You know when it’s fall. You know when it’s winter, and springtime, and summer, and fall again. That is the Earth's natural year, the round of the seasons. It follows the sun, as our planet’s course through the heavens brings us closer and then takes us farther away from that stellar source of light.
Seasons vary from place to place, from time to time: we know them not by clock or calendar but by the rhythms of life and light. There are measurements of course: solstice and equinox, and halfway between these, the quarter days. These have been codified by calendars, to give us a handle on what is happening to us as days grow shorter or lengthen.
The ancient Celtic calendar included not only the winter and summer solstices and the spring and fall equinoxes but also the days halfway between them, which they called the quarter days. Imbolc, the festival of light, comes at the first of February. Beltaine, associated with fire, is May Day. Lughnasa, feast of the air and wind, is August 1st, and last – and first – quarter day is Samhain, associated with the element of earth. Last, and first: because Samhain, which occurs over All Saints’ Eve and the first of November, marks the end and the beginning of the Celtic year.
The year, in this imaging, begins in darkness, when the seed in the ground, planted earlier, begins to take root and grow. Something is ended; something new has begun. It is like our understanding of death and resurrection. It is a harvest time for past things, looking back, and, looking forward, to what is already but not yet come into our world, a time of hidden new life.
The Christian year, and the Church calendar, reflects the seasonal rhythms of the natural cycle of the solar year – and it shows us that in its own cycle of feasts and fasts. All Saints Day and the feast of All Faithful Departed (in Mexico, el Dia de los Muertos), November 1st and 2nd, give us a chance to give thanks for what we have received, from what – and who – have come before. They give us a chance to pray for what is to come.
All things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee— words of David, how appropriate now, as we celebrate the ingathering of pledges and the offering of our own blessings back to the source of all blessings, God who creates, redeems, and sustains.
At the beginning of the liturgical year, four weeks before Christmas, we move into Advent, the season of preparation. Just past the winter solstice comes the feast of the Nativity of Our Lord. We celebrate light and life and the incarnation of the holy one of God. The celebration continues through the twelve days of Christmas season, and the feast of Epiphany, into January’s Epiphany Sundays, including the Baptism of Our Lord.
Things begin to change when we celebrate Candlemas (Candelaria in Mexico). It’s a perfect reason for another party, as we remember the Presentation of our Lord in the Temple, completing the cycle of the birth of our King. In some traditional cultures, the winner of the prize baked into the Epiphany cake brings treats for all to share on this day (let’s see what happens here).
There is a shift now, remembering the water of Baptism and the coming themes of death and resurrection, as we prepare through Lenten discipline for the great events of Holy Week, from Palm Sunday through to Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Easter Eve and Day. Fifty great days later – eight days after the Ascension – is the feast of Pentecost.
Breaking into the midst of the Lent/Easter/Pentecost cycle is the feast of unexpected news, the revelations of the Annunciation, on March 25, just after the vernal equinox.
We celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit, the fulfillment of baptismal promise, and the growing body of Christ’s faithful people, through summer and into fall. The summer solstice comes just around the feast of our patron, Saint Alban, and just before the feast of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist on June 24 (six months from Christmas).
St John said, ‘he must increase, I must decrease’ - and now indeed the days slowly shorten, imperceptibly at first, until the season’s quickening accelerates into autumn, harvest, and the eve of All Saints’ appears once more on the horizon of our year.
What season of the year, you may wish to ask yourself, fits your spirit? Where do you find resonance with your own spirituality? Are you in a season of anticipation – of the Advent (the coming) of Christ our King, of preparation – the long desert trek of Lent?
Does the Incarnation fill your heart with quiet longing, with loud rejoicing, with the sureness of peace, the future of hope, the promise of love, represented by Christmas?
Have you welcomed the new into the kingdom of your heart, giving due obeisance, like the three kings of Epiphany, to the presence of the true ruler of the universe – however humbly he appears now to our eyes?
Are you in the middle of summer days, in the long green season of Pentecost, watching things grow and helping them along, anticipating the fullness of fall’s harvest celebrations?
Are you in Easter, full of the reality of the risen life in Christ?
All these things are possible to you – and may come in their turn.
You are invited into relationship with God, in each season of the year, and in each chamber of your heart.
You are beckoned by God, through Christ, into relationship with the eternal Word and holy Spirit, who together with the Father, the source of all Being, are the One true home, the One true light, the One true timeless reality that lies beneath and beyond all our days.
Come into celebration – come in quiet or in laughter, in sorrow or in delight; come to Christ at harvest and planting, breathe in the Spirit in summer’s air and winter’s, and walk with God in every season of your life. Come with us on the journey together. We are one family – the household of God. And you are always welcome under His roof.
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sources
Marcus Losack, “Celtic Spirituality and the Pre-Christian Tradition”, Lecture in the Chapel of the Ascension, Markree Castle, Co. Sligo, May 22, 2007.
Herbert O'Driscoll, Prayer Among Friends.
Hugh Stevenson, "The Secularization of the Calendar", St. Patrick's Grapevine, Newsletter of St. Patrick's Episcopal Church, Kenwood, Calif., July/August 2010.
David Marshall.
Tom Cashman.
Nora Chadwick, The Celts.
Caitlin Matthews, The Celtic Book of Days.
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For the Gospel Grapevine, parish newsletter of St Alban's Episcopal Church, Edmonds WA
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