You may have wondered about the green banners hanging in the church foyer. They are the liturgical colours for the season of the church year we currently find ourselves in (ordinary time). Not being entirely sure myself what this meant, I began a little research, starting with the word “liturgical”. Basically, “liturgy” is translated “the work of the people” and refers to a form of public worship or a collection of forms. The liturgies celebrated during different seasons of the church year have distinctive music and specific readings, prayers and rituals (think of the Advent readings and candle lighting). The colours associated with the seasons help express what is being celebrated or observed.
This all led me to question – how is the calendar of the church year organized and what are the associated colours? Simply put (although you could go into much more detail). The church year is constructed around two blocks of “Sacred Time” (Advent, Christmas, Epiphany and Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost). The rest of the year is known as “Ordinary Time”. Advent can be marked by using dark blue (to symbolize expectation and link Advent hope to baptism) or purple (penitence or royalty). Purple is also used during Lent (again, for penitence). White symbolizes joy and victory and is used at Easter and Christmas. Epiphany marks the beginning of Ordinary Time and the move to green (for life and hope). Red (suggesting fire or blood) is used at Pentecost to symbolize the Holy Spirit and can be used on Palm Sunday and Good Friday.
Now the “so what” test – does any of this matter? I believe that our worship can be enhanced by the changing moods and focus of the seasons of the Christian year (represented by the changing colours). The seasons bring a balance of repentance and joy, celebration and longing. As the church year focuses on the life and ministry of Jesus, observing the changing seasons becomes an annual spiritual journey with Him.
May the changing colours remind us of who God is and what he has done through Jesus Christ and so move us to respond in worship.
March 20th, 2008 at 5:02 pm
Thanks Heather for starting to get us used to the Christian Church Calendar. But we should then also start observing the days of the Calendar, for example why did we not observe Ash Wednesday?
Pieter
April 5th, 2008 at 8:42 am
Diary of a Church Mouse by John Betjeman
Here among long-discarded cassocks,
Damp stools, and half-split open hassocks,
Here where the Vicar never looks
I nibble through old service books.
Lean and alone I spend my days
Behind this Church of England baize.
I share my dark forgotten room
With two oil-lamps and half a broom.
The cleaner never bothers me,
So here I eat my frugal tea.
My bread is sawdust mixed with straw;
My jam is polish for the floor.
Christmas and Easter may be feasts
For congregations and for priests,
And so may Whitsun. All the same,
They do not fill my meagre frame. For me the only feast at all
Is Autumn’s Harvest Festival,
When I can satisfy my want
With ears of corn around the font.
I climb the eagle’s brazen head
To burrow through a loaf of bread.
I scramble up the pulpit stair
And gnaw the marrows hanging there.
It is enjoyable to taste
These items ere they go to waste,
But how annoying when one finds
That other mice with pagan minds
Come into church my food to share
Who have no proper business there.
Two field mice who have no desire
To be baptized, invade the choir.
A large and most unfriendly rat
Comes in to see what we are at.
He says he thinks there is no God
And yet he comes… it’s rather odd.
This year he stole a sheaf of wheat
(It screened our special preacher’s seat),
And prosperous mice from fields away
Come in to hear the organ play,
And under cover of its notes
Ate through the altar’s sheaf of oats.
A Low Church mouse, who thinks that I
Am too papistical, and High,
Yet somehow doesn’t think it wrong
To munch through Harvest Evensong,
While I, who starve the whole year through,
Must share my food with rodents who
Except at this time of the year
Not once inside the church appear.
Within the human world I know
Such goings-on could not be so,
For human beings only do
What their religion tells them to.
They read the Bible every day
And always, night and morning, pray,
And just like me, the good church mouse,
Worship each week in God’s own house,
But all the same it’s strange to me
How very full the church can be
With people I don’t’ see at all
Except at Harvest Festival.