CMP Review 2024-04-04

April 4, 2024

“Some few persons have a happy knack of knowing what the rest of us desire and of satisfying our unconscious wish with a certain literary and artistic grace,” wrote Charlotte Mason in 1919. “Mrs. Gell is evidently one of these happy persons. Long ago she gave us The Cloud of Witness and it remains the daily companion of many earnest souls.”

Miss Mason did her best to make it the daily companion of the earnest souls who left the House of Education. “Her parting present to leaving students was always ‘The Cloud of Witness,’ edited by Mrs. Gell,” wrote one graduate. “This makes one of the many bonds which bind all ex-students together.”

Mrs. Gell’s book offers daily readings based on the church calendar. Mason recommended this calendar to PNEU students as well, noting that “even those who do not belong to the Church of England would find her Sunday Collects, Epistles, and Gospels helpful, as giving the young people something definite to think about, week by week.”

In the PNEU programmes, Mason advised the young people to follow the lectiones (daily Bible readings) published by Spottiswoode. These daily readings, which supplement rather than replace Bible lessons, were derived from the church calendar. I have seen samples, and they remind me of the Revised Common Lectionary of today.

When I look at the liturgical calendar for April 2024, I see a sea of white, as the entire month is set in Eastertide. I look forward to reading Edith Gell’s collection of Easter meditations each day, and our family’s hymns will draw from the richness of the season, but I wonder if I could do something more. How do you plan to celebrate the eight weeks of Easter? Please let me know by sharing your ideas and family practices in the comments.

@artmiddlekauff