On the Second Sunday After Christmas

We don’t dwell much on Jesus’ circumcision in contemporary mainline Anglicanism, in my experience. We’ve even done a fair bit to expunge it from our calendars. January 1 is traditionally called the Feast of the Circumcision. But the 1979 BCP of the Episcopal Church USA calls it Holy Name; the Anglican Church of Canada’s Book of Alternative Services and the Calendar and Lectionary of the Scottish Episcopal Church call it the Naming of Jesus; the Church of England’s Common Worship calendar hedges its bets and calls it The Naming and Circumcision of Jesus. In contrast, the 1662 BCP not only retains the traditional name of the feast but also has an unembarrassedly circumcision-focused collect and calls for the Circumcision Collect, Epistle, and Gospel to be used any day between the Feast of the Circumcision and Epiphany. This means that any year that Christmas falls on a Wednesday through a Sunday, a Sunday service would be celebrated using the Circumcision propers: the collect, Romans 4:8-14, and Luke 2:15-21. In this year’s case, that means today, the Second Sunday After Christmas.

Altar detail, Kirche zum Heiligen Kreuz, Sankt Peter und Genovefa, Ellhofen, Germany, c. 1515. CC BY-SA 3.0