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Dear Friends ‘Time flies’, ‘time drags’, ‘time hangs heavy’, ‘there’s never enough time’ - I wonder how often we hear, or use, phrases like these? Whatever our experience of time, I think we would agree that not all time is the same. It can drag of fly, be bitter or sweet and even at times elusive. Very often all these different experiences we have of time occur without any intervention from us but we can, nevertheless, sometimes have a hand in shaping it. In the introduction to my Lent Book (i), the author writes: “ Deep in the religious instinct of humankind there is the desire to order time so that the invisible, sacred dimension of life can be apprehended. Religious traditions the world over have created a latticework of windows in time – holy days and seasons – through which to peer into the mystery at the heart of all that is. So too have Christians from the beginning structured time. The drama of the life of the carpenter from Nazareth is played out on the stage of the liturgical year (and) we are carried into the timelessness that surrounds historic time. Human and divine meet and touch. The liturgical year is the medium through which the Christian community sanctifies time – makes it holy.” Liturgical time also has the potential to transform those who enter it. Year after year we move through the different church seasons and the great feasts. Each time we go through the cycle we have the opportunity to grasp new truths at new moments in our own lives. What we find over time is that our own stories become woven into the great stories of the Christian faith and tradition and, as we go through the cycle year after year, each sheds light on and brings depth to the other. We are at present in the midst of the great liturgical season that takes us from Ash Wednesday to Pentecost and which surrounds Easter, the most significant feast of the Christian year. It is a season with a number of changes of rhythm and mood, and even Lent itself changes focus at different times with the a lightening of the sombre mood on the Fourth Sunday and then on the following Sunday (Passion Sunday) a marked deepening of the sombre nature of the season, as we become more focussed on Jesus’ final journey to Jerusalem and all that will happen there. This shift is recognised and marked in our music, hymns, prayers and readings and the custom in many churches on that day is to cover pictures, statues, and crosses which will not be unveiled again until Easter. The focus of Easter Day is of course the Resurrection but also the discovery of that event in all the ordinariness of our everyday lives. The Easter season last fifty days taking us to Pentecost, the final feast of this great season, when we are called to reflect on the gifts and movement of the Spirit in the Christian Community. Christ Church, as part of the Scottish Episcopal Church and wider Anglican Communion, is a liturgical church. We are members of a liturgical community; a community of people who find purpose and meaning in our own lives by entering deeply into the moods and rhythms of the church’s year. “The liturgical year roots our faith. It grounds the invisible, animating our lives in the visible, tactile world. It allows us access to the mysteries of our faith. In its fasts and feasts we taste and see God.” (i) I wish you every blessing as we journey together through Lent and Holy Week to the great Feast and Season of Easter. With all good wishes Susan Macdonald (i) ‘The Rising: Living the Mysteries of Lent, Easter and Pentecost Wendy Wright DLT 2005 |