Weekday Eucharistic Propers

In the section entitled “Concerning the Service of the Church,” the Book of Common Prayer identifies the normative services of the Episcopal Church: The Holy Eucharist, the principal act of Christian worship on the Lord’s Day and other major Feasts, and Daily Morning and Evening Prayer, as set forth in this book, are the regular services appointed for public worship in the Church. (BCP, 13) Eucharistic propers (collects, Scripture readings, and proper prefaces) are provided in the Book of Common Prayer for the days when the Eucharist is the principal service. The Calendar section at the front of the Prayer Book identifies these eucharistic feasts by placing them into three categories, ranked by priority: Principal Feasts, Sundays, and Holy Days. Normatively, on all other days, Morning and Evening Prayer are the Church’s official public services. However, as celebration of the Eucharist has become more frequent, many congregations and other communities of faith now celebrate weekday Eucharists on days for which the Prayer Book does not assign propers. The Prayer Book provides a range of possible options for the celebration of the Eucharist on these ferial or non-feast days. These options include the celebration of: • a Major Feast that has fallen elsewhere in the week (BCP, 17); • a commemoration listed in the Calendar (BCP, 18); • a commemoration not appointed in the Church’s Calendar by using the Common of Saints (BCP, 18); • an Ember Day or Rogation Day (BCP, 18); • the season, by using the propers of the preceding Sunday (BCP, 158); • the weekdays of Holy Week and Easter, by using the propers appointed in the Book of Common Prayer; • an occasion provided for in the propers for Various Occasions (BCP, 18). In addition, since 1979 Lesser Feasts and Fasts has appointed weekday propers for seasons of the church year, and when Holy Women, Holy Men was authorized in 2009, it included those seasonal propers. To facilitate the use of these authorized options, this resource contains weekday propers for the seasons of the Church Year (the temporal cycle), the Common of Saints (the sanctoral cycle), and Various Occasions from the Prayer Book and from resources authorized since the adoption of the Prayer Book. The propers in this resource are grouped into three sections by type for the temporal cycle, the sanctoral cycle, and various occasions.