Faith Works 1-14-06
Jeff Gill

Calendars, Kalends, and Keeping Track

Have you ever heard of the "Proclamation of the Date of Easter on Epiphany" in worship? It dates from the days when people didn't have calendars built into every electronic device they used, since they . . . didn’t have electricity!

It also served, and serves now where it is still held as a living tradition, as a reminder of what is the central point of Christian Faith. Liturgical traditions like Catholic Christian and some Protestant Christians (mainly Episcopalians and Lutherans) have used it.

And traditionally it would be sung as chant, the way of speaking the parts of the service that – before electronic volume enhancement! -- all should hear, since the singing (or chanting) voice carried farther and more clearly.

You would hear, echoing through the church, something like this:

[begin ital]
Dear brothers and sisters,

The glory of the Lord has shone upon us, and shall ever be manifest among us, until the day of His return. Through the rhythms of times and seasons let us celebrate the mysteries of salvation.

Let us recall the year's culmination, the Easter Triduum of the Lord: His last supper, His crucifixion, His burial, and His rising, celebrated between the evening of the thirteenth of April and the evening of the sixteenth of April.

Each Easter — as on each Sunday — the Holy Church makes present the great and saving deed by which Christ has forever conquered sin and death.

From Easter are reckoned all the days we keep holy. Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, will occur on the first of March. The Ascension of the Lord will be commemorated on the twenty-fifth (or twenty-eighth) or May. Pentecost, the joyful conclusion of the season of Easter, will be celebrated on the fourth of June. And this year the First Sunday of Advent will be on the third of December.

Likewise the pilgrim Church proclaims the passover of Christ in the feasts of the holy Mother of God, in the feasts of the Apostles and Saints, and in the commemoration of the faithful departed.

To Jesus Christ, Who was, Who is, and Who is to come, Lord of time and history, be endless praise forever and ever.

Amen!
[end ital]

Now, I don’t come myself from a very liturgical/formal worship tradition. But there is a beauty to starting the new calendar year with a clear affirmation of what the anchor of the year’s services is with the date of Easter (remember, first Sunday after first full moon after Spring Equinox, but let’s not fight any more wars about it), and then calculating all other major feasts and festivals from it.

Or, at the next worship committee meeting, you can let American Greetings or Bob’s Filling Station ("Our Gas Keeps You Going!") tell you in their pocket calendar what you’re going to do. But where did Bob, or his print shop, get the date?

At any rate, you see above the actual dates for those worship celebrations for 2006; for federal holidays, check at the Post Office.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him about your favorite liturgical observance through disciple@voyager.net.