The Rector Writes – December 2008
Dear Friends
Happy New Year! Church year, that is! The Christian year begins with Advent Sunday, which is the fourth Sunday before Christmas. Advent can last from a full four weeks to just over three weeks, depending on which day of the week Christmas falls on. Advent Sunday can occur between 27th November and 3rd December. Only once in seven years is a so-called Advent calendar any more than a days-in-December-before-Christmas one.
Advent is one of two periods of preparation for a major festival. Lent is the other and leads up to Easter. Lent does not vary in length, being forty week-days in addition to the included Sundays. However, it does vary in the time of year that it occurs, as Easter may fall between 22nd March and 25th April depending on the relationship of the full moon to the Spring equinox.
The Ascension of Christ, always celebrated on a Thursday, follows Easter by forty days, and Whitsun by fifty. Its alternative name – Pentecost – means fiftieth. Trinity Sunday, when we specially think of God in three persons – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – occurs a week later.
The Christian year has two pivotal points which limit the variable sections outlined above. The first is Candlemas on 2nd February, otherwise known as the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. This occurs forty days after Christmas in accordance with the Jewish rites of purification after childbirth, which would have applied to a mother such as Mary. It ends the season of Epiphany, which begins on 6th January to commemorate the arrival of the Wise Men, and which includes four Sundays. When Easter is very early, as in this current year, there are no Sundays Before Lent, since Ash Wednesday, which marks the start of Lent, can be as early as 4th February.
The other pivotal point in the year is All Saints’ Day – 1st November – which sees the end of the Sundays After Pentecost, as they are known in the Church in Wales, or the Sundays After Trinity, as in England. In Wales, All Saints’ is followed by the four Sundays of the Kingdom Season, culminating in the festival of Christ the King. In England this period is known as the Sundays before Advent, and so back to the beginning.
Throughout the year there are saints’ days, when the heroes of our faith are celebrated. These are allocated to specific dates but are put back when they fall on a Sunday or major festival.
The seasons of the Christian year are distinguished by decorating certain parts of the church with tapestries of different colours, particularly on and in front of the communion table, the pulpit and the lectern. The priest will wear compatible colours on the stole which he or she wears round the neck like a scarf. Advent and Lent are marked by the use of purple, although there are local variations and Hope parish church uses blue. Good Friday and Pentecost, together with commemorations of martyrs – those saints who died for their faith, are distinguished with the use of red; festivals of other saints and of the birth and resurrection of Christ, with white. For the remainder of the year churches are adorned with green.
The readings from Scripture which are set for any day of the year are set out in a booklet known as the Almanac. All the complications above have been worked out by others, so you only have to look up the relevant date.
Many people will remember certain dates in the calendar year as being of special importance: their birthday and perhaps anniversary, and those of people who are close to them; and occasions when good or bad news was received. Similarly in their lives as Christians some people can clearly remember when various aspects of the Gospel became important to them, such as when they realised the privilege of being a child of God or when they knew that Christ died for them to give them a new beginning.
Two of the best-attended events at our parish church are the Christingle services on Christmas Eve. If you are uncertain what happens then or at the similar celebrations at Emmanuel you can refer to the Children’s Society website (see our “Links” page) and see the outline for last year’s services from this parish which has been published there. We raise money for the Archbishop of Wales’ Fund For Children, and we would point out that a Christingle costs about 50p so it would be appropriate for each person to contribute relative to that amount.
Yours sincerely
Martin Snellgrove