About For All the Saints

One of the features of my now-defunct-yet-extant weblog, The Confessing Reader, was the posting of the commemorations of the saints in the sanctoral (saints’ days) calendars of the Churches of the Anglican Communion, along with some commemorations from the Lutheran Book of Worship and others (principally because that weblog also served as a conduit for English-language news from the confessional, that is to say theologically conservative, Christians in the Scandinavian Lutheran Churches, particularly in the Church of Sweden).

This weblog, For All the Saints, began with the Feast of St. Andrew (November 30) in 2010 and continued regularly until late 2015. Thereafter I posted only sporadically. Now, with the commemoration of Monica, the mother of Augustine of Hippo on August 27, 2022, I have again begun regularly posting the commemorations listed in the sanctoral calendar—now particularly those of the Anglican Church in North America as found in the Book of Common Prayer (2019). For each “red-letter” holy day (so-called because they were printed in red ink in earlier liturgical calendars) and commemoration I will post a brief biographical sketch, a collect for the commemoration, and the propers (psalm and Scripture lesson) for the day, if there be any such appointed. Each “black-letter” holy day (known as “commemorations” in the calendar of the 2019 Prayer Book), I will post a brief biographical sketch and an appropriate collect. The biographical sketches will be drawn from a variety of courses, including older editions of Lesser Feasts and Fasts (The Episcopal Church’s sanctoral supplement to the 1979 Prayer Book), The Oxford Dictionary of Saints (1978), Celebrating the Saints (a supplement to accompany the calendars of The Church of England, the Church of Ireland, the Scottish Episcopal Church, and the Church in Wales), and the New Book of Festivals and Commemorations: A Proposed Common Calendar of Saints (compiled by Philip H. Pfattechier, an American Evangelical Lutheran pastor), as well as primary sources such as the Venerable Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Collects will be taken from the Book of Common Prayer (2019) and occasionally from Lesser Feasts and Fasts (1980), using either the proper collect appointed for the day or one of the collects from the Common of Commemorations, appropriately adapted to the particular saint or saints being commemorated. For most of the posts, there will also be an icon, or an iconographic depiction, of the saint whom we are commemorating and for whom we are giving thanks that day. In addition to commemorations found in the ACNA’s sanctoral calendar, I will include a few additional commemorations that are of both ecumenical and Anglican significance that do not appear in that calendar (for example, James Ussher, Archbishop of Armagh). I’m pleased that some commemorations that I had previously included in For All the Saints but that did not appear in the calendar of The Episcopal Church or other Anglican Churches (for example, Lesslie Newbigin, whom I had penciled into the calendar in my 1979 Prayer Book) have been included in the ACNA’s calendar. (I do not suggest for a moment that it was due to this weblog, however!)

You will note at the bottom of the post the category into which I have placed each entry: Principal Feasts, Holy Days, Commemorations: Anglican, and Commemorations: Ecumenical. These reflect the designations given in the calendar found on pages 687-712 in the 2019 Prayer Book. Principal Feasts are those Feasts of our Lord that take precedence over any other day or observance. These include Christmas Day (December 25), the Epiphany (January 1), Easter Day, Ascension Day, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday, and All Saints’ Day (November 1). Holy Days, or red-letter days, include other significant Feasts of our Lord such as the Circumcision and Holy Name (January 1), the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (February 2), and the Annunciation (March 25); as well as feast days of important New Testament saints for which the reformed Church of England has historically provided proper collects, psalms, and Scripture readings, such as Saint Stephen (December 26), Holy Innocents (December 28), Saint Joseph (March 19), Saint Mary Magdalene (July 22), and all feasts of the Apostles and of the Evangelists. Anglican and Ecumenical Commemorations include most of the minor feasts retained in the calendar of the historic editions of the Book of Common Prayer (preeminently the 1662 Prayer Book) along with others that have subsequently been found worthy of commemoration.

While most of the entries will be either sanctoral (saint’s day) Holy Days or Commemorations, I will also provide brief descriptions (and icons or other artwork) for most of the Holy Days and Principal Feasts that are sometimes designated in other calendars as Feasts of our Lord.

My prayer is that this weblog will provide a devotional help to enable us more nearly to realize what we confess in the Apostles’ Creed:  “I believe…in the communion of saints”.

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.