Commontide
Liturgical Color: Violet
Palm Sunday
Almighty and everlasting God, in your tender love for us you sent your Son our Savior Jesus Christ to take upon himself our nature, and to suffer death upon the Cross, giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way of his suffering, and come to share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Holy Week
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. For our sins he was lifted high upon the Cross, that he might draw the whole world to himself; and by his suffering and death he became the author of eternal salvation for all who put their trust in him.
Most liturgical texts are from the Book of Common Prayer (2019) of the Anglican Church in North America.
The New Coverdale Psalter, © 2019 by the Anglican Church in North America. Used by permission.
Red Letter Day
Priest, Theologian, and Renewer of Society
Anglican Commemoration
Wednesday in Holy Week is the fourth day of the week of the Passion, kept with the Gospel of the bargain struck between Judas Iscariot and the chief priests. The earliest description of the day comes from Egeria, a pilgrim in Jerusalem in the early 380s, who heard that reading in the cave of the Anastasis at night. In the East the day sets the woman with her ointment against the price paid for the Lord; in the West it long carried the evening office of Tenebrae.
Wednesday of Holy Week carries the informal name 'Spy Wednesday' — a medieval English designation recalling Judas Iscariot's agreement to betray Jesus to the chief priests (Matthew 26:14–16, Mark 14:10–11, Luke 22:3–6). The Synoptic Gospels place this arrangement two days before Passover, and the tradition of associating Wednesday with Judas's treachery is attested from at least the early medieval period. In the Byzantine tradition, this day is called 'Holy and Great Wednesday' and is associated with the anointing at Bethany (Matthew 26:6–13), where the woman's lavish devotion stands in deliberate contrast to Judas's calculating betrayal — the one pouring out costly nard, the other selling his Master for thirty pieces of silver. The Western lectionary tradition has varied over the centuries in which Gospel passage it assigns: some years emphasizing the anointing, others the conspiracy. The day also holds typological significance as the last 'ordinary' day before the Triduum begins at sundown on Thursday. In the early Church, Wednesday and Friday were already established as station days — days of fasting and prayer — which gave Wednesday of Holy Week a natural intensification of the regular Wednesday fast. The overlap with Passover preparation in Jesus's own time adds a further layer: as the Jewish community prepared lambs for slaughter, the Lamb of God was being handed over by one of his own.
The liturgical observance of Wednesday in Holy Week has been shaped by two parallel streams. In the East, the emphasis falls heavily on the anointing at Bethany and the contrast between devotion and betrayal; Byzantine hymnography for this day is rich with references to 'the sinful woman' who recognized Christ while Judas did not. In the West, the medieval tradition gave the day its popular name 'Spy Wednesday,' and the focus shifted more toward the conspiracy narrative. The BCP 2019 places this day within the protected days of Holy Week — no other observance can displace its propers. When the Annunciation (March 25) falls during Holy Week, it is transferred, illustrating the absolute liturgical precedence of these days. Some parishes observe Tenebrae services on Wednesday evening as anticipatory preparation for the Triduum, though the BCP itself assigns the principal Tenebrae elements to Maundy Thursday. The day serves as a hinge between the teaching ministry of Holy Week's earlier days (when Jesus taught in the Temple) and the Passion narrative that begins in earnest at the Last Supper.
Frederick Denison Maurice (1805-1872) was an English priest, theologian, and teacher. Raised in a Unitarian minister's divided household, he was baptised into the Church of England at twenty-five. In 1853 King's College London stripped him of both his chairs over his book on the meaning of eternal punishment; within a year he had opened the Working Men's College, which still stands. He is commemorated on 1 April as a Teacher of the Faith.
Frederick Denison Maurice was born in 1805 near Lowestoft, Suffolk, into a Unitarian family. His childhood was marked by religious turmoil — his mother and sisters converted to various forms of evangelical Christianity, and the household was divided by competing convictions. Maurice himself was received into the Church of England in 1831 and ordained in 1834.
His major theological work, The Kingdom of Christ (1838, revised 1842), argued that the Church's visible structures — creeds, sacraments, episcopacy — are signs of a universal spiritual society that God has already established in Christ. This vision was neither Catholic nor Protestant in the conventional sense: Maurice believed that every party in the Church held part of the truth, and that the Church's calling was to manifest the unity that already existed in Christ rather than to create it.
In 1848, inspired by the Chartist movement and the failure of revolutionary politics, Maurice joined with Charles Kingsley and J.M. Ludlow to found the Christian Socialist movement. Their argument was that competition was unchristian, that cooperation was the economic principle implied by the gospel, and that the Church had a duty to engage with the social conditions of the working class.
Maurice's dismissal from King's College London in 1853 — for publishing Theological Essays, in which he questioned whether 'eternal' in 'eternal punishment' meant 'everlasting' — made him a cause célèbre. He founded the Working Men's College in 1854 and was eventually appointed to a chair at Cambridge, where he taught until his death in 1872.
Maurice's legacy in Anglican theology and Christian social thought was established immediately and has grown continuously. The Working Men's College he founded remains active and influential. His theological vision — emphasizing the universality of Christ's redemption, the present reality of God's kingdom, and the Church's responsibility to engage with social structures — became foundational for Anglican social ethics. Christian Socialism, which he helped launch, became a major current in Anglican thought. His willingness to question the doctrine of eternal punishment — which led to his dismissal — was later vindicated by theological development. The tradition presents Maurice as a prophetic figure who paid a price for intellectual and social honesty, and whose vindication came gradually through the acceptance of his ideas and the success of his institutions.