There seems to be growing appreciation for holistic wellness, understanding that one’s individual health is more than just physical realities. There is more realization that it is equally important for us to be healthy mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. The Church Calendar and its seasons can help us have a balanced spiritual diet.
Over the course of a year, the Church Calendar can feel like a roller coaster. There are moments of great joy, truths that elicit deep sadness, readings that require deep contemplation, periods of personal isolation, and community rituals that energize us collectively. There is life abundant and everlasting, alongside reminders of mortality and finality. We are invited to go through the breadth of the human experience and in so doing find a deeper understanding of God and of our purpose on this earth.
When we drift away from the practices of the Church Calendar, it is very easy to overindulge on select spiritual food we favor and have a deficit of other spiritual nutrition that is required to keep us balanced. If all we do is look for joy, we miss out on the God who knows our pain when times are hard and cries alongside us. If all we strive for is a solitary faith, we can end up dehumanizing others and miss out on the epiphanies they have to share. If we noisily praise God and do not pray quietly in silence, we may never hear the Holy Spirit nudging us softly.
With the Church Calendar, we are routinely challenged from becoming complacent. With each season and each year that goes by we are nurtured so that we grow deeper in our faith and go further with it.
For example, Advent is a period of waiting and yearning, while Christmas is a time for rejoicing and celebrating. Epiphany comes after, with an opportunity to see new realities of who God is in Jesus Christ and revisit the essentials of the Gospel message. Lent follows with forty days for deep repentance, prayer and fasting, as we strive to follow the hard road of true discipleship. Easter comes with glory and hope everlasting, celebrated for seven full weeks. Pentecost surprises us with the delight that we can share the Good News we’ve experienced by the power of the Holy Spirit who works through us still. Lastly, the long period of Ordinary Time gives us a bit of a reprieve from this roller coaster while at the same time urging us to act dutifully on everything we have learned and discovered during the first-half of the Church Year.
We must be clear that Church Calendar is not meant to drive repetition—in fact, if we only went through the motions we would miss the entire point of the Church and Christian discipleship as a whole. This special calendar, like the Church itself, is there to drive continual renewal and revelation. It provides a way for us to make sure our faith is well-rounded and full.
When we experience the range of emotions, thoughts, and exercises that the Church Year elicits we learn how to respond to the realities of our world. We become more empowered by the Holy Spirit to be the hands and feet of Jesus Christ today, and our lives both individually and collectively are all the more healthy.
Relevant Reformation 