The Church Year 

St. Andrew’s, as an Episcopal church, organizes its worship around the seasons of the church year.  Many people who are new to the Episcopal church wonder about what these seasons are, what they mean, and how they relate to our lives.  One of the great things about worshipping in a liturgical church is that the seasons of the church year, like the seasons of the year itself, are constantly changing.  And just as God asked the Israelites in the Old Testament to mark festival days as a way of remembering all that He had done for them, so do we.

Calendars are based on recurring events in nature: spring, summer, fall, and winter (solar calendars of 365 days) or on the phases of the moon (lunar calendars, 12 months of 28 days). The calendar of the Christian church year makes use of both kinds. It developed over many centuries, sometimes appropriating rituals common to many cultures, to tell the story of Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection as an expression of Christian theology.

The central event of Christianity is the Resurrection. An annual remembrance of Christ’s passion is therefore the central event of the Christian year, so it was the first event to be placed in the calendar. But the events of Holy Week took place at the Jewish Passover, and cannot be remembered without reference to it. Passover occurs in the lunar month Nisan. Because the lunar year is 29 days shorter than the solar year, an adjustment was necessary if Easter and Passover were roughly to coincide.

So Easter Day was made what is called a movable feast, falling on the Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox (March 21). The full story of the Passion is commemorated in the days of Holy Week, leading up to Easter Day. The Easter season was established as lasting seven weeks, ending on the Day of Pentecost (a word that means 50 days). The Jewish festival celebrated the wheat harvest, and, as recorded in Acts, was the occasion of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Christian church.

Easter was the time set aside for baptisms. So the next addition to the calendar was a time of preparation for baptism—the 40 days before Easter (not counting Sundays, which are always feast days). Over time, Lent became a time of repentance and renewal for everyone, and began with Ash Wednesday.

A second cycle developed, starting with the incarnation, which was placed at the winter solstice. In 338 CE the Emperor Constantine set the date of Christ’s birth at December 25, marking the beginning of the Christmas season. It was followed by Epiphany, or the showing forth of Christ. January 6, the beginning of Epiphany, was the Egyptian date of the showing forth of the Sun. Epiphany was also an occasion for baptism, so a period of four weeks of penitential preparation before Christmas was added. It came to be called Advent, or preparation for the coming of Christ.

The weeks between Pentecost and Advent, the Season after Pentecost, complete the church year. These weeks are not to be thought of as merely filling up the rest of the calendar. They offer us a chance to explore our world and the meaning of our lives as we live them between the first Coming and the final Coming of Jesus Christ into the world.When we celebrate the seasons and festivals of the church year we do more than commemorate: We perform sacramental actions in which we experience the living reality behind those seasons and festivals.  As you experience these festivals, sacraments, and seasons, we pray that they will help you not only remember God’s faithfulness to us in Jesus Christ, but help you to grow in love and in faith.