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At 12:55 10/09/98 -0400, you wrote: > >Bill East's message reminds me of a few question I meant to >propound to you all. This past Sunday (14th After Pentecost N.S; 13th >After Trinity, Trad.) my church, which uses the Revised Common >Lectionary, had the 'Stir up' collect. It seems to me that this >collect used to be associated with a Sunday later in the Trinity >season and also that I have dim memories of it being a traditional day >to finish making Christmas puddings and store them with rum or brandy >to age for the holiday meal (I suppose because you needed to 'stir up' >the heavy batter!). Now my frivolous questions (one of which I could >answer by looking at the BCP but it is at home and I am not) are 1) >which Sunday used to be 'Stir up' Sunday? 2) Is this a translation of >a mediaeval collect? and 3) Is the pudding tradition old, or merely >Victorian? > >Abigail > Respondeo: 1. Ad primum: "Stir up Sunday" used to be the twenty-fifth Sunday after Trinity, or more exactly the Sunday next before Advent - a rubric in the BCP requires that it be used on the Sunday before Advent, even if this is not arithmetically the 25th after Trinity. This Sunday is now, in the Roman calendar, the Feast of Christ the King. 2. Ad secundum: It is a translation of a collect in the Sarum Missal, very slightly altered from the one in the Gregorian Sacramentary. The Latin collect reads: Excita, quaesumus, Domine, tuorum fidelium voluntates; ut divini operis fructum propensius exsequentes, pietatis tuae remedia majora percipiant. Per Dominum . . . I shall discuss the Latin collect and its translation, on the Feast of Christ the King. 3. Ad tertium: I don't know. Many ecclesiastical traditions are, in fact, quite recent: Harvest Festival, the "Prayer of St Francis", to mention but two modern inventions passing themselves off as ancient. I wouldn't think it could be earlier than the 16th century, unless folk were wont to "excitare" their puddings; nor, obviously, can it be older than Christmas Puddings - when did they begin? The Supple Doctor. %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%