As a congregation of the Episcopal Church, St. Matthew's follows the liturgical calendar of the Book of Common Prayer. The calendar guides us through a cycle of seasons in the course of a year beginning with Advent, four Sundays before Christmas. Shared in some form by many historic Christian communities, this calendar originated in the ancient church. At first it centered in two special times, both based on festivals of the Israelite worship cycle: Passover and Pentecost. (The words liturgy and liturgical are based on a New Testament term meaning "work" or "service," in particular our Christian calling to be priests ministering to the Lord, 1 Peter 2:9.)
As narrated in the Gospels, Jesus' death and resurrection coincided with the Jewish season of Passover. When the Christians began to commemorate these events, they designated this time by some form of the name "Passover." (It is still so called in many languages, though we are more familiar with the name "Easter," of north European origin.) In the ancient church, new converts underwent a preparation time of up to three years, culminating in their baptism on the day between the observances of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. This day was appropriate because baptism symbolizes our union with Christ in his death and resurrection (Romans 6:3-5). Pentecost, fifty days after Passover, was the day on which the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples, empowering them to witness to the resurrection and lordship of Christ (Acts 2). Pentecost also became a special time for the baptism of converts into the Christian community. From these simple beginnings, the liturgical year expanded to include other events in the Gospel story. In this sense, the worship calendar was a tool for Christian education. Through participation in the course of Jesus' life, ministry, suffering, death, resurrection and the coming of his Spirit upon his followers, worshipers became familiar with those events through which God has acted to redeem his people from sin and the powers of evil. Worship based on the liturgical calendar is a re-presentation, in our own day, of those saving acts of God to which the Scriptures testify. In time, the liturgical calendar of the Western church became crowded with special days commemorating saints and martyrs of the faith — so much so that the presentation of the Gospel was muted. The Protestant Reformers of the 16th century addressed this abuse, and some went so far as to abolish the annual worship cycle entirely. This is why many evangelical churches today observe only a truncated version of the historic Christian calendar. The abuse was also recognized by authorities of the Roman Catholic Church, and appropriate reforms were instituted. The worship calendar of the Book of Common Prayer, used in some form by those communions with roots in the Church of England, includes certain days that honor the work of the apostles and saintly believers through the ages. But these are never allowed to obscure the central focus on the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the activity of his Holy Spirit in the church. The chart below lists the seasons and some special days observed at St. Matthew's, and suggests their significance in relation to the life and work of Christ. Certain days of the liturgical calendar have fixed dates, such as Christmas. Others move depending on the date of Easter, which varies according to the cycles of the moon in relation to the vernal equinox — when the sun crosses the earth's equator going northward, traditionally March 21. (These dates and cycles were determined by ecclesiastical authorities of the ancient and medieval Western church.) Therefore, the part of the Christian year that depends on Christmas (Advent through the beginning of Epiphany) does not move, whereas the part that depends on the date of Easter (Lent through Pentecost) "slides" back and forth. As a result, the Epiphany and Pentecost seasons expand and contract in length. In terms of its Gospel significance, the most important portion of the year extends from Advent through the Day of Pentecost. The remainder of the year till the end of the long Pentecost season is sometimes called "ordinary time." Over the centuries, the seasons of the Christian year came to be marked by the use of particular fabrics or colors for the paraments or antependia (hangings on altars, lecterns, etc.) and vestments (special garb worn by clergy and other worship leaders). These fabric and color schemes have always varied from community to community and era to era, but a scheme common to most North American churches is the one used by St. Matthew's. The chart is intended to alert communion ministers and other worshipers to the appropriate panel colors and some other special features of the different days and seasons. Because Jesus rose on "the first day of the week" (Matthew 28:1, etc.), every Sunday is a celebration of the Resurrection. Therefore, Sundays are not included in the forty penitential days of Lent preceding Easter. The Book of Common Prayer assigns certain Scripture readings (Old Testament, Psalm, Epistle and Gospel) to every Sunday of the year, in a three-year cycle. These readings are based on a "Common Lectionary" originating in the Catholic Church and also used, with variations, in several "main-line" Protestant denominations in North America. The Book of Common Prayer also includes a two-year daily cycle of Scripture readings. Each Sunday is assigned a "collect," a short prayer in a traditional pattern that is offered at the end of the opening portion of the service, before the Scripture readings. Sundays are designated by the season of which they are a part, e.g., "Second Sunday of Easter" (Easter II) or "Fourteenth Sunday after Pentecost" (Pentecost XIV).
Text prepared by Dr. R. C. Leonard, September 2002; chart compiled by Tracy Dettman. |
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||