The very idea of “Sundays before Lent” is an abomination before the Lord.
Lent is plenty long enough.
The C of E has multiple Sundays before Lent in its most recent Calendar. Today, we were caught out in the office by it. The trouble is, people who prepare “worship resources” devise their offerings according to how many they think they can sell and to whom. Might is right when it comes to publishers. Thus, hymn choices for next Sunday had been made some time ago, according to the suggestions of the Royal School of Church Music which follows England’s local use. Today when it came to checking the hymns against the Collect and the Readings, they seemed to bear no resemblance. It is not the first time I’ve been caught out because the C of E in its wisdom departs from the internationally agreed readings of the Revised Common Lectionary.
Bah.
Time we marched south and reconverted England, I say. Any suggestions as to which dioceses we should take first?
Had a look at Wikipedia for Septuagesima. It indicates that this and the other sundays where taken out by Second Vactican Council. From what Kelvin has said – posh Sundays before Lent – just renaming them as Third, Second, etc before Lent seems odd.
I think that the wikipedia article is unusually poor. It is not written from a neutral point of view and presumes that Septuagesima was abandoned by every Anglican on the same day at a stroke. Anglicans don’t do things like that.
Well, they don’t yet, though may do after next week or next year.
I’d suggest a couple of dioceses here in the US: Pittsburgh and San Joaquin. Perhaps South Carolina, too, while you are at it.