A Prayer Book September

With the long days of Summer now behind us, and signs of approaching Autumn now evident, what are the characteristics of a Prayer Book September?

Sundays after Trinity

We are now in the midst of the long stretch of Sundays after Trinity.  This year, 1st September was the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity, and the liturgical year will end on 24th November, Stir-up Sunday and the Last - the 23rd Sunday - after Trinity.  In his advice to younger clergy, Henry Handley Norris, of the Hackney Phalanx, contrasted the Sundays of the Advent-Trinity Sunday cycle with those after Trinity:

Having in the former part of the year fully instructed his flock in the doctrines, let him in the latter part enforce upon them the duties of the Gospel.

These Sundays after Trinity, he states, are given over to "to practical Christianity".  With the rest and recreation of Summer now past, with a new season of labour and activities commencing, the Sundays after Trinity in September refocus us on "the duties of the Gospel", and doing so - in the words of the collect of the Eleventh Sunday after Trinity - "running the way of thy commandments".

St Matthew's Day

It is appropriate, then, that St Matthew's Day falls in this month of renewed activity, as the Sundays after Trinity continue to set before us "the duties of the Gospel".  The collect for St Matthew's Day petitions that we might be given "grace to forsake all covetous desires and inordinate love of riches", a call we need to hear both amidst the renewed daily routine of labour and as the intense commercial activity of the latter part of the year draws closer. (With St Matthew's Day just over two months before Black Friday, we might regard it as appropriate preparation!)

Autumn Ember Days

The Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after 14th September are the Autumn Ember days.  With prayer, fasting, and abstinence we receive the gift of the new season, and beseech God's blessing on all that it holds.  The Autumn Ember Days, together with Harvest Thanksgiving, offer a richer practice than the innovation of a 'Creation Season' which has been recently suggested for September.  Unlike the abstraction that is 'Creation Season', the Ember Days are rooted and grounded in "the Four Seasons" (as the provision in the classical Prayer Book tradition states), and our experience of the changing seasons (inextricably related to our experience of place).  Rather than seeking to artificially create new practices, the Ember Days mark "the Four Seasons" with prayer and fasting, itself a profound expression of our dependence upon the created order.  So, bin the glossy leaflets urging 'Creation Season', and mark the coming of Autumn with the prayer and abstinence of the Ember Days.

Michaelmas

In the final days of September, as the evenings darken, the leaves begin to fall, and the winds of Autumn arrive, a liminal time, we celebrate Michaelmas.  There is a rich beauty to Autumn, yes, but there is also a sense of loss and decay, of frailty and mortality, of dark winter days drawing near.  It is a time, then, when we need to be reminded that we also belong to an eternal order - "who hast ordained and constituted the services of Angels and men in a wonderful order" - that the splendour of light surrounds us.  Even as the winds, decay, and darker evenings of Autumn make us more conscious of our frailty, at Michaelmas we celebrate the ministry of holy Angels, for "by thy appointment they may succour and defend us on earth".

Black Letter Days

Amongst the September Black Letter Days in the 1662 Kalendar is the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.  As Clerk of Oxford notes, the Nativity of the BVM was traditionally described as "Our Lady Day in harvest".  This was echoed in the defence of Black Letter Days by the bishops in 1661: "useful for the preservation of their memories and for other reasons, as for leases, law days, etc".  Time is marked by the Black Letter Days, and the Nativity of the BVM thus marks for us the Harvest season, a time of renewed labour.

While, of course, no liturgical provision was made for the day in 1662, it does make a much more appropriate Marian feast for Anglicans than 15th August, with the confusion associated with the Roman claims for that day.  We might debate the need for such a feast on 8th September considering the rich 1662 provision for the Purification and the Annunciation, but at least there is a precedent for it in this Black Letter Day, and it is free of the doctrinal errors associated with 15th August and 8th December.

A second Black Letter Day worth reflecting upon in this month is 7th September, Evurtius, Bishop of Orleans.  This Black Letter Day was added to the Kalendar in 1604.  Why the addition of a rather obscure bishop of ancient Gaul?  It marked the day which was also the birthday of Elizabeth I.  This Black Letter Day, then, calls to mind the godly rule of Elizabeth, and the blessing of the Elizabethan Settlement, securing the reformed ecclesia Anglicana (and a hint of a foreshadowing of the commemoration of 5th November).

The month is marked by busy labour after summer rest and the arrival of Autumn.  A Prayer Book September prepares us for both, marking time and season, encouraging us in practical Christianity, and drawing us through our Michaelmas celebration to recall that, even as another year begins to decay and pass, we are "come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels".

(The painting is Eric Ravilious, 'Corn Stooks and Farmsteads - Hill Farm, Capel-yffin, Wales', 1938. The photograph is of a September sunset over the National Cathedral, Washington D.C.)