Transfiguration, Observed?

This evening St. Luke's observed the Feast of the Transfiguration with a chant evensong. I am pleased to report that it went well. (And anyway, I appreciate any excuse to use incense and vest properly for evensong — it is one of the few occasions when I am permitted to wear my academic hood over my cassock and surplice.) I adapted the order of worship myself, drawing on both the vespers office from the Liber — which has a lovely series of antiphons drawn from Matthew's account of the Transfiguration — and the BCP (Rite I, of course).

There are, however, several questions about the observance of this particular feast. The Transfiguration was observed in the East by the 4th or 5th century, but is not mentioned in Western sources until around 850. As, of course, different dioceses had their particular calendars, the date of the feast was not consistent. Many observed it on August 6th, but it was also celebrated on July 27th (England and Gaul), March 17th (Meissen), and September 3rd (Halberstadt), among other dates. The feast was not universally authorized until 1456, when Callixtus III instituted it in commemoration of the defeat of the Turks at Belgrade. The date of the feast was established then as August 6th, the day the news of the Christian victory reached Rome. But the siege of Belgrade was lifted on July 22nd, which is of course the feast of Mary Magdalene. And why, one wonders, did Rome not already observe August 6th as the feast of St. Dominic, who died on that date in 1221 (and was canonized only thirteen years later)? There is no satisfying answer. Many early Reformers, being by nature a suspicious breed, viewed the feast as a too-recent innovation, and removed it from the calendar. (It has gradually crept back in.) Add to this confusion the modern custom of observing the Transfiguration on the last Sunday before Lent (the Sunday formerly known as Quinquagesima), for reasons that are not entirely clear. The Revised Common Lectionary has transfiguration readings for that Sunday every year in the three-year cycle, while the current BCP has transfiguration readings for that Sunday in Years B and C. (It was thus fortuitous for our purposes at St. Luke's that this is Year C.) The Romans have placed transfiguration readings on the second Sunday of Lent, but are, apparently, still keeping the feast on its (somewhat) original August date. Those Lutherans lucky enough to be using the historic one-year lectionary — oh, to be able to hear Bach's cantatas in their proper context! — observe the Transfiguration during the Epiphany season, on the Sunday before Septuagesima. (This year, for example, the feast was January 20th.)

All of this confusion probably stems, in part, from the difficulty in placing the Transfiguration in context in the life and ministry of Jesus. Just what, exactly, does this particular miracle mean? Is it the culmination of his early years, or just another event in his ministry? And, what's more, should that matter? To what extent should the liturgical year mirror the life of Christ? I would suggest that attempts to change the calendar to fit the order of events in the Gospels (like the moving of the regrettably under-observed Feast of the Visitation) are not particularly helpful. But then, I am terribly conservative, if not reäctionary, in my liturgical tastes.

For some more information (and a kindred spirit in matters liturgical), I'll refer you to Fr A, who muses on the (neat) custom of blessing grapes at Transfiguration and addresses the awkwardness of a second feast.