On the Shape of the Calendar (Anatomy, Part 2)

Leading from the previous post on the anatomy of the Church Calendar, this bit gets to the big picture view that the prayer book never fully lays out. Here I only get through general principles and Advent—the rest are still under construction…

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The Shape of the Calendar

Competing Calendar Schemes

The Calendar as we currently have it stands in the midst of three different schemes. First, we have the historical Western calendar which has been in use since it solidified around the seventh century. This is the structure that informs liturgical and spiritual writing up through the middle of the 20th century. Second, we have the revision and simplification of that calendar influenced by the scholarship of the Liturgical Renewal Movement and enshrined in the Roman Catholic reform of the Calendar at Vatican II in 1969. While most of the historical pattern was retained, it was reoriented; they superimposed on it an idealized view of fourth-century practice focusing on Easter, Sunday, and Baptism, simplifying and sometimes suppressing features that didn’t seem to work well with these emphases. Third, the calendar of the Revised Common Lectionary that has now superseded the lectionary printed in the prayer book reinforces the process of simplification and the application of modern principles to an ancient system.

Now—since our purpose is to uncover potential spiritual meaning in the prayer book system, my preference will be to foreground complexity and nuance rather than simplification. As a result, the reading of the big picture that I present here will cut against the trend to simplify. That’s not because I believe the Revised Common Lectionary is a bad thing—its common ecumenical use is a real gift highlighting similarities between mainline Protestant churches and the Roman Catholic church and enabling us to share lectionary resources. Rather, attention to detail and an awareness of historical precedents will help us find richer meaning in the year’s round.

Some General Principles

Broadly speaking, the emphasis on Easter, Sundays, and Baptism has certain practical effects on the Church Year. There are two major meta-classes of Feasts: feasts of our Lord Jesus Christ and feasts of the saints. As a general principle, feasts of our Lord take precedence over feasts of the saints. The occasions of the Temporal cycle are feasts of our Lord, as are the fixed Holy Days that celebrate events in the life of Jesus and his mother. Likewise, all Sundays are also feasts of our Lord.

So far, so good. As a set of general principles this works pretty well. However, there’s a twist in here that never gets fully explained… In the section devoted to Sundays, three feasts of our Lord get special treatment and get to take precedence over a Sunday. Why these three? Well, this is the complicated part that the book doesn’t explain.

Certain seasons are more protective of their Sundays than others. Basically, the Sundays within seasons that have a distinctive theological character are higher ranking feasts of our Lord than the fixed Holy Days that fall within them. Here’s a chart that may help:

  1. Easter Week/Holy Week
  2. Sundays of Easter
  3. Sundays of Lent
  4. Sundays of Advent
  5. Holy Days: Feasts of the person of our Lord Jesus Christ
  6. Sundays of Christmas

7a. Sundays of Epiphany
7b.  Sundays of Season after Pentecost
7c.  Holy Days: Feasts relating to our Lord Jesus Christ
7d.  Holy Days: Feasts of the Saints

You can see what’s tricky here—there’s a distinction between two different sorts of feasts of our Lord that get treated differently in different seasons. Basically, nothing will ever replace a Sunday in Easter, Lent, or Advent. When it comes to Christmas, Epiphany, and the Season after Pentecost, it depends. The more important feasts (the Presentation and Transfiguration) do trump the Sundays; other feasts offer you an option. If a Holy Day of either sort falls in Epiphany or the Season after Pentecost, it is left up to discretion as to whether the Holy Day is transferred a day or two or whether it is celebrated on the Sunday in place of the Sunday (which just gets skipped over until next year).

Which is better to do when a feast falls on a Sunday in a green season, celebrate the season or the Holy Day? That depends—I would think it better to celebrate the specific feast of our Lord (the fixed Holy Day) over the general feast of our Lord (the Sunday) and to give way to the most important of the sanctoral festivals: the dual feast of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, the feast of Saint Mary the Virgin (concerning which liturgists can debate whether it should properly be classed as a sanctoral feast or a feast of our Lord), and the feast of Saint Michael and All Angels.

While we’re speaking about general principles, I’ll note that the fourth section discussed in the Calendar section identifies a different kind of day from the others. Sections one through three and five (Principal Feasts, Sundays, Holy Days, Days of Optional Observance) are about precedence: what feast gets celebrated when should a conflict arise. Section four is fussing with a completely different issue. Rather than being concerned about what to observe, it focuses on how to observe. This section gives us ascetical directions. And they’re fairly simple—fasting (eating less food than usual) or abstinence (refraining from a kind of food, usually four-footed flesh meat) are proper on Fridays that aren’t celebrations.

You might ask what this is doing here if it doesn’t seem to relate to the topic at hand… It does, however: it balances the insistence on the importance of Sundays and calls us to the balance which is the fullness of the faith. If we celebrate every Sunday as a festival of the resurrection—as we should—we also in an equal way need to keep Fridays as a reminder of the crucifixion. While Sunday should always receive the higher acclaim and the greater focus, we risk falling into danger if we celebrate a resurrection disconnected from a crucifixion, a liturgical theology of glory without a corresponding theology of the cross.

[Added] There’s one more point to notice in terms of general principles and that’s the idea of Eves. Nothing is said in the Calendar section but in the general preface to collects is the note that the collect for Sundays and Holy Days may be used on the evening before. This reflects an old principle that reckons days a little differently than normal. An average day goes from midnight to midnight. However, in reckon the length of feast days, the Church has always shown a preference for the Jewish model, reckoning it from sundown to sundown. As far as liturgical cycles go, that means that feast days—and thus our calendar categories one through three—begin at Evening Prayer on the day before and end at Evening Prayer on the day itself. Thus, the collect should be used at this prior Evening Prayer, and the Daily Office Lectionary makes provisions for eves—proper lessons for the more important days and commons for the others.

Advent

Advent focuses upon one chief affection, watchful expectation, but—as the monastic reformer St. Bernard captured it in one of his sermons for the season—we explore it in three different directions:

We know that there are three comings [advents] of the Lord. The third lies between the other two. It is invisible, while the other two are visible. In the first coming he was seen on earth, dwelling among men… In the final coming all flesh will see the salvation of our God, and they will look on him whom they pierced. The intermediate coming is a hidden one; in it only the elect see the Lord within themselves, and they are saved. In the first coming our Lord came in our flesh and in our weakness; in this middle coming he comes in spirit and power; in the final coming he will be seen in glory and majesty.  (Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermo 5, In Adventu Domini)

The multiple senses of Advent allows it to be the perfect season to both begin and end the Church Year. Taking the first sense, seeing it as the time in which God’s people waited for the birth of the long-promised Messiah, it serves as the perfect time of preparation for Christmas. Taking it in the third sense, seeing it as the culmination of the year and—indeed—of this present age itself with the coming of Christ as Lord and Judge at the last trumpet, it serves as the perfect conclusion to the Church’s year. And, this third sense was the dominant sense of the season for a long time. Gregory the Great, reforming pope and highly influential author at the end of the sixth century, particularly connected Advent with the second coming; many of the classic hymns of Advent reflect this perspective: Wesley’s “Lo! He comes, with clouds descending,” the old Latin “Hark! A thrilling voice is sounding,” Nicolai’s “Sleepers, wake!” the old Latin “O heavenly Word, eternal light,” and Laurenti’s “Rejoice! Rejoice, believers” to name but a few in our hymnal. Music lovers who are familiar with the “Dies Irae” (O Day of Wrath) from requiems may be surprised to learn that this text was originally composed as a sequence for Advent! While Gregory’s homilies for the season focus on the dread appearance of the Judge, some of these hymn texts remind us to balance this perspective with a hearty dose of Christian hope. Both Laurenti and Nicolai use with good effect the parable of the wise and foolish bridesmaids to remind us that the coming of the Lord is our summoning to the marriage feast of the Lamb, not just to judgment.

Some modern authors have attempted to downplay the idea of Advent as a penitential season and have seized upon the element of rejoicing at the coming of the Bridegroom as a more fitting attitude. Too, they would like us to see Advent as a pre-baptismal period, another forty-day stretch of catechesis leading up to initiation at the feast of the Baptism of Our Lord on the Sunday after Epiphany. While the elements of rejoicing shouldn’t be suppressed, Advent does ask us if we stand ready for the coming of the full presence of God. For myself, I find this question to be the most fruitful. When I consider the Baptismal Covenant in light of the Advent proclamation that a holy God comes to dwell with a holy people, I inevitably find myself falling short and turn to penitence, less because the season is an inherently penitential one and more because of the realities that the season lays bare. If you’re fine with the Four Last Things: Heaven, Hell, Death, and Judgment—the traditional themes for preaching during the season—then, no, it doesn’t have to be a penitential season at all; as for me, I’m not quite there yet!

Even as we consider the third aspect of the season, though, it is also tempered by the second aspect that Bernard mentions. During this season we focus on our own watchful expectation for Christ to be born within us. The coming of the Lord does not have to be as dramatic as the entrance on the clouds in the words of Wesley’s hymn; the affection of the season seeks to cultivate in us an inward watchfulness, spurring us to get our house in order for the coming King. Doddridge’s “Hark! The glad sound!” neatly captures this second, focusing on the inward experience of Advent.

Cranmer’s collect for the First Sunday of Advent strikes a good balance between the three aspects, beginning with the second, making reference to the first, and concluding with the third:

Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, 211)

In every prayer book up the current one, this collect was read as a seasonal collect throughout the season, making it a classic Anglican lens for Advent.

On the balance the third aspect flavors the first part of Advent, while the first predominates towards the end of Advent. The final weeks of the Season after Pentecost begin ramping up the theme of the Last Judgment eliding with the first few weeks of Advent. The shift to the Nativity is heightened by the beginning of the “O” antiphons on December 17; while they don’t appear in the prayer book per se, they are explicitly broken out in Hymn 56, indicating which verse should be used at Evening Prayer with the Song of Mary on which day.

Fragment on the Church Year

This is a section that needs to be said–it just doesn’t belong in the place that I’ve written it and probably needs to get shuffled back into the Essence of the Calendar chapter…

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In one sense the Church Year unfolds like a Gospel, following the life of Christ. Advent reflects the waiting of God’s people for the coming Messiah. Christmas focuses upon the birth and Incarnation. Epiphany combines manifestation and ministry as the early teaching ministry manifests the character of Jesus in both word and works. Lent begins the turn to the cross which is intensified in Holy Week. Easter foregrounds the resurrection and the presence of the Risen Christ in the midst of his people until the Ascension. The coming of the Spirit at Pentecost initiates a new period for the Church, and the later ministry of Jesus that unfolds from that point is dually informed by both the Spirit and the resurrection. Finally, Advent once again reflects the waiting of God’s people for the coming Messiah, but this time as the one who comes to preside over the final consummation of all things as Judge of Heaven and Earth.

The danger with only seeing the year like this, though, is that we can view it as a panorama of historical remembrances. To do this is to miss something important. The Church Year is kerygmatic—an act of proclamation in and of itself. It proclaims not just the past but present power of the Risen Christ and proclaims both the presence and the power in our very midst. At Christmas we pray “O God, you have caused this holy night to shine with the brightness of the true light…” and “…you have given your only begotten Son…to be born this day of a pure virgin…” (BCP, 212, 213). During Christmas we pray, “…you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word…” (BCP, 213). Not, “a long time ago you did some things that we now remember fondly”—no! This night, this day, us, new light, in our very midst!

While we see the same language, emphasis, and themes in the second collect for Easter (“O God, who made this most holy night to shine with the glory of the Lord’s resurrection”), they reach full crescendo in the Church’s great song of rejoicing, the Exultet which is one of the high points of the Easter Vigil. Scooping up the great biblical images of redemption in the Exodus from Egypt and the Resurrection of Christ, they are united in our present moment as the faithful stand in a darkened church, staring at the single paschal candle, our own pillar of flame. The deacon sings:

This is the night, when you brought our fathers, the children of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea on dry land.

This is the night, when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness of life.

This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave.

How holy is this night, when wickedness is put to flight, and sin is washed away. It restores innocence to the fallen, and joy to those who mourn. It casts out pride and hatred, and brings peace and concord.

How blessed is this night, when earth and heaven are joined and man is reconciled to God (BCP, 287).

This isn’t about the past: it’s about now. The past becomes powerfully present as we reach towards the future promises, but these are all caught up in the moment of song and is our now.

The Church Year isn’t just a catechetical exercise (although it does that), it is means of accessing the power and the promise of God now. This is why the Anglican fathers fought the Puritan attempts to get rid of the Church calendar: they recognized that this cycle too is a means of tapping into the mysteries that God offers us in the sacramental life.

Electronic Anglican Breviary?

An odd confluence of events has come together over the last few weeks which has led me to seriously consider an idea that I’ve had on the back-burner for a long time.

Is there interest in an electronic edition of the Anglican Breviary?

In functionality it would be like the St. Bede’s Breviary (but with fewer preference issues!), and would offer a completely free and open-source use experience. If the situation warranted it, a mobile app for a modest price might accompany it. In addition, material from the Anglican Breviary—in particular, a wealth of seasonal and sanctoral antiphons, hymns, and patristic readings—would also become available to supplement the St. Bede’s Breviary.

In order to do it free, however, within a reasonable amount of time, and to keep my family fed at the same time, I would need to do it as a Kickstarter project. So, on an initial informal trial basis, I’m attempting to gauge whether it would be worth the time to put such a proposal together. If you are interested, click below:

The Anatomy of the Calendar, Part 1

The way that I’m constructing the book is to start each major section with an “Essence” chapter, then an “Anatomy” chapter. The first gives a general spiritual orientation, then the following dives into the prayer book, identifies where the parts are to be found, and offers a more particular discussion of what we find there, drawing on both the general principles and the actual contents. Since we’ve talked about the essence of the Calendar and identified some central spiritual principles (as in part 1, part 2a, and part 2b), it’s time to turn to the prayer book contents.

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The Calendar is most clearly laid out in a section at the head of the Book of Common Prayer. After this initial material, several other parts relate back to it and assume its patterns. In particular, the Collects, the rites provided for special days, and the lectionaries depend upon the shape of the year laid down in the Calendar.

  •  The Calendar of the Church Year
    • 1. Principal Feasts (p. 15)
    • 2. Sundays (p. 16)
    • 3. Holy Days (pp. 16-17)
    • 4. Days of Special Devotion (p. 17)
    • 5. Days of Optional Observance (pp. 17-18)
  • [List of Fixed Feasts and Days of Optional Observance by Month] (pp. 19-30)
  • The Titles of the Seasons, Sundays and Major Holy Days observed in this Church throughout the Year (pp. 31-33)

So, the first few pages of this Calendar section lay out the liturgical rules governing the various days of the year. These provide general rubrics for how to figure out what occasion to celebrate on any given day. Next, we have a section that lays out the months from January to December and identifies which fixed feasts fall on which days. Last, we have a list of titles that specify how we name the various liturgical occasions of the year.

For the most part, this section does a good job of letting you know how to order your services, but there are a few oddities worth noting that effect both how we order things and how we understand the wider year.

First, the normative unit of time throughout this section is the day with the consequence that seasons are given short shrift. Notice—there is no section here that talks about seasons of the Church Year. That’s not to say they are absent; the names of the seasons are mentioned throughout the Calendar section and they are used as structuring devices in the listing of the titles on pages 31-3. However, they are assumed rather than explained.

Indeed, many people assume that the colors of the liturgical seasons and the practices around them are listed out somewhere. There are plenty of such lists—but none of them appear in the prayer book!

Second, the Calendar section begins with three paragraphs that discuss the movable date of Easter. The third paragraph emphasizes that “the sequence of all Sundays of the Church Year depends upon the date of Easter Day” (BCP, p. 15). However, it doesn’t actually tell you that there are tables somewhere within the covers that help you figure out when Easter falls each year and the consequent effect upon other days. These tables, which had formerly been joined to the Calendar rules, are now found in the back of the book:

  • Tables for Finding Holy Days
    • Tables and Rules for Finding the Date of Easter Day
      • Rules for Finding the Date of Easter Day (pp. 880-881)
      • A Table to Find Easter Day [from 1900-2089] (pp. 882-883)
      • A Table to Find Movable Feasts and Holy Days [based on the Day on which Easter Falls] (pp. 884-885)

There is much in this section that seems fairly arcane—like the specific rules for determining the date of Easter—but there are also some nuggets in here that will help you if you have any sort of planning to do that involves the Church Calendar. The Table to find Easter Day is a straight-forward list: you look up the year, and it tells you the month and day Easter falls upon and whether it’s a leap year or not. Once you have that, you can turn the page, and look up that month and day in the next table, the Table to Find Movable Feasts, and it’ll provide the number of Sundays after Epiphany, the month and days for Ash Wednesday, Ascension Day, and Pentecost, the Numbered Proper that the Sunday after Trinity Sunday will start with, and the month and Day of the First Sunday of Advent.

The other thing that’s in here is an explanation of the funny letters and numbers listed in the monthly tables back on pages 19-30. If you look at page 22—the month of April—you’ll see four columns going across the page. The first only appears sporadically and gives a number. This is the Golden Number related to finding Easter Day—feel free to ignore it. The second gives the days of the month. The third is a repeating string of letters going from A to g; these are the Sunday Letters and this column can be handy if you want to know what Holy Days may fall on a Sunday in a particular year. By finding the letter of the current year on the table at the top of page 881, you can learn which letter will represent the Sundays throughout the year. The fourth column, of course, gives the title of the occasion with Feasts in bold type and Optional Days in regular type.

Third, the focus of the Calendar section is on establishing precedence. That is, it helps to identify what days are more important than other days. It doesn’t necessarily help you to figure out what to do or pray in on those days. It turns out that a certain amount of useful material on the Calendar is hidden within the section of the book devoted to the Collects:

  • The Collects for the Church Year
      • Concerning the Proper of the Church Year (p. 158)
    • Collects: Traditional
      • [Collects for Sundays of the Church Year] (pp. 159-185)
      • Holy Days (pp. 185-194)
      • The Common of Saints [for Days of Optional Observance] (pp. 195-199)
      • Various Occasions (pp. 199-210)
    • Collects: Contemporary
      • [Collects for Sundays of the Church Year] (pp. 211-236)
      • Holy Days (pp. 237-246)
      • The Common of Saints [for Days of Optional Observance] (pp. 246-250)
      • Various Occasions (pp. 251-261)

The initial section on the Proper of the Church Year gives us two important principles:

  • The Sunday collect gets used throughout the rest of the week unless there’s a Holy Day.
  • “The Collect for any Sunday or other Feast may be used at the evening service of the day before” (BCP, 158).

Then, a variety of notes get tucked between the collects! There are three kinds of notes here: 1) notes that identify when certain optional movable days occur, 2) notes that give additional directions on how to handle a tricky part of the Calendar, and 3) notes that direct you to other services within the book.

The Calendar section mentions the Rogation Days and the Ember Days but never explains what they are or when they fall; while the “what” never does get explained, the “when” is provided by italicized notes like the one on page 160 following the collect for the Third Sunday of Advent: “Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday of this week are the traditional winter Ember Days” (BCP, 160).

The next page (page 161) gives an example of the second kind of procedural notes: the italics on both sides of the title for the First Sunday after Christmas provide more detailed instructions for how to negotiate the three Holy Days that fall after Christmas and what to do if a Sunday lands on one of them.

On page 166 after the title for Ash Wednesday we find the third sort of note. This one directs you to a proper liturgy for the day in another part of the prayer book. Essentially, these notes are present for the major days of the Redemption cycle that ground the seasons of Lent, Holy Week and Easter that are gathered together towards the middle of the book:

  • Proper Liturgies for Special Days
    • Ash Wednesday (pp. 264-269)
    • Palm Sunday (pp. 270-273)
    • Maundy Thursday (pp. 274-275)
    • Good Friday (pp. 276-282)
    • Holy Saturday (p. 283)
    • The Great Vigil of Easter (pp. 285-298)

All of this sounds awfully confusing. The reason is because there is no piece dedicated to tying it all together. Allusions and references are made to a wide variety of concepts around the Calendar, but these references assume a big picture sense of the whole that the prayer book never actually provides. In order to understand what the mechanics are and how the mechanics then flow into our spirituality, we need to take the time to construct the big picture view that is implied but never stated explicitly.

Preferences Issues

It appears that some people are having issues with the new preferences at the breviary—others aren’t…

Obviously, this is my least favorite kind of error as it’s difficult to diagnose and replicate! I have put in some fixes this morning that may take care of the problem(s), but as I’m not experiencing them it’s hard to say if they’re fully fixed or not.

First, having javascript enabled for the site will remove a whole possible class of issues.

Second, if you are having an issue, telling me that there’s an issue is helpful, but even more helpful is including the url that’s breaking and what browser you’re using. Without this data, there’s nothing I can do to troubleshoot the problem.

On the Essence of the Sanctoral Cycle, Part 2

Following on the heels of the first section, here’s the second section on the sanctoral cycle of the Calendar.

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Back to Baptism

There are two primary definitions that the church uses for the term “saint.” The first definition is a general one with biblical roots; Paul consistently uses “the saints” to refer to the whole people of God. Those who have been joined to Christ in baptism are “holy ones” (same word in Greek) because they have become part of a holy whole. Thus, there is a general sense in which “saint” is appropriate for every member of the Church.

But there is also a more specific use of the term as well that the Church has used for centuries: a saint is a person who manifests Christ to the world. They are people in whom and through whom Christ can be seen. In a sense—like the icons that regularly represent them—they should be seen both as a window and as a mirror. The saints are windows because the light of Christ flows through them, and their primary purpose is not to reveal themselves but, in their transparency to the divine, reveal to us the heart of God. The saints are mirrors because they offer us an opportunity to see ourselves as we could be—to show us what a life in the service of Christ looks like. Just as we might glance into a mirror before a big meeting, the saints reveal when we still have spinach stuck in our teeth, when and where we fall short of living a life glowing with God.

The saints represent the goal for us. What we receive in the spiritual patterning of the prayer book, in the spiritual patterns of the Church at large, is a sacramental path to discipleship. Baptism, Eucharist, Confirmation, Confession, these things are tools that lead us ever deeper into a relationship of discipleship where we hear and answer God’s call to follow, to learn, to love, to die, to truly live. The saints are images of the wide variety of what Christian maturity looks like. It takes a host of forms in a host of situations but the central qualities never stray far from the pattern of Jesus himself: faith, hope, love, mercy, justice, peace.

Paul, positively influenced by the Stoic teachings of his day, understood that the true transmission of the faith could only be partially accomplished through language; the deeper patterns required examples. Hence, a critical part of his proclamation is captured in this simple (but not easy) call: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). There is an inherently incarnation element in the call to imitation. It contains the recognition that the being of people cannot be reduced to their thoughts or their teachings or even their virtues in an abstract sense; their instruction is incomplete and incompletely taught without gaining a sense of the whole embodied reality with which they engaged the world. The saints are mediators of the faith to us because, as Paul, they call us through themselves to imitate Christ and to learn from his ways what it is to be holy, what it is to be fully human.

Imitation of the saints means learning about lives. Some of the earliest literature about spirituality and teaching spirituality did not appear in the form of treatises or doctrinal essays. Rather, they wrote lives. The fathers of the nascent monastic movement presented their ascetical theology in narrative form: Athanasius gave us the life of Antony; Jerome gave us a number—the more fantastical lives of Paul the Hermit and Malchus as well as the more historically grounded life of Epiphanius and the various examples and remembrances in his letters of people with whom he had lived and to whom he had ministered. Even the first great writings on Christian spirituality sought to retain a connection with lives and stories: John Cassian’s great work is a dialogue that weaves oral teachings with human lives; Sulpicius Severus likewise offers a mediation of eastern monasticism to the West by means of a dialogue about ways of life and means of imitation.

What I’m getting at here is that when we deal with the saints—particularly using the second, more particular, sense of the term—we are talking about and working within the realm of Incarnation. How is Christ made manifest in material means to heal and redeem the world? An answer is in the lives of those called to follow him. We, in turn, learn Christ in and through them.

To return again to the prayer book and to Baptism, the Baptismal Covenant lays out a set of ideas made explicit that have always been implicit in Baptism and in discipleship. The specific promises asked: fidelity to the Church’s creed, persistence in the Church’s worship and gatherings, the practice of repentance, spreading the Good News of what God has done in Christ, humble service to Christ in the person of all humanity, striving for justice, peace, and respect for all are nothing new but reflect a variety of facets of discipleship that the Church has taught through the ages. Some individuals embrace these promises more concretely than others. Some embody them more profoundly than others. These are our exemplars of Christian maturity, these are the stewards of the virtues, from whom we learn Christ and imitate him in them. To the degree that they model the more excellent way, they deserve to be set apart and held up by the Church.

And, in making that connection, we come full circle to the issue of the two buckets—the saints, the departed, and who goes where. The good news, of course, is that it’s not our decision. We can’t put anyone into these buckets—that’s God’s work. And, at the end of the day, even the metaphor of buckets fails as being overly concrete. Here’s what we can say: God knows his own far better than we ever will. Recognizing that fundamental truth, no church or ecclesial body has ever said (or at least not properly or wisely…) that it can state the contents of the buckets. Even when churches declare saints, they are not attempting to identify the whole population of the holy. There are far more of every kind who enjoy the fullness of the presence of God than we can imagine. And, if God’s ways are true to what we find in Scripture and in the Tradition, some of those enjoying that nearer presence will come as quite a shock to us! No, the most that churches can—and should—do is to state that there are strong positive signs that certain individuals are among the blessed. Not so that whole company can be catalogued, but to have a sense of whom to hold up as exemplars and representatives of the holiness and spiritual maturity to which all of us are called.

Now, what may these “strong positive signs” be? Well—I’d like to focus on the one that makes us the most nervous… In Late Antiquity and through the medieval periods, one of the key signs of sanctity was identified as miraculous power. The saints could be known and identified because they were agents of supernatural power. For most of Christian history, in fact, sanctity was something declared on the local level by people who were convinced that one who was dead was still serve as an agent of God’s power in their community. Bishops might ratify this by proclaiming a feast, pilgrimage centers would spring up or cool down as healings or apparitions or other manifestations occurred. When the Roman Catholic Church centralized the process of sanctity in the mid-fourteenth century—in a way that the Christian East never did—it incorporated this principle in the famous criterion requiring three documented miracles. To this day, this is the part of the process that most modern people feel uncomfortable about. Significantly, among the various Anglican churches who recognize saints no such criterion exists. Rather than getting bogged down in the whole question of miracles, it’s more useful for our purposes to ask, not how and to what degree it gets fulfilled, but why this criterion is important in the first place. How does this connect back into everything else?

Truthfully—it’s all about connections. The point about miracles originally was that it established proof that the saint was hooked into the life of God and was serving as a conduit of God’s grace and power to the local community. Not only that, most of the miracles that are described in the medieval lives of the saints aren’t terribly original. You’ll have a disciple of St. Benedict do something that Elisha did, or healings and meal multiplications that mirror what Jesus did. What were these people doing, just copying Scripture? No—they were, in fact, imitating Scripture. When the saints either performed or were thought to have performed biblical sorts of miracles it confirmed that they were participating within a continuity of sanctity that points directly back to Scripture and to Christ himself. The Christian life—the holy life—was about embodying Scripture, not only in terms of following its guidelines but in receiving the same graces the biblical personages enjoyed. Imitation of the saints and imitation of the Scriptures ultimately points to the imitation of Christ who is the source and pattern of both the saints and the Scriptures.

Now, it’s one thing to show evidence of holy power when you’re alive—it’s another to do so when you’re dead. Because it’s precisely proof that you’re not dead, at least not in the usual sense. And that’s precisely the difference between secular culture and church culture. The secular culture has days that celebrate certain individuals—Presidents’ Day, Columbus Day, and so forth—and they do it to celebrate important historical figures who are a significant part of our national story. They are dead, gone, and fondly remembered. It’s not so with the Church. When we remember the saints, we’re remembering those around us whom we see no longer—but who are still fellow workers with us in the Kingdom of God. Recovering a truly baptismal ecclesiology requires the recognition that that baptismal connection is not severed by physical death. The prayer book encapsulates this notion in these two collects:

Almighty God, by your Holy Spirit you have made us one with your saints in heaven and on earth: Grant that in our earthly pilgrimage we may always be supported by this fellowship of love and prayer, and know ourselves to be surrounded by their witness to your power and mercy. We ask this for the sake of Jesus Christ, in whom all our intersessions are acceptable through the Spirit, and who lives and reigns forever and ever. Amen. (BCP, 250)

O God, the King of saints, we praise and glorify your holy Name for all your servants who have finished their course in your faith and fear: for the blessed Virgin Mary; for the holy patriarchs, prophets, apostles, and martyrs; and for all your other righteous servants, known to us and unknown; and we pray that, encouraged by their examples, aided by their prayers, and strengthened by their fellowship, we also may be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; through the merits of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 504)

The proper theme here is fellowship, connection, continuity. The saints pray for us, love and remember us, just as we love, remember, and pray for those we see no longer. The celebration of saints’ days gives us an opportunity to honor and thank those who pray for us, to lift up their examples before our eyes, and to point back to Christ himself who gave them gifts of grace, and courage in their trials.

New Preferences at the Breviary

The new preferences page and underlying code has been rolled out at the breviary.

There have been a few additions and some cosmetic changes, but most of the changes have occurred under the hood.

As always, I’ve tested it as well as I can, but I wouldn’t be surprised if some errors still slipped through. If you find any, I’m sure you’ll let me know…

The other substantive change is a new option in Morning Prayer that will allow you to substitute the Great Litany in for the ending of the Office with a click (or restore the usual with a click if you decide against it).

iDevice Preferences Solution

Finally, I think I’ve figured out the problem with the iDevice preferences problem with the breviary!

The issue seems to be the way in which the Safari/Webkit browsers implement the Javascript I was working with; I’ve tightened that up and things should work now.

So—if those using iPhones/iPads could check the functionality of this page: http://stbedeproductions.com/breviary/test/combined_preferences.php and let me know whether the preferences stick and work when you click the “Pray with your new settings” link, I’d appreciate it!

Section on the Essence of the Sanctoral Cycle, Part 1

Since we looked last at the seasons of the Temporal Cycle, it’s time to head into the sanctoral cycle. This part is currently incomplete. There’s more that needs to be said here as you’ll see. I’ll indicate some of where we’re headed at the end.

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The Temporal cycle that celebrates in time the high points of the Creed and, in doing so, the main movements in the life of Jesus is mirrored by the Sanctoral cycle that celebrates Christ and his Church in and through the heroes of the faith. The Temporal cycle operates along two major axes: Incarnation and Redemption. That is, the seasons of Lent and Easter focus our attention upon how God acts to redeem us; the seasons of Advent and Christmas along with attendant fests involving Mary and John the Baptist focus us on God becoming human. The best way to think about the Sanctoral cycle is not as some other separate thing that gets plopped on top of the Temporal cycle to confuse it. Rather, the Sanctoral cycle is the logical next step from the Temporal cycle that flows from the life of Jesus and shows us the fusion of both Redemption and Incarnation as they intersect within human lives. The Sanctoral cycle shows us the promise and potential of humanity reconciled with God; it gives us vivid examples of redeemed humans who incarnated Christ in their very flesh to the wonder of the watching world.

Now, some people are a bit wary of the Sanctoral cycle. And that’s understandable. There’s a wide range of attitudes with in the Episcopal Church and within Anglicanism as a whole towards the heroes of the faith and how we decide to remember them in church. A lot of this has to do with the way that the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches honor these heroes and desires to—alternately—emulate, learn from, or reject what it is that they do. Some Episcopalians are fine with the Sanctoral cycle and are perfectly comfortable using the “s-word” (saints). Others are much more leery of it, and see the notion of saints as inherently troublesome and problematic. The prayer book and associated materials tries to respect the diversity of opinion yet still providing for liturgical celebration of these heroes. We’re not going to solve the difference of opinion here, but, instead, will try to use the principles of the prayer book to wrestle with the topic in a way that helps us touch the heart of it: the intersection of the dual mysteries of redemption and incarnation.

A Baptismal Ecclesiology: Where the Rubber Hits the Road

The best way to untangle this matter, it seems to me, is to cut to the heart of the matter. It starts with Baptism. One of the real achievements of our prayer book is its embrace of the sacrament of Baptism and the restoration of its place as one of the two great sacraments of the Church. You won’t spend very long around arguing Episcopalians without somebody tossing out the phrase “baptismal ecclesiology” or referring to “the Baptismal Covenant.” That’s as it should be, yet these phrases can seem a bit daunting to when you run across them the first few times.

What is “baptismal ecclesiology” and how does it matter?

Baptism joins us to Christ. Using the language of drowning, Paul speaks of us dying in the waters of Baptism with Jesus and rising from it sharing in his new risen life. This is the moment when we get plugged into the life of God. It can be seen as an individual and individualistic event—me and Jesus. And yet, that’s not how the New Testament or the Church have talked about it. It’s not just me and Jesus—it’s me and Jesus and everybody else who is likewise plugged into Jesus; it’s all of us who are connected by Christ into the life of God. That’s the heart of what the Church is: recognizing all those who are fellow travelers with us by virtue of Baptism. The Church is defined by Baptism. We fail to see the Church properly if we’re only looking at the clergy.  Or if we’re only looking at the people who decide to show up to our church on Sundays. A real, robust baptismal ecclesiology takes seriously that everyone who is, was, or will be baptized shares in a common bond, the union with Christ, without regard to church attendance or denominational lines. Furthermore, Paul’s insistence that baptismal life is a sharing in Christ’s risen life means that we don’t see the line between the living and the dead quite so starkly either.

I fear, despite all of our talk of a baptismal ecclesiology, that we tend to have a “parochial” view of the Church. And I mean that in two different senses of the word. I mean it in the word’s negative sense when “parochial” is used to mean short-sighted and narrow; I also mean it in the word’s most literal sense as it relates to the parish we go to on Sundays. We tend to think of “Church” as restricted to the people we see around us—and that’s a mistake. If we take Baptism seriously, we have to see Church not only as the people within our walls, but also the folks in the church down the street (even if we don’t agree with them on some things), and all the folks who didn’t actually make it to our church or another church, but also including the whole host of those who have gone before us and we see no longer. If the act of Baptism replaces our life, plugging us into the life of God in some fundamental, meaningful way—however we understand that—than the dead share the very same life that we do. We are all bound together into the energies of God. What we do with the dead, how we understand them and our relation to them finds focus liturgically in two days at the start of November: the Feast of All Saints and the Commemoration of All Faithful Departed, historically shortened to All Souls. If we want to do the Sanctoral cycle right, we have to start with these two days and what they mean for us.

All Saints and All Souls

If we’re going to approach this topic from a prayer book perspective, than the place we have to begin is one of humility. We don’t have all the answers here, and that’s ok—we have enough to get by on. The first thing to note is that, despite what you might think, the Bible doesn’t spend very much time at all talking about death or what happens after we die. Christian tradition has filled in a whole lot of stuff here and often in some fairly imprecise, rather sketchy, and often down-right contradictory ways. Some of our most treasured notions about what happens when we die are more a product of cultural myths than anything rooted in Scripture and historic Christian teaching. Frankly, that’s part of what makes this discussion a bit tricky—we are touching on treasured notions. It’s certainly not my intention to harm anyone’s faith or pass judgment on what you were taught formally or not. As a result, I don’t plan on arguing against certain presentations of the Christian after-life, but rather want to stick closely to the words and intentions of the prayer book.

In the proper preface for the Commemoration of the Dead, we say, “to your faithful people, O Lord, life is changed, not ended” (BCP, 382). That’s the foundation upon which everything else is built. Because of our faith in the resurrection and the promises of Baptism, death is a shift—not an end. From that fundamental recognition, the prayer book then makes reference to two general groups: the departed and the saints. Most often, these are placed in juxtaposition with one another. For instance, in the various forms of the Prayers of the People we routinely mention both the departed and the saints in close proximity: “Give to the departed eternal rest; Let light perpetual shine upon them. We praise you for your saints who have entered into joy; May we also come to share in your heavenly kingdom.” (Form III, BCP, 387) and “We commend to your mercy all who have died, that your will for them may be fulfilled; and we pray that we may share with all your saints in your eternal kingdom.” (Form IV, BCP, 389) and “For all who have died in the communion of your Church, and those whose faith is known to you alone, that, with all the saints, they may have rest in that place where there is no pain or grief but life eternal, we pray to you, O Lord.” (Form V, BCP, 391). Too, we have Commons appointed for the Dead and for the Saints. But how do we interpret these two groups? Are they distinct or does one shade into the other?

I’d suggest that the prayer book is being deliberately vague on these points. The clearest statement that I can find that sheds light on the situation comes from the Prayers of the People in the Rite I Eucharist which reflects the language that we inherited from classical Anglicanism: “And we bless thy holy Name for all thy servants departed this life in thy faith and fear, beseeching thee to grant them continual growth in thy love and service; and to grant us grace so to follow the good examples of all thy saints, that with them we may be partakers of thy heavenly kingdom” (BCP, 330). This language affirms that the saints of God are partakers of the heavenly kingdom, and also envisions a process of growth that is not ended by physical death.  The pattern that is laid out here reflects a classical threefold division into the Church Militant—we the living, the Church Triumphant—those departed who currently enjoy the fullness of God’s presence, and the Church Expectant—those departed who do not yet experience the full presence of God but who shall as that process of growth is played out and as God’s promises in Baptism and Eucharist are fully delivered in the final consummation of all things.

Keeping these categories in mind, the Feast of All Saints celebrates the mighty deeds of God in and through the Church Triumphant; the Feast of All Souls recalls to us the Church Expectant who shall yet enjoy that final consummation.

Now we get to the tricky part: if we’re saying that we have two buckets—who goes where, and why?

Well, that’s complicated…

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Ok—that’s it for today. From this point I’m heading back to Baptism in order to define the two major definitions for “saint” and talk about when and where we use them. I’m trying to decide if my usual spiel on patron saints, where that notion comes from and how/why it informs this practice is worth the space and is necessary for this kind of work. Part of the wrap-up of this section includes the difference between secular days of memorial/remembrance and the Christian celebration of saints’ days; the main difference, of course, is that the secular world celebrates the dead while we celebrate the living…

More later!

On the Essence of the Seasons

Here’s a section from a chapter on the essence of the Calendar. It’s not the full thing because I’m still dithering about how to talk about the divisions of the day. I’m being sorely tempted to talk about the eightfold division that we see talked about in the late medieval devotional material and how various points in the day were linked with complementary Scriptural notions and narratives (as represented in the bit from the Myroure below). And yet, to what degree those divisions appear within our current prayer book are tenuous at best. I’d argue that they can inform our current book, but it still seems like a bit of an external imposition. I’ll have to keep thinking about that. In any case, here’s a section on the seasons.

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Now, I want to talk about the Christian year from two different perspectives. The first relates to its connection with our doctrine, this seconds relates to its connection with our emotion. We grasp the church year most completely only when we see both aspects, and when the two are understood to be complementary parts of a whole.

Living the creed

Modern Christians like to fight over the creed. What exactly is it, and what is it for? Most often, one of three perspectives prevails: either the creed is a laundry list of ideas, or it is a set of litmus tests for true believers, or is something to be transcended and left behind. Let me suggest that none of these options quite capture the role and purpose of the creed in the life of faith. I believe that our major problems with the creed are due to the fact that we have disconnected it from its proper function: it is a framework to guide our reading of the Scriptures. It turns out that some of the greatest problems and heresies of the early church came about not in spite of the reading of Scripture, but precisely because of it! That is, the Scriptures can be read in many different ways. We can approach it from many different angles. Once we acknowledge – as we must – that Scripture contains both literal and metaphorical material, then one of our chief tasks is to determine which is which. The creed represents a set of interpretive boundaries. It doesn’t tell us what to believe about everything, it just nails down certain points of controversy and renders a clear judgment on the church’s perspective.

It’s worth giving some emphasis to the “points of controversy” notion; I’ve often heard questions and concerns about why the life and ministry of Jesus is not discussed in the creeds. It’s not because the church didn’t think these were important, rather, it’s because there weren’t fundamental arguments about it. The orthodox and heterodox alike believe that Jesus lived, taught, and worked wonders – there was no controversy about these things, and hence no need for clarification.

Rather, the creed addresses specific points of controversy that have practical implications both for theology and for Christian living. For instance, when we confess that God is the creator of the heavens and the earth, we are confirming our belief that the creation of the material world came about through the God who is the father of Jesus Christ and not some evil, lesser god who sought to trap the spirits and souls of humanity in flesh. This is in deliberate contrast to a dualistic impulse which tried to see all spirit as good and all matter as evil and was convinced that no good God would get himself tangled up in material things. But that’s precisely what we believe! Not only did God get himself tangled up in material things, but took the material world so seriously that he became incarnate within it. But that conviction begins with the belief that God is the God of creation and that creation is not what we need to be saved from.

Too often, we only note what the creed says – and lose sight of the mistaken interpretive moves that it prevents. We get so caught up in arguing about what it does say, that we forget that it is simultaneously shutting down other lines of interpretation that can have disastrous pastoral consequences and skew our understanding of and our relationship with the God whom the creed confesses.

So what does this all have to do with the Christian Year?

Quite simply, one aspect of the Christian Year is that it is a temporal embodiment of the interpretive doctrines of the creed. Almost each line of the creed has a corresponding feast or fast. For those who feel a little wary about the creed, this facet of the Church Year should, actually, come as good news! What the creeds state quickly, sparsely, the feasts explore at more leisure. The traditional liturgical material that grew up around these feasts reflect a more poetic, meditative approach that gives greater nuance and the opportunity for deeper reflection about the meaning of the event or concept celebrated by it.

Let me give you an example… The feast of the Epiphany concludes the season of Christmas and begins and emphasis on how Christ alternately revealed himself and was revealed to the world. The early church connected the feast of Epiphany with three different biblical events: Matthew’s story of the Magi arriving to honor the infant Jesus, John’s story of the Wedding of Cana identified as “the first of his signs…and revealed his glory” (john 2:11), and the Baptism of Jesus by John in the Jordan which is at least mentioned in all four Gospels. While these Gospel stories were eventually expanded to their own Sundays, an anonymous liturgist operating perhaps in the 6th or 7th century wove these narratives into a single antiphon as a way of driving to the heart of the feats:

This day is the Church joined unto the Heavenly Bridegroom, since Christ hath washed away her sins in Jordan; the wise men hasten with gifts to the marriage supper of the king; and they that sit at meat together make merry with water turned into wine. Alleluia.

Using the central notion of the wedding feast, the doctrine of the incarnation is made even more relational as the wedding of Christ and the Church by means of the sacrament of Baptism. The first miracle of Christ reflects the joy of the banquet, and the gift-bearing Magi hint at the inclusion of the Gentiles into God’s promise of reconciliation. This is the sort of liturgical play that helps us return again to the creeds with greater appreciation.

Of course, with Cranmer’s great simplification of the Church services, we lost sight of many of these liturgical gems, but the last hundred years has seen a renewed interest in their perspective and they can be found in several devotional resources like the Saint Augustine’s Prayer Book.

The Seasons and the Religious Affections

Doctrines—like those revealed in the creeds—are an important part of the Christian faith. They’re less important for their own sake and more because they help us get a clearer sense of this relationship that we are developing and the identity of the Triune God to whom we relate. More than being an exercise in right-thinking, the Christian faith has been described as a particular pattern of deep emotions shaped over time.

Emotions are tricky things, and the language that we use to talk about them is not always clear or precise. Feelings, having feelings, listening to your feelings is—and must be—an important part of the religious life as well as the whole process of self-discovery. However, we’ve all seen forms of religion that rely upon emotional manipulation—whether that manipulation is based on guilt or a feigned joy—and that’s not what I’m talking about. Emotions, like thoughts, are often fleeting things over which we have little control; they arise within us and we respond to them, express them, give vent to them, or not as we have ability. The affections are more than this; they are more like emotional habits, patterns of feeling that we choose and cultivate. There’s a difference between feeling anger and choosing to live out of an attitude of anger; similarly, there’s a difference between feeling gratitude and choosing to cultivate it as a way of being. The Christian affections, as identified by theologian Don Saliers in his work The Soul in Paraphrase, are gratitude, holy fear and penitence, joy and suffering, and love of God and neighbor.

In what may seem like a paradox, an important part of this “feeling” work is about ideas, thoughts, and doctrines. Just as what we know about a person may influence how we feel towards them, what we know and the ideas we hold about God shapes our feelings in our relationship with the divine. Because of this interrelation between thinking and feeling, the affections are a constellation of beliefs, of doctrines, and feelings that are shaped and reinforced by language that not only provoke emotions within us, but also offer us images and descriptions of reality that help us understand what living out of these perspectives looks like.

When we examine the emotional atmosphere of the great seasons of the Church Year, we recognize that each season provides its own particular entre into one or more of the affections. Lent disciplines us towards penitence; Easter explores holy joy. Advent teaches us about hope and expectation; Christmas also returns to joy—but from a slightly different angle from Easter. These seasons give us an opportunity to concentrate on an affection, to cultivate it, and to understand it more thoroughly. Too, recognizing the seasons as affectional frameworks helps free us from a particular kind of seasonal guilt. Sometimes, I’ll catch myself rejoicing in the Spring air and newly-warm sunshine and feel bad that I’m enjoying myself so much during Lent. Conversely, holidays—particularly Christmas and Easter—can be difficult for those who have recently lost loved ones or who experience familial conflict at these times, contradicting the joyous intent of the Church’s celebrations. If we understand the seasons as training opportunities rather than emotional straight-jackets, we can free ourselves from this unnecessary guilt; it’s okay to feel something different—to experience a whole range of emotions despite an affectional intention of the season as a whole when we understand it as such. Neither our emotions nor the affections should be restricted by the seasons.  Rather, we focus upon particular affections as we move through particular seasons in order that these patterns may become more naturally a feature of our long-term way of being in the presence of God.

The seasons cultivate particular affections in a variety of ways; several factors all converge to create the emotional tenor of a season. The liturgical color often provides an initial first clue as to the season’s character. The bright colors of Christmas and Easter give visual cues as do the darker, more somber hues of Advent and Lent. The use of unflowered greens in Advent and an absence of floral decoration in Lent provide further visual indications of the Church’s mood as you glance around the sanctuary. Music, too, can sometimes change. In the great cathedrals where multiple services were occurring at a time and where the chancel organ played a supplemental role (rather than a dominant role as now) its tones were often suppressed during Advent and Lent. More telling is the use of certain musical elements. The Gloria in exclesis is one of the Church’s great songs of rejoicing and its absence is one of the ways that the Church communicates the time’s tone. It is used at any occasion in Christmas and Easter; not at all in Advent and Lent. The traditional rule that it is only used on Sundays in green seasons elevates Sundays within these seasons of patient endurance. The canticles at Morning Prayer also help shape the season’s mood with some being more appropriate at some times rather than others (we’ll look at this more closely when we go through the Office). One of the more subtle means for creating a season’s mood is in the selection of the biblical readings in both the Office and the Eucharist. For instance, Isaiah’s prophecies of the coming Messiah have been a feature of Advent since its creation while Lamentation is a consistent feature of Holy Week.

All of these elements combine to focus us on certain ideas, certain doctrines, and certain feelings that feed into the composite character of an affection. And the affections together with their sometimes complementary, sometimes sequential, movements between love and holy fear, penitence and joy, form the basic grammar of the Christian way of being.