Holy Days

Last week we saw that we should be present at the Eucharist every Sunday and keep it as a day of worship in honour of God and of Our Risen Lord.  But, of course, the Christian religion is not a matter of one day in the week but of every day.  As George Hebert’s famous hymn reminds us:

 “Seven whole days, not one in seven,
 I will praise thee…” (1)

 

As the Catechism puts it, our duty to God is to “…serve him truly all the days of my life”. (2) So today we’re going to think of some of the Festivals or Holy Days of the Church’s Year.  In olden times in England, on the great holy days, people had the day off, and there is still an echo of this in our word holiday, which is the same word as holy day, because the holy days were then holidays.

 

Feasts and Festivals of Our Lord

Christmas Day, Naming and Epiphany

First of all we will take the chief Feasts and Festivals in honour of Our Lord Jesus Christ.  First, there is his Birthday, Christmas Day, December 25th, when he was born in the stable at Bethlehem.  Then comes the Naming and Circumcision, January 1st, when he was given his Name.  Five days later, on January 6th, we come to the Epiphany or the Making Known, because then Jesus made himself known to the Wise Men when they brought him their gifts of gold and frankincense and myrrh.

Presentation of Christ in the Temple

The next Feast in honour of Our Lord is the Presentation of Christ in the Temple on February 2nd.  It commemorates the day when Our Lady and St Joseph brought Jesus to the Temple in Jerusalem to present him to God.  This day is also kept in honour of Our Lady and so has the second name of the Purification of the St Mary the Virgin.  It has also a third name, Candlemas, on account of the custom of holding lighted candles on that day at the Eucharist.  This custom honours Our Lord as the “Light to lighten the Gentiles”.  This is what old Simeon called Jesus when he took him in his arms in the Temple that day.

(Good Friday) and Easter Day

After that we come to a day which is not a Feast or a Festival but it is a Holy Day, and that is Good Friday when Jesus was crucified.  The third day after is the greatest Feast of all, Easter Day, when Jesus rose again from the dead.  Easter Day is not the same each year, as you will know.  This is because the date of Easter, like the date of the old Jewish Passover, is fixed according to the moon.  As the Prayer Book tells us, “Easter Day…is always the First Sunday after the Full Moon, which happens upon, or next after the Twenty-first day of March; and if the Full Moon happens on a Sunday, Easter-Day is the Sunday after”. (3)

Ascension Day and Corpus Christi

Forty days after Easter, on a Thursday, is Ascension Day when Jesus went back to Heaven.  Three weeks later there is another very important celebration, and that is Corpus Christi.  Corpus Christi is the Latin for the Body of Christ and it is a day of thanksgiving in honour of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.  It is always on the first Thursday after Trinity Sunday. 

Pentecost, Trinity Sunday and Christ the King

Trinity Sunday is, of course, in honour of the Holy Trinity, One God in Three Persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  The previous Sunday, Pentecost or Whitsunday, is a great Feast in honour of God the Holy Spirit.  It is sometimes called the Birthday of the Church, because at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came to the Apostles, the Church was formed, and the first Christians were baptised and became members of it.  On the last Sunday in the Church’s Year (the Sunday before Advent Sunday), we celebrate the Festival of Christ the King.

 

Feasts and Festivals of Our Lady

We will now turn to the chief Feasts and Festivals of Our Lady.  On March 25th there is the Annunciation of Our Lord to the Blessed Virgin Mary, so named because it commemorates the day on which the Archangel Gabriel announced to her that she was to be the Mother of the Son of God.  July 2nd (or May 31st) the Visitation, commemorates the visit of Mary to her cousin Elizabeth, the mother of St John the Baptist.  The next great celebration is on August 15th, the Assumption, when at the end of her earthly life she was taken to Heaven and was there reunited with Jesus, her Son.  On September 8th we celebrate Mary’s Nativity or Birthday, and on December 8th we celebrate her Conception, also known as the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.

Other celebrations

Besides the Feast and Festivals of Our Lord and Our Lady, there are many other celebrations during the year.  For example, on March 19th we celebrate St Joseph, June 24th is the Nativity of St John the Baptist and September 29th is the Festival of St Michael and All Angels, also known as Michaelmas.  And then, of course, we celebrate the Apostles and other Saints.  And there is the Dedication Festival of our parish church.

Our worship

Some of the Feasts and Festivals of the Church are more important than others and we should make every effort to celebrate them by being present at the Eucharist.  We shall come back to this a little later in the year when we think about our Rule of Life.

 

SUMMARY

1. Chief Feasts and Festivals of Our Lord are: Christmas, The Naming and Circumcision of Jesus, The Epiphany, The Presentation of Christ in the Temple, (Good Friday), Easter, The Ascension and Corpus Christi.

2. Chief celebrations of Our Lady are: The Annunciation, The Assumption, The Nativity and The Conception.

References

1. Herbert, G. (1633) King of glory, King of peace.  Available from: http://www.oremus.org/hymnal/k/k008.html  (Accessed 20 August 2010) (Internet).

2. Church of England (1662) The Book of Common Prayer.  A Catechism.  Available from: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/bcp/texts/catechism.html  (Accessed 20 August 2010) (Internet).

3. Church of England (1662) The Book of Common Prayer.  Tables and Rules.  Available from: http://www.cofe.anglican.org/worship/liturgy/bcp/texts/pdfs/4-tables-and-rules.pdf  (Accessed 20 August 2010) (Internet).