

Additionally this is worth noting because the “activity” and “mission” that is frequently brought up regarding Pentecost is often presented at the expense of the quiet prayer, preparation, and planning that went on in the days before.  We must be sure we present a healthy spirituality; one that not only pushes out “outwards” towards ministry and mission, but also equally draws us “inward” to worship and prayer.  That is one of the purposes of a Customary like this one, after all, to help the church order her prayers in a healthy manner so to under-gird a fruitful Christian life for all her members.

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Learning from the Liturgy: Ascension Day

Happy Ascension Day, everyone!
Here’s what I wrote for my congregation last year about this holy day:

Fr. Brench's avatarLeorningcnihtes boc

Ascension Day is perhaps the most under-celebrated important holiday in the calendar.  Representing one of the lines of the Creeds (“he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father”), this holiday marks a significant turning point in the Gospel story and sets the stage for how the Christian’s relationship with God is defined.  We often think of it as an awkward point between the Resurrection of Jesus (Easter) and the Descent of the Holy Spirit (Pentecost), but even in itself the Ascension is a major event.  What I’m setting out to do in this post is draw from the various Scriptural and traditional resources of the Church’s liturgy to explore some of the basic teachings and implications of this great and underappreciated day in the year.

The Event of the Ascension

Christ’s ascension is described in three books: Mark, Luke, and Acts.

In Mark’s Gospel…

View original post 2,092 more words

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Catholic Anglicanism

There are three major figures, patron saints if you like, who stand behind me as inspiration for the creation of this Customary. Aelfric is the obvious one of course, and you can read more about him here. He represents a reforming strand of thought: correcting malpractices, tightening the morality of the monasteries, translating things into English (Anglo-Saxon), and writing many sermons to refresh the theological tradition in his land.

The second is Saint Augustine of Canterbury, who represents a catholicizing strand of movement. The old British church had gotten stuck – the Anglo-Saxon invaders weren’t converting to Christianity very quickly, and their relationship with the rest of the western church was getting frayed – they even celebrated Easter on a different day, throwing most of the liturgical calendar off from one another! Saint Augustine and his team began the missionary movement that rekindled the church in Britain and eventually brought them into closer union with Rome and the universal church (East and West had not yet parted ways at that point).

The third figure is King Charles the martyr, who died for the causes of Crown and Church at the hands of a Puritan Parliament. He represents the particularly Anglican Way of Christianity: neither Roman in its catholicism nor Puritan in its reformation.

Yesterday, May 26th, was the feast of Saint Augustine of Canterbury, so I thought it a good opportunity to share a video about the catholic side of Anglicanism.

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Commemorating the Martyrs of Sudan

May 16th is noted, in our calendar of commemorations, not for a particular saint, but for a whole group: the Martyrs of Sudan.

Originally, this date was chosen to commemorate this group of martyrs because on this day in 1983 the Anglican leaders in Sudan made a public stand for the faith, knowing that under Sharia Law they were destined for execution.  And in the two decades of civil war that followed, millions lost their lives for Christ.  A further wave of attacks against Christians swept the country in 2011, soon before South Sudan was separated as a new (and Christian-friendly) country.

Many of the Sudanese bishops who survived the wars lived in exile; most of the clergy ministered without pay.  Hardly a church building was left standing.  To this day, rebuilding destroyed communities and healing broken families and lives is a massive effort.  The Sudanese diaspora across the world, including in the United States, also need prayer, ministry, healing, and new life rebuilding.

But the blood of the martyrs has been fruitfully sown: the population of South Sudan has gone from 10% Christian in the 1990’s to 60% Christian in 2012, the majority of whom are Roman Catholics and Anglicans.

As this is a mere commemoration in our calendars, there are no major changes to our daily round of worship, unless you hold a Communion or Antecommunion service for this day.  But we can add a Collect to the additional prayers at the end of the daily office, like this one:

Almighty God, you gave your servants in Sudan boldness to confess the Name of our Savior Jesus Christ before the rulers of this world, and courage to die for this faith: Grant that we may always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in us, and to suffer gladly for the sake of our Lord Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

We could also make a point of praying the Great Litany today with the Sudanese church and diaspora in mind.

Sources:

http://www.satucket.com/lectionary/Sudan.htm

http://50days.org/2013/05/the-martyrs-of-sudan-yesterday-today-tomorrow/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Sudan#Persecution_of_Christians_in_Sudan

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Praying with St. Julian of Norwich

Today’s entry in the calendar of commemorations is St. Julian of Norwich.  Two quick clarifications are in order.  First, Julian is (in this case) a woman’s name.  Second, the W in Norwich is silent, so pronounce it ‘norrich’.  (Sorry, I had an history professor in college who heavily pronounced the W all the time, and it was ridiculously embarrassing.)

Saint Julian of Norwich was an ordinary medieval woman of some social status and means.  She was born in England around 1342, and had a severe illness at thirty in which she received last rites and had a series of sixteen visions of Christ.  She wrote about her visions, Revelations of Divine Love, shortly afterward, and near the end of the century wrote a longer treatise explaining them in greater detail.

For most of her life, after her near-death experience, she lived as an anchoress.  An anchorite (male) or anchoress (female) is sort of a cross between a monastic and a hermit.  As the name suggests, one is anchored to the spot, living in a small cell block attached to a church.  As an anchoress, therefore, she lived simply, singly, on the charity of others.  She had a window into the church building through which she could hear Mass and receive Communion, and a window to the outside through which she could speak with visitors and offer spiritual wisdom and advice.  Near the end of her life she was visited by another medieval woman who came to be remembered as a Saint, Margery Kempe.

You can read more of about her life here.

Apart from her name appearing in our calendar, St. Julian shows up in one other place in our Prayer Book: the Occasional Prayers section.  There, prayer #92 on page 673 reads:

O God, of your goodness, give me yourself, for you are enough for me. I can ask for nothing less that is completely to your honor, and if I do ask anything less, I shall always be in want. Only in you I have all.  Amen.

In this Customary’s recommended rotation of praying these Occasional Prayers every two weeks, I came across this prayer on the day after Ash Wednesday, and immediately took a liking to it.  In my own emotional and spiritual life at that point, I badly needed to refresh a sense of satisfaction in Christ alone.  Words like “for you are enough for me” and “Only in you I have all” are expressions of faith and trust and reliance that I needed to meditate upon, and so this little prayer became a quiet theme for me throughout Lent.  It wasn’t seasonally appropriate one way or the other, it had no connection to the liturgy as such, it was simply a piece of my private devotions for a few weeks.  This is legitimate and good; the classical three-fold rule of worship identifies private devotions as necessary to the Christian life alongside the daily office and the sacraments.

And yet, common prayer, or at least a Prayer Book, can aid us in our private devotions.  The 123 Occasional Prayers offered near the back of our Prayer Book include over 20 labelled as being for Personal Life or Devotion.  This means that 1, they aren’t meant for common worship as such, and 2, some will befit your prayer life better than others.  There are some in there that I actually rather dislike.  But my opinions will change with my mood and spiritual condition over time, I’m sure, and St. Julian’s prayer may not minister to me as profoundly in another year.

So I encourage you to explore these prayers for your own prayer life, and explore the people commemorated in our calendar.  You never know who and what the Holy Spirit will use to minister to you both within and apart from the liturgy!