Category Archives: Saints

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:

Here’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:

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?

On Celebrating Matthias

When I got up this morning and checked my Twitter feed it was clogged by all manner of English Anglican folks saying nice things about St Matthias. This is a Pond Difference that is worth mentioning as it gets into one of the interesting anomalies you discover as you dig into the kalendar.

The Episcopal Church celebrates St Matthias on February 24. The proper day… Now, if you’re a liturgy geek, you’ll recognize this particular feast because it falls on the old Latin bisextile day—leap day for Romans. This could be shifted to the 25th depending what year you were in. Furthermore, it is right around the same time as Ash Wednesday and, potentially, Lent 1 and often falls during Lent. As a result, there are all sorts of potential discussions about precedence rules when these things start coinciding and learnéd discussions of ancient authorities can be had.

Around Vatican II, the Roman Church decided that it was tired of these discussions and moved Matthias out of this liturgical “danger zone” and out into the late Spring where the only thing it can conflict with is Ascension Day. And Easter Sundays. And Pentecost. Great thinking, Romans! The Church of England followed suit and accommodated to the new date. (A similar thing happened to St Thomas as well.)

We didn’t. We kept the old date.

So—when we say “old date,” what precisely do we mean…?

Well, here’s a little snippet from the Sacramentary of Rodrade written in 853 that shows the feast of Matthias on February 24. (The 6th day before the kalends of March).

Now—here’s what’s weird: this particular snippet comes from the verso (back side) of the first folio. That also contains a mass for St Mark (April 25th) right under it. On the front side of the page it has masses for Emerentiana, Macharius and Companions (Jan 23rd) and St Praejectus with memorials of the Conversion of St Paul (January 25th) in a different hand. In other words, this page is a later addition into the mass book; it didn’t come with Matthias in it!

Indeed, when we take a look at where he ought to fall (and note the really different handwriting here as opposed to above), we see a great big gap between Valentine (Feb 14th—but you knew that…) and Gregory (March 12th):

Thus, we have one of our earliest and best examples of the Gregorian Sacramentary lacking the feast of St Matthias; it gets added in later. So, too, does the Conversion of Paul which takes second fiddle to St Praejectus, himself a late addition.

What’s going on here?

Remember that kalendars were originally all about the local… When we look at the very earliest Roman kalendars the majority of the names found there are from saints in the area. There are a few famous names from North Africa, but Frere sums up the evidence this way in his classic Studies in Early Roman Liturgy: I. The Kalendar:

“Apart from such outstanding cases [Holy Innocents, Timothy, Cyprian, Perpetua and Felicitas], an entry is normally made in the Roman Kalendar because there is a place which demands an anniversary.” (25)

“Indeed, we may watch the Kalendar grow, as new churches arise in the city, and claim an anniversary.” (26)

[After a discussion of the suburban cemeteries/catacombs and the uncertain addition of saints who lay 7 miles or more outside of Rome]”It is evident that topological considerations have been the determining feature of the Kalendar.

The saints of Porto (19 miles) and Ostia (15 miles) are too far off to be taken into account, though they may figure in the early records under the heading Romae. Six or seven miles is the limit, and that proves in practice to be too far. So the suburban cemeteries supply names to the Kalendar mainly from an inner ring within a radius of about four miles.” (28)

“The occurrence of such notes [place names with reference to the saints/martyrs] in the Service-books corroborates the view expressed above, that the shrines in the cemeteries have given rise to the observance of these anniversaries.

At a later stage the outlook changes. The Kalendar is regarded less as a direction where the official Mass will be said, and more as a direction given to a priest serving a church to tell him what Mass he will say there on a certain day [when]. It is not clear by what stages the official Mass at the cemetery was given up. But the main cause is clear enough, viz. the destruction of the Catacombs and cemeteries. And the effect is clear also, viz. that the Curia’s directory became the parish priest’s Kalendar.” (29, emphasis added)

Thus, if you want to be on the earliest Western kalendars, you darn well better be buried within 4 miles of the center of Rome! (St Valentine, for instance, was right out the Via Flamina and therefore in a well-situated but less prestigious spot than those like Callistus, Fabian, and other early pope-martyrs buried in the Callisti or Praetextati cemetaries right off the Via Appia.)

As Frere indicated, in time, this local Roman kalendar based on how far the pope and his entourage were able/willing to walk became the kalendar for the average parish priest in the Roman area. Then, as things spread, it became the default kalendar for wherever “Roman” books went! It was not until the 8th century in Norther Europe that bishops and others decided that it might not be a bad idea to round out the kalendar and to make sure that all of the apostles and evangelists were on it—not just those who had been martyred around Rome. Thus, it’s from this point that we start seeing certain New Testament saints making their way into the kalendars and mass-books; some faster than others.

So, too, it is in this early medieval period that we should look for an explanation as to the odd occurrence of so many of these days on or around the 24th or 25th of the various months… Staley in his Liturgical Year supposes that this was somehow in connection to the dates of Christmas and the Annunciation, but it remains a mystery to me.

Thus, Matthias does get a celebration as one of the universalizing tendencies of the Carolingian liturgical consolidation. You don’t find feasts for him early. Then, in these latter days, some of these apostles have suffered the further indignity of being switched around because the early medieval dates are now less convenient. Hence, the English doing Matthias today (May 14th) whom we’ve already honored earlier in the year (February 24th).

Criteria and Virtues

Abba Anthony said, “Whoever hammers a lump of iron, first decides what he is going to make of it, a scythe, a sword, or an axe. Even so we ought to make up our minds what kind of virtue we want to forge or we labor in vain.”

I’ve been rolling around our current criteria for sanctity in my head as well as my own understanding of our theology of sanctity. Our criterion 2 “Christian Discipleship” is rather broad and vague. Indeed, that’s not necessarily surprising as discipleship comes in a variety of forms. But, what if—as a way of focusing our thoughts—we identified the specific virtues of Christ that we see manifested most fully in the given individual?

The value here is that it accomplishes a couple of things. First, it brings the basic vocabulary of the virtues back before the eyes of the church, reminding them of our ascetical theology. Second, it reiterates a sound theology of sanctity which does not praise individuals for their individuality but which understands them to be participating in the virtues of Christ.

Of course, this does raise the issue of what list of virtues to use—and there are any number to chose from whether that be the classic list of the seven (fortitude, temperance, wisdom, justice, faith, hope, love) or one of the list ennumerated in Scripture or a combination of several. Again, this leads us back to us as a church and how we understand the Christ-like virtues most needful now.

For instance, Catherine of Siena might be (wisdom, temperance) or (wisdom, reconciliation, service). [But are the last two virtues or charisms—should there be a distinction between the two; can there be a distinction? Gonna have to think about that…]

SCLM Meeting Update

I think that the meeting went quite well yesterday.

The main topic of conversation, of course, was how to get the work done with the amount of budget that we have. We did get a fair amount of funding—enough for two face-to-face meetings—but we’re a product-oriented group rather than just being policy-oriented. That is, we produce things (our liturgical stuff) rather than just making decisions that others will then implement. A lot of what we hoped to do with meetings and consultants will either have to be done by and in the Commission or not at all. Web meetings and conference calls will be our main methods of communicating together.

That all sounds fine to me—I’m used to working that way.

There was some vigorous discussion around my proposal for HWHM. Overall, most of the people who expressed an opinion about it were positive. There were some questions about its scope and whether it was doable. I expected that and feel that concern as well—it’s a lot of work, but I think is necessary work. The chief reservations around the idea focused on concern about a two-tiered system. That is, are we setting up the Calendar as an “upper” tier and the Almanac as a “lower” tier? This seems to be the main hurdle to overcome. Sandye and I have been directed to put together a structure for the work to present at our June meeting to give people a hands-on feel of what this would really look like.

On the Electronic Publication front, it appears that Church Publishing already maintains a database of liturgical material that it uses to produce the material that it prints. That database would not provide exactly what we’re talking about for a device/platform independent means of communicating the material. However, they already have a system of tagging in place that could be adopted in an XML format. I found that quite interesting on the technical level.

As you can imagine, the main debate here was around copyright and cost. The first discussion was around what exactly the General Convention resolutions were asking: does “freely available” mean that they should be” easily accessible” (for purchase) or does it mean that they should be provided electronically “without cost”? Several people who had been on the liturgical/prayer book committee at GC indicated that they had intended it to mean “without cost.” My sense is that this is the will of the Commission—to figure out a way to provide these materials for free on the internet. But what would that do to Church Publishing and the Church Pension Group? I noted that, particularly with prayer/spiritual materials, a digital and a physical copy are not mutually exclusive; people will often buy and use in hardback what they already have electronically. We shouldn’t paint it as a zero-sum game. Nancy from Church Publishing agreed and said that they did have some material showing that to be the case as well. The main deliverable here for our next meeting, then, is for the Church Publishing folks to take a look at what it would do to their costs and how feasible free electronic dissemination is based on their current business model.

So—I’d say that some progress is being made. However, nothing has been made official at this point; no final decisions have been made. It’s progress, but still tentative progress that may yet be overturned.

SCLM Meeting Today

The Episcopal Church’s Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music (SCLM) is meeting this afternoon. This is our first meeting since the budget numbers have come back and, with those in hand, we’ll be able to set our plan of work for the various sub-committees of the SCLM for this present triennium.

In figuring out what that scope of work will look like, I’ve submitted two documents for the two committees that I’m involved with. Here are the highlights on those two…

Further Thoughts Towards an Episcopal Almanac

At the last meeting, I raised again the possibility of an almanac that would supplement the sanctoral calendar. My sense is that some of the commemorations currently being placed on the Church’s calendar don’t represent true sanctoral occasions but that there are those in the Church who still see them as worthy of note. An almanac could be a proper repository for these or for people that the Church would like to remember but for whom the title of “saint” either doesn’t quite fit or where we’re still exploring their sanctity. The sense was that they wanted to hear more in terms of details.

This piece presents some a proposal containing details.

First, I identify six “centers of energy” that I see in the Church around HWHM (with the caveat that my labels are admittedly broad and imprecise and that they are not meant to represent everyone who may identify with a certain label):

A Liberal Protestant energy: This movement sees inclusivity as a core commitment of TEC. The definition of “saint” is a broad one. It tends be more vocal about a reluctance to judge the holiness of another. This energy would likely see a reduction of HWHM—particularly if it adversely impacted the diversity represented in the Calendar—as an attempt to “roll back the clock” to a calendar of old white male bishops. [I see this at the Episcopal Café and Facebook]
A Broad Church middle energy: This movement seems concerned with the number of commemorations, a loss of ferial days, and is not sure about the sanctity of some of the additions. On the other hand, there is also a reluctance to judge the holiness of others. In general, this group expresses puzzlement around TEC’s theology of sanctity. [I see this at the Episcopal Café, Facebook, on my blog, and specifically on Crusty Old Dean’s (Tom Ferguson of Bexley Hall) post on Lent Madness]
An Anglo-Catholic energy: This movement may or may not have an issue with the number of commemorations, but has a narrower definition of saint: inclusion in the Calendar is seen as the church’s official declaration on the eschatological status of the commemorated. There are concerns whether all of the commemorations in HWHM meet this standard. Too, there is a concern that the collects do not appropriately express a robust theology of sanctity. [I see this at on my blog, on Facebook, and summarizes most of the feedback I have received personally]
A conservative protestant energy: This movement sees HWHM as a yet another example of the political liberalism of TEC leadership and regards most of the new commemorations as politically motivated. [As seen particularly in the comments section on Lent Madness regarding Frances Perkins]
An agency energy: This movement comes from the fact that we explicitly asked specific agencies and groups within the church to put forward candidates. Having done so, there seems to be an obligation to accept them. Furthermore, the work has been done to create the biographies and the propers; to not use them now would be a waste of that time and effort.
A legislative energy: This movement is around the establishment of official, published criteria. There is concern that the committee created criteria, then disregarded them in the addition of new commemorations raising an integrity issue.

These are the main tensions that we need to negotiate if we want to create a successful product that will be used across the Church.

Then I turn to the current shape of HWHM and show that it contains an odd alternation between temporal and sanctoral material. It’s a book made up of small sections pieced together and doesn’t have a coherent structure. My proposal is to gather the current material into three sections:

a “Holy Women, Holy Men” section that contains the propers for the sanctoral Days of Optional Observance and recommendations on the local identification and observance of saints containing the Commons of Saints.
a “Temporal Cycle” section that contains the ferial propers in temporal sequence as adapted from the Canadian BAS followed by the alternative six-week thematic lectionary.
a “Various Occasions” section that contains the votive propers followed by an integrated Almanac.

Thus, the resource would put the three principal options for non-Holy Days (a lesser feast, a temporal ferial day, or a votive) on more or less equal footing. The third section would contain the almanac and the people and commemorations there would be presented as specific representatives or examples of certain votives.

My plan for work in light of this is admittedly ambitious. I’m suggesting that we put *all* of the Lesser Feasts back on the table, create a wiki, and—once we have nailed down our operative criteria at our June meeting—we document our evidence for each criterion for each commemoration. Those who fulfill the criteria are candidates for inclusion in a re-formed Calendar; those who don’t meet all the criteria and who are yet deemed significant to our Church and its history will be placed in the Almanac along with other worthy people, movements, and occasions.

Too, I recommend that each section will be prefaced by some basic information regarding what the section is about and how the material in it can and should be used. Specifically, this will address the question about how the Lesser Feasts interact with the Daily Office.

We’ll see how this goes. Some of the folks I’ve discussed it with see it as a workable solution given the various difficulties that have to be negotiated. We’ll see what the others think…

Electronic Publications

As I reviewed the relevant General Convention resolutions around the issue of Electronic Publications, I was quite surprised to find this one:

Resolution 2009-A102 (Authorize Use of the Enriching our Worship Series) represents a major change in policy with regard to the digital realm. After first enumerating the complete set of materials within the EOW series (Enriching Our Worship 1: The Daily Office, Great Litany and Eucharist; Enriching Our Worship 2: Ministry with the Sick and Dying and Burial of a Child; Enriching Our Worship 3: Burial Rites for Adults together with a Rite for the Burial of a Child; and Enriching Our Worship 4: The Renewal of Ministry and the Welcoming of a New Rector or other Pastor) a resolving clause states: “That these liturgical texts be freely available in electronic format on the internet” (emphasis added). It should also be noted that the original text of the resolution did not contain this resolve clause; it was added by the committee in the House of Bishops and concurred in the House of Deputies. According to this resolution, therefore, one of our tasks must be to ensure that these four resources are freely available for download and use.

So—GC has already resolved that this action should be taken. It hasn’t been. Now, I’m not going to say that EOW is my favorite set of resources out there, but I am curious to find out why this resolution wasn’t implemented.

We had a couple of resolutions referred to us as a Commission; referrals are non-binding in that they are there for us to review and then to decide what we believe the best course of action to be. Here’s my take on these two:

Resolution 2013-D060 (Planning for Making Liturgical Resources Freely Available on Any Device or Platform) was concurred for referral. Unlike the previous resolutions, it is not binding, but has been given to us for our study and to formulate policy with regard to whether and how it may be put into place. It directs the SCLM:

to begin planning in the next triennium for the structuring of all liturgical and musical resources as format- and platform-independent content, so that it may be made freely available to any device or medium, and to return to the 78th General Convention with a proposal and budget to begin the work.

This resolution goes a step beyond the policy laid down in 2009-A102. It does affirm the free availability mandated in the prior resolution, and furthermore introduces the principle of format- and platform-independent material. The key point here is that, following this policy, a PDF is no longer sufficient as it does not meet the format-independent requirement.

Also concurred for referral was 2013-D079 (Provide Electronic Availability of Liturgical Resources). While similar in spirit to 2013-D060, it is less specific. It too directs that all liturgical resources approved by General Convention be made “electronically available and easily accessible, both online for downloads and in electronic media such as CD-ROM, DVD, and their successor technologies.” It does not use the word “freely.” While it does so less clearly than 2013-D060, this resolution also functionally requires platform-independent solutions in its mention of successor technologies. The main difference is the urgency and accountability; it directs a timeframe (by the end of calendar year 2013) and a mechanism for oversight (reports to Executive Council by DFMS staff).

I’m in favor of these. I think that they’re very much heading in the right direction.

Electronic frontiers do not—for the most part—open up new mission fields. Instead, I think they give us a new angle onto the existing mission field. Social media and mobile computing give us a means to put worship, devotional, and formational tools at our congregations’ finger-tips quicker and easier than ever in the past. Too, in this resourcing, we can also make it easy for them to communicate via social media that they are using these things and that they are a part of their spiritual life. That, in turn, will raise awareness of their spiritual practice amongst their social networks and possibly lead to helpful and healthy conversations about what modern faith looks like and what faith practices foster it.

We need to free our liturgies and our hymnals so that they can be easily and effectively leveraged to create useful devotional tools and helpful worship aids. Period. Full stop.

As long as there is a monopoly on these materials, ours hands will be digitally tied.

On the other hand, these two referred resolutions, while having the right idea, are pretty short on awareness about the multitude of issues facing such a move. I see four main policy issues that will have to be sorted through before material can be put online:

“freely…”: I support freely available electronic materials on the internet. As a member of a small congregation and keeping in mind 2013-A076 on the dissemination of resources to small congregations, I know that free access to all of our liturgical books would be a financial bonus to cash-strapped parishes. However, we would be remiss if we did not note that Church Publishing is in the business of selling liturgical materials including the electronic Rite Series software. As the Church pension system is tied to Church Publishing, we should consider the impact free liturgical materials might have on the broader system.
“All liturgical materials”: One of the issues tied to expenses is that some of our resources—notably the Hymnal 1982—make use of materials already under copyright and someone must pay licensing fees for them. Given the incorporation of copyrighted materials in some of our liturgical books, are we legally able to make all of our resources freely available for download? If not, what will our policy with regard to these materials?
“…available”: Another facet of copyright is that the materials produced by the Church are under copyright. As a result, their re-use is restricted if not prohibited. The only exception of which I am aware is the Book of Common Prayer which has been placed in the public domain. While 2013-D060 does not mention copyright, it cannot be effectively implemented with copyright protection in place as currently configured. Creative Commons licenses offer a more nuanced approach to copyright protections. Rather than doing way with copyright, these licenses represent a way to retain intellectual property rights and protections but to voluntarily waive certain aspects of those rights to enable greater digital development particularly around the creation of derivative works. We should explore how these might help us in making our materials more available.
“platform-independent”/”successor technologies”: In order to present electronic material in a stable, flexible and—above all—useful format, we need to move beyond PDFs. A PDF document is superior to a book in two ways: it cannot be directly altered and it is far more portable. However, it remains locked into a linear paradigm. Hyperlinks and bookmarks mitigate this shortcoming to a minor extent, but do not solve it. Following 2006-A049, we need to decide upon an open standard format that offers more dynamic possibilities than a PDF. While PDFs are fine in the short-term and ought to be part of our long-term distribution strategy, they need to remain a facet of it and not be its totality.

I’m recommending that we figure out what the barriers are to implementing a freely-available EOW and get that material up as soon as possible in PDF form. I’d also like to honor the intention of the other two resolutions as fully as possible. This means getting as many of our authorized books as possible online as free PDFs before the end of 2013.

Too, we need to work towards platform independence. My goal here is too look at the encoding options, pick one, and to draft a resolution for GC2016 requesting funding and approval for the construction of a Standard Electronic Edition of the Book of Common Prayer.

So—a lot of interesting discussion will be taking place today. I’ll keep you updated on how things unfold…

Sanctoral Criteria: On Objectivity and Subjectivity

I sat down with Holy Women, Holy Men yesterday in the presence of my handy spreadsheet from whence colorful graphs issue. I added several new columns to it and grouped them all under the heading of “HWHM Criteria”. After consulting HWHM pp. 742-6, I labeled 6 columns:

Historicity
Discipleship
Significance
Memorability
Local Observance
Perspective

These are the labels in the criteria, after all. I omitted “Range of Inclusion”, “Levels of Commemoration”, and “Combined Commemorations” as I see these as directives concerning the shape of the kalendar as a whole and not directly applicable in assessing a particular commemoration.

Looking at these, I thought I’d try and tackle the easiest first. Which are the easy ones and which the hard? Well, in my book the two simplest are the first and last. “Historicity” isn’t without its gray areas, but it’s a lot more black and white than the others. Similarly, “Perspective” includes an objective value: “fifty years have elapsed since that person’s death.”

“Local Observance” is also a fairly objective measure though by no means a simple one. The central clause in this one is the following: “…significant commemoration . . . already exists at the local and regional levels.” Then, two and a half pages (744-6) are substantially devoted to outlining the process of what local/regional commemoration looks like, then how these are moved to the national/churchwide level. As a result, there ought to be a significant paper trail that will objectively demonstrate “local observance” in a satisfactory fashion. Thus objective, but needing a certain amount of leg-work to hunt all of this stuff down…

“Christian Discipleship” is complicated. The heart of this criterion is “the completion in death of a particular Christian’s living out of the promises of baptism” from which we can draw two objective measures: 1) were they baptized? 2) did they die in the communion of the Church? The wording of this criterion strongly suggests to me a set of sub-criteria: “the promises of baptism” short-handed as holding the Apostles’ Creed and exemplifying the 5 promises of the Baptismal Covenant.If we were to introduce these as supplemental guides to the fulfilling of this criterion do we take a minimalist or maximalist approach? Do we look for historical evidence of fulfillment of all six sub-criteria, or does a significant failing of one or more of the sub-criteria indicate a negative judgement on the larger criterion? (I’m told there was great resistance to adding Martin Luther to Lesser Feasts and Fasts back in the 80’s/90’s due to his anti-Semitism; perhaps that debate can shed some light here…)

“Significance” heads into some interesting territory. Perhaps the best summary of it is captured in the binary nature of the final line: “In their varied ways, those commemorated have revealed Christ’s presence in, and Lordship over, all of history; and continue to inspire us as we carry forward God’s mission in the world.” I see at least two things here. First, the commemorated must have achieved a notable revelation of Christ. But, second, it must be the kind of achievement that inspires us. Consider the implications of the second one… I can use an objective checkbox for “achieving a notable revelation of Christ”, but that’s incomplete without an assessment of what inspires us. Our church and its needs are now a necessary aspect of the decision-making process.

The turn towards us only accelerates as we consider “Memorability.” This is not Memorability simpliciter; we’re not asking if these people should be remembered by history students, correct-thinking members of progressive circles, or the general public. Rather, we’re after those who “deserve to be remembered by the Episcopal Church today.” A few key things here… “Deserve to be” which is different from “are” sticks out. Also, “the Episcopal Church today.” This criterion is less about the historical person being investigated, and is much more about who we are as a church and what we need to remember—or be reminded of. That is, I can’t chalk this one up based on historical research on a person’s life. Instead, we have to take stock of who we are and how that person connects with and/or challenges our self-understanding.

Indeed, this is the place where memorability begins to help us see the failure of the “Range of Inclusion” criterion. As I said before, the Range is properly applied to the kalendar as a whole and not to individual candidates thereof and the problem is that it is too narrow in scope to be fully useful. It identifies a variety of diversities needed in the kalendar: race, gender, ecclesial affiliation, ordination status, but misses the really big one—charisms. That is, the kalendar needs to have an effective balance of the charisms and virtues that are needed for the church as a whole to reflect itself as a reflection of Christ. Attention to ordination status only begins to take notice of this.

What are the charisms that define the Church and are necessary, even essential, to the Church? How do the saints individually and collectively coherently display the dispersed virtues of Christ?

I see I’m starting to wander a bit from my topic…

There are some objective measures that can be tallied to determine whether a candidate should or shouldn’t enter the kalendar. There are more subjective measures. But there are additional necessary inputs regarding who the church is, and what the church needs to represent itself to itself. And, again, the kalendar cannot simply be a collection of worthy individuals but must be a coherent collection that reflects an authentic Christology.

I’ll let you know how the spreadsheet goes…

Considering Ferial Days

Ok, so I’ve been mulling the issues with Holy Women, Holy Men (HWHM) around in my head for a while, trying to look at it from as many different angles as possible. One of the frequent criticisms of the work that I’ve encountered is that it seems to be trying to fill every available day. My own short-hand for this is “no feria left behind.”

A feria is a technical liturgical term whose basic English meaning is a regular weekday; Hughes helpfully and accurately describes it as “a day which is neither a Sunday nor a feast.”

One more time, here’s the chart of observances—take a good look:

Now—how many fewer ferias are there now (2013) than what we had in 2003 when HWHM was officially authorized?

Are you calculating?

The answer—wait for it…is: none.

Indeed. There are precisely no fewer ferial days now than there were then. Yes, the observance count has jumped up dramatically, but none of these days, none of these liturgical events are required or enforced by the church. Zip. Nada.

If you turn with me to the front of your prayer book, you’ll note that the Calendar section identifies the days that are to be publicly observed with Eucharistic celebrations (with propers provided for in that book).

Principal Feasts: these are the big 7 feasts which take precedence over everything else.
Sundays: There are 52 of these—although we’ve already accounted for three of them in the previous section.
Holy Days: This is where things can and have changed. When the Calendar was originally proposed in 1964 there were 25 of them; in 1980 this number jumped to 32.
Days of Special Devotion: As I’ve suggested before, this is more accurately an ascetical category than a liturgical one. No days are added here.
Days of Optional Observance: These are days that “may be observed with the Collects, Psalms, and Lessons duly authorized by this Church.” But you don’t have to. They are entirely optional.

By my count, then, since 1980 there are (7+49+32=) 88 Sundays and feasts authorized by the prayer book in each year. Accordingly, there are 277 ferial days in a common year; 278 in a leap year.

What can we do liturgically on these days? This is the crux of the issue as I see it. So much of the discussion around HWHM seems to assume its use. It’s as if we have forgotten that we have options. But we do have options! And it’s worth thinking through what they are…

Option 1: We can choose to observe a Day of Optional Observance. So, using the trial resource HWHM or LFF 2006 which (as far as I can tell) is still the official non-trial document. (Isn’t it strange that you can’t buy it from Church Publishing, though? And that the cheapest edition of LFF currently on Amazon is $258[!?!]). This seems to be the default option in the heads of most people. To let it remain that way, though, is to miss the freedoms that the Calendar gives us.

Option 2: We can choose to observe the feria. The simplest way to do this is noted in the prayer book on p. 158: “The Proper appointed for the Sunday is also used at celebrations of the Eucharist on the weekdays following, unless otherwise ordered for Holy Days and Various Occasions. . . . Directions concerning the Common of Saints and services for Various Occasions are on pages 199, 199 [i.e., Rite I], 246 and 251 [i.e., Rite II].” For the Daily Offices, this means simply using the Collect from the previous Sunday (with a couple of exceptions around days like Epiphany, Ash Wednesday, Ascension, etc. as noted in the Collects). For the Eucharist this also means what it says—the Sunday Propers are repeated.

Prayer Book Studies XII (1958) gave a fair amount of thought to the Lenten season. Between the 6th and the 8th centuries the Roman Church had given special attention to these days and gradually assigned propers to all of them. Noting this, but further noting that most Episcopal Church parishes didn’t need nearly that many propers, this work offers proper readings (“Epistles” and Gospels [scare quotes required as these were all OT or Prophecies following ancient precedent]) but not collects for the old Station days—Wednesdays and Fridays in Lent. In the first authorized version of Lesser Feasts and Fasts (1964), both the readings and collects for these days were printed. (And here we actually have the eponymous “fasts” of the title. Ember Days for Advent, Summer and Autumn were also provided though I don’t consider them ferial in the technical sense as they would receive prayer book collects with the advent of the ’79 book and be listed amongst the “Days of Optional Observance”.) The rubric at the head of these weekday propers states that the priest may use these or the appropriate Sunday propers at his discretion on any day within that week.

With the advent of PBS19 and the move towards a three-year Sunday Mass lectionary with a psalm and three readings, this all changed. The note in the front of the Revised LFF (1973) makes reference to “Optional Collects and daily schedules of Psalms and Lessons for the weekdays of Lent.” Two weeks of optional collects are given. The general rubrics begin by saying that while this sequence is provided, the priest may use the proper of the preceding Sunday or the proper as appointed for a Lesser Feast or Ember Day. So—now there are readings provided for all ferial days in Lent, but no other season.

A full-on set of collects and lessons for every day in Lent appears in the next revision, LFF 3rd Ed. (1980). Lenten ferias get privileged, now: “In keeping with ancient tradition, the observance of Lenten weekdays ordinarily takes precedence over Lesser Feasts occuring during this season” (LFF3, 20). Easter ferial material appears now as well. Twenty collects are provided as are ferial Eucharistic readings for every day in the Easter Season. The notes in this proper keep the flexibility of using any weekday reading on any other day in that week that stood at the head of the Lenten materials. However, the discussion of the Easter proper states the following:

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 this season. On such days, therefore, the Collect, Lessons, Psalm, and Preface are ordinarily those of the saint. Where there is a daily celebration, however, the weekday Lessons and Psalm may be substituted. (LFF3, 56)

(Mark those words and the context in which they’re given…) With only 20 collects given for the Great Fifty Days, though, quite a number of Days of Optional Observance are in view if one doesn’t use the Sunday collect. So, with LFF3 ferial Eucharistic readings and collects are given for Lent and Easter.

At this point, I have a sizable gap in my LFF collection. Looking at the legislative documents, though, General Convention passed 1991-C025 referring to the SLC the daily Eucharistic lectionary of the Church of England and the Anglican Church of Canada. (I believe Forward in Faith had a hand in this—can anyone confirm or deny?) GC authorized in 1994 the daily (ferial) Eucharistic lectionary for the seasons of Advent and Christmas but gave no new collects. The SLC didn’t like the idea of a continuous reading scheme for Post-Epiphany/Pentecost and chose to explore their options, coming back with a six-week series. In 1997-A073 it looks like an amended six-week cycle was adopted in addition to the CoE/ACC scheme thus giving provisions for all ferial Eucharistic services.

Jumping to HWHM, the question on my mind is whether permission is given for a ferial celebration on any ferial day. In the directions (Concerning the Proper) before the Advent/Christmas section, I see these words:

On days of optional observance on the Calendar, the Collect, Lessons, Psalm and Preface are ordinarily those of the saint. Where there is a daily celebration, however, the weekday Lessons and Psalm may be substituted. (HWHM, 24)

And these are precisely the words that stood in the Easter section following an explanation of why the celebration of saints was especially suitable in that season. Days of Optional Observance seem to be granted a preference given the use of “ordinarily.” (This seems odd given the traditional privileging of Advent ferias particularly upon reaching Sapientiatide…) At the back of HWHM, both the 6-week scheme and the 2-year CoE/ACC scheme for Ordinary seasons are given, but no mention is made of them giving way to Days of Optional Observance.

To summarize, ferial days can be celebrated either in the Daily Office or in weekday Eucharists by using the propers of the previous Sunday (or Principal Feast). This permission is granted in the BCP and is not revoked. Alternatively, ferial Eucharistic propers for the whole year are provided in LFF/HWHM (albeit in a rather disjointed fashion) with collects that could be used in the Office for Lent and Easter. While the rubrics recommend priority going to Days of Optional Observance in Advent/Christmas and an expressed preference for them in Easter, this is not mandated.

Option 3: We can choose to observe a Votive. Votives were common in medieval missals; one edition of the Sarum had 29; others had more. PBS19 reprints the SLC’s report to the General Convention of 1967 on votives which broadly identify two types: intercessory and doctrinal. That is, there are those that focus upon particular intentions, and there are those that focus upon specific doctrines. The prayer book offers 25 votives (see pp. 199-210; 251-261; 927-931) in addition to the 14 commons of the 6 identified kinds of saints. These votives are granted with only the following permissive rubric: “For optional use, when desired, subject to the rules set forth in the Calendar of the Church Year.” (BCP, 199; 251) HWHM itself adds a combination of 12 commons and votives (including 2 for the BVM) bringing the total authorized votives and commons to 51.

When are these votives used? Well, the first seven in the prayer book loosely follow the typical weekly votive cycle with the exception of Saturday’s which was usually given to the BVM. Otherwise little direction is given. The rubric at their head, though, makes clear that they can be used on any day that is not claimed by a Sunday or Feast…

Of the major complaints I have heard around HWHM, there are three that stand out in particular.

It doesn’t leave enough ferial days. Frankly, I’ve not been convinced that this is a major problem. After all, I’m a medievalist. I’m used to martyrologies that pile multiple people onto every single day of the year and kalendars that choose amongst the options of whom to celebrate. All of these figures are optional. The absence of ferias is only an issue if you choose to celebrate everyone who comes along, and that is not required.
The criteria given were not used with regard to the people chosen. This is more of an issue. And it ties into…
Not all the people chosen pass a litmus test for “sanctity.” In a sense this is a narrowing of the 2nd issue in that it is a focus upon the criteria around leading a sufficiently holy life. What counts and what doesn’t? I have a certain sympathy with this one. There are folks in HWHM who I don’t feel belong due to a lack of sanctity. But sanctity is not an easy thing to quantify…

What if…

What if—we made the options more clear?

What if we held a book clearly entitled “Optional Observances”? What if “Holy Women, Holy Men” was the title of a subsection of it rather than the whole? And if the ferial material was not scattered throughout it in disjointed fashion but presented as a coherent option equal to HWHM?

What if we promoted the votives more and gave them a focus?

There are people in HWHM whom I have a hard time honoring eucharistically as saints. However, I think many of them could be illustrations at votive masses for, say, “Artists & Writers” (HWHM, 728) or “Care of God’s Creation” (HWHM, 731), or “Social Justice” (BCP, 209/260). What if an almanac section—apart from the HWHM section—were to collect them and unite them with particularly appropriate votive occasions? The individuals in question would be remembered and commemorated, and the Church would only have to demonstrate “importance” or “significance” rather than the higher bar of “sanctity.” Perhaps this would give us the mechanism for remembering those figures of the past concerning whom we can’t render a full decision now but whom we do not wish to forget, or those who come close to the sanctoral criteria but fail on just a few.

What do you think?

Thoughts on Saints and Organic Development

I’ve been pondering a passage from W. H. Frere. As I’ve mentioned before, the revision and creation of Anglican Kalendars was in large measure spearheaded by the thoughts laid down by Frere in his 1911 book Some Principles of Liturgical Reform: A Contribution towards the Revision of the Book of Common Prayer. Here’s the passageI’ve been mulling over:

Now there are three principles that have operated in the formation of Kalendars. First they are designed to commemorate the chief events of redemption as recorded in the New Testament; secondly to maintain a memorial of local [p. 20] saints, especially martyrs; thirdly to recall the heroes of Christendom, who claim remembrance on other grounds than those of local interest, because of their prominence in the general history of the Church or in the Bible. These principles were recognized as regulative in the various processes by which the present Kalendar of the Prayer Book was reached; but different relative value and force has been assigned to them at different times. (Frere, Some Principles, 19-20)

Looking at Holy Women, Holy Men, one of the chief issues is its massive multiplication of feast days. Our ferial days are disappearing fast. Again, this is represented graphically in this image:

The resolution that originally authorized the work that would become HWHM is 2003-A100 and it says this:

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.

I’m thinking out loud right now about the call for local stuff in connection with the Frere quote and a broader question about the nature and purpose of the church-wide kalendar in the BCP…

Does HWHM reflect or forward “our lively experience of sainthood in local communities”? Or does it reflect people that various committees wanted to get included for various reasons?

Wouldn’t the goal of local celebration be better served if we did more work raising up the importance of local parish and diocesan kalendars? If we did that, then the church-wide kalendar would be better seen as a collection of Frere’s 1 and 3; the role of 2 would fall to the local communties who know their own people best…

Could a more minimalist kalendar function to better support local, lay, diverse visions of sanctity than a maximalist list imposed from the centralized authority?

Theses on Sanctity

Looking back at my previous post and assorted comments and at COD’s thoughts on Lent Madness, one of the core problems confronting Holy Women, Holy Men and the efforts to fix it is a lack of an explicit Episcopal theology of sanctity. Of course, there are very few widely recognized “Episcopal theologies of” anything which is simultaneously a bug and a feature.

I once tried to go through the BCP catechism and do for death/sanctity/eschatology what I did for the Sacraments, but found that there was so little reference to these topics that it wasn’t worth the effort. I think that there is a theology of sanctity that can be drawn from prayer book as a whole, but I had neither the time nor energy for that endeavor at that point.

Nonetheless, here are some fundamental theses on an Episcopal theology on sanctity that I believe do proceed from the prayer book and the classic Anglican devotional life. (And, yes, Rdr. Morgan, these may address some of your questions…)

1. A theology of saints and sanctity exists at the intersection of Christology, Ecclesiology, and Sacramental Theology.

As I’ve said before and no doubt will say again, one of the great issues of the modern church is our tendency to compartmentalize and categorize and to treat theological matters as if they existed in their own little glass boxes disconnected from anything else. Theology doesn’t work that way. Inter-relation is the name of the game.

In order to speak meaningfully about the saints, we have to talk about Christ. The Incarnation is central here. Christ is both an exemplar and the one who transforms us. He is the first-fruits of the resurrection. He is the one who did teach us, is teaching, and will teach us in thought, word, and deed. He connects us to himself and transforms us according to his own likeness.

But to speak of this connection and transformation is to speak also of Sacramental Theology—of grace and the means of grace that bind us into the Body of Christ and nourish us towards the Mind of Christ. Baptism and the Eucharist and the sacramental actions by which ordinary material reality is bound within the community to the powerful promises of Christ to be means of grace for the community and beyond mirrors the alchemy of sanctity that transforms our earthen vessels into something more substantial.

To speak of the sacramental and eschatological Body of Christ leads us to Ecclesiology, the theology of the Church, the persistence of Christ in his Church and the character and mission of the Bride of Christ. Where are the boundaries of the Church? What is the character of the Church? What is our fundamental mission?

A coherent theology of sanctity is incomplete with these pieces being integral parts of the answer. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that there is no explicit Anglican or Episcopal theology of sanctity—there are so many disagreements in these other areas that there is not enough common ground on which to construct one!

2. Sanctity can be simply defined as the aim and completion of a sacramental life of discipleship.

We are a sacramental Church. The sacraments are ecclesially dispensed ordinary channels of grace that bind us into the life of God. The reality of this binding is expressed in a cruciform life of discipleship. Sanctity is the standard against which progress into this cruciform life is measured; sanctity is the incarnate expression of relaxing our humanity into the person of Christ.

We talk quite a lot about the Baptismal Covenant. If things are properly aligned, then sanctity is related to a keeping of the promises taken on in this covenant.

3. We are missing part of the picture if we do not recognize there there are several key facets of who the saints are and who they are for us: they are a) elder siblings on the way of the cross, b) mirrors of the light of Christ, c) present intercessors, and d) pillars for the Church.

I use the word “facets” deliberately. Facets are different faces and aspects of a single thing—not different things that may or may not be grouped together… At the Reformation, protestant reactions against the abuses seen in popular devotion to the saints led to a myopic reduction of the role and identity of the saints. That is to say, I believe that there were legitimate theological problems with the way that devotion to the saints was expressed in late medieval Europe. I believe that some of these issues still persist. And, to touch on a point raised by a comment on the previous post, I think that much Anglican anxiety around Our Lady is because Marian devotion past and present sits uncomfortable near, on, or over the line between veneration (which is appropriate) and worship (which is not). (This is my main statement on Mary from a while back.)

The end result is that the protestant reformers tended to cut things back severely to the degree that they tended to give (a) their grudging assent and preferred to ignore the others. This is what’s in the Augsburg Confession; the 39 Articles don’t even go that far. In doing so, they violated the tradition of the Church and the teaching of Scripture. (I won’t say clear teaching as the most obvious pieces regarding this appear in Revelation and, due to its nature, it’s rather best to avoid the “clear” word.)

What I tend to see in the current Episcopal Church—perhaps as exemplified in some of the Lent Madness discussions—is a similar reduction of the saints to facet (a). As a result, some clarity on the scope of these facets is essential.

A. The Saints are Elder Siblings on the Way of the Cross.

The saints are exemplars for us in that they give us a picture of what faithful lives look like in a multitude of societies and situations. How they acted inspires us and gives us models. In this facet, we tend to cleave closest to saints with whom we share points of identification whether that be gender, race, class, profession, or situation. This is a lot of what we see going on in Lent Madness comments.

This is the “particularity” piece that helps us work through how we live the Gospel in our particularity—by learning about the particularity of others. However, an over-emphasis on this facet can be a danger when we come to believe that our goal is following the direct example of the saint. After all, no matter how closely connected we seem to be, their particularity is not our particularity. Yes, we should imitate them, but we also must be fully cognizant of what it is that we are imitating! And that leads us directly to our next facet…

B. The Saints are Mirrors of the Light of Christ.

Saints are mirrors, not light-sources. They don’t generate their own glow; rather they glow from reflecting the light of Christ. The saints cleave to Christ, and—in so doing—they cultivate the virtues of Christ. The praiseworthy deeds done by the saints are to be followed and imitated because of the way in which they embody the virtues of Christ. For instance, the marches organized by Martin Luther King Jr. reflect a creative combination of the virtues of justice, fortitude, and temperance (specifically in resisting the many temptations to violence). To simply say, “Let’s march!” without grasping these internal principles is not imitating the saint; it is failing to discern the universal—the aspect of Christ—that is bound into the particular.

I can’t help but think of Cassian’s citation of St. Antony in his description of how monks are to learn virtue from their elders:

For it is an ancient and admirable saying of the blessed Antony to the effect that when a monk, after having opted for the cenobium, is striving to the heights of a still loftier perfection, has seized upon the consideration of discretion and is already able to rely on his own judgment and to come to the pinnacle of the anchorite life, he must not seek all the kinds of virtue from one person, however outstanding he may be. For there is one adorned with the flowers of knowledge, another who is more strongly fortified by the practice of discretion, another who is solidly founded in patience, one who excels in the virtue of humility and another in that of abstinence, while still another is decked with the grace of simplicity, this one surpasses the others by his zeal for magnanimity, that one by mercy, another one by vigils, yet another by silence, and still another by toil. Therefore the monk who, like a most prudent bee, is desirous of storing up spiritual honey must suck the flower of a particular virtue from those who possess it most intimately, and he must lay it up carefully in the vessel of his heart. He must not begrudge a person for what he has less of, but he must contemplate and eagerly gather up only the virtuousness that he possesses. For if we want to obtain all of them from a single individual, either examples will be hard to find, or, indeed, there will be none that would be suitable for us to imitate. The reason for this is that, although we see that Christ has not yet been made ―all in all‖ (to cite the words of the Apostle), we can nonetheless in this fashion find him partly in all. For it is said of him that ―by God‘s doing he was made for us wisdom, righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Inasmuch, therefore, as there is wisdom in one, righteousness in another, holiness in another, meekness in another, chastity in another, and humility in another, Christ is now divided among each of the holy ones, member by member. But when we are all assembled together in the unity of faith and virtue, he appears as ―the perfect man,‖ completing the fullness of his body in the joining together and in the characteristics of the individual members. (John Cassian, Institutes 5.4)

For Cassian, the practice of virtue is not fundamentally the cultivation of self-improvement. Rather, as monks grow in virtue they grow into the fullness of Christ and as constituent members of the Body of Christ, they contribute to the eschatological consummation when Christ will be all in all. The quest for virtue is the quest to more fully and completely participate in the life and redemptive work of the Risen Lord.

This is the very same work in which we engage when we study the saints and seek to model their virtues in our lives. Their virtues are theirs only on loan; the heart of their virtue flows from Christ. Therefore, the saints—in congruence with Mary to the servants at the wedding of Cana—always point us back to Christ: “do whatever he tells you.” If we focus too hard on the saints, we end up staring at the finger—not the moon to which it points; yet without their finger we stumble for lack of guidance.

C. The Saints are Present Intercessors.

In Baptism, we are joined into the Body of Christ in all the fullness of meaning that the phrase contains. We share in his resurrection life; we are part of his Church. As members of that Church, one of our fundamental rights and responsibilities is intercession: to pray for one another. As partakers of his resurrection life, at death “life is changed, not ended” (proper preface for the commemoration of the dead, BCP 382). If the saints remain faithful to their baptized identity in this changed life, then intercession is an inevitable part of it. I’ve written on how I see this functioning in such a way to help anxious Anglicans understand it in this piece so I won’t rehash it all here.

D. The Saints are the Pillars of the Church.

I’m using a metaphor here that I think is helpful because it incorporates aspects of both stasis and visibility. In identifying saints, the Church says something about who it is and how it understands itself by way of the individuals singled out. That is, all responsible theologies of sanctity agree that we on this side of the veil do not and will never know who were and were not saints. There are some presently enjoying the eschatological intimacy with God that would surprise and shock us—of this I have no doubt. As a result, the ecclesial act of recognizing individuals really does say as much about us as it does about them. This is that whole “social memory” thing that I’ve brought up from time to time. In identifying saints we claim them and their history as part of our present identity. Hence the drive mentioned in the previous comments for “how well the saint in question agrees with our own theological politics.”

By including non-Anglican saints we are displaying our greatness-of-spirit by showing that we don’t believe that the holy is restricted to our church. (Did that “greatness-of-spirit” thing sound tongue-in-cheek? Good—it was supposed to…) However, by including Anglican saints we are displaying a conviction that the Anglican path is a true path to holiness (amongst others). Indeed, this was the articulated rationale for only including Anglicans in the post-Reformation period in Prayer Book Studies IX.

So—the individuals we select say something about our identity now. But a pillar doesn’t define a structure; a structure, a Church, is defined by the selection and arrangement of pillars. Likewise, it’s not enough to be selective and intentional about picking individuals; we must be cognizant of how our individual choices shape the Calendar that we offer to the Church. Do the individuals reflect a balanced sense of what we mean by life in Christ or does it get weighted or tilted or skewed in certain directions to the exclusion of others? I think this is one of the big fights around HWHM. It’s not enough to work with the individuals; the structure offered by the whole of the Calendar matters just as much—maybe more.

Ok. There are more theses to theorize, more thoughts to think, and likely more bombs to throw. But they’ll have to wait for another time.

The St. Bede Blog

Formerly haligweorc; Liturgical Spirituality for the Episcopal Church