Almanac: the Calendar and Lectionary for Common Worship
Almanac is a complete calendar and lectionary according to the calendar of the Church of England for both Common Worship and the Book of Common Prayer.
Select from the tabs above to or to it to your calendar on phone, tablet or computer.
Donations
Almanac is offered free of any charge, and without warranty. As you can imagine it takes some effort to compile. If you would like to make a contribution to my costs then donations may be made via PayPal or Amazon.
Donations
Donate by PayPal
Browse to paypal.me/SimonKershaw, enter the amount and click or tap the “Next” button. Do select “Sending to a friend or family”: if you select “Paying for an item or service” PayPal will deduct a fee.
Or you can log in to your Paypal account, and select “pay or send money” and then “Sending to a friend or family”; enter the email address simon@kershaw.org.uk, and specify your donation. PayPal does not charge a fee for this transaction; if you select “Paying for an item or service” they will.
Donate by Amazon voucher
Amazon.co.uk gift vouchers can be purchased online at Amazon.co.uk in various denominations and delivered by email to simon@kershaw.org.uk .
Please do use amazon.co.uk and not amazon.com or another Amazon site to buy vouchers. amazon.com vouchers can only be redeemed or spent at the US amazon.com (and similarly for other countries).
Thank you: your donation is much appreciated.
Keeping in Touch
Keep informed of future releases, or any important corrections or changes, by joining the email announcement list.
Keeping in Touch
Fill in your name and email address and press Subscribe.
Your name and email address will be kept at oremus.org and used to contact you with news of Almanac updates. By pressing the Subscribe button you agree to your data being kept for this purpose. Your details are not used for other purposes and not disclosed to others.
New!
In the Download tab:
The preview reflects the selected options as they are changed.
In the View tab:
On touchscreens swiping left moves to the next day, and right to the previous day.
On small screens, tapping the calendar menu icon 
displays the month and the principal feasts in the year:
swiping across these changes the month or year.
Tap Set location to customize sun and moon data to your location, and
let your device provide the location data.
In the Bible tab:
On touchscreens, swiping moves to the next or previous passage.
Contents
- Download: Add Almanac to your own Calendar (computer, tablet, smartphone, or online)
- View: Each day’s lectionary readings, daily prayer, collects, notes from Exciting Holiness, Common of Saints, Harvest, sun and moon data and more
- Bible: the oremus Bible Browser
- Resources: links to Common Worship texts, hymn suggestions, commentaries, updated prayers for the King and Royal Family, and more
- Help: how to download Almanac to your own calendar; how to run Almanac as a web app on a tablet or smartphone; copyright, cookie information and acknowledgments
Disclaimer
Almanac is intended to comply fully with the Calendar and Rules to Order the Service of the Church of England, according to Common Worship and the Book of Common Prayer. No other Calendars are used or merged with the data.
Almanac is made available free of charge. Furthermore I disclaim all responsibility for any consequences of any errors in the files. My liability is limited to making available an updated version of the archive as and when I am able to do so. Please help by pointing out any errors.
Simon Kershaw
8 September 2000
last updated: 11 January 2023
go to Today
Other Occasions
Harvest Thanksgiving
Common of the Saints
Setting your location
Almanac shows the times of sunrise, sunset and other astronomical events. Set your location to view local times.
Almanac can set your location from your phone,
tablet or web browser, or you can enter your postcode, or – if known –
your latitude and longitude directly. Latitude and longitude are entered as decimal
numbers: positive is east of Greenwich or north of the equator, negative is west of
Greenwich or south of the equator. If no data is set, then a default location near
the centre of England is used.
See the tab for
more information.
This location information is stored in cookies.
Or
Or
Reading checked
oremus
bible browser
biblemail@oremus.org
v 3.0 almanac 1.0 0
30 Jan 2020
About oremus Bible Browser
oremus Bible Browser v3.0
29 April 2019
oremus Bible Browser is copyright © 1998–2019 Simon Kershaw <biblemail@oremus.org>. All rights reserved.
Some of the texts included in the oremus Bible Browser are copyright © the individual copyright holders, and are used by permission.
Donations
The oremus Bible Browser is, and always has been, offered free of any charge. If you would like to make a contribution to costs then donations may be made via PayPal or Amazon to simon@kershaw.org.uk. To use PayPal, simply browse to paypal.me/SimonKershaw, enter the amount and click or tap the “Next” button. Do select “Sending to a friend or family”: if you select “Paying for an item or service” PayPal will deduct a fee.
Or you can log in to your Paypal account, and select “pay or send money” and then “Sending to a friend or family”; enter the email address simon@kershaw.org.uk, and specify your donation. PayPal does not charge a fee for this transaction; if you select “Paying for an item or service” they will.
Alternatively, Amazon gift vouchers are a convenient method and can be purchased online at Amazon and delivered by email to simon@kershaw.org.uk . Please do use amazon.co.uk and not amazon.com or another Amazon site to buy vouchers. amazon.com vouchers can only be redeemed or spent at the US amazon.com (and similarly for other countries).
Donations
The oremus Bible Browser is, and always has been, offered free of any charge. If you would like to make a contribution to costs then donations may be made via PayPal or Amazon to simon@kershaw.org.uk.
Donate by PayPal
Browse to paypal.me/SimonKershaw, enter the amount and click or tap the “Next” button. Do select “Sending to a friend or family”: if you select “Paying for an item or service” PayPal will deduct a fee.
Or you can log in to your Paypal account, and select “pay or send money” and then “Sending to a friend or family”; enter the email address simon@kershaw.org.uk, and specify your donation. PayPal does not charge a fee for this transaction; if you select “Paying for an item or service” they will.
Donate by Amazon voucher
Amazon.co.uk gift vouchers can be purchased online at Amazon.co.uk in various denominations and delivered by email to simon@kershaw.org.uk .
Please do use amazon.co.uk and not amazon.com or another Amazon site to buy vouchers. amazon.com vouchers can only be redeemed or spent at the US amazon.com (and similarly for other countries).
Thank you: your donation is much appreciated.
oremus Bible Browser Help
Looking up a bible reference
The oremus Bible Browser is a simple, friendly way of accessing bible texts. Just enter a reference to a bible passage in the box and press ‘return’, and the passage will be displayed. Optionally, you can tap the search icon (🔍) rather than using the ‘return’ key.
As you use the oremus Bible Browser, it remembers the passages and searches you have entered, displaying the first few lines of each as a ‘visual history’ at the bottom of the page. This grows to become a horizontal scrolling list, and tapping on an item restores it to the main panel. These items are stored in the browser page, and you do not need to be on-line to restore them.
Searching for words and phrases
You can also enter other words or short phrases to search for the text anywhere in the bible. You can force a search rather than a reference by prefixing it with the word ‘search:’ – this is useful if you want to search for a word that is also the name of a biblical book, such as ‘revelation’ or ‘Ezekiel’ or words such as ‘Paul’ or ‘letter’ which are otherwise ignored.
Search results appear in a separate, scrollable, panel, and you can tap on a verse to display the verse and its surrounding context in the main panel.
Retrieving multiple passages
Tapping on the down arrow (▼) enlarges the text entry panel allowing you to enter multiple bible references, one per line. You can then tap the search icon (🔍) to retrieve the passages.
Selecting a bible version
The menu system (accessed via the menu icon at the top left of the page) allows you to select a different bible version. The oBB currently supports the New Revised Standard Version in both American and British spelling editions, together with the Authorized Version of 1611, also called the King James Version. In addition there are three further versions of the psalms: the psalters from Common Worship (the Church of England’s 2000 prayer book), the Alternative Service Book 1980, and from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer. The oBB remembers the version selected until it is changed again.
Display options
The menu also lets you choose whether to display verse numbers (including chapter numbers), footnotes and footnote markers, section headings (which are provided by some translations as an aid to the reader), and also the passage reference and links to adjacent passages. You can toggle the display of all these on and off independently, and the oBB remembers your settings.
Text size
The size of the type used to display bible passages can be increased and decreased using the two buttons (T▲ and T▼).
Dark mode
Setting dark mode changes the colour scheme, so the background colour is dark – nearly black – and the text is pale. This is useful when reading from the oremus Bible Browser in a dark setting, for example at a nighttime service in a church or elsewhere.
Search options
By default, searching for text scans the entire bible. You can limit you search to a range of books by selecting them in the ‘search options’ panel.
Quicklinks
Tapping the star icon (★) will generate a short link to a passage, multiple passages, or a word search. This link is stored by the oBB server, and can be shared with others.
Browser support
Version 3 of the oremus Bible Browser works with the latest versions of popular browsers, including Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Edge on desktop and laptop computers and also on tablets and phones. Internet Explorer is not supported.
To make full use of the oBB you must use secure https, rather than the old http. Some functionality will not work without https, including remembering your settings.
Cookies
The oBB stores some data in cookies, including the settings options and the most recent bible reference (or references). Although your web browser automatically sends oBB cookies to the oBB server, the server does not use them at all. It is only used by the web browser to remember your options and to reapply them each time you visit the oBB page.
Simon Kershaw
22 June 2019
Almanac Resources
Updated Prayers for the Sovereign and the Royal Family for Common Worship and the Book of Common Prayer
Following the accession of King Charles, the prayers in the Book of Common Prayer for the sovereign and the members of the Royal Family have been updated by Royal Warrant. The corresponding prayers in Common Worship are updated in a similar way. The revised texts, updated pursuant to the Royal Warrant, are available in the Almanac:
Common Worship and other texts
The Common Worship texts can be found on the Church of England website:
- Times and Seasons
- Festivals
- Lectionaries
- Rules to Order the Calendar
- Texts of Common Worship and BCP services
Suggested hymns for use with the Revised Common Lectionary
Although the oremus Hymnal was closed in 2017, compiler Steve Benner’s hymn suggestions for use with the Revised Common Lectionary, which forms the basis of the Common Worship Principal Service Lectionary, are still available.
These pages link the first lines to HymnQuest: click on one to find that hymn at HymnQuest. All users have access to public-domain texts at HymnQuest; HymnQuest subscribers have access to in-copyright texts as well. Better integration of the hymn suggestions into Almanac is planned.
Almanac has no connection with HymnQuest beyond being a user of an excellent resource.
Announcing Bible Readings
A brief announcement of the biblical book may made before beginning each reading. These suggested forms for announcements were used in Exciting Holiness, The Word of the Lord and other lectionary volumes.
Introduction to Lectionaries
When first introduced, several of the lectionaries were accompanied by a commentary or introduction, explaining the rationale behind the choices made.
- Common Worship Sunday and Festival Lectionary for Principal, Second and Third Services. This was published with the interim edition of the Lectionary in 1997.
- Daily Eucharistic Lectionary. This introduction appeared in the Common Worship: Daily Eucharistic Lectionary volume, published by Canterbury Press Norwich in 2008.
- Additional Weekday Lectionary, published with the Lectionary in 2010.
The Date of Easter
The Book of Common Prayer contains several tables showing how the date of Easter is determined. Almanac implements the mathematical equivalent of these tables, and this page describes the calculation.
The Easter date calculator displays the date of Easter in any specified year, together with the dates of Easter-related observances, and the names and the ‘proper’ numbers of the Sundays in ‘ordinary time’. This can be used to generate a basic calendar for any year in which the full Almanac is not available, or just to see a calendar for an historical or future year. There is an option to use the Julian Calendar instead of the Gregorian Calendar, and by default the calculator automatically switches in September 1752.
The Almanac for today
: collect(s) and readings (with text from the NRSV and the Common Worship psalter) together with biographical and historical notes from Exciting Holiness, and ready-to-use Morning and Evening Prayer (CW and BCP), Prayer During the Day (CW), and Night Prayer (CW and traditional language). There are also links to previous and succeeding days and to other dates.
oremus Bible Browser
As an experiment, the is now integrated with the Almanac, and can be viewed in the Bible tab. It provides easy access to the complete text of the bible, including the Apocrypha which is used by the lectionary, following the NRSV (Anglicized Edition) and the Authorized or King James Version, together with the psalters from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and Common Worship, as well as the ASB 1980.
It continues to be available separately at bible.oremus.org, or try the new Browser, version 3, currently in beta test.
Earlier years
For calendar data for earlier years, from 2005–6 back to 2002–3, see the Palm almanac archive page.
Other oremus resources
The main oremus page provides access to other liturgical resources including oremus Daily Prayer, and An Anglican Liturgical Library, which contains earlier Church of England material, as well as links to liturgical texts from other parts of the Anglican Communion.
Sunrise and Sunset
Crosscal will calculate the times of sunrise and sunset for your UK location for a whole year, ready to import to your calendar. It also compiles moonrise, set and phase data, together with equinox and solstice Crosscal data is now also incorporated into the View tab, and can be customized by following the Set location link in the calendar menu panel on that tab. Here you can enter a (UK) postcode, which will be looked up to find the corresponding latitude and longitude. Alternatively, you can enter your latitude and longitude directly.