A message from the Interim Rector 7/22

Feast Days in the Church?

What is a feast day anyway?  Is your favorite feast day a major feast or a lesser feast day?  Feast Days are special days in the life of the Church.  Major Feast Days celebrate some major event in the life and ministry of Jesus or celebrate the life of the apostles.  There are minor or lesser feast days as well, hundreds of them in fact.  Lesser feast days are in the church calendar to give us examples of exemplary Christian lives.

Don’t know much about this topic, then perhaps this is the time to check out the liturgical church calendar.  There are at least two easy ways to do your research.  First, you can pull out your Book of Common Prayer, and check out pages 15-33.  If you are really into research, then you can get a copy of the Lesser Feast and Fasts book or the Holy Women, Holy Men book from the church library and read about each of the lesser feast days.  For the really studious, there are books and books and books on the major and lesser feasts, so feel free to check them out in the library.  Of course in this electronic age of Siri, just ask your favorite search bot to find the information, but don’t trust everything you read online.

The liturgical cycle of feasts and fasts is so important to the life of the church that it is used to frame our scripture readings and our prayers.  The Feast of Pentecost for example, begins the whole season of “ordinary time”, also called the season after Pentecost, and that season which we are now in, concludes with another feast day, Christ the King Sunday.  Following the liturgical church year moves us always forward toward the next event in the life of Christ or the life of the faith community in ways which keep us from being stagnant or always focusing on just one aspect of Christ’s life and call to us.

This week there are two major feasts, St. Mary Magdalene often called Mary of Magdala who according to scripture is the first person to encounter the risen Christ and is commanded by Jesus to go and tell the other disciples his important message.  Her feast day is July 22^nd.  She is recognized as the first apostle to share the resurrection events.  You may want to check out John 20:17 and the other texts.  The second major feast this week is James the Apostle on Saturday, July 25^th.   There are a lot of “James” in scripture and this James is the brother of John and sometimes the brothers are referred to as the sons of Zebedee.  Both were early followers of Jesus.

We are approaching the time of year when we commit to new ministries or re-commit to ministries where we already serve.  We are invited to experience the fullness of life within the body of Christ by living into our baptismal vows.  Promises which include being faithful in fellowship, communion and prayer as well as promises to then live as Christ in the world.  (Check out the Book of Common Prayer, pages 304-305 for more details).  The major and lesser feasts of the Church keep us focused on events centered around Jesus’ life and ministry and also provide use examples of how to live into our own baptismal promises.

Just as a reminder, we have a midweek Eucharist on Wednesdays at 11 am and we try to celebrate those major and minor feast days of the church which fall in that week.

God’s peace, Mother Pat+