Letter from the Rectory December 2011 and January 2012

WINTER’S PROCESSION. Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Candlemas: these are the four stages of our winter journey. Starting in December with the solemn themes of Advent and the candlelight of Christingle, we move in solemn progress to Bethlehem for Christmas. Twelve days later, on 6th January, we come to Epiphany in time for the arrival of the Wise Men bearing their mysterious gifts. Then, six weeks after Christmas (the Biblical forty days) we enter Jerusalem for the Feast of the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (Candlemas). There is a symmetry here between the forty days of Christmas, concluding with Candlemas, and the forty days of Easter, concluding with the Feast of the Ascension.

EPIPHANY. The Feast of the Epiphany is often overlooked. Not only does the 6th January frequently fall on a weekday, but the story of the adoration of the Wise Men, or Magi, tends to get swallowed up in the story of the Nativity. Biblically, however, the two events were quite distinct, being separated by a period of up to two years. In real time the Wise Men, or Kings, did not arrive at Bethlehem until long after the events celebrated at Christmas and Candlemas. Still, we should not be too nice in our chronology of worship (as Miss Austen might have put it). The Church, for the purpose of annual celebration, has compressed the events of Our Lord’s life into the four months between 25th December and 25th April, and for that reason anomalies in her liturgical calendar are bound to arise. And so, in defiance of strict chronology, the Church keeps the Feast of the Epiphany and commemorates the Wise Men not two years, but two weeks after Christmas. At Withyham we shall be observing this on Sunday 8th January with an All Age Eucharist and Procession.

CANDLEMAS. When Joseph and Mary brought their baby son to the temple (Luke 2: 22-39), they were told by Simeon that he would be ‘a light to lighten the gentiles’. The candles at Candlemas, which we will celebrate on Sunday 29th January, recall these words. This festival concludes our Winter procession. We then prepare for our Spring procession as we move through Ash Wednesday and the forty days of Lent towards the darkness of Calvary and the glorious dawn of Easter.

NEW YEAR’S DAY on 1st January interrupts this sequence. The date is awkward, fitting neither sacred timetable nor secular convenience. Attempts by the media to dignify the day with contrived jollity are, on the whole, an embarrassment lacking conviction. Besides, January is a dismal month with which to start the year. For many centuries our ancestors chose March 25th (Lady Day) as the first day of the year. They did this not only because Spring was the obvious time to start the annual cycle, but also because it was the Feast of the Annunciation, when the angel announced to Mary that she would bear the Saviour of the World. The Christian era is reckoned from that day. It is a neat irony that we still align the fiscal year with the Annunciation ( 6th April is really 25th March in disguise, having slipped eleven days when Britain transferred from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar in 1752 ) - thus Mammon unwittingly bows its knee to Christ.

A very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year from Josephine and myself, Adrian Leak.