The Wheel of Time

Why is one day more important than another,
when all the daylight in the year is from the sun?

By the Lord’s wisdom they were distinguished,
and he appointed the different seasons and festivals.

Some days he exalted and hallowed,
and some he made ordinary days.

Ben Sirah 33:7-9

The Liturgical Year

When we enter Trinity Church on Sundays, many elements of the space remind us that we are in a holy place. Stained glass windows glow with the stories of our faith. The pulpit, lectern, and holy altar are decked in beautiful textiles with Christian symbols. The seats are a bit uncomfortable. All these things signal that this is sacred ground. Just as church buildings consecrate space, the liturgical year consecrates time.

Many religious traditions have a ceremonial calendar that grows out of the stories of their faith and the cycles of nature. Most of those see harvest time as sacred. The three required pilgrimage festivals of the Hebrew Bible were tied to the barley, wheat, and grape harvests. After Rome destroyed the Jerusalem temple, Jewish people increasingly integrated those festivals with the story of Israel: the barley festival (Unleavened Bread) with the Passover in Egypt, the wheat festival with receiving the Law at Sinai, the grape harvest with Israel’s sojourn in the dessert.

In pagan European, the holiness of the winter solstice was directly proportional to how far your people were from the equator. When Christianity’s Jewish roots began to flourish in Gentile soil, the Church’s calendar took shape around Passover and the Winter Solstice. The latter is an excellent time in nature to consider the coming of our Savior, bringing light and love into a world of darkness and cold (it’s no accident that Christmas has been more important for northern European Christians than for our Easter Orthodox siblings). The timing of Jesus’ death and resurrection requires that we celebrate them at Passover-time, but it also fitting for us to remember these acts of salvation when springtime renews the earth with life.

So the Christian year developed into three “cycles”: Christmas, Easter, and Ordinary Time (or the season after Pentecost). The first two begin with a season of reflection, self-examination, and a call to repentance, often with fasting: Advent and Lent, each with its own distinct connection to agrarian life. These fast days conclude with our holiest feasts whose seasons continue for a number of weeks. The Christmas cycle includes Epiphany and runs through the Feast of the Presentation. The lunar cycle then determines how much ordinary time we have until the whole thing starts again with Lent.

The Easter Cycle runs from Ash Wednesday through Holy Week and culminates in Easter, whose season continues through the Feast of Pentecost. Trinity Sunday is a stand-alone festival that begins the long season after Pentecost, the true Ordinary Time. While it’s not considered especially sacred, ordinary time has its own resonance with our Christian faith. Pentecost is when the Holy Spirit inaugurated the church as one body of the faithful called to go and do the work of the Gospel. Ordinary time is when everyone is expected to do the work necessary to keep everyone fed. These season of work and growth is represented with green.

The image above shows the colors associated with these cycles as they are most commonly observed in the Episcopal Church. These norms have changed in my lifetime, and not all parishes do the same thing, but the image is a useful model for the understanding the Church’s liturgical year. I encourage you to notice these things week after week. How might knowing more about the wheel of our year help you deepen your experience of worship?

In peace,