Dedication

Churches are normally built so that the altar is at the east end.  The meaning of this is that, as the church points towards the sun-rising, so it is directed to Our Lord, the Sun of Righteousness who warms and enlightens the souls of human beings (Malachi 4:2).

The day on which the church was solemnly given to God was its Dedication Day, and this is celebrated each year by the Dedication Festival.  In many places the date of this has been forgotten because in 1536, when Henry VIII was King of England, it was ordered that all the parishes in the country should keep their Dedication Festival, not on the anniversary of their dedication, but on the first Sunday in October (see Note below).  In some villages the real date has been handed down by word of mouth or has been preserved by the annual village fair which originally formed part of the merrymaking in honour of the Dedication Festival or Feast.  Indeed, in some places this annual fair is still known as the feast.  There is an old rhyme which shows what a joyful occasion the Dedication Festival was and should be:

“The Dedication of the Church is yearly had in mind
With worship passing Catholic, and in a wondrous kind.
From out the steeple high is hung a cross and banner fair,
The pavement of the temple strewn with herbs of pleasant air,
The pulpits and the altars, and all that in the Church are seen.
And every seat and pillar great, are deck’d with boughs of green”.

Herbs and rushes used to be the floor covering of kings’ palaces and this royal luxury was brought into the church on important festivals, especially at the Dedication Feast. (2)