Forget the Mayans. It's the Episcopalians I'm worried about.

[captainsblog]

In between writing (a lot) and practicing law (painfully joyously little) today, I wound up with a fairly dead hour about 3-4 hours ago.

Went to work out. Found, on arrival, I'd forgotten gym clothes. Well, that sucked. Still, I had an appointment to meet someone at church at 7, and it was going on 6:30, so I headed over early.

Bored. Boredboredbored. I checked up on email, and then puttered through the church library, where I was supposed to meet Barbara right before she arrived for choir.  I scanned the shelves, hoping they might hold another copy of the book she was bringing to me.  They didn't, but they contained all manner of Christiana- from assorted Bibles and study guides, to a full set of Lance Armstrong Livestrong materials, to, and I have no idea why I was drawn to this, a 1940s edition of the Protestant Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer.

Actually, I do know why this caught my eye: bill_sheehan, that wacky ex-Anglican atheist, speaks about its content quite often. So, for probably the first time in close to 40 years (the last likely being in a try-them-before-you-buy-them exploration of other faiths in the early 70s), I cracked its cover....

and continued with the Boredboredbored.  The front of the book, as far as I got, is nothing but statistics and charts of when feasts, fasts and other fun things will occur on the ecclesiastical calendar in the far future.

One of them, beginning on page 4 of this particular document, was especially prescient:

A TABLE TO FIND EASTER DAY,
FROM THE YEAR OF OUR LORD 1786, TO THE YEAR
OF OUR LORD 2013, BOTH INCLUSIVE, BEING THE
TIME OF TWELVE CYCLES OF THE MOON

To work this, you will need some basic knowledge of astronomy, and an understanding of Golden Numbers, which, I'm afraid, have nothing to do with chocolate bars. But, armed with the cloak of righteousness and the ammunition of the Gospels, you can use this document to determine the date of Easter from the year before the signing of our Constitution until, until....

March 31st a year from now.  After that, apparently, the Anglicans will fall off the edge of the flat earth and be eaten by Catholics.

This fatalistic end of my World As I Know It was upsetting,.... until 7:00 came and went, and I ultimately figured out that the choir wouldn't be arriving for another half hour.  So I went home. I'll pick up the book tomorrow. And take my damn chances two April Fools Days from now.

Comments

[throbinson.livejournal.com]

I was the nerdy kind of kid who sat in church and read all that stuff from the front of the prayer book. Of course, at that time (the early 70s), 2013 seemed impossibly far away, so I didn't give it a second thought.

The rubric was always fascinating to me, as well as all of the rituals for obscure situations and services that our country church never observed (churching of women, etc.).

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

I converted to Anglicanism in England back in the mid-seventies. The C of E still use the 1662 Prayer Book, although there were books of Alternate Services that the more liberal churches used. I still have my 1662 BCP with all the great language. (Period films like Master and Commander generally get it wrong when they read the Lord's Prayer. The words are: "Our Father, which art in heaven..." Which, not Who.)

If you want the whole collection, see http://justus.anglican.org. They've got most of the Prayer Books ever published.

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

Of course I did this, too; the late-60s Methodist Hymnal had a similar chart, running through 2000 (and similarly seeming SOOOO FARRRR AWAYYYY), and the chart wound up outlasting the hymnal by a good decade. Its replacement United Methodist Hymnal from the mid-80s, still in use, doesn't even include such trivia. No wonder the kids in the pews are so antsy nowadays;)

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

With all due respect to the Right Honourable Methodist, the prayerbook you held in your hands was not the 1940 version. There were only two BCPs in the twentieth century: the 1928 revision and the 1979 revision. The latter dropped the "Protestant" part of the denomination's name: it is now the Episcopal Church of the United States of America. (ECUSA for short.)

The Calendar of the Church Year and the means of determining the date of Easter are now in the back of the book, in a section nobody reads called Historical Documents. These include the 39 Articles of Religion, the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral, and the Athanasian and Chalcedonian creeds. The table of dates of Easter now extends to 2051. We may therefore assume that the world will be spared in 2013. The Dies Irae will happen in 2051.

[thediva-laments.livejournal.com]

Bwahahahaha!

I wonder whose Dies Irae it will be? Which composer will have the honor? I vote for Verdi.

[bill_sheehan.livejournal.com]

Oh, one more thing: the 1928 Prayer Book still had the old ending of the Gloria Patri: "... as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end, Amen."

The 1979 Prayer Book has dropped the "world without end". It's now: "... as it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever, Amen."

They must know something...

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

Funny how all the global warming deniers never claim that the Rapture, or the Great Tribulation, is a hoax.

Our hymnals still do the GP (in both the majestic and minor-key versions) with the "world without end" included). That Wesley; what an optimist!

(And yeah, my guess is that 1940 was a printing or possibly copyright date; we have some Badass Pray-away-the-Gay Anglicans up the road from us who prominently advertise their 1928 BCP service, so that date sounds right.)

[throbinson.livejournal.com]

The Lord's Prayer I grew up with had "which art" and "world without end". The shift from the 1928 prayer book sent a seismic ripple through our mostly very elderly congregation, right about the time I married a Methodist...

ETA: I started off a Baptist, then at age ten we became Episcopalians (I was baptized and then confirmed there), and married in the Episcopal Church with a priest and a Methodist minister (father of the groom) co-officiating. Then I turned into a Methodist, which I guess I still nominally am, even though I haven't darkened the door of church for a regular Sunday service for over a decade. All that to say, I suppose I should just consider myself a Protestant, except for that four years of Catholic high school...

[captainsblog.livejournal.com]

I was born in a Catholic hospital, grew up three blocks from a conservative shul and was raised Methodist.

After I moved and got married, a house we moved to in Rochester had a mezuzzah on the door frame. I asked one of my Jewish friends if it would be offensive to leave it up, to which he replied, "Why not? Cover all the bases."

[greenquotebook.livejournal.com]

Love the icon!