Tag Archives: HWHM

On the SCLM Meeting

The Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music (SCLM) meeting is over now I’m home, and am beginning to be at the point to write about it. I find these meetings tiring, exciting, invigorating, and depressing—all at the same time… Everybody on the commission feels deeply about the importance of good liturgy and good music. We just frequently have differing opinions about what those are and how we go about nurturing them in the church.

The discussion of my proposal on HWHM occurred on Monday morning. There were some clear agreements around the table—most people didn’t like the word “almanac” finding it too old-fashioned. That didn’t bother me, I certainly wasn’t wedded to it. At a deeper level, though, most of the discussion was about theology even if the theology wasn’t overtly discussed or referenced. One person said that the proposal simply didn’t make sense; others saw it as an attempt to completely dismantle what had been accomplished in HWHM. I didn’t see it that way at all. What did become clear was that we had several different—some irreconcilable—understandings of sanctity and holiness. And, in arriving at that point, I think we accurately mirror one of the confusions in our church and one of the reasons why HWHM has been such a difficult body of work to complete satisfactorily.

I believe we did reach an agreement that will move the discussion forward in a new direction. In my previous post I said that I hoped to have certainty and specifics by this point; I don’t. We do have the basics of an agreement. However, there are a number of details to decide if it is to be workable and the last set was worked out in subcommittee work after the close of the meeting and has not yet been agreed to by the whole Standing Commission. Because this will represent a rather radical change, we have agreed not to discuss it until we have agreed on the principles and the main points lest an incomplete telling of an incomplete solution be misunderstood and blown out of proportion.

Trust me—it’s frustrating not being able to say more. However, it’s for the good of the work as a whole. I will, of course, say more when I can.

An Incomplete Update

I’m here in Milwaukee for the SCLM meeting, and we’ve just concluded the first day of our deliberations.

The main topic for the morning was my proposal on Holy Women, Holy Men. It was not accepted as drafted. However, we have come to a compromise that I think is workable; further meetings over the next couple of days will hash out some aspects of the compromise that are currently up in the air. I’d rather not comment on the nature of the compromise yet while so much remains provisional. Rather, I will have much more certainty and specifics on Wednesday and will post on it then.

A New Proposal for Holy Women, Holy Men

The title says “new” but that deserves a certain amount of qualification. If you’re a regular reader, you know that this plan is something that has been working in fits and starts since last September. In fact, much of the material that I’ve been producing over the last few months finds a place in it.

If you’re not a regular reader, let me clarify what’s going on…  I was appointed to the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music following General Convention last year. In the run-up to Convention, I had published an article and a follow-up in the Living Church and some blog posts that were quite critical of “Holy Women, Holy Men.” Imagine my surprise when not only was I appointed to the SCLM, but was asked to co-chair the Calendar Subcommittee. . .

My conversations across the church have led me to the conviction that HWHM is not a suitable resource in its current state. At the heart of the problem is a fundamental confusion about the nature of a Calendar, commemorations, and sanctity. There is no coherent theology that holds the document together. Major arguments for the inclusion of certain individuals rest on their importance or significance; others are included because they were the “first” something. It became clear to me that the Calendar was being made to bear too much freight. It had become a place to record significant people as well as a place to record individuals of holiness as well as a place to include individuals who were representative of a particular lobby within the church as well as (increasingly) a place to record historical events that had some kind of meaning for the church.

At the first meeting of the triennium, I floated the idea of an Almanac that might be used alongside the Calendar in order to enable the Calendar to focus on being a sanctoral Calendar—a place to commemorate individuals who had displayed holiness and lives evocative of Christian maturity. Or, to tie it more closely to the current parlance, those individuals who have fulfilled their Baptismal Covenants in fulsome and inspiring ways. Keep the Calendar a sanctoral Calendar; use an Almanac to capture historical important events and people.

As we discussed it and thought about it more in the intervening months, the idea became better fleshed-out and more clear. Support for the idea grew, but also a curiosity grew in terms of what such a scheme would actually look like on the ground: it’s fine to discuss it in abstract, but what would it look like and how would it really work on a practical level? At the conclusion of the last SCLM meeting, Ruth Meyers asked me to draft something concrete so that we could have a real artifact on the table to discuss as a potential reworking of the HWHM material.

Yesterday, I posted to the extranet (our official document repository) three documents that represent a concrete vision of this potential scheme: a 21-page draft proposal, an example calendar, and an additional bit of writing that needs to get folded into the main document somewhere. These will be discussed at our meeting next week. Monday morning has been set aside for a discussion about whether to move forward with this option or to continue in the current format.

Here’s the main concept:

In order to give a more accurate rendering of its contents, the book as a whole will called the “Book of Optional Observances” (this, in part, as a reminder that all of these days are optional and that no ferial days have truly “disappeared”…) and will have three major sections:

  • Holy Women Holy Men: A Sanctoral Calendar. The Calendar and accompanying proper material offered here will contain fewer commemorations than currently stand. In the example draft that I have put together, it contains only 137 entries, and these were selected in large measure with regard to saints who have parish dedications across the church and that better reflect the diversity of the church (i.e., 15% more women, 17% more people of color, 6% more laity than the current balances). The two central criteria operative are Christian Discipleship and Local Observance. However, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the fact that this calendar is intended to be illustrative and not comprehensive. That is, we fully expect individuals, parishes, dioceses, and provinces to maintain their own calendars and to supplement this list with the names of saints that reflect their lively local experience of sanctity. As such, the Commons of Saints are highlighted as essential resources for these locally identified celebrations. In particular, their attention is directed to the Almanac (about which more in a moment) as a source of potential commemorations.
  • Praying the Seasons: A Temporal Calendar. Currently non-Sunday Scripture readings for the various Seasons are disconnected, particularly when it comes to Ordinary time. Grouping the whole Temporale here will enforce the shape of the Church Year and remind people that this remains a viable option should they chose to exercise it.
  • Dedicating our Lives: Propers for Various Occasions and an Almanac for the Episcopal Church. Here, the Votives/Propers for Various Occasions are likewise given an equal standing with the other two options. The twist is that this section will also contain an Almanac. Everyone from the previous drafts of HWHM who does not appear in the Calendar—and some who do appear in the Calendar—will be found here as a representative/example of a particular votive. Full propers will be retained with the suggestion that the particular prayer/collect be used to conclude the Prayers of the People when used votively. If a local community chooses to observe the entry as a sanctoral occasion (having consulted the sanctoral criteria and discerned a congruence with their local experience of sanctity), they are free to do so and the propers are easily at hand. The chief criteria for the Almanac are Significance and Memorability. This will enable us to recognize and remember those individuals, events, and movements that made the Episcopal Church what it is today and that will inspire us in the future without requiring the burden of either asserting or proving their sanctity. Additionally, should sufficient documentable local, regional, and church-wide commemoration grow up around figures in the Almanac, it’s entirely possible that they could be remembered in the Calendar as well.

Here’s the proposed preface.

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Proposed Preface to the Book of Optional Observances

A New Perspective

The work before you represents a new approach to on-going non-Sunday Christian formation and liturgical celebration within the Episcopal Church. In the process leading up to the creation of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer, a Calendar Committee drafted a proposed Calendar for inclusion in that work. While it was not approved, a set of Eucharistic propers for the liturgical celebration of a saint was included. A Calendar Study committee was convened again in 1945 that finally produced the first official sanctoral calendar, approved in 1964. This material was supplemental to the Book of Common Prayer and was printed in a volume entitled Lesser Feasts and Fasts. The feasts pertained to the sanctoral celebrations; the fasts were the quarterly Ember Days and the provisions made for weekdays in Lent. Successive editions provided Eucharistic propers for a host of additional saints’ days and an increasing number of weekdays in the temporal calendar, partly in response to the growing custom of weekday Eucharists.

In 2003, under the direction of Presiding Bishop Frank Griswold—former chair of the Standing Committee on Liturgy and Music and its Calendar Subcommittee—General Convention directed the Standing Commission to revise Lesser Feasts and Fasts “to reflect our increasing awareness of the importance of the ministry of all the people of God and of the cultural diversity of The Episcopal Church, of the wider Anglican Communion, of our ecumenical partners, and of our lively experience of sainthood in local communities.” Now, over a decade later and after much deliberation and no little contention, we offer a resource that reflects the wide variety of Anglican understandings of sanctity, of liturgy, and of our common mission in Christ rooted in Baptism as exemplified in our Baptismal Covenant.

Through the preliminary work of the committee in arriving at this point, General Convention authorized a calendar containing upward of 295 commemorations celebrating 340 named individuals. The Calendar contained in the work before you contains fewer commemorations and individuals—and yet this resource as a whole contains all of these prior events and people and more! For those who became accustomed to certain celebrations and came to know new saints of God through the later versions of Lesser Feasts and Fasts or the preliminary editions of Holy Women, Holy Men, rest assured that no one has been “de-sainted” even though their name may not appear within the Calendar on the following pages. Instead, the Calendar now contains fewer commemorations with the intention that local observances and local theologies of sanctity should take precedence over a centralized list of names pushed down from above by a church committee.

The Calendar as Illustrative rather than Comprehensive

In obedience to the directive from General Convention to be more sensitive to sanctity in all of its diversity, the first instinct of the Calendar Subcommittee was to add names—to demonstrate inclusivity through a comprehensive Calendar. No matter how many names were added, however, we could never put on enough names to communicate the true diversity of the people of God. Furthermore, there would always be worthy individuals whose names would be omitted due to accidents of fortune or history rather than a lack of sanctity.

A different perspective was to offer a more minimal Calendar deeply committed to its own insufficiency.  This Calendar does not contain all of the saints of the Episcopal Church. It only begins to contain the saints who inspire, delight, trouble, and confuse us. Rather than creating a Calendar that is comprehensive, this Calendar is merely illustrative. That is, it presents a few representative examples of dedicated Christians throughout history who have invited us deeper into the life of God through their own witness. They illuminate different facets of Christian maturity to spur us on to an adult faith in the Risen Christ and the life of the Spirit he offers. As illustrations, they mirror the myriad virtues of Christ in order that, in their examples, we might recognize those same virtues and features of holiness in people closer to our own times and stations and neighborhoods. And, seeing them in those around us, we may be more able to cultivate these virtues and forms of holiness—through grace—as we strive to imitate Christ as well.

New in this resource is an Almanac for the Episcopal Church. While the purpose of the Calendar is to lift up individuals whom the Church should honor and imitate for their sanctity and their demonstration of the contours of a fully mature Christian faith, the Almanac’s purpose—sometimes complementary to the Calendar, sometimes overlapping—is to identify the significant and memorable individuals, events, and movements who have made the Episcopal Church what it is today. Some of them are well known; some of them are not. Some of them are Episcopalians; more of them are not. Nevertheless, through their leadership, thinking, writing, singing, praying, caring and working they have constructed the scaffolding through which this Church was built and will continue to grow. The Calendar celebrates sanctity—the end goal of a sacramental life of discipleship; the Almanac celebrates importance and significance. As the Calendar is intentionally illustrative, the Almanac contains some who may well fit both definitions. Indeed, as communities and parishes and dioceses consider their local understanding of sanctity, the Almanac may be a worthy first stop in exploring who beyond the Calendar may inspire you in your baptismal journeys.

Exhortation to Local Observance

Rather than attempting to mandate where holiness can be seen, this perspective liberates the Church to search for holiness both in its history and in its midst. In order to live into the potential of this approach, we exhort individuals, parishes, missions, and diocese to construct calendars of commemorations, using the Calendar contained here as a starting place. There are saints at every level of our lives and we diminish by a little the light of Christ in our world where they are not celebrated. The criteria for inclusion in the Calendar are presented on page XX. We invite you to read through the names, lives, and observances in this volume’s Almanac, and in other resources whether current or historical like Butler’s Lives of the Saints or Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, and in the lines scribed on the walls of your churches and the sidewalks of your streets to find narratives of witness that aid you in living out your baptismal vows. Create, circulate, and deliberate calendars and narratives that speak to the holiness of a transcendent God who blesses our lives in imminence.

In providing a minimal Calendar, we are offering a sign of trust in local communities. We recognize that there are a wide variety of understandings of sanctity across the Episcopal Church. Expecting them to be identical from the mountains of Honduras to the hills of Virginia to the high plains of Wyoming is unrealistic and does a discredit to the hardy faith that sustains lives in these regions and beyond. Local communities are thereby given a broader degree of freedom to discern who they identify as saints and how they perceive these individuals to be impacting their daily lives of faith. We pray that this approach will lead to the identification of a wider array of indigenous saints—some of whom should be shared more broadly across the church, and some of whom should remain local observances united to their own particular place and home.

Expanding Liturgical Horizons

This resource places a new focus upon some liturgical materials that have been long been part of the Christian tradition and that have been included in the 1979 Book of Common Prayer since its adoption: propers for Various Occasions. Growing out of the medieval tradition of votive masses, the propers for Various Occasions lift up particular aspects of the Christian life and witness that deserve to be celebrated, yet not at the expense of our Sunday celebrations of the Resurrection. Recapturing the use of these liturgical compositions can help local communities express liturgically their joys and struggles in solidarity with those around them. Within this resource, the Almanac of people and events significant to the Episcopal Church has been linked to many of these Various Occasions, providing a natural and ready opportunity for exploring these liturgies. It is our hope that, having been exposed to them in this context, they will more naturally and easily spring to mind when their use is warranted.

Expanding Formative Horizons

In the past Lesser Feasts and Fasts was primarily understood as a book for non-Sunday Eucharistic celebrations. However, within the past decade, social media and an evolving array of digital devotional materials have revealed that this work and its subsequent formulations have an important role in shaping personal as well as communal devotion. These aren’t just collections of liturgies—these resources help modern Episcopalians learn about themselves, their faith communities, and the history of the wider Church. In recognition of this reality, attention has been given (particularly within the Almanac) to presenting a broader narrative that communicates how some of these events and individuals are linked together, and how they make the Episcopal Church who we are today.

Entries in both the Calendar and the Almanac have been associated with a variety of “tags.” These tags help provide an instant context for the individuals, movements, or events being remembered. Too, they create relationships across the material, highlighting common themes or connections between apparently disparate people. The tags may relate to gender, ethnicity, region of impact, or identify some of the virtues and charisms that may be seen in them. In digital editions of this resource, hyperlinking will allow you to explore across the Calendar and Almanac by means of the commonalities.

In addition, digital tools have given a broader prominence to the Daily Office leading to more questions concerning how Lesser Feasts are represented in these services. In order to clarify the intersection of this resource with the Daily Office, direction will be provided at the head of each section explaining its proper use.

The Shape of the Work

In order to accomplish the goals outlined above, this resource contains three major parts. The first part is “Holy Women, Holy Men: A Sanctoral Calendar” that contains the calendar of observances and which provides commons for the celebration of various kinds of locally identified saints as well. The second part is “Praying the Seasons: A Temporal Calendar” that provides Scripture lessons, collects—where appropriate—and other Eucharistic propers for celebrating weekdays within the Church’s liturgical seasons. The third part is “Dedicating our Lives: Various Occasions and an Almanac for the Episcopal Church” that contains the propers composed for Various Occasions and the Almanac that connects these Occasions to people, events, and movements that have shaped the Episcopal Church.

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Also, here’s the head of the general rubrics on the Church Calendar:

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Optional Observances and the Calendar

In the section entitled “Concerning the Service of the Church,” the Book of Common Prayer clarifies the normative services of the Episcopal Church:

The Holy Eucharist is the principal act of Christian worship on the Lord’s Day and other major Feasts, and Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, as set forth in this book, are the regular services appointed for public worship in the Church. (BCP, 13)

Eucharistic propers (collects, Scripture readings, and proper preface) are provided in the Book of Common Prayer for the days when the Eucharist is the principal service.  The Calendar section at the front of the prayer book identifies these Eucharistic feasts by placing them into three categories, ranked by priority: Principal Feasts, Sundays, and Holy Days. Normatively, on all other days, Morning and Evening Prayer are the Church’s official public services. However, as celebration of the Eucharist has become more frequent, many parishes now offer weekday Eucharists on days for which the prayer book does not assign propers.

The prayer book provides a range of six possible options for the celebration of the Eucharist on these ferial or non-feast days. These options are:

  1. To celebrate a Major Feast that has fallen elsewhere in the week as provided in the prayer book,
  2. To celebrate a Lesser Feast as a Day of Optional Observance appointed in the Church’s Calendar,
  3. To celebrate a Lesser Feast as a Day of Optional Observance not appointed in the Church’s Calendar by using the Commons of Saints,
  4. To celebrate the season by using the propers of the preceding Sunday,
  5. To celebrate the season by using the propers appointed for a day in the given week of the season, and
  6. To celebrate an occasion provided for in the propers for “Various Occasions.”

To facilitate the use of these authorized options, this resource contains the propers for fixed Holy Days, Commons of Saints, and Various Occasions given in the prayer book and those authorized since the adoption of the prayer book, and propers for Days of Optional Observance recognized for Church-wide use but not included within the prayer book. The propers in this resource are grouped into three sections by type for the sanctoral cycle, the temporal cycle, and various occasions.

Directions for the appropriate use of the various kinds of propers are provided at the head of each section, but here are some general guides for use:

  • These propers are not to be used on any day for which the prayer book has appointed propers.
  • If a Major Feast that falls in the week will not be celebrated with a Eucharist on its indicated day, it is most appropriate that a midweek service will observe the Major Feast in order to retain the prayer book’s emphasis on the significance of these occasions.
  • “Feasts appointed on fixed days in the Calendar are not observed on the days of Holy Week or of Easter Week” nor should propers for Various Occasions be used within this period (BCP, 18).
  • In keeping with ancient tradition, the observance of Lenten weekdays ordinarily takes precedence over Various Occasions or Lesser Feasts occurring during this season.
  • Since the triumphs of the saints are a continuation and manifestation of the Paschal victory of Christ, the celebration of saints’ days is particularly appropriate during the Easter season.

Optional Observances and the Daily Office

The propers in this resource are provided for use in the Eucharist; specific directions on whether or how they may be used in the Daily Office are described at the head of each section.

As a rule, the Scripture readings appointed for optional observances are not to be substituted for the Daily Office Lectionary given in the Book of Common Prayer. Since the observation of a Lesser Feast would make that celebration’s collect the “Collect of the Day,” the collect of a Lesser Feast may be used as the “Collect of the Day” In the Office whether a Eucharist for that observance is being locally celebrated or not. Since the Daily Office operates primarily within the movement of the temporal Cycle, the collect of the preceding Sunday or Principal Feast may be prayed after a sanctoral “Collect of the Day” in order to maintain this liturgical connection. The collect for a Various Occasion should not replace or displace the Collect of the Day but may follow that Collect or the conclusion of the Office at the discretion of the officiant.

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I want to draw attention to some of the items towards the end of the preface. I see this proposal representing three major advances beyond HWHM here. First, it puts the sanctoral Calendar on a more solid theological footing focusing on sanctity. Second, it clarifies the status of the three major options for celebrating a non-Sunday Eucharist. Third, it recognizes how HWHM is currently being used in the wild. I see it more online and in social media than in physical churches. This proposal takes this devotional use seriously and provides an enhanced framework for utilizing it to learn both church history and be introduced to the primary saints recognized by our tradition.

I truly believe that this proposal offers a win-win situation. For those who value the diversity currently present in HWHM, all of it has been retained. For those concerned about the sanctity of those on the sanctoral Calendar, a smaller, more carefully vetted list will adhere to the published criteria. For those concerned with a loss of ferial days, the resource as a whole better communicates the optional character of all of the Lesser Feasts and clarifies the relationships between the various options. I think this proposal offers the church a better-rounded, more useful resource that displays a more coherent implicit theology of sanctity and offers greater sensitivity concerning how it will actually be used.

Let me know what you think . . .

A Point of Clarification: Some people have asked to see the names on the actual Calendar. My response is to warn you that we’re at least four major hurdles away from that point.

  • The first hurdle is for the SCLM to adopt this proposal. This is by no means a fore-gone conclusion and I expect that there will be a certain amount of resistance to it or at least to some aspects of it.
  • The second hurdle will involve hashing out the new criteria for the Calendar.
  • The third hurdle would be a concomitant hashing out of criteria for the Almanac.
  • It’s not until the fourth hurdle that we can actually start naming names for the Calendar.
  • And again for the Almanac…

While I do have an example list it is in no way official or even semi-solid from an official point of view. So—that’s too much uncertainty for me to produce any such list at the present time; it would be both premature and presumptive.

Sanctoral Dedications of Episcopal Parishes

Dr. Kirk Hadaway, official numbers person for the Episcopal Church, was kind enough to provide me with a list of every single Episcopal parish in the world as of a few years ago. I have now gone through that list with an eye to discovering to whom our various churches are dedicated with a particular interest in sanctoral dedications. That is, which saints are churches dedicated to? What patterns of dedication do we see? Specifically, what is the breakdown between red-letter saint dedications and black-letter (i.e., those directly in the purview of HWHM and the Calendar Subcommittee), and what do those tell us about established local observance of saints across the Episcopal Church?

Here are some of my findings.

The starting list of 7,204 names displays quite a range of naming possibilities. Broadly speaking, Episcopal parishes take a name either from:

  • a saint to whom they are dedicated,
  • a feast of the (temporal cycle of the) liturgical year,
  • a person of the Trinity,
  • a theological concept, or
  • their location

Of these options, there are a total of 4,773 dedications of parishes to saints. The number of parishes dedicated to saints is slightly smaller than this as some parishes are dedicated to two saints and there are a handful that are dedicated to three saints.

Most of these sanctoral dedications are fairly straight-forward. It should be noted at this point, however, that there were a few difficulties in the overlap of names. Because most saints are referred to in the list (and in church dedications) by a single name, there is potential confusion between individuals who share a common name. The most ambiguity occurs in the following cases:

  • John: these churches could be dedicated to
    • John, the Apostle and Evangelist
    • John the Baptizer
    • John the Divine, author of Revelation (who may or may not be the same as John the Apostle)
  • James: these churches could be dedicated to
    • James the Greater, Apostle
    • James the Less, Apostle
    • James of Jerusalem (the Just), brother of our Lord Jesus Christ
  • Augustine: these churches could be dedicated to
    • Augustine of Hippo
    • Augustine of Canterbury
  • Ant(h)ony: these churches could be dedicated to
    • Antony of Egypt
    • Anthony of Padua
  • Gregory
    • Gregory the Great of Rome
    • Gregory of Nyssa
    • Gregory the Illuminator
    • Gregory Nazianzus

I realized only in the course of this analysis that Elizabeth could refer (primarily) either to Elizabeth of Hungary or to Elizabeth, the Mother of John the Baptizer. Those with qualifiers indicated “Hungary” but this would require further scrutiny to clarify the true state.

I did research a number of these by checking parish websites; in some cases I could tell which saint was indicated, in others it was inconclusive. (Pro tip: if your church is dedicated to a saint, say a little bit about them on your parish website!) If I could not tell, I went with the more common which is the first saint of the group named above.

Of these 4,773 dedications, 3,596 are dedicated to saints having red-letter days (75.3%). Of the red-letter saints, these are the ten most popular:

Paul of Tarsus, Apostle 482
John, Apostle and Evangelist 435
Andrew, Apostle 284
James the Greater, Apostle 265
Luke, Evangelist 248
All Saints 233
Mark, the Evangelist 231
Mary the Virgin, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ 211
Simon Peter (Cephas), Apostle 208
Stephen, Deacon and Martyr 170

These top ten represent (in turn) 76.9% of the red-letter sanctoral dedications and therefore 57.9% of all sanctoral dedications in the Episcopal Church.

Of the 1,177 black-letter dedications, these are the top ten:

Francis of Assisi, Friar, 1226 92
George, Soldier and Martyr, c. 304 90
Alban, First Martyr of Britain, c. 304 82
David, Bishop of Menevia, Wales, c. 544 62
Anne, Parent of the Blessed Virgin Mary 61
Christopher, Martyr at Antioch, c. 304 59
Timothy, Companion of Saint Paul 59
Martin, Bishop of Tours, 397 57
Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, and Theologian, 430 43
All Angels 35

If “All Angels” is removed as it connects to a red-letter day, the next entries would be a tie: Margaret, Queen of Scotland, and Patrick, Bishop and Missionary of Ireland, both at 32. The top ten list here represent 54.4% of the black-letter dedications.

Given the red-letter vs. black-letter balance and the overwhelming presence of male saints in the red-letter category, it’s no surprise that the overall gender balance shows massive disparities. 4,344 dedications are to male saints (91%); 429 are to female saints (9%). Of the female saints having dedications, here are the top ten:

Mary the Virgin, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ 211
Anne, Parent of the Blessed Virgin Mary 61
Margaret, Queen of Scotland, 1093 32
Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, 1231 31
Mary Magdalene 16
Martha of Bethany 11
Agnes, Martyr at Rome, 304 10
Clare, Abbess at Assisi, 1253 8
Catherine of Alexandria, Virgin and Martyr, c. 305 6
Monnica, Mother of Augustine of Hippo, 387 6

The breakdown between clergy and lay saints is not as disparate as one might expect, even when holding with Church tradition and identifying all twelve Apostles as bishops. 4,007 dedications are to bishops/priests/deacons/religious (83.9%); 766 are to laity (16.1%). Here are the top 10 lay dedications:

Mary the Virgin, Mother of our Lord Jesus Christ 211
George, Soldier and Martyr, c. 304 90
Alban, First Martyr of Britain, c. 304 82
Anne, Parent of the Blessed Virgin Mary 61
Christopher, Martyr at Antioch, c. 304 59
John the Baptizer 55
Joseph, Adoptive Father of Jesus Christ 36
Margaret, Queen of Scotland, 1093 32
Elizabeth, Princess of Hungary, 1231 31
Mary Magdalene 16

Shifting gears slightly, when we look at the saints to whom dedications are given, 133 saints have dedications. Of these, there are 107 black-letter saints with dedications.

Of these 107, 37 saints with a total of 173 dedications do not appear in HWHM. These are the top ten saints having dedications but not formally appearing within the Calendar:

Christopher, Martyr at Antioch, c. 304 59
Gabriel, Archangel 19
John the Divine, c. 90 11
Raphael the Archangel 9
Edward the Confessor, 1066* 9
Catherine of Alexandria, Virgin and Martyr, c. 305 6
Giles of Provence, Hermit, c.710 5
Helena, Protector of the Holy Places, 330 5
Anthony of Padua, priest and doctor of the Church 5
Charles Stuart, King and Martyr, 1649 4

* There’s likely some confusion here between the two sainted King Edwards of England, Edward the Confessor and Edward the Martyr. However, there were a total of 10 between the two of them.

It’s worth nothing that up until the introduction of HWHM, this list would have been headed by Saint George with 90.

When we look at the breakdown across time we see an interesting pattern. Again, when looking at the full set, the skew towards the first century and the red-letter apostolic saints is unmistakable:

CenturyParishDedAllHere’s the supporting data:

Century Parishes
1 3400
2 25
3 36
4 355
5 82
6 98
7 58
8 24
9 10
10 20
11 42
12 24
13 142
14 5
15 2
16 4
17 6
18 0
19 0
20 0

This is the graph and data when red-letter saints are removed:

CenturyParishDedBlack

Century Parishes
1 161
2 25
3 36
4 355
5 82
6 98
7 58
8 24
9 10
10 20
11 42
12 24
13 142
14 5
15 2
16 4
17 6
18 0
19 0
20 0

The spike in the 13th century is primarily due to Francis of Assisi (92 dedications) and Elizabeth of Hungary (31 dedications) [but see the caveat above on the correct identification of dedications to “Elizabeth”].

Thus, the most recent saints to receive dedications are the three in the 17th century, Charles Stuart, King and Martyr (4 dedications), William Laud (1 dedication), and Rose of Lima (1 dedication).

Of the new prospective saints introduced with HWHM, only four have dedications:

George, Soldier and Martyr, c. 304 90
Cecilia, Martyr at Rome, c. 280 1
Rosa de Lima, 1617, Witness to the Faith in South America 1
Lucy (Lucia), Martyr at Syracuse, 304 1

Again, these figures indicate a certain lack of attention to the local identification and observance of saints in the construction of HWHM.

While there is more data that can be teased out of this material, let me leave you with one final data set. This chart displays the dedications for parishes with Spanish titles representing not only Hispanic parishes in the US but also our dioceses in Central and South America:

MaryBVM 33
PaulAp 18
Joseph 13
PeterAp 12
MichaelArchangel 10
JohnAp 9
FrancisAssisi 9
JohnBaptist 8
Stephen 7
MatthewAp 7
AllSaints 7
LukeAp 7

The first include four dedications to the Virgin of Guadalupe/of the Americas, three dedications to Our Lady of Supaya, two dedications to Our Lady of Carmel, one to Our Lady of the Angels, one to Our Lady of the Forsaken, and one to Our Lady of Walsingham. Again, if we want to recognize local observance, we would do well to consider these dedications as we consider outreach into non-Anglo demographics.

While there were dedications where the title indicated primary languages of French, Korean, Japanese, and Lakota, the French mirrored the English, and the others did not rise to the level of being statistically significant.

HWHM Trial Balloon

I’ve been told that one of the problems with my approach to HWHM is that I haven’t paid sufficient attention to 2003-A100, the GC Resolution that authorized the project. Here it is for your reading pleasure:

Resolved, That the 74th General Convention direct the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to undertake a revision of Lesser Feasts and Fasts 2000, to reflect our increasing awareness of the importance of the ministry of all the people of God and of the cultural diversity of The Episcopal Church, of the wider Anglican Communion, of our ecumenical partners, and of our lively experience of sainthood in local communities; and be it further

Resolved, That the SCLM produce a study of the significance of that experience of local sainthood in encouraging the living out of baptism; and be it further

Resolved, That the General Convention request the Joint Standing Committee on Program, Budget, and Finance to consider a budget allocation of $20,000 for implementation of this resolution.

General Convention, Journal of the General Convention of…The Episcopal Church, Minneapolis, 2003 (New York: General Convention, 2004), p. 593.

I have now given this resolution a certain amount of attention. (Whether it’s been sufficient is not for me to say…)

In particular, I want to draw your attention to one phrase of the first Resolve clause: “…and of our lively experience of sainthood in local communities” and to the second Resolve clause in its entirety with a special focus on this phrase: “experience of local sainthood in encouraging the living out of baptism.”

Let me tackle the second Resolve first and answer the question that naturally proceeds from it. No—this study mandated by GC on the significance of the local experience of sainthood was never produced. What I’ve learned since being on the Standing Commission is that not everything mandated by GC gets accomplished. Sometimes it’s because they’ve offered a good idea that is simply not possible financially or for other reasons. The poster child for this is the requirement that everything Convention or its underlying bodies does or produces must be translated into both Spanish and French. That’s a great idea and recognizes the breadth of our church—but no funding is provided to do it. As a result things get translated slowly and occasionally if at all. And, sometimes, there are things resolved that fall off the radar and are forgotten. And, sometimes, there are things resolved that specifically get forgotten. I don’t know where this study falls, but it never occurred.

Nevertheless, between the second Resolve and the phase on “local communities” in the first, it seems that “local” is a very important part of what HWHM ought to be about! To honor the intention of the resolution, the collection needs to speak to this point in a compelling fashion.

What does “local” mean here? I think it’s ambiguous and that there are two possible and not exclusive answers that make sense in light of the rest of it. The first is that we need to trust local communities in their identification of sanctity in local people. The second is that we need to trust local communities in their identification of sanctity as it makes sense to them in their location, whether the individual honored is “local” or not.

For instance, if I were to suggest to a classic Virginia clergyman that he celebrate a feast for a little statue of the BVM called the Virgin of Supaya, he’d roll his eyes and mutter. And he’d be perfectly right in doing so based on the history and theology of his locale. If, however, I suggested to the clergy who serve the two Episcopal churches in the Diocese of Honduras named after the Virgin of Supaya that they not celebrate it,  they’d equally roll their eyes and mutter—based on their local theology. (She’s the patron of Honduras.)

Where is this local in HWHM? . . . What if—and I’m going out on a limb here—what if HWHM represents (no doubt, unintentionally) a distrust of local discernment by imposing in a top-down fashion such a large number of commemorations that don’t connect to local environments? In its attempt to be inclusive of people from a variety of locales and situations, has it actually created a centralized hegemonic artifact that might suppress rather than enhance local practice?

In order to celebrate the local, then, a reduced sanctoral calendar might be favorable especially if it were to explicitly say that the people included are only a tiny subset of the full number of the saints of God and are examples to spur local thought. A healthy recommendation of a variety of sanctoral texts from a variety of perspectives—Foxe, Butler, etc.—and a general uplifting of the Commons of Saints might do a far better job of promoting a “lively experience of sainthood in local communities” then a book imposed from on high filled with people and situations that don’t connect to the local environment.

Too, the incorporation of a parallel Almanac in the same volume could likewise offer suggestions for celebration beyond the official Calendar.

Thoughts?

HWHM Update

At the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music (SCLM) meeting yesterday, there was quite a lot of debate around the best way to proceed with HWHM. The minutes aren’t finished yet which means that I haven’t gone back through the conversation carefully. However, it was decided that we would not make any firm decisions now and are waiting to hash it out in person at our June meeting.

There was a decent amount of interest in the historical almanac idea.

Currently the plan is for Sandye and me to :

  • go back through General Convention legislation, achieve clarity on just what we can and are supposed to mess with,
  • put together a proposed list of who would be in the almanac and the Calendar,
  • identify which commemorations are in the “keep” list and which in a “questionable” list
  • present proposed guidelines (if there are any changes from the current) and the degree to which we think we should allow exceptions to the guidelines/criteria

Current Considerations on HWHM

[I submitted the following thoughts to my fellow members of the SCLM in advance of our discussion tomorrow.]

Introduction

When Dr. Meyers informed me that we would spend some time discussing Holy Women, Holy Men at this meeting, identified the material she was circulating to the group, and asked if there was any additional material for inclusion, I had hopes that I would be able to complete in time a formal response to the ATR paper that she had written along with Dan Joslyn-Siemiatkoski. As I worked on it over the past week it has become abundantly clear that I will not be able to give it the care it deserves and circulate it with enough time for it to be read in advance of the meeting. Rather than producing a comprehensive argument, I thought it might be helpful to jot down the major concerns that I have with HWHM and that others have mentioned to me either on my blog or in person.

Before I begin with these concerns, though, I must start by acknowledging that a tremendous amount of work has gone into this project. My intention is neither to denigrate nor attempt to undo that work. To that end I’ve already reached out to Bishop Alexander (whom I know well as my former diocesan) to request his perspective on HWHM. Rather, I believe that the current state of HWHM serves as a foundation that can be built upon and refined to craft a high-quality, theologically-grounded Calendar reflecting our multiple diversities that can be proudly claimed by the whole Church.

The other point which must be stated—and cannot be overstated as we approach this work, I think—is that the Calendar is the official record of individuals commemorated throughout the transnational Episcopal Church. Entry onto the Calendar is not what makes a saint. Furthermore, not being included on the Calendar does not prevent an individual from being a saint or from being honored as one.

The calendar is, currently, our sole practice of social memory which is the process by which societies and organizations connect themselves to the past and make statements by reference to people and events of the past concerning their present identity. Being included on the Calendar means that an entry has particular bearing on who we are and what we do as a body of believers. Furthermore, the balance of the various kinds of saints says something significant about how we construe our priorities as a church and what roles and disciplines we value. The Calendar’s role in defining and directing Episcopal self-identity must be carefully guarded lest the Calendar become the property of one faction or another rather than being a collection that can be embraced by the whole church.

Clarity on the relationship between the Baptismal Covenant/Baptismal Ecclesiology and an Episcopal theology of sanctity

One of the foundational discussions of sanctity in Scripture occurs within the Pauline writings. In the two great letters on the church—1 Corinthians and Ephesians (with a healthy dash of Philippians thrown in for good measure)—a vision of Christian life emerges grounded in the principle of imitation. This vision is succinctly captured in Ephesians 5:1-2: “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” To read this as an individual call to an individual person would be incorrect, however, for this is the capstone of a broader discussion in the chapter before. Chapter 4 is a sustained argument to “lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called” (Eph 4:1). The gifts of the Spirit are not just for individual edification but for a grander purpose:

To equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.  But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love. (Eph 4:12-16)

In Baptism, all Christians are grafted into the Body of Christ; however, incorporation into the Body of Christ does not automatically confer the Mind of Christ. As individuals we must grow to maturity, but our own maturity can never be fully separated from the rest of the community. True maturity, a faithful imitation of Christ, is constituted by a relationship with Christ and his Church, a relationship rooted in faith and made visible in works of love that communicate Christ and bring the rest of the Church towards maturity as well.  This is the life of discipleship. But what does it look like in practical terms?

As Episcopalians, this is where we can turn to the Baptismal Covenant. Following the rite in the prayer book, a life of discipleship minimally means:

  • believing in the Triune God as revealed in the Church’s Creed
  • continuing in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers
  • persevering in resisting evil, and, whenever we fall into sin repenting and returning to the Lord
  • proclaiming by word and example the Good News of God in Christ
  • seeking and serving Christ in all persons, loving our neighbor as ourselves
  • striving for justice and peace among all people and respecting the dignity of every human being

This is a life grounded in the faith of Christ and that reflects that inward belief and personal transformation in outward action and corporate transformation. If the Baptismal Covenant reflects our core understanding of discipleship, then our definition of sanctity must necessarily be rooted in the keeping of the Baptismal Covenant. After all, a covenant is an agreement between two parties: God makes promises to us, but we also make promises back—the transformation of discipleship is, among other things, about us holding up our end of the bargain! One aspect of the saints, then, is that these are mature Christians who, in their keeping of the Baptismal Covenant, inspire the rest of us to do the same.

In using the Baptismal Covenant to frame our understanding of what makes a saint, two items need to be noted. First, the covenant relationship with God found in Baptism is not optional. It’s hard to be an exemplary keeper of promises you haven’t taken. Second, history tells us of a myriad good, moral, inspiring, and important people not all of whom need a place on our Calendar. Sanctity is not just a matter of morality or inspiration—it’s about incarnating Christ to the community in the pattern of a life shaped by Christian maturity.

The report from the Calendar Committee in the 1982 Blue Book contains a line which keeps coming back to my mind because it so succinctly challenges a facile understanding of the saints and why we remember them:  “It is essential that the prime criterion for inclusion in the Calendar continue to be (as is traditional) the witness of the person commemorated to the power of the Risen Christ, rather than a pedagogical desire to set certain persons forward as ‘examples’ for the faithful to follow” (Blue Book 1982, 146). To me, this quote focuses not upon specific actions  or general types of action, but the way that each individual life in its totality shows itself to be an offering to the Church in and through the imitation of Christ and incarnating his message of love in its own radically particular time, place, and situation. Do some entries in HWHM focus on certain exemplary deeds rather than a life suffused with Christ?

The Eschatological Implications of Baptism

I focused on this angle in the Living Church article so I won’t rehash it here but to note the high points. Because of the nature of our life-in-Christ due to Baptism, the whole Christian community is eternally present as Christ is present. The saints are fellow-workers with us now. The collects give me the odd feeling of talking about someone in the room as if they were not there—we talk to God about the saint as if they weren’t part of our immediate worshipping community.

Too, we likewise fail to acknowledge how the individuals identified might feel about being included on a Calendar of this kind; Calvin and Barth must not be too pleased given their own thoughts on the saints!

Sufficiency of the Criteria

Since the publication of the proposed sanctoral calendar for the Episcopal Church in 1957, three sets of selection criteria have been put forward.

In the 1982 Blue Book, Thomas Talley presented a work entitled “The Passion of Witness: Prolegomena to the Revision of the Sacred Calendar” that included five criteria for inclusion: 1. Historicity; 2. Christianity; 3. Significance; 4. Historical Perspective; and 5. Memorability. Talley ends by saying that this list is not intended to be exclusive:

While other criteria may be appropriate or needed, and while suggestions toward them are invited, these have been set forth as consistent with the theology of sanctoral commemoration which we have articulated and which we take to be fundamental to further development of our celebration of the victory of Christ, “in memory of those athletes who have gone before, and to train and make ready those who are to come hereafter.” (Blue Book 1982, 161)

During the vote to add 7 new names to the Calendar in 1985 and the subsequent argument in the House of Bishops over the appropriateness of Aelred and Edmund, the Bishop of Texas made an amendment that the SLC present a report to the 1988 convention that contained “clear and detailed” guidelines that would govern the inclusion of new names. This passed as resolution 1985-A092. The following convention saw resolution 1988-A097 that presented Talley’s criteria with only a few changes in wording (like the clarification that two generations of perspective is equivalent to fifty years, hearkening back to the Lambeth study on saints which recommended the same length of time).

Also in 1985, the SLC rather sourly submitted a resolution (with the pointed note that it was submitted, not recommended) adding Charles Stuart—aka King Charles the Martyr—because the House of Bishops had expressly desired it to do so, and it was canonically required to obey. This resolution (1985-A094) was tabled and died upon adjournment. However, Charles returned at the head of resolution 1991-A119 and, in combination with 1991-A118, made this the year of Calendar Backlash at convention. The list of names for final authorization recommended in 1991-A118 was savaged, the House of Bishops rejecting all but one of the entries and demanding a rationale for the rest at their next meeting. The Deputies fought back and insisted that two entries be replaced (Bride and Underhill). The Bishops relented and the resolution was passed. With the appearance of 1991-A119 and a list of names book-ended by King Charles and Thomas Becket, the committee scrapped the resolution wholesale and submitted in its place a strongly worded reaffirmation of the 1988 criteria, a demand for expansion of the criteria particularly around the concept of martyrdom, directed a wider circulation of the criteria, and tasked the SLC alone with historical inquiry and the provision of material around candidates pointedly preventing the House of Bishops from submitting names directly.

As a result of the Caroline Martyrdom Controversy, the SLC brought forward 1994-A074 which altered and expanded upon the Talley criteria. It offered eight, the first of which gave a much clearer definition of martyrdom: 1. Heroic Faith; 2. Love; 3. Goodness of life; 4. Joyousness; 5. Service to others for Christ’s sake; 6. Devotion; 7. Recognition by the Faithful; 8. Historical Perspective. While Talley’s criteria put forth a good set of generalities, this set is superior. Sanctity and its criteria don’t just fulfill one function; it isn’t just about who goes on an official Calendar. A robust set of criteria for sanctity serves as a working definition of the life of discipleship—it offers a plumb-line for the practice of the faith and puts flesh on the bones of Christian maturity. What Talley presented were procedural guidelines. Enshrined in 1994-A074 is a roadmap towards a life hid with Christ in God.

Connected with the criteria was also a process. Brought up in criterion 7 and documented in sections III and IV, this resolution outlines a process where commemoration begins at the local level, gradually grows and attracts more attention, and—if there is enough momentum and conviction that this commemoration should become a church-wide phenomenon—a formal proposal may be made. In such a case, “documented evidence of the spread and duration of local commemoration is essential to include in the proposal to the Standing Liturgical Commission.”  Section IV identifies the requirements for National (now “Church-wide”) Recognition including 3 or more bodies participating in the process and a formal proposal containing “a detailed rationale for commemoration based on the Guidelines (above) and demonstrating how this person manifests Christ and would enhance the devotional life of the Church,” a biography, “information concerning the spread and duration of local or international commemoration of this individual or group,” and proposed collects and readings.

This is quite a process and includes quite a lot of devotion and documentation. As a result, it comes as no surprise that the 1997 Blue Book, after citing the complexity of the process, contains the following note: “no new names have come before the commission” (Blue Book 1997, 282). However, beginning in 2000 and continuing in 2003, names began entering back on the resolution docket headed—ironically—by Florence Nightingale, one of the entries specifically rejected by the bishops in the Calendar Revolt of 1991. In each of the cases, I wonder if the proposals mandated by 1994-A074 were duly submitted. The process was required; was it followed?

Following resolution 2003–A100 which directed the work that would ultimately become Holy Women, Holy Men, the Blue Book 2006 states that the Calendar Committee “created new principles of revision as agreed norms within which the proposed revision would be developed” (Blue Book 2006, 131). The set of 10 criteria offered for approval in 2006-A057 are these: 1. Historicity; 2. Christian Discipleship; 3. Significance; 4. Memorability; 5. Range of Inclusion; 6. Local Observance; 7. Perspective; 8. Levels of Commemoration; 9. Combined Commemorations; 10. Common of the Saints. Looking at the source of the criteria, the first are largely those of Talley (1, 2, 3, 4, and 7) borrowing only the principle of local observance (6) from the 1994 set, and introducing four new principles (5, 8, 9, and 10). While only 1 criterion was adopted from the 1994 set, its procedure was retained largely intact requiring the proposal with its documentations, particularly to local observance. It should be noted, though, that the present criterion 7 n local observance was weakened by being deemed “normative” but not necessary.  Although 5 is new in its inclusion among the criteria, it reflects a concern with diversity in the Calendar which was expressed by Talley and the Calendar Committee in 1982 and reaffirmed by several resolutions in the intervening years particularly focusing on the inclusion of women and people of color.

In 2009, a textual revision was made to criterion 3 on Significance. Candidates may either exemplify heroic faith or “They may also be people whose creative work or whose manner of life has glorified God, enriched the life of the Church or led others to a deeper understanding of God;”  this alteration was passed in resolution 2009-A098 though not without an attempt (albeit unsuccessful) to strike the new addition.

My chief concern is the shift from 1994 to 2003: these are—once again—procedural notes rather than a vision of the sanctified life. Certainly a sanctified life is referenced in criterion 2 and is connected to living out the Baptismal Covenant, but is quite spare when viewed against the 1994 provisions: “What is being commemorated, therefore, is the completion in death of a particular Christian’s living out of the promises of baptism.”

I see a need in the Church for a stronger vision of discipleship. Evangelicals may talk about the “Purpose-Driven” this and that, but we as a Church have been poor at providing a purpose, a goal, for the Christian life in general and a spiritual life built around the prayer book system of spirituality in particular. What we offer the world is a sacramental path to discipleship. Our official Calendar of saints should be a straight-forward proclamation of what that looks like and offer a crystal clear vision of Christian maturity backed up by the biographies and lives included therein.

Faithfulness to the Criteria

While I would like to see a stronger set of criteria, a failing of the present work is that it is not even faithful to the criteria it offers.

Historicity has once again become an issue. This was a particular hobby horse of Prayer Book Studies IX which insisted that anyone commemorated be historically verifiable. In particular, it memorably vented its spleen on St. George:

 The fact that he has become a patron saint of England does not make him any the more real; nor does it necessitate making him a saint of the American Church. Fairy-book tales may indeed be edifying. When they become part of the folklore and tradition of a great nation they can become stirring symbols. But it is asking too much of the majority of our American Church membership, who have no such traditional and patriotic associations with the name, to respond with mature devotion to a saint of whom it can only be said, “He may have existed, sometime, somewhere.” (PBS IX, 36)

The appendix to the study also included a set of saints celebrated within the Anglican Communion but not recommended for the American Church; some of these were on historical grounds notably Valentine, George, Anne, Cecilia, and Catherine. The middle three now appear in HWHM. Has new evidence of their historicity appeared in the last fifty years? Furthermore, Lucy is back who was one of the saints who was presented then disappeared after the Calendar Backlash of 1991. (And I do note these with a certain regret as, like many Anglo-Catholics, I have a love for the martyr saints of the persecution years.)

The “50 year” clause of the Perspective criterion is a clear case. Either someone qualifies on a mathematical basis or they do not. If they do not qualify for church-wide recognition on mathematical grounds, then the promotion and observance of a local commemoration—as directed in the criteria—should certainly play a role in keeping the commemoration before the faithful until the required time has passed.

Baptism is explicitly listed as a requirement for inclusion in criterion 2. Rabbi Goode of the Dorchester Chaplains has been often and publicly cited as a failure of this criterion in public debate. No one is saying (certainly not within my hearing!) that Rabbi Goode is any less of a heroic witness of faith for his lack of baptism. But he is a heroic witness of the Jewish faith, not the Christian faith, and for us to co-opt him as one is quite insensitive to him and his tradition. Especially as we seek to tie the Baptismal Covenant and a baptismal ecclesiology to a theology of sanctity, baptism must be required for entry on the Calendar. Again—I say this with regret—if Anne and Joachim, parents of the BVM, need to be removed for the sake of consistency, so be it.

The most complicated criterion to apply and yet the arguably most import is criterion 2 on Christian discipleship. All other criteria—and here I’m looking specifically at that added line in criterion 3—are subject to it. Indeed, the presence of 2 is why the wiggle-room provided by that line in 3 does not bother me. However, in the definitional reduction between 1994 and 2003, applying additional sufficiently fine criteria around “the completion in death of a particular Christian’s living out of the promises of baptism” is complicated. One thing that we can say, though, is that those who chose to turn their backs on the church and its community will fall short of this criterion. According to my limited knowledge, this would disqualify people like W.E.B. DuBois and John Muir. And, if the “promises of Baptism” include fidelity to the creeds with which our Baptismal Covenant begins, then the case of Florence Nightingale (and possibly others) does need to be examined again.

The Number and Growth of Commemorations

The sheer volume of people added to the Calendar in HWHM is problematic. Particularly with the addition of so many names, I am concerned that we are not able to give each commemoration the attention it deserves to ensure that we are selecting the finest examples of Christian maturity who will inspire us to a similar maturity. While I am sure that there is an official table that contains all the data pertinent to HWHM, I have not yet seen it and fall back on my own resources; my initial sweep of calendrical proceedings over the past 50+ years yields the following graph:

Entries 1957-2013

The next logical question is this: where do we stop? When are we done? We’ve already begun adding multiple commemorations to some days—will we go until there are no ferial days left?

On the practical side, the growing number of commemorations causes problems for our diversity statistics. Based on my unofficial data this is the gender balance over the years:

Gender 1957-2013

Attention was first explicitly drawn to gender in 1982 and we see an immediate improvement in the next edition of LFF released in 1988. We have seen improvement with the influx of names in the introduction of HWHM in 2009, but women haven’t broken the 20% mark yet. It seems unlikely that the percentage will get much better without some sort of drastic intervention such as the removal of quite a number of men and the continued addition of women.

The Professionalization of the Calendar

As mentioned in my Living Church piece, I have difficulty with the way that we are clustering professions: architects on December 16th, artists on August 5th, composers on July 28th. Indeed, when you come right down to it, I have an issue with criterion 9 which advocates linked and combined commemorations. Again, going back to a baptismal basis, clustering commemorations lessens the individuality and therefore the witness of the people commemorated. Clustering draws attention to and exalts the “type” rather than the human life that bore witness to Christ. Yes, Christians of all professions can be and have been saints—but I fear that this gathering leads to abstracted types and examples rather than the witness of resurrected lives.

The “Modernization” of the Church

As I mentioned at the outset, the Calendar is a practice of social memory and it functions as a collective rather than a group of discrete individuals. After all, this is why diversity in the collection is important… The composition of the group matters and says something about how we understand our Church as a group and our selection of important people and events. Not just the individuals but the balance of the group is a powerful expression of group identity.   One of the effects of the huge influx of names is a sudden disproportionate effect upon the balance of the church over time. This graph tracks the count of named individuals by the centuries in which they died according to the main points in Calendar revision:

Ind by century by revision

In the proposed Calendar of 1957 there were observable spikes at the 4th century, the 13th century and the 19th century. Now the graph is completely dominated by the modern period. There are more saints in the last three centuries than in the seventeen leading up to them. The implicit message is an embrace of temporal myopia: we only recognize as important those people and events that have occurred within our immediate past. The converse is that we do not value our past and our connection to the church of our ancestors. Are we a church that sees ourselves in continuity with the baptized through the ages, or are we a church that understands ourselves as a recent phenomenon?

The Category of “Prophetic Witness”

In HWHM there are 23 individuals within 18 commemorations who are identified with the epithet of “Prophetic Witness.” I have two issues with this category. The first is that its use implies an exclusive property. Our Commons are drawn in such a way that they are not the air-tight categories of former days (Bishop-Confessor-Doctor, Virgin-not-Martyr, etc.) but are flexibly open. Nonetheless, they define particular areas of effort and focus: Pastor, Missionary, Theologian/Teacher, etc. Introducing Prophetic Witness among them seems to indicate an area of focus. I’m sympathetic to that intention, but this is the wrong name. To retain this label is to imply that martyrs are not prophetic witnesses. And yet that is at the very heart of the Christian definition of martyrdom! As is well-known, the English word “martyr” is a loan-word from the Greek term for “witness”; to suggest that there is nothing prophetic about being willing to give up your life for your faith is crazy! Likewise, monasticism represents a principled stance against the predominant principles and values of a society. How is this not a prophetic witness?  Indeed—most of the saints on our calendar represent a form of prophetic witness because a life of discipleship will always stand out by means of its virtues, character, and disciplines of life from those around it; it will be a witness of the resurrection that will always challenge the power structures around it.

This leads to the second issue—the category is euphemistic; the use of the term imbues it with an artificial gravitas. A more accurate epithet would be “social reformer,” “renewer of society” as used in the Lutheran calendars, or “social progressive.” After all, as a thought-experiment, it could be argued that in his fight to preserve the rank of Bishop from the Puritans, Charles Stuart was being prophetic  to the prevailing society around him. Could he then be called a “Prophetic Witness” and fit in the company of the others? Of course not! What would distinguish him from the others is that they sought to alter the status quo while he sought to preserve it. Again, we believe the Gospel calls us to personal transformation and to extend that transformation and liberation into the culture around us; this is a helpful and necessary category—but it needs a more accurate name.

Clarity on Liturgical Function

It is clear from the time the Proposed Calendar appeared in Prayer Book Studies IX that the propers provided were intended for Eucharistic celebration and were never intended to replace the in-course readings in the Daily Office. Explicit notice of this would serve to reduce confusion. I would think that in the section “Concerning the Proper” a line or brief paragraph could be added identifying the Eucharistic nature of the propers, but allowing that the collect can be used in the Office either as the Collect of the Day (governed by the order of precedence in the Calendar section of the prayer book) or in addition to the Collect of the Day.

Historical Almanac vs. Sanctoral Calendar

One of the fundamental questions before us concerns the nature of the document itself: is it an historical almanac or a sanctoral calendar? The line between the two can be fuzzy because, since we recognize only historical figures as saints and the saints ran their earthly races in the past, data about them is historical data. I would draw the distinction between the two in this way. An historical almanac is a record of people and events in the past that are meaningful to the group compiling it. It is a practice of social memory, but its entries are selected by a criterion of importance—the people and events are either important in their own right, say something important about how we see ourselves and our corporate identity, or both. A sanctoral calendar, in contrast, is a remembrance of individuals who stand as exemplars of Christian maturity and whose lives and witness call us to Christian maturity as well.

Some of the recent commemorations added in particular have been moving us in the almanac direction. Take, for example, the new trial commemoration of Virginia Dare and Manteo approved for August 17th. Virginia and Manteo were among the first people baptized in North America.  At first glance, this looks like a really good idea: it grew out of a local diocesan commemoration, it adds needed diversity to the Calendar by giving us a woman and a Native American, and it focuses our attention on baptism. My issue is this: how does Virginia Dare’s life manifest Christian maturity and call us to the same? Unfortunately, this is really hard to assess because she was part of the Roanoke Colony that disappeared! There is absolutely no record of her life—only the fact of her baptism.

I feel torn with commemorations like this one because it does offer us something worth remembering—but is the place for it a sanctoral calendar? Perhaps one way to honor the work that has been done without confusing the categories is to issue an official almanac precisely for items like these that are significant and important but don’t meet the criteria or fit the concept for sanctoral celebration. An official almanac too would be a useful repository for information about important people who didn’t rise to the level of sanctity for whatever reason but whom it is important for the Church to remember. It might also be the perfect waiting place for those who have not yet crossed the 50-year threshold but whom we are still considering as candidates for the sanctoral calendar.

Again, thinking practically, moving some individuals into an almanac will give us an opportunity to redress the ongoing gender gap issue which has been put before us time and again—and mandated legislatively since 1982.

In Conclusion

Holy Women, Holy Men represents a lot of hard work on Church History and Episcopal History. For that it deserves our praise. But there are still issues that need to be addressed. The sufficiency of our criteria and our adherence to them stand first and foremost in my mind. The balance of the Calendar is also a crucial issue for how we describe our connection to the ages that have come before us; the current composition reflects a radically disproportionate emphasis on the modern period. There are other ways—notably an official almanac—that can be used to preserve this work and yet to keep the integrity of the sanctoral Calendar. I look forward to our upcoming discussion, and to the rest of the work that lies before us.

SCLM Meetings: Past and Future

One of the issues with Church committees, commissions and decision-making processes is their almost constant state of opacity. It doesn’t need to be this way and, indeed, isn’t supposed to be this way. Minutes are taken for the meetings and the minutes are posted publicly—it’s just that very few people know anything about where they are…

As the secretary of the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music, I feel it’s my job to take the best minutes possible and get them out to those who are interested in wading through them. Thus—without further ado (and only two months after the fact!)—at this link you will find a PDF file of my minutes for the November meeting for the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music.

These are out just in time for another meeting to roll around. This upcoming Wednesday will be another meeting. The agenda is publicly posted as a PDF here. The single biggest topic on our plate with essentially an hour of the two hour meeting devoted to it is Holy Women, Holy Men. You’ll note on the agenda that I will be jointly leading this portion of the discussion as the Chair and Vice chair of the Commission have seen fit to appoint me co-chair of the Calendar Committee alongside Sandye Wilson. In preparation for the meeting, Ruth Meyers circulated an article she had co-authored on HWHM, my piece and the subsequent responses from the Living Church, and the Principles from HWHM itself. I have one other piece to submit for study and reflection which I will post here after I have delivered it to the Commission.

Needless to say, this will be an important meeting for those who have strong feelings about HWHM and the Church’s Calendar. Please keep the Commission and its work in your prayers!

Tracking Sanctity: Lesser Feasts & Fasts 1973

The next stop on the run-up to the sanctoral kalendar of the ’79 Prayer Book was the revised edition of Lesser Feasts & Fasts issued in 1973. Like its predecessor in 1963, there is not a whole lot of didactic or analytic text in this book. There is, however, an interesting preface from which I will cite down below.

This is a very significant text because of a number of important policy shifts that it contains. Few, if any, of these are explained, but they are definitely present. If the 1957 book represented the first crack at the Calendar, this is unquestionably Calendar 2.0. Here are the things that I identify as major alterations:

  • An increase in Red Letter days: 6 feasts originally introduced in the 1957 study as Black Letter days were promoted to Red Letter-level Holy Days. A brand-new one was added as well. All of these are feasts celebrating biblical people or events. What the shift represents is a new freedom in identifying major holy days apart from the predecessor kalendars whether English or American.
  • Inclusion of the Calendar material: The first material in the book after the preface is a version of what will become “The Calendar of the Church Year” section on pp. 15-8 of the ’79 Prayer Book. This spells out in new detail the relationship between Holy Days (containing Feasts of Our Lord and Other Major Feasts) and the Days of Optional Observance. The language of “Red Letter” and “Black Letter” disappears. Ironically, this is the first kalendar printed in color in a book of this sort and the Holy Days appear in red!
  • Abolition of Collect-Only Entries: In this book there are no longer levels of distinction between feasts that get full propers and those that only receive collects. All entries are provided with materials giving them two psalms, an Epistle, a Gospel, a Collect, and identifying the Proper Preface to be used. However, some feasts receive their own specific readings while others use the readings appointed in a particular common.The varieties and implications of this change will be discussed in detail below.
  • Turn to the Modern Age: Two-thirds of the entries added were from the 19th and 20th centuries. When a consolidation and unqualified group are removed from the reckoning, the fraction jumps to four-fifths. This will begin a major trajectory that will only accelerate in coming years.
  • Move to Consolidation: In the 1957 Proposed Calendar there were only two entries with more than one named individual: Cyril and Methodius, and Latimer and Ridley. One of the principles explicitly called out in the 1957 study was that Anglican Calendars tended to offer one person per entry (except in the case of mass martyrdoms). The Wesley brothers were added together in 1963, but the current work gives us the first example of a consolidation. Timothy and Titus had received their own separate days in 1957, but in 1973 they appear together as “Companions of Saint Paul.” While this is only one entry, it sets a precedent that will be increasingly followed.
  • Dropping of the term “Saint”: In text of the 1957 study, there was absolutely no hesitation to use the word “saint.” There was no sign of any hesitation to regard the people placed on the Proposed Episcopal Calendar as saints in the classical catholic sense. In the Proposed Calendar offered, though, only biblical personages were honored with the title. Thus, in the 1957 Calendar we have Black Letter days for Saint Timothy, Saint Titus, Saint Joseph, Saint Mary Magdalene, and Saint Mary. (Oddly, Cornelius the Centurion did not receive it…) In the expansion of biblical figures in 1963 we saw Saints Mary and Martha of Bethany, Saint Joseph of Arimathea, and Saint James of Jerusalem added. In 1973, most of these were elevated to Holy Days, but those who remained Days of Optional Observance lost their “Saint.” While there was always a reticence with this title for post-biblical figures, now only those biblical persons honored with Holy Days received the accolade.
  • Collects appear in Contemporary as well as Traditional Language: This is not a surprise, but should be noted for completeness’s sake.

Contents

Preface (p. vii)

The Calendar (p. 3)

The Collects, Psalms, and Lessons
The Weekdays in Lent (p. 20)
The Lesser Feasts (p. 34)
The Common of Saints (p. 156)

Appendices
Biographical Sketches (p. 173)
Indices
The Sources of the Collects (p. 281)
The Lessons (in Canonical order) (p. 289)
The Selections from the Psalms (p. 297)
Alphabetical Listing (p. 304)

The first thing the Contents reveals is the absence of several kinds of days that had appeared in the previous book. While the Weekdays of Lent are here, gone are the Ember Days, the days in the Easter Octave, and the Rogation Days. The days in the Easter Octave are still mentioned in the Calendar section as having precedence over Holy Days, but they do not appear here. Too, the Ember and Rogation Days are not mentioned as examples of Days of Optional Observance in the explanatory portion of the Calendar rubrics as they are now.

The biographical sketches remain separate from the propers.

The Preface to the work offers a glimpse into the changes that have occurred. It’s short, so here it is:

The General Convention of 1970 authorized the Standing Commission to publish this revised edition The Calendar and the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels for the Lesser Feasts and Fasts and for Special Occasions, first published as “Prayer Book Studies” XVI in 1963 and authorized for trial use by the General Convention of 1964. With certain amendments it was re-authorized by the General Convention of 1967.

The new edition is made necessary because changes have been made in the Calendar, and because certain materials from the 1963 edition have been included in Services for Trial Use, authorized by the General Convention of 1970 and published in 1971. Opportunity has thus been afforded to enrich this new edition with the following changes and additions:

  1. The Collects of the earlier edition have been carefully revised, and several new ones have been included. They are provided in both traditional and contemporary language, as in Services for Trial Use.
  2. Optional Collects and daily schedules of Psalms and Lessons are given for the weekdays of Lent. The new schedule of Lessons, but not of the Psalms, is substantially that proposed for experimental use in the Roman Catholic Church’s Ordo Lectionum Missae of 1969.
  3. Commemorations which hitherto had only a Collect are now assigned Psalms and Lessons, either individually or by reference to The Common of Saints.
  4. The texts of the Lessons have not been written out in full, since it is now permitted to read them from several translations (Title II, Canon 2). The references for the Lessons are from the Revised Standard Version. Verses from the Psalms are numbered according to The Prayer Book Psalter Revised. The corresponding verses in the 1928 Prayer Book, when they differ, are shown  in brackets.
  5. Biographical notes and sketches about the commemorations have been prepared for this edition by the Rev. Massey H. Shepherd, Jr. Many of them are revisions of the notices scattered in “Prayer Book Studies” IX, XII, XVI, and 19.

The Collects, Psalms, and Lessons in this book are for optional use at the times appointed, in accordance with the rules of precedence of The Calendar. The officiant may always substitute, at his discretion, appropriate selections from The Common of Saints. It is our hope that this new edition will be received with the same favor throughout the Church as was the earlier book, for the enhancement of our common worship and devotion.

The Drafting Committee on the Calendar, Eucharistic Lectionary, and the Collects has been responsible for preparing this edition: The Reverend Massey H. Shepherd, Jr., chairman; the Reverend Canon James R. Brown, and the Reverend Messrs. Lawrence L. Brown, Reginald H. Fuller, and Donald L. Garfield.

All sorts of revisions have been going on. Entries are being added, Scripture lessons are being added all around, collects are being changed, a number of new Commons have been added; there’s a lot of flux here.  Point 3 is one of the biggest policy shifts but no information around it is given here—just the statement that it has occurred. I think that Point 4 was also a significant change as it no longer meant that everything had to be constrained by the printed page, several of the readings got longer perhaps in relation to this.

One of the other things not to lose sight of from this preface is its passing mention of Vatican II. We weren’t the only ones doing kalendar changes in this period—the Roman Catholic kalendar was undergoing fairly major revision in this era as well and the full story of the Episcopal kalendar is likely incomplete without looking at parallel developments across the Tiber. Certainly the emphasis on historicity seen in PBS9 was common with the Roman commission, but I suspect other parallels will appear there as well driven in large part by the Liturgical Renewal Movement that was at work in both churches.

Changes to the Calendar

In the 1973 Calendar there are 13 new entries not in the ’63 Calendar containing 13 named individuals.

One of these is a brand-new Holy Day: the Confession of St Peter. Additionally, 6 days already on the Calendar were promoted up to Holy Days:

  • SAINT JOSEPH
  • THE VISITATION OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY
  • SAINT MARY MAGDALENE
  • SAINT MARY THE VIRGIN, MOTHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST
  • HOLY CROSS DAY
  • SAINT JAMES OF JERUSALEM, BROTHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, AND MARTYR, C. 62

One of these new entries is the above-mentioned consolidation of Timothy and Titus on the same day so this is technically a new entry but these individuals are clearly not new additions.

There have also been some exits from the Calendar. Obviously, the entries for “Saint Timothy” and “Saint Titus” have disappeared/been replaced. In August, “Jeremy Taylor, Bishop of Down, Connor, and Dromore, 1667” was moved from his previous position on August 14th to August 13th.  In the 1963 Calendar, the 13th had contained “Hippolytus, Bishop, and Martyr, c. 235” who has now been dropped from the Calendar.

Here are the stats on just the new Days of Optional Observance:

By ordination status:

  • 3 bishops (30%)
  • 4 priests (40%)
  • 1 deacon (10%)
  • 1 religious (10%)
  • 1 laity (10%)
  • 3 unqualified collectives

By gender:

  • 9 male (90%)
  • 1 female (10%)
  • 3 unqualified collectives

Entries by category:

  • 3 Multiple Martyrs
  • 3 Male Confessors
  • 1 Martyr
  • 1 Virgin/Doctor
  • 1 Bishop/Confessor
  • 1 Multiple Bishops/Confessors (2 individuals [Timothy & Titus])
  • 1 Confessor/Doctor
  • 1 Hermit/Monastic

Entries by Continent of Major Activity:

  • 3 in N America
  • 3 in Europe
  • 2 in Africa
  • 1 in Polynesia
  • 1 in Asia
  • 1 in the Middle East
  • 1 unquantifiable (Commemoration of All Faithful Departed)

Entries by Century:

LFF1973_Adds_century

Due to its obvious breadth, the entry for the “Commemoration of All Faithful Departed” doesn’t appear on the chart.

The New Shape of the Calendar

Ok—so now the stats of the Calendar as a whole…

In the 1973 Revised Edition of Lesser Feasts & Fasts there are 152 entries of which 33 are Holy Days and 119 are Days of Optional Observance. Within the Days of Optional Observance there are 121 named individuals.

Here are the stats on the Days of Optional Observance…

By ordination status:

  • 62 bishops (51%) [+1/-1%]
  • 26 priests (21%) [+4/+2%]
  • 5 deacons (4%) [+1/+1%]
  • 11 religious (9%) [+2/+2%]
  • 15 laity (12%) [-3/-4%]
  • 5 unqualified collectives (4%) [+3/+2%]

The drop in laity here is due to the upgrading of entries: St Mary Magdalene and the 2 entries naming the BVM left the tally.

Named individuals by gender:

  • 109 male (90%) [+7/+2%]
  • 12 female (10%) [-2/-2%]

Again, the drop in women is due to the upgrade of the Marys.

Entries by category:

  • 30 Bishop/Confessors
  • 20 Male Confessors
  • 14 Bishop/Confessor/Doctors
  • 9 Hermit/Monastics
  • 9 Confessor/Doctors
  • 8 Bishop/Martyrs
  • 8 Multiple Martyrs (only 3 named individuals, though)
  • 5 Martyrs
  • 4 Multiple Bishops/Confessors (9 named individuals)
  • 3 Female Confessors
  • 2 Virgin/Abbesses
  • 2 Virgin/Doctors
  • 1 Multiple Female Confessors
  • 1 Multiple Male Confessors (2 named individuals)
  • 1 Virgin/Martyr
  • 1 Feast of the BVM (2 individuals [her parents])
  • 1 general (Commemoration of All Faithful Departed)

Entries by Continent of Major Activity:

  • 73 in Europe (76 named individuals) (61%)
  • 15 in the Middle East (18 named individuals) (13%)
  • 12 in North America (10%)
  • 10 in Africa (9 named individuals) (8%)
  • 5 in Asia (4 named individuals) (4%)
  • 2 in Polynesia (1 named individual) (2%)
  • 1 unquantifiable (Commemoration of All Faithful Departed) (1%)
  • 1 in Australia/New Zealand (1%)

By Century:

LFF1973_All_century

As you can see, there remain three obvious spikes: the 4th century, the 13th century, and the 19th century.

As we approach the publication of the ’79 Prayer Book as as its shape gels, we begin to have new movement towards informal categorization of the entries by means of two factors in the propers, the commons and the proper prefaces. That is, in the “Category” classification above, I’ve been going by the traditional method using the kinds of categories and commons historically found in breviaries and missals. While we saw moves in this direction with 5 specific and 1 general Commons in the 1963 book, we now achieve the 14 Commons consisting of 5 Categories (“Deaconess” was dropped, “Pastor” was added) that will appear in the ’79 Prayer Book (with minor tweaks in a few of the collects):

  • Martyr (3 options)
  • Missionary (2 options)
  • Pastor (2 options)
  • Theologian or Teacher (2 options)
  • Monastic (2 options)
  • Saint (3 options)

There are a couple of tricky things when in comes to applying these categories, though. First, they’re not air-tight.  What do you do with Boniface or James Hannington, both martyr/missionary/pastor types? Classically there were specific propers for Bishop/Martyr that would apply; not so under this framework. That’s not a criticism per se because the flexibility given to emphasis different aspects in different situations is a bonus. However, the way that we categorize our saints simultaneously teaches us about the nature and perception of sanctity in a given time and place.

Second, everybody is assigned their own collect but some entries in the calendar get specific proper readings: psalms, an epistle, and a gospel; others are assigned a Common and receive the generic readings. What’s going on here—is this another way of creating a hierarchy within the Days of Optional Observance that was swept away by the decision to give everyone propers? The evidence seems to suggest not. Of the entries that received full propers under the Black Letter system, none of them lost proper readings. These were retained (but sometimes tweaked). On the 1963 Calendar there were 68 entries that did not receive readings; on the 1973 Calendar, 46 entries received Common readings. Thus, there is not an easy correlation between the old “lesser” entries and the entries in this calendar that received Commons. This suggests to me that the distinction is not based in a hierarchy but has more to do with “fit”—if a particular entry fit another passage of Scripture better than the Common under which they would ordinarily fall, they were assigned that Scripture, otherwise they received a Common.

Furthermore, even among the assigned lessons there are signs of de facto Commons emerging. In the 1963 proper readings there were no duplicate readings in the Epistle and only 1 verse of overlap. There were no duplicates or overlaps in the Gospels. In the 1973 proper readings,  both “Perpetua and her Companions, Martyrs at Carthage” and “The Martyrs of Uganda” are assigned identical Psalms, Epistles, and Gospels (Pss 124; 138|Heb 10:32-39|Matt 24:9-14). Within the Psalms there are 29 entries that share an introit either in full or in part with another entry. In the Epistles:

  • John Henry Hobart and Hilary share 2 Tim 4:1-8;
  • William Reed Huntington and William Augustus Muhlenberg share Eph 4:11-16.
  • There are 7 entries with overlap.

In the Gospels:

  • Ignatius of Antioch and John Donne share John 12:23-26;
  • William Tyndale and Justin Martyr share John 12:44-50;
  • Basil the Great and Catherine of Siena share Luke 10:21-24;
  • Samuel Isaac Joseph Scherechewsky and Jerome share Luke 24:44-48;
  • Francis and Anselm share Matt 11:25-30;
  • Margaret of Scotland and J.M. Neale share Matt 13:44-52;
  • Nicholas Ferrar and Bede share Matt 13:47-52 (overlapping with the previous two…);
  • Theodore of Tarsus, Jeremy Taylor and Dunstan share Matt 24:42-47;
  • Elizabeth of Hungary, William Wilberforce, and F.D. Maurice share Matt 25:31-40 and Martin of Tours picks up at v. 34;
  • The Consecration of Samuel Seabury and Thomas Bray share Matt 9:35-38

Two things in all of this. First, with the expansion of the Calendar and the extension of proper readings overlap and duplication is bound to start happening despite the apparent intentions of the committee up through 1963. Second, it’s interesting to note the reappearance of the traditional medieval Commons particularly in the Gospel readings.

So—to pull together this line of thought—there are now Commons that are used as a rough categorization principle. However, of the 119 Days of Optional Obligation, only 46 are so classified.

A better—but less specific—means of classification appears in the provisioning of Proper Prefaces. Before there had only been one proper preface. This did prompt an interim measure reported by the Episcopal News Service:

In further action, the two presiding officers have authorized two Prefaces for lesser Saints’ Days, as alternatives to the Proper Preface for All Saints’ Day on such commemorations. The new Prefaces, which are provided both in contemporary and traditional forms, read as follows:

1. ” For the wonderful grace and virtue declared in all your (thy) saints, who have been the chosen (choice) vessels of your (thy) grace, and the lights of the world in their (several) generations: ”

2. “Who in the obedience of your (thy) saints have (hast) given (unto) us an example of righteousness, and in their eternal joy a glorious pledge of the hope of our calling: “

Now, 7 different Proper Prefaces were assigned to Days of Optional Observance:

  • PP for a Saint: 72
  • PP for Holy Week: 19 [for martyrs]
  • PP for Apostles: 8 [for missionaries]
  • PP for the Incarnation: 7 [for theologians/teachers]
  • PP for Pentecost: 7 [also for missionaries]
  • PP for Trinity Sunday: 5 [also for theologians/teachers]
  • PP for Trinity Sunday or Pentecost: 1 (First BCP)
  • PP for Commemoration of the Dead: 1 (All Souls)

So, this does introduce some native categories into the current kalendar but they still remain very broad.

For what it’s worth, Laud, Tyndale, Latimer/Ridley, and Clement of Rome (?)  receive the Proper Preface for a Saint rather than the Holy Week Preface given to everyone else traditionally identified as martyrs.

Tracking Sanctity: Lesser Feasts & Fasts 1963

The second half of Prayer Book Studies 9 came out as Prayer Book Studies XII. I haven’t laid eyes on it yet, so the next stopping point is in 1963; a press release from 1964 identifies it as Prayer Book Studies XVI, but the copy I hold gives no indication of being a part of the Prayer Book Studies series. Rather it is simply titled The Calendar and the Collects, Epistles, and Gospels for the Lesser Feasts and Fasts and for Special Occasions.

It contains no prefatory or explanatory material. The Contents are as follows:

The Calendar (p. 1)

The Collects, Epistles, and Gospels for the Lesser Feasts and Fasts (p. 15)
Advent Season (p. 17)
Lenten Season (p. 22)
Easter Week (p. 49)
Rogation Days (p. 55)
Whitsun Week (p. 59)
Autumn Ember Days (p. 65)
The Lesser Holy Days (p. 70)
The Common of Saints (p. 154)

For Special Occasions (p. 163)

Indices (p. 191)
Alterations in Scripture Lessons (From the Authorized Version) (p. 193)
Index of Scripture Lessons (In Canonical Order) (p. 196)
Movable Days and Seasons (In Chronological Order) (p. 201)
Immovable Days (In Alphabetical Order) (p. 203)
Common of Saints and Special Occasions (p. 205)

Changes to the Calendar

Looking at the Calendar of this book in comparison with PBS9, it’s clear that someone’s been busy—and in some interesting ways. To back-track a moment, you may recall that PBS9 had an appendix entitled “Notes on Certain Rejected Commemorations.” In this short bit of text, it identified a number of commemorations not added to the Calendar. First was a set of 11 early English, Scottish, and Welsh saints honored in other parts of the Communion. These were not accepted as the Commission thought they would give a disproportionate weight to a single tradition. Then, a set of 9 other observances commemorated elsewhere in the Communion were identified and reasons given for their non-inclusion. To give you a sense of the list it included Valentine, George (of course), Anne, and the Nativity and Conception of the BVM.

The 1963 1st Edition of Lesser Feasts and Fasts introduces 22 new entries adding 25 named individuals to the Calendar. Of the 11 rejected early English saints, 5 were added (Wulfstan, Chad, Cuthbert, Richard of Chichester, and Alphege). (I’m surprised Ninian wasn’t on the PBS9 banned list but he gets included here too…) Additionally, one of the other commemorations was added, the Parents of the BVM. Technically “Anne” wasn’t added because her name wasn’t mentioned—but it’s the thought that counts!

Overall, the additions seem to be centered around biblical personages not in the Calendar before, and adding in a number of medieval folk omitted the previous time around. Here are the stats on just the additions:

By level:

  • 4 Commemorations
  • 18 Memorials

By ordination status:

  • 12 bishops (48%)
  • 6 priests (24%)
  • 0 deacons
  • 2 religious (8%)
  • 5 laity (20%)
  • 1 unqualified collective

By gender:

  • 20 male (80%)
  • 5 female (20%)
  • 1 unqualified collective

By category:

  • 7 Bishop/Confessors
  • 4 Male Confessors
  • 2 Bishop/Martyrs
  • 1 Multiple Male Confessors
  • 1 Bishop/Confessor/Doctor
  • 1 Confessor/Doctor
  • 1 Multiple Martyrs
  • 1 Virgin/Doctor
  • 1 Virgin/Abbot
  • 1 Feast of the BVM
  • 1 Multiple Bishops/Confessors
  • 1 Multiple Female Confessors

Entries by century:

LFF1963_century

As you can see, the pattern is similar to what we saw before—commemorations for Patristic era and earlier saints, memorials only for the later.

The New Shape of the Calendar

Ok—so now the stats of the Calendar as a whole, including both the original 1957 list and the 1963 additions…

The Calendar now contains 140 entries with 142 named individuals. There are 26 Red Letter Days (+/- 0), 47 Black Letter commemorations (with full propers) (+7), and 67 Black Letter memorials (collect only) (+15).

Looking at the 114 Black Letter Days and their 112 named individuals we have

By ordination status:

  • 61 bishops (53%) [+12/-1%]
  • 22 priests (19%) [+6/+1%]
  • 4 deacons (3%) [+0/-1%]
  • 9 religious (8%) [+2/0%]
  • 18 laity (16%) [+5/+2%]
  • 2 unqualified collectives (2%) [+1/0%]

By gender:

  • 102 male (88%) [+20/-2%]
  • 14 female (12%) [+5/+2%]

Entries by category:

  • 29 Bishop/Confessors
  • 20 Male Confessors
  • 13 Bishop/Confessor/Doctors
  • 9 Bishop/Martyrs
  • 8 Hermit/Monastics
  • 8 Confessor/Doctors
  • 5 Multiple Martyrs
  • 4 Martyrs
  • 3 Feasts of the BVM
  • 3 Multiple Bishops/Confessors
  • 3 Female Confessors
  • 2 Virgin/Abbesses
  • 1 Virgin/Doctor
  • 1 Multiple Female Confessors
  • 1 Multiple Male Confessors
  • 1 Virgin/Martyr
  • 1 Apostle
  • 1 Feast of Our Lord

Entries by century:

LFF1963_All_century

Not a whole lot of change in the shape—perhaps a bit more exaggeration: the peaks at the 13th and 19th centuries have both grown a bit higher.

Items of Note

First, there were some changes in level to some of the 1957 entries. 3 memorials were moved up to become commemorations (Bede, the Martyrs of Lyon, and Jerome). Not sure why this happened. I know the Martyrs of Lyon is a commemoration near and dear to the heart of Dr. Robert Wright at GTS but I don’t know if he had anything to do with this.

Second, October reveals an odd shift. With a dearth of Reformation and post-Reformation saints in the Calendar, it is the only month containing Christians killed by Christians—Wyclif and Latimer/Ridley. Whereas both of these entries had been marked as “Martyrs” in 1957, the “Martyr” label is here dropped in both cases. I was warned to look for this… Apparently there was a period where it was thought that Christians killed by Christians shouldn’t be considered martyrs. That’s pure bull-hockey in my book, but here it is…

Third, seven feasts changed dates, often with no presenting cause. That is, they went from one date to another without anything “forcing” them from their original date. That suggests to me that there were some ecumenical rumblings about coming up with standard dates for saints but exactly where this is coming from, I don’t know. Perhaps the Canadian 1962 BCP had an effect here…?

Propers

The feasts given “full” propers are provided with a Collect, Epistle, and Gospel. (Note that these are liturgical “Epistles” and not necessarily selections from the NT letters; of the 47 commemorations, 16 receive Epistles from the OT or Apocrypha.) The selections are rarely long, most falling in the 3 to 6 verse range with a few going longer than that. These are also printed in full as the AV/KJV was the only Bible appointed for liturgical use in the church. There is no repetition of the biblical lessons—each feast receives its own unique material. The rubrics don’t say that these are materials for Mass and not Offices but neither do the have to—they are clearly set up as Mass Propers with no view to their use in the Office. (I.e., the use of sanctoral scripture propers in the Office for non-Holy Days has always been an abuse and was not the intention of this book book or its replacements.)

Commons beyond just “Saint” appear here for the first time, giving us a better sense of how the Commission broke down the categories. Commons containing a Collect, Epistle, and Gospel are provided for:

  • Martyr
  • Missionary
  • Theologian or Teacher
  • Monastic
  • Deaconess
  • Saint (2 options given)

The inclusion of “Deaconess” seems quite odd especially as there are none represented in the Calendar! Perhaps this is foreshadowing…

As in the 1928 Prayer Book, no Proper Preface is identified and the “Saint” Common with its two collects reflect what is in the ’28 book.