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Calendar - Commentary by the Liturgical Commission

This was originally published in Calendar, Lectionary and Collects.

The Seasons

Principles

The shape of the calendar of the Christian year naturally precedes any detailed consideration of the lectionary. Readings are chosen and arranged, not only to ensure a wide and balanced reading of Scripture, but also to enhance the celebration of the cycle of the Christian year. The Revised Common Lectionary (RCL), which has been adapted for use in the Church of England, is in general accord with four calendar principles.

• The calendar celebrates and proclaims the Christian belief in God the Holy Trinity, Father, Son and Spirit, and tells the story of the saving work of Christ in such a way that Christian people today may be helped in their spiritual life and their discipleship.
• The calendar is, as far as possible, in line with the current practice of the Western Church, and especially with the practice of other Anglican provinces.
• The calendar only departs from the calendar of The Book of Common Prayer for serious reason, since one calendar in the Church of England for as much of the year as possible is desirable.
• The calendar gives expression to some of the insights on the shape of the Christian year tested in recent years (especially in relation to All Saints' tide, Epiphany and the period from Easter to Pentecost).

The Major Features of the Calendar

Sundays 'of'

In the seasons of Christmas, Epiphany and Easter, Sundays are called Sundays 'of' the season, rather than 'after'. 'After' works against the intention of the calendar and the lectionary to sustain the spirit of the season through a period of several weeks. 'The Second Sunday of Easter' sounds a different note than 'The First Sunday after Easter'. For consistency's sake, Advent and Lent are also given Sundays 'of'. The time after the Feast of Pentecost and Trinity Sunday is a different case. It is a non-seasonal time, and 'after' is appropriate rather than 'of'.

The beginning of the year

The Christian year begins on the First Sunday of Advent, four weeks before Christmas. This abandons the ASB's Sundays before Christmas and returns to the traditional pattern.

Epiphany

The season of Epiphany, as a gradual unfolding of the mystery of the incarnation and of the revelation of the person of Jesus Christ, extends until the fortieth day after Christmas Day, 2 February, the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. February 2 marks the end of Epiphany and a return to ordinary time (see below), whatever the date of Easter.

Passiontide

In Lent, there is a 'change of gear' on the Fifth Sunday in Lent into a period called Passiontide. To have no change until Palm Sunday itself is not always satisfactory and an earlier week to run up to Palm Sunday is helpful and well established. However, bearing in mind that Palm Sunday is the Sunday of the Passion, the title for the previous Sunday is the Fifth Sunday of Lent, as in The Book of Common Prayer and The Alternative Service Book.

The Great Fifty Days

The fifty-day period from Easter Day to Pentecost is one season, in which the paschal mystery of the death, resurrection and ascension of the Lord and the coming of the Spirit are explored and celebrated. The final nine days, between Ascension Day and Pentecost, are still part of the Easter season but are, in effect, a Pentecost sub-season, introducing Holy Spirit material in preparation for the Feast of Pentecost, the celebration of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, with which the season ends. Ordinary time resumes on the day after the Feast of Pentecost.

Ordinary time

The periods between the Presentation and Ash Wednesday, and between Pentecost and the First Sunday of Advent, are regarded as ordinary time, with no seasonal emphasis or predetermined themes, except for an emphasis on the reign of Christ in earth and heaven in the weeks after All Saints' Day (see below).

Sundays after Trinity

Sundays during the summer period of ordinary time are designated 'Sundays after Trinity'. This is partly in order to avoid an unnecessary clash of titles through a major part of the year and to stay with the BCP calendar. It also reflects a long, until recently unbroken, tradition in these islands, and serves to affirm the Trinity not as a dry dusty doctrine, but as a vital part of Christian life and worship. An agreed ecumenical naming of Sundays is not easily achieved.

Sundays before Advent

In the period from All Saints' Day to Advent Sunday, Sundays are designated 'before Advent', and bring together a cluster of themes that November provides - All Saints', the Departed, Remembrance and the Kingship of Christ. This brings the Christian year to an end with a celebration both of the reality of God's rule and of the final ingathering into his kingdom. The need for a strong Christian awareness of these truths, to counter the secular culture at this time of the year, with Hallowe'en and its ghosts and witches, has never been greater. In the cycle of the seasons such an emphasis at the end of the year leads very naturally into the beginning of the new year, the season of Advent, when the same theme is developed from a slightly different angle. There is a long history of pre-Advent material that begins to anticipate what is to come, not least in the BCP provision for the Last Sunday after Trinity.

Principal Feasts

The feasts of the Church should be celebrated at a time when the Christian community is able to come together. Where Christians are able to gather on weekdays for festivals such as All Saints' Day or The Presentation, that remains desirable, but the proposals make it possible for certain days to be transferred to a Sunday. For a major mood change of the Christian year to be celebrated by only a small minority of the local congregation is clearly unhelpful.

The Feast of the Presentation celebrates a major gospel event of theological significance. It marks the end of the forty days incarnation cycle and a first turning towards Christ's passion. It is listed as a principal feast.

Ember Days

• The Liturgical Commission proposes a shift in the emphasis of Ember Days. While allowing for them on their traditional days, the calendar encourages the diocesan bishop to set Ember Days in the week before he ordains.

The Holy Days

Principles

• The Church is encouraged and enriched by the celebration of its fellowship with saints and heroes through the generations.
• The celebration of the saints must not detract from the cycle of the Christian seasons or the observance of Sunday as the day of the Lord's resurrection, but some celebration of saints on Sundays (especially in ordinary time) is to be allowed.
• A simple system of categorization (not of sanctity, but of observance) is helpful. Three categories (other than principal feasts) have been identified and their level of observance indicated: festivals, lesser festivals and commemorations.
• The Church of England does not canonize and does not, by including a name in a calendar, make any claim about the present heavenly state of the person. It is therefore restrained in what it says about them in its liturgical texts.

Dates

As far as possible, the proposals opt for the date on which the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales also keeps a particular saint. It seems unhelpful for two churches in the same land to celebrate the same saints on different days, and we have noted that proposals in that Church also seek to find a common date with us. We have, however, noted long-established celebrations (for example, in March of St Chad and St Cuthbert) and retained their traditional dates, even though the Church of Rome has moved these festivals to the autumn. The dates from the Roman Calendar are suggested as alternatives.

There has been an effort to reduce the number of saints' days in Advent and Lent and in the early days of Christmas and Easter in order not to detract from the season. But some saints' days remain in that period, especially ones that do not detract from the season but are very much part of it, such as Nicholas and Lucy in Advent, or the martyrs Polycarp or Perpetua in Lent.

Dates for new entries have been chosen for various reasons: dates of birth, of baptism, of ordination or of death, or sometimes the day of a particularly significant moment in a person's life (for instance, John Keble on the day of his Assize Sermon) where the day of birth or death is at an unsuitable time of year or already occupied by another observance.

Festivals

The days designated as 'festivals' are the same as in the ASB, except for seven:

• The First Sunday of Epiphany (or when 6 January is a Sunday, 7 January) is designated the Baptism of Christ.
• St George's Day (23 April) is made a festival to encourage wider celebration of the Feast of England's patron saint.
• The Visit of Mary to Elizabeth (31 May) celebrates an important and attractive event described in the Gospels, and it allows for a festival of Mary away from the summer holiday period. 
• Most recent Anglican provision designates 29 June 'St Peter and St Paul'. The possibility of St Peter alone is allowed in collect and lectionary provision.
• The main festival of the Blessed Virgin Mary is 15 August. It was a last-minute move in the process of calendar provision for the ASB that it was placed on 8 September (the traditional observance of her birth), but the rest of our Communion has not followed us in this respect. The title of the day 'The Blessed Virgin Mary' and the liturgical provision for that day avoid any unacceptable doctrinal implications.
• Holy Cross Day (14 September) is designated as a festival. Many observe it as such already, and there is value in a day that celebrates and reflects on the cross of Christ away from the particular mood of Holy Week.
• The Sunday Next Before Advent is designated the Feast of Christ the King. It is a fitting climax to the liturgical cycle.

Lesser Festivals: Criteria of Sanctity

When a Church decides on a list of those whom it wishes to commemorate in its worship, it is in fact making a statement about the way in which it understands its relationship to the universal Church, to the particular Communion of which it is a part, and to the country or culture in which it is set. There are at least four aspects to such a statement:

Communion

A recognition of the universal nature of the body of Christ, and of the living fellowship of that divided body across all frontiers of space, time and denomination.

Inspiration

Those who stir us to renewed fellowship in the faith are commemorated. They may be people around whom significant events have taken place in the story of the Church. They may be people in whose lives the light of Christ has shone, and who renew in us the sense of God's holiness.

Reconciliation

Commemorations may witness to past and continuing rifts and divisions within the community of faith and to the prayer that they may be overcome.

Celebration

Particular Christian communities will wish to remember those who are honoured in their locality as 'heroes' of the faith.

Lesser Festivals: The Fifty-Year Rule

The established Anglican convention of not including among the lesser festivals the names of any who have died in the last fifty years has been followed, except for those who have died a martyr's death. Whereas it takes time and testing to discover whether a person's life has such a quality of heroic sanctity that the Church ought to regard them as models, one who dies as a martyr witnesses by his or her death. The sanctity of the life that went before it, though not irrelevant, is not the issue.

In our own day the Church has had its martyrs and some of these are included without waiting for the fifty-year rule to run its course.

Groups

Sanctity is perhaps best remembered and celebrated in relation to individuals and their stories, rather than in relation to vast geographical areas. Names such as Anskar, Cyril and Methodius, Willibrord, John Coleridge Patteson and Henry Martyn among the lesser festivals reflect this concern in preference to the ASB group commemorations.

One group commemoration other than the long-established Saints and Martyrs of England remains, namely the English Saints and Martyrs of the Reformation Era on 4 May. This is the designation and the date used by the Roman Church in England, and it seems appropriate, across the Reformation divide, to celebrate this on the same day. There are also days for some named individuals with a particular place in our history.

Commemorations

The calendar includes a category of 'commemorations' which does not envisage that these be kept as holy days, but that mention might be made of those named in prayers of intercession and thanksgiving. Although there is a flexibility that allows them to be regarded as lesser festivals, this is to be the exception rather than the norm.

By their inclusion a small step is taken in making their stories known. If these stories inspire the Church today, then the question will arise whether they should be included among the lesser festivals. The Church may come to provide a way for names to be brought into the calendar as lesser festivals or commemorations at times other than when service books are being revised.

© The Archbishops' Council of the Church of England, 2000-2004
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