Commontide
Liturgical Color: White/Gold
The 2nd Sunday of Easter
Almighty and everlasting God, who in the Paschal mystery established the new covenant of reconciliation: Grant that all who have been reborn into the fellowship of Christ’s Body may show forth in their lives what they profess by their faith; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Easter
But chiefly are we bound to praise you for the glorious resurrection of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; for he is the true Paschal Lamb, who was offered for us, and has taken away the sin of the world; who by his death has destroyed death, and by his rising to life again has won for us everlasting life.
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.
The Annunciation
Red Letter Day
Prophetic Witness and Renewer of Society
Ecumenical Commemoration
On March 25 the Church keeps the day the angel Gabriel came to Mary at Nazareth and announced that she would bear the Son of God. The feast is named for that announcement, and its subject is the Incarnation: the moment the Word took flesh, nine months before the Nativity. It falls almost always inside Lent, and the Church has never treated that as an accident to be tidied away.
The earliest evidence for a March 25 Annunciation feast comes from sixth-century Constantinople (c. 555, under Justinian I). In the Latin West, the Sacramentary of Pope Gelasius (d. 496) and the Sacramentary of Pope Gregory (d. 604) mention it, though scholars debate whether the feast originated in their time or later. The first certain reference is the 656 Council of Toledo, which describes the feast as 'celebrated throughout the church.' The Spanish Church initially observed the Annunciation on December 18 rather than March 25, and the tenth Synod of Toledo (656) confirmed this local usage.
The Quinisext Council (Constantinople, 692) allowed the Annunciation as an exception to the rule against feast days during Lent — a concession reflecting the feast's importance and the practical tension between its fixed March 25 date and the moveable Lenten calendar. Modern Western practice transfers the feast when it falls in Holy Week or Easter Week.
The relationship between March 25 and December 25 is fundamental. The Calculation Hypothesis holds that early Christians identified March 25 as both the date of Christ's death and his conception (following a Jewish tradition that great persons die on the date of their conception or birth). Nine months from March 25 yields December 25. Whether the Annunciation date generated the Christmas date or vice versa remains debated, but the theological logic is clear: the Incarnation is a single mystery whose beginning (conception) and manifestation (birth) are intimately linked.
In England, March 25 was known as Lady Day and served as the legal New Year from 1155 to 1752, when the Gregorian calendar moved the new year to January 1. Lady Day was the first of four English Quarter Days (with Midsummer, Michaelmas, and Christmas), marking when agricultural contracts began and rents were due. The theological symbolism was intentional: the year began where the story of salvation began, with the Word becoming flesh.
Irenaeus of Lyons (c. 180) developed the foundational New Eve theology: 'The knot of Eve's disobedience was untied by Mary's obedience.' Just as death entered through a woman's 'no' to God's design, salvation entered through a woman's 'yes.' This patristic theme — Mary as the faithful counterpart to faithless Eve — became central to Christian reflection on the Annunciation across all traditions.
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) was a Baptist minister of Atlanta and Montgomery who led the American civil rights movement from the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955 until his assassination in Memphis. He preached the love of enemies from the age of twenty-three to the last night of his life, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964, and died on April 4, 1968, at thirty-nine. The Episcopal Church commemorates him on that day as Pastor and Martyr.
Martin Luther King Jr. was born January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. He earned his doctorate in systematic theology from Boston University and was ordained to the Baptist ministry. As pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, he emerged as leader of the Montgomery bus boycott (1955-1956), which catalyzed the modern civil rights movement. King championed nonviolent direct action, drawing on the example of Mahatma Gandhi and the teaching of Jesus. He delivered his most famous address, 'I Have a Dream,' during the 1963 March on Washington. In 1964, King received the Nobel Peace Prize, becoming the youngest man at that time to receive the award. He was assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis on April 4, 1968, while supporting striking sanitation workers. His legacy transformed American law, culture, and Christian witness.
Prophet and spiritual leader of nonviolent resistance; advocate of beloved community and racial reconciliation; witness to the moral demands of the gospel in the face of injustice; symbol of courageous Christian witness in the 20th century.