TIP of the day: Christians to emulate

Yes, I'm speaking of the sanctoral cycle which in Logos is implemented only for a subset of Catholics - but should be expanded to support many other Christian groups. And, perhaps, is a case where Logos could define an input format and allow the feature to grow organically from users input.

In my youth, the major contemporary saints were the 5 missionary martyrs of Operation Auca & Dr. Tom Dooley. They gave way to Dag Hammarskjöld and Martin Luther King, Jr., and by college Mother Teresa ,,,, my point is that any dated devotional of exemplary lives can be used as a sanctoral cycle. A church doesn't have to have a special process to identify them or a mandatory calendar to celebrate them ... saints as models arise out of our lives and may be institutionalized to varying extents.

1. An entry for the saint(s) celebrated on the day is included on the home page. Note that this included only saints on the universal calendar or (?) on the USA calendar.

2.Clicking on the Saint on the home page opens the Verbum-produced Saints resource to that particular saint. Note that the resources listed are only a subset of the reference books on saints that are available in Logos/Verbum format. There have been no updates for some time.

3. Mouse over will translate the asterisks that appear in the text.

4. The Saint also has an entry in the Factbook - something that we will return to at the end of the post. Today's saint appears to have an error in name in the Factbook entry which has been reported in the forums.

5. A quick look at Wikipedia shows that this saint is not on the Universal calendar for celebration but will be noted only by individuals, parishes or regions that have a special connection to the saint. Think of the celebration of name day rather than birthday in some Christian cultures.

6. So how many saints are celebrated on this day? The example list is taken a Roman Catholic site. There is no equivalent in Verbum/Logos although you may create a shortcut to the web site.

7. Wikipedia also has a feature that allows you to see which traditions include which saints in their sanctoral cycle.

8. Again from Wikipedia, an extract of traditional Anglican saints - those likely shared with Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic and/or Lutheran calendars.

9. A similar list of modern Anglican saints - often shared with Lutheran, Methodist or Presbyterian calendars.

10. The Eastern Orthodox tradition, like Catholics, has a long list of saints celebrated on a given day. Their liturgies are more likely to include multiple saints in a given service.

11. Again from Wikipedia, the month of October in the Lutheran sanctoral cycles.

12. A resource not in Logos for a United Methodist sanctoral cycle.

13. A resource not in Logos to provide a common sanctoral cycle much in the same spirit as the RCL provides a common lectionary cycle. From an Amazon review:

This is an invaluable resource of patristic depth and ecumenical breadth, a "contribution toward a proposed common calendar for the major Western Christian traditions." Pfatteicher bases his work on current and past calendars from the Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Anglican and Episcopal, Lutheran, Presbyterian, and Methodist traditions. As he writes in the Preface: "Such a common calendar can serve as a further means of binding Christians closer to one another in the communion of saints by enhancing the memory of the rich history of the church." 

14. The standard sidebar on Wikipedia articles on saints provides a reasonable template of basic information to expect if Verbum/Logos expanded this feature to be more ecumenical.

15. But a warning ... The Verbum/Logos data is rife with inconsistencies. Compare the results in Factbook if you do, or don't, place the title Saint in from of Thomas Aquinas:

In sort Verbum/Logos has the framework for a great feature here but needs data and more denominational sophistication to make the feature useful to its entire user base.