The Conceptionof the Blessed Virgin

This feast is in the calendar of the of the English book of 1662 and the 'Deposted Book' of 1928. It is also in the prayer book of the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church of Scotland. It was also in the calendar of the Sarum Use. Acoording to Liturgy and Worship the "date was deduced from that of the Nativity on Sept. 8. The Festival has been though to have originated in England before 1066. Abolished at Canterbury by Lanfranc, it was reintroduced into England in the twelfth century." This feast has been in the English prayer book calendar since 1559 and is indicative of the Catholic intention of the Settlement of Religion under Elizabeth I. As a black letter holy day it was not provided with a proper collect, epistle and gospel. But the reasons for that were not religious but economic.

How Can You Claim

To be a classical prayer book Anglican when your parish's schedule of services says otherwise? Anyone who reads the rubrics and other directions in any of the classical prayer books knows that those who put them together intended that every parish would have daily services of Morning and Evening Prayer. In addition the English prayer books direct that the Litany should be used on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday while they also provide propers for the celebration of Holy Communion on every Sunday of the year as well as a series of saints and fast days. This means that what you should find in a parish or mission loyal to the prayer book on a Sunday is the reading of Morning Prayer followed by the Litany and Holy Communion. In late afternoon Evening Prayer would be read or sung. When you don't find this in a parish or mission then it doesn't matter what they say about being loyal to doctrine, discipline and worship of the Church because their actions or lack of same speak far more loudly and powerfully than their words.

I have recently been surfing the web for parishes which claim to be orthodox Anglican. I have also not a very large number of churches which claim to be traditionally 'Anglo-Catholic' and they as well as the others show by their published schedules that they don't accept or practise what the Book of Common Prayer teaches. And the amazing thing is that this schedule is simply that of the Catholic Church in England as evidenced by Walter Langland's Vision of Piers the Plowman.

Some Catholics; some prayer book loyalists!