Many Topics!

So many good things to write about today. On the left you see Teresa of Avila. Lesser Feasts & Fasts has her saint's day on October 15th, but according to my own homemade Ordo, she gets commemorated today. Why? (1) Because it's not proper to celebrate her feast day on a feast of our Lord, i.e. on a Sunday, and that's when October 15th fell this year. And (2): because of (1), her feast gets moved to the next open day in the week. Since this is a busy week (Latimer, Ridley, and Cranmer on Monday; Ignatius on Tuesday; the major feast of St. Luke the Evangelist on Wednesday; and Henry Martyn on Thursday), that leaves today as the first day open for St. Teresa. Of course she could have been anticipated on Thursday or Friday of last week, but there was a spot open this week so that's what your Daily Officer did.

Does this make a difference? Of course! If for no other reason than it's important to know which Collect to use. (The rubrics on pages 98 and 122 indicate that one should use the Collect "of the day.") In weeks like this one (Proper 23), we say the collect of the Proper only three times and the rest of the time the Collect comes from the Proper of the Saints. Not to be confused with the Proper of the Season. (The former outranks the latter.)

If this seems complicated, just think about the Anglican Breviary, where conflicting holy days can pile up and give your brain a real twist. There aren't enough real feriae in a typical week to accomodate all the saints in the Kalendar, so that leads to this really insane and complex system of reconing to determine your collect, preces, lesson, and antiphon for the service. Don't think I've figured it our yet, because I haven't. But I'm trying. And here's a "you heard it here first" moment: your Daily Officer is planning on taking a week off from work soon with the goal of learning how to say all EIGHT daily offices of the Breviary. An in-home retreat, if you will. You can expect real-time internet updates about my experience. (And anyone who is interested is welcome to come by and join in.)

In our own BCP lectionary, the Book of the Acts of the Apostles is drawing to a close. Paul is safely on Malta, healing people and being generally pretty well-treated (except for the snake which bit him on the hand). I'm sorry to reach the end of this book. It's been a companion of mine since we started reading it back in Proper 12 (early July). Another perusal of Acts is heading our way at the beginning of Ordinary Time in 2007, round about Proper 6 or so. Still, that's a long time to wait for such a rich book.

This post is getting long, so wait until tomorrow to read your Daily Officer's introduction to Sirach, or "The Wisdom of Yeshua ben Eleazar ben Sira," or Ecclesiasticus, which we started today now that Jonah has solved his problem with the fish.