[Episcopal News Service – Salt Lake City] General Convention approved making available a revised resource for calendar commemorations but stopped short of officially authorizing it as a liturgical resource for use in the next triennium. Amended Resolution A056 also establishes criteria to use when considering additions to the resource, “A Great Cloud of Witnesses: A Calendar of Commemorations,” and directs the Standing Commission on Liturgy and Music to review all the names within it in light of these criteria, reporting back any revisions and explanations for them to the next convention.
SCLM will use those same criteria to review commemorations and their accompanying collects added to the resource via A055 and to review suggested additional commemorations outlined in A057. The latter resolution includes the names of more women for possible inclusion in response to previous General Convention directives to increase the number of women commemorated in the church calendar.
“Great Cloud of Witnesses” revises and replaces a previously authorized resource, “Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrating the Saints.” Created as part of a major revision of “Lesser Feasts and Fasts,” the church’s commemoration of various saints and occasions not included as major holy days on the calendar of the Book of Common Prayer, “Holy Women, Holy Men” added many new commemorations and was approved for trial use by the 2009 and 2012 conventions.
With the passage of the amended A056, “ ‘Lesser Feasts and Fasts’ continues to be the authorized supplemental calendar of commemorations,” said SCLM Chair the Rev. Ruth Meyers. “ ‘Great Cloud of Witnesses’ will supersede ‘Holy Women, Holy Men.’ ” It will include everyone that had been in “Holy Women, Holy Men” – including commemorations originally proposed for deletion in A055 but later restored for review under the new criteria.
But how precisely the new resource will be made available remains to be determined.
“The commission will need to work with the General Convention office to determine how to make (it) available,” Meyers said.
Dividing these propers from the other commemorations means creating two books of more manageable size for liturgical use and, with the “Eucharistic Propers,” creating a longer-lasting volume because the propers, unlike calendar commemorations, do not change, Meyers told ENS before the convention.
“Great Cloud of Witnesses” includes “tags” for different aspects of saints’ lives that those using the resource might want to emphasize about a commemorated individual – such as martyr, pastor or bishop – and expands the Scripture options for the commemorations.
The House of Bishops had approved the Prayer Book, Liturgy and Music legislative committee’s version of A056, which would have authorized “Cloud of Witnesses” for use during this triennium. But it ran into trouble in the House of Deputies, who approved the amended version that merely makes it available as a resource. Because it was amended, the resolution returned to the bishops, who concurred on July 1.
He objected to paragraph 2, criteria 2, which changed the understanding of saints as “people made holy through their mutual participation in the mystery Christ.
Deputy Benjamin Shambaugh of Maine, chair of the legislative committee’s subcommittee on the calendar, said, “There are a variety of interpretations of sainthood.
She noted that The Episcopal Church is not of one mind about saints. “There are some who yearn to retain a core calendar and others who want to widen it. This helps us to balance that in a middle way,” she said.
The amendment passed 571-244, and the amended resolution was approved 619-194.
— Sharon Sheridan is an ENS correspondent. The Rev. Pat McCaughan, also an ENS correspondent, contributed to this report.
R H Lewis, does this mean you are not comfortable with commemoration of Saints at all? Just wondering!
Unfortunately, the two articles – important to me – were unreadable. Some sort of “interference” blocked the text with stamp-like images! Sorry – can we get it some other way?
Did they remove the non-Christians that were included in HWHM or not?
Since the title is “Great Cloud of Witnesses” isn’t the focus to be on who people are witnessing for? Baptism focuses life around “in the Name of Jesus Christ.” Otherwise we are a good group of people. Where’s the emphasis on our Christianity?
Debating who is a saint seems a bit contrary to our Episcopal roots which emphasize the sainthood of all Christians. However, if we can have a fuller Eucharistic lectionary for weekday readings that supplements the Sunday Eucharistic lectionary, that seems a worthy goal. And highlighting achievements of holy people is also a good direction.
From the early days of the Christian church, people whose witness to Christ has been notable, especially those who have witnessed by accepting martyrdom, have been celebrated and commemorated, both locally and more broadly. To say that someone cannot be honored in this way because the word “saint” (Greek “hagios”) is also used in the New Testament for all believers, seems silly to me. Must the lives of those whose walk with God and witness have been exemplary be hidden from us?
I would like to know why the entire book, “A Great Cloud of Witnesses,” is not available as a FREE download in PDF. Is keeping Church Publishing in the black sufficient reason to deny the text to those who cannot afford the $45 list price?
Sorry, the $75 list price!
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Washington, D.C.
