Liturgical calendar (Lutheran)

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The Lutheran liturgical calendar is a listing which details the primary

The Lutheran calendar operates on two different cycles: the Temporal Cycle and the Sanctoral Cycle. The Temporal Cycle pivots on the festivals of

There is another type of day which, while not a festival, is considered to be equal with a festival. These days, called Days of Special Devotion, are Ash Wednesday and all the days of Holy Week, especially Good Friday.^[9] These particular days, like other festivals, automatically take precedence over any event on the calendar and sometimes even over other festivals. A good example of this would be in 2005 when Good Friday and the Annunciation fell on the same day (March 25). The Annunciation was transferred to March 28, or the second day of Easter, to make room for Good Friday.^[10] The principle of the Church of Sweden is that the Annunciation is celebrated on the Sunday between 21 and 27 March; although, should Good Friday or any other day of Holy Week, or Easter Sunday or Monday respectively, fall on 25 March, Annunciation is moved to the Sunday before Palm Sunday. (For instance, in 2003 Annunciation was celebrated on 13 March; 2008 (when Easter Sunday was 23 March) it was celebrated on 9 March.) One unique feature of the ELCA calendar is that it has given congregations the options of two dates for the Transfiguration.^[9]

Lesser Festivals

These are days which are associated with the life of

Commemorations are for individuals or events which have been noteworthy in the life of the Church and in the history of Lutheranism in particular.^[12] These days do not take precedence over any other festival day, and if there is a conflict between a commemoration and a festival of any other rank, the commemoration is generally transferred to the next open weekday. If a commemoration falls on a Sunday where the color of the day is green, the collect for which that individual or event belong to could be said before the daily collect/prayer of the day or in place of it. For example, if September 13 fell on a Sunday and there was a desire to commemorate St. John Chrysostom, the pastor would recite the common of theologians and then the prayer of the day or the common of theologians on its own. The person may also be mentioned by name in the prayers of the faithful in addition to recitation of the applicable collect. Finally, their lives might be summarized or their teachings related to the day's lessons in some way.^[13]

In cases of conflict between commemorations (for example, November 11 with

The service books of Lutheran Churches designate specific colors for events which are listed on the liturgical calendars and the seasons which are a part of the Temporal Cycle. This color is sometimes known as “the color of the day.” The Lutheran Church generally follows the color scheme which is used by other churches in Western Christianity since Lutheranism has historically been linked with the

White is also used as the color for anyone commemorated on the calendar who was not martyred and is the color appointed for funerals regardless of whatever the color of the day might otherwise be. Purple is commonly used for the season of Lent. It is also optional for use during Advent, though blue is the preferred color for this season because of its hopeful connotations rather than the penitential character implied by purple and its association with Lent.^[17]

Historical development

Liturgical calendars began to be developed in Christianity around the fourth century, with the church calendar as it is known today coming into full development in the period of the medieval sacramentaries.^[18] While Sunday had long been established in the weekly calendar, festivals such as Easter and Christmas were also a fixed part of the calendar by this time. The ninth century also saw the inclusion of numerous saints in the calendar (a practice already begun by the second century), even to the point that normal Sunday propers were taking place over those normally appointed for Sunday.^[19]

Reformation era

All of the Reformers attempted to reduce the number of individual commemorations and “saint’s days”, though this reduction was sometimes more drastic than others. In the case of the Lutheran churches, most of the saints' days were removed (with the exception of some

When the Lutheran Reformation was brought to Sweden from Germany via Denmark after the election of

When Lutherans came to North America, they brought with them their disparate liturgical traditions. The Pennsylvania Ministerium composed the first liturgy for North America, including its calendar along somewhat minimal lines. However, since the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the calendar within North American Lutheran churches has been expanding.^[35] In 1868, four chief festivals in the Church Book were Christmas, New Year's Day, Epiphany, and Reformation Day, with Easter and Pentecost being considered a separate category because they invariably fell on Sunday.^[35] The Church Book also included several minor festivals, including festivals for all the Apostles, and the Annunciation. The Common Service Book (1918) also expanded the calendar to help congregations determine which days took priority over others in cases of coincidence. It added to the calendar the Sundays of Advent, Transfiguration (last Sunday after Epiphany), Septuagesima, Sexagesima, Quinquagesima, Ash Wednesday, Sundays in Lent, all days in Holy Week, Ascension and the following Sunday, and Holy Trinity. It also included All Saints, and Saints Mark and Luke, both of which were omitted from the Church Book.^[36] The Service Book and Hymnal (1941) also moved the Transfiguration to August 6 and added Holy Innocents to the calendar.^[37]

The previous North American calendar of the ELCA was different from its European counterparts in that it does not give equal weight (and sometimes gives no mention) to persons who may be commemorated in Scandinavian regions. One example would be the absence of St. Lucia on December 13, although she enjoys particular popularity in Sweden.^[5] But Lutheran calendars also differ amongst one another in North America, with some individuals commemorated on multiple calendars but on different days (e.g., St. Bernard of Clairvaux on August 19 in the LCMS and August 20 in the ELCA) or individuals commemorated on one calendar and not the other (e.g., Martin Luther King Jr. on January 15 (his birthday) for the ELCA and C. F. W. Walther on May 7 for the LCMS); with the 2006 publication of Evangelical Lutheran Worship (ELW) as a replacement to the Lutheran Book of Worship (LBW), some of these deficiencies in the ELCA calendar have been corrected. Within the ELCA, This Far by Faith and Libro de Liturgia y Cantico both prescribe calendars with additional commemorations specific to the ethnic communities they were intended to be used in (African Americans and Latinos respectively).^[38] The Wisconsin Evangelical Lutheran Synod has a different, somewhat minimized calendar when compared the LCMS and especially the ELCA.^[39]

Differences from other calendars

First, the Lutheran calendar, while commemorating many of the same events or persons, often does so on different days from either calendar (St. Cyprian of Carthage on September 16 for Lutherans, but September 13 in the Episcopal Church^[40]). In other cases (such as St. Valentine on February 14), individuals who have long standing within Western Christianity are not mentioned in the Lutheran calendar, or are only mentioned in the calendars of some Lutheran churches.^[41] Furthermore, some Lutheran calendars (such as that of the LCMS) still venerate individuals whose commemorations have been suppressed in other Western Churches. Finally, the Lutheran calendar commemorates persons or events (such as the presentation of the Augsburg Confession on June 25) which are not commemorated in any other Christian calendar because of their specific importance to the Lutheran Church.^[12]

The other significant difference is that the Lutheran calendar commemorates a wider variety of individuals than does either of its counterparts. Included on the calendar are musicians and artists who are associated with the Church, but are not typically thought of as “saints” in the classical sense. The intent is to provide a wider venue for commemoration of outstanding individuals who have served the Church through their vocations rather than simply commemorating the outstanding among the religious.^[42]

The calendar for the ELCA is similar to many other Western Calendars in that it does not commemorate any persons from the

"Saints" in the liturgical calendar

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There is also no use of the title "saint" for anyone other than biblical persons (and even then the title is used with a certain degree of exclusivity). This is to prevent oddities of convention (such as St. Nicolaus Copernicus)^[44] as well as to underline the Lutheran emphasis on the priesthood of all believers. Nevertheless, individuals who typically have "saint" affixed to their given name are still referred to as such in common discourse (so that Francis of Assisi would still be called "St. Francis" rather than just "Francis").^[44]

In the New Testament, all Christians are referred to as saints. However, the use of "saint" as a title for an individual who had led a good and exemplary life or who had been martyred began to develop in Christianity. By the time of the Reformation, the use of "saint" was almost exclusively the restrictive, titular sense.^[45] One of the effects of the Reformation was to eliminate the abuses of the cult of saints, and as a result, it is a common misconception that Lutherans do not have (or rather, do not venerate) saints. However, the confessional documents of the Lutheran Church, particularly the Augsburg Confession, accept both the general and particular use of the word saints.^[46] In regards to the titular sense, the Augsburg Confession commends that "it should be taught among us that saints should be kept in remembrance so that our faith may be strengthened when we see what grace they received and how they were sustained in faith. Moreover, their good works are to be an example for us, each of us in his own calling."^[46] Article XXI of The Apology to the Augsburg Confession goes further to describe three types of honor which are due to the saints and acknowledgment that the saints pray for the Church.^[45] However, the Augsburg Confession opposes prayer to saints, stating, "Scripture does not teach calling on the saints or pleading for help from them. For it sets before us Christ alone as mediator, atoning sacrifice, high priest, and intercessor."^[47]

See also

• Calendar of saints (Lutheran)
• For calendars besides the Lutheran calendar, see:

• Calendar of saints (Anglican)
• Calendar of saints (Roman Catholic)
• Calendar of saints (Eastern Orthodox).

Notes