The Prayer Book Tradition
Vol. 57 No. 10 The Third Sunday Before Lent (Septuagesima) February 1, 2026
Weather Update for This Sunday, February 1st
Due to uncertainty about the timing and impact of this weekend’s winter storm, we are cancelling this Sunday’s 5 p.m. Choral Evensong, as well as Fr. Andrew Mead’s guest preaching and Nancy Mead’s 10 a.m. Anglican Pilgrimage talk. We look forward to sharing rescheduled dates soon.
At this time, we do plan to hold our 8, 9, and 11 a.m. services, along with Fr. Dunbar’s 10 a.m. class. Other Sunday offerings, including breakfast, Children and Youth Sunday School, choir, and nursery, may be adjusted depending on weather and travel conditions. Thank you for your patience and flexibility as we continue to monitor the situation.
Ice-Free Access to St. John’s Church
We will make every effort to provide a snow- and ice-free walkway along the north sidewalk of Charlton Street, from the parking lot to the Charlton Street church doors. Please use caution, as thawing and refreezing may create isolated icy patches. Parishioners are encouraged to avoid snow- or ice-covered sidewalks, especially in shaded areas.
Nashotah House: The Prayer Book Tradition
For five days this January (19th-23rd), St. John’s hosted a for-credit seminar offered by Nashotah House, the historic high-church seminary in Wisconsin, but taught by the clergy of St John’s with the assistance of parishioner Drew Keane. The dozen or so students were a mix of clergy and laity, men and women, from inside and outside the Episcopal Church, and the topic was the Prayer Book Tradition, involving close readings of historic and modern liturgies and lectionaries from a historical and theological perspective, as well as secondary literature about them, but also with reference to modern-day applications in a variety of pastoral settings. The students were thoughtful, intelligent, and remarkably responsive to the merits of the Prayer Book tradition, even though they came largely from backgrounds in which the 1928 Prayer Book played no role.
This is now the second year we have offered this seminar on behalf of Nashotah House, and it fulfills a long-standing commitment of this parish, not only to be guardians of this tradition, but to share it with the wider church. Speaking for myself, it’s deeply satisfying to share some of the decades’ worth of study and reflection I have made of this tradition, and, as always, to find in the teaching of it my own thoughts refined and clarified. I also think that a shorter and less academic but still intensive version of this seminar might be of great value to thoughtful parishioners of St John’s, and we shall have to consider when and how best to present such an offering. — GGD
Candlemas
Forty days after his birth, Jesus was presented in the Temple and recognized as the Messiah by aged Simeon, who acclaimed him “a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel”. Since ancient times, this day (February 2nd) has been observed as the feast of Candlemas. In a dark and chilly world, we look to Christ “lighten our darkness” and to “defend us from all perils and angers of this night”.
Preparing for Lent
This Sunday is the first of three Sundays with old Latin names: Septuagesima (“seventieth”), Sexagesima (“sixtieth”), and Quinquagesima (“fiftieth”). As the numbers suggest, with them the church begins a countdown that will take it through the forty days of Lent (in Latin, Quadragesima) all the way to Easter, the feast of Christ’s resurrection. (Lent begins this year on February 18th and Easter is April 5th). In these Sundays, the church is prepared for this new direction of the Church’s year, and the necessity for this preparation is not to be dismissed. The Orthodox theologian Alexander Schmemann wrote: “Long before the actual beginning of Lent, the Church announces its approach and invites us to enter into a period of pre-Lenten preparation…. the Church knows our inability to change rapidly, to go abruptly from one spiritual or mental state into another. Thus, long before the actual effort of Lent is to begin, the Church calls our attention to its seriousness and invites us to meditate on its significance. Before we can practice Lent we are given it meaning.”
Recall first the meaning of the season just past. In Epiphany, the church celebrates the manifestation of God’s glory in Christ, manifested to us, that it may be manifested in us, as we are transformed by him. But now we move on to the next stage, to the necessity of disciplined effort in our ongoing transformation. That’s why on Septuagesima we hear of the labourers in the vineyard, and the athlete’s training; on Sexagesima the labours of the apostle and the patience that receives and keeps the seed of God’s word; on Quinquagesima of the journey up to Jerusalem, from blindness to vision; and of growing up into the maturity in faith, hope, and charity. The images vary, but the theme is one: the transformation of our lives requires effort, training, labour, discipline. They prepare us to undertake the Lenten spiritual disciplines of fasting, prayer, and the giving of alms.
Wherever works are involved, there is a risk of Pelagian works-righteousness, in which we think to put God under obligation by our good works. But beginning with this Sunday’s gospel lesson (Matthew 20:1-16), the lessons of these Sundays before Lent teach that all our labor is at all points dependent upon the unmerited grace of God, who calls us to labor and rewards us beyond all deserving. Even our will to work, and the strength and skill we bring to it, are themselves the gifts of his grace. Lent is not a season of self-improvement nor self-justification. It’s about deepening our reliance on God’s grace and our transformation by it.