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Notes on the Liturgical Year Notes from presentation on The Liturgical Year Spiritual Academy Burlingame, CA Note: most of these notes come from documents created for The Worship Design Studio, an online subscription service to help guide you in worship planning through the liturgical year. For more information, please visit www.marciamcfee.com/studio.htm Why consider the liturgical year? From the beginning, humans have been finding ways to ritualize human longing. Early peoples: rituals regarding seasons, food, survival, coming of age, procreation Later Hebrews: rituals regarding meaning, commemorate “happenings” (encounter with God), community, promise, covenant Later Christians: rituals regarding history, memory, story, identity, discipleship Still, we look for ways to ritualize human longing… and the liturgical year becomes an organization of the story of faith and its messages as it intersects with human longing Advent/Christmas: yearning for the presence of the mysterious; something “beyond,” something more; something planted and born within us Epiphany: yearning for illumination, knowing, discovery, relationship Lent: yearning to be fully known, accepted, transparency Holy Week: yearning for comfort in suffering, making sense of pain of life; crying “justice!” in the midst of injustice Easter Day: yearning for purpose, renewal, new life in the midst of death, starting again Easter Season: yearning for joy, the “joie de vivre,” for celebration Pentecost: yearning for a sense of empowerment, filled and fulfilled, finding a common purpose Ordinary Time: yearning for something extraordinary along life’s journey © 2008 Marcia McFee, Ph.D. 1 www.marciamcfee.com Advent/Christmas Season ADVENT/CHRISTMAS HISTORICAL POINTS OF INTEREST Traditional/historical images: wreath, candles, tree, root, plumb line Historical note: Epiphany is older than the practice of commemorating Christmas and the Advent season probably grew out of the practice of a 40 day season of preparation for Epiphany. Rome eventually adopted the four-week Advent before Christmas Begins as prep for baptisms on Epiphany in Spain, Gual and Northern Italy Ascetic practice - time of discipline, spiritual practices, preparation Rome creates commemorative day of Christmas first and sets a 4-week “Advent” before December 25 Advent = adventus = “coming of Christ” - past historical, present commemorative, future eschatological (depending on the focus of your tradition, you will accentuate one of these over others… or a look at all three could be instructive) • computation of Christmas date: even though there is a popular notion that Christmas was dated to usurp the pagan solstice celebration, there is further evidence of another kind of computation based on the ancient belief that the date of death is also date of conception: early date of Pascha was March 25 if conception was March 25th, then 9 months later is December 25 Quote to ponder: “The production of Christmas directly contradicts probably the one single relatively uncontaminated value inherent in the deep core of the [season]: that of the grateful and humble reception of a gratuitous gift. A better pastoral approach would be to present as normative, and truly to live out in a personal witness, the virtue of receptivity: letting Christmas be a gift, on its own terms, out of our own power, reminding us of the futility of our often obsessively intense efforts to control not only our own live, but too often to control other people, places and things… The incarnation of God opens up a space within which, because humans cannot achieve the production of God on demand, God can move. God took the initiative on Christmas without obtaining human permission to do so. This, in fact, amounts to grace.” - Susan K. Roll, “Embodied Wisdom: Christmas in a Contemporary Context” from The Origins of Christmas, Kampen, 1995, p 244. © 2008 Marcia McFee, Ph.D. 2 www.marciamcfee.com Aspects to consider for the Advent/Christmas “Seasonal Brainstorm” • the meeting of the human and divine, incarnation of God in human history, continuing incarnation in our lives • mystery, sacramentum • entrance of light where there is no light • gestation, anticipation • deep place of receptivity in the human heart • yearning for reconciliation, for presence • tenuous human circumstances as seedbed for the holy • narrative of hope • promise of solidarity with humanity - Emmanuel, “God with us” • expectancy of justice and peace • “thy kin-dom come, thy will be done” • eschatological element, moving toward God’s “reign” • call to the prophetic • intimacy, tenderness, profound, mutual love • what others? © 2008 Marcia McFee, Ph.D. 3 www.marciamcfee.com Epiphany Season EPIPHANY “PLUS” HISTORICAL POINTS OF INTEREST Greek meaning “to manifest” or “to show” Epiphany emphasis predates Christmas commemoration Originally a unitive celebration of birth and the celebration of the beginning of Jesus’ work - manifesting the holy in the world birth, magi visit, Jesus’ baptism, changing water into wine at Cana time for baptism - 40 day preparation appears octave post-Epiphany celebration appears mid 4th c. Rome split into two dates: December 25 commemoration of the birth and January 6 as Epiphany (baptism of the Lord) In many western countries Epiphany continues to be important with particular emphasis on the Visit of the Magi (often called The Day of the Kings) and “King cakes” are baked (with little prizes inside) and children leave shoes at the door for the kings to leave gifts for them For Orthodox Christians (Eastern tradition) Epiphany is especially important and emphasizes the baptism of Jesus as the manifestation of God in Christ (often called “Theophany”). This is a day when Orthodox priests have a blessing of the water (both inside the church and outside at a body of water). Quote to ponder: “… what common thread is there between Christmas Day, the Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord? Summed up in one word: identification. The coming of the Magi and the baptism of Jesus help us to identify who it is that is born in Bethlehem and thus enable us to get past ‘the cute baby’ approach that so vitiates the deep meaning of the incarnation and prevents us from appreciating the great exchange of divinity and humanity.” - Laurence Hull Stookey From Calendar: Christ’s Time for the Church, 112 © 2008 Marcia McFee, Ph.D. 4 www.marciamcfee.com Aspects to consider for the Epiphany “Seasonal Brainstorm” • manifestation of God’s presence in Christ • revealing for the world to see, mysterion, sacramentum • recognition • adoration • gifts, gifting • led, guided by light • sojourn, finding, searching, discovering • royalty, power in the powerless, juxtaposition • baptism, renewal, changed, washed • blessing of water, water of life, water as life • “you are my beloved” • Holy Spirit, dove, voice, message, listening • wilderness, trek, sojourn • temptation of Christ, where is/who has the power? • water to wine, transformation • encouragement of Mary to son, encouragement to share our own gifts • all filled, fulfilled, fulfilling • others? © 2008 Marcia McFee, Ph.D. 5 www.marciamcfee.com Lenten Season LENT HISTORICAL POINTS OF INTEREST • the Lent season as we know it originated as a time of preparation of catechumens for baptism at Pascha (Easter). The first mention of “Lent” as 40 days before Easter comes in the records from the Council of Nicea in 325 CE • the 40-day Lent has multiple possible origins: • a post-Epiphany fast of 40 days in Alexandria, focusing on Jesus’ 40 days post- baptismal fast in the wilderness and as a time of preparation for baptism • an early two-day fast on Friday and Saturday before Easter extended to 6 days in Alexandria and Syria but now scholars relate this primarily to the development of Holy Week, not Lent • a three-week preparation of catechumens, including Holy Week, practiced in Rome and perhaps Jerusalem and elsewhere • By the time of Augustine (late 4th c. - early 5th c), all Christians were encouraged to see Lent as a time of personal preparation for the Lord’s passion, involving fasting and penitence. According to a 5th c document, the 40 days of Lent became standard as a time of preparation for baptism, and for those who were undergoing public penance for reconciliation on or before Easter, and for the pre-paschal preparation of the whole community in general. • In the late 5th c and afterward, when infant baptism replaced adult baptism (extinguishing the need for the catechumenate), Lent took on an extreme penitential focus (and has colored it in that way today) • The beginning of Lent known as “Ash Wednesday” began as late as the 11th century, when the more penitential theme for Lent was the norm • The Sundays in Lent are not counted as part of the “40 days” since Sunday is always a “Day of Resurrection” (a “little Easter”). The forty day computation begins on Ash Wednesday and concludes the day before Easter. • Western sense of “penance” has to do with “making up” for one’s sins but in Eastern traditions, penance is more about healing what has been hurt (the journey to Easter is more about learning to “live the Easter life” - living as if death has no hold on us) • “fasting” is about feeding our spiritual life, not being enslaved by other things • various types of fasting in history: fast for purification; fast of solidarity of whole congregation; ascetical fast (penitential); fast to induce visions and engage in spiritual discourse; fast for agricultural supply reasons (economic need to conserve food at end of the season) What would it be like to emphasize the
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