The Bonds of Calendar-keeping

community forms around a calendar

“It hit me for the first time in college, when I was invited to two events on the same Tuesday night in mid-December: One was a study session for a fairly consequential final exam, and the other was a Lessons and Carols service at a local Anglican church. Both events sounded important and interesting, and I felt mildly upset at having to choose one over the other. It took me until the next day to understand why.

“What I realized was that I had subscribed, unintentionally, not to two discrete events, but to two communities governed by two calendars. As a matriculated member of my university, I had taken on my school as alma mater, which I learned was Latin for “nourishing mother.” As a good kid, I kept Mom’s calendar—saving up my stress for the nights before finals week, visiting home at Christmas, and finding seasonal employment for the summers. As a baptized and confirmed Christian, I had taken on the Church as notre dame, which I learned was French for “our Lady.” As a good kid, I kept that mom’s calendar, too—resisting the commercialization of Christmas in December to some degree in order to keep a holy Advent.

“Neither my school nor my church would have been betrayed by my choice, but that small conflict I felt unlocked for me the fact that most people belong to multiple communities with conflicting calendars and that people who keep time with the same group of people are bonded in certain ways.” ¹

*Note*

This is an excellent book on the Sabbath, unfortunately titled Sunday. I pray that it might be a step on the path toward the Church’s recovery of Saturday as the Sabbath and her recognition of Sunday as the Eighth Day. Sabbath points toward the freedom we have received and yet await in its fulness, while Sunday points toward the great work we have been freed to imagine and to practice while we await Christ’s 2nd advent. As we wait, let us grasp the fulness of both days and not collapse them into one another as so many today are doing.

The Book of Common Prayer has not forgotten but retains the recollection of Saturday as the Sabbath. May we recover our collective memory.

A COLLECT FOR SABBATH REST Saturday

Almighty God, who after the creation of the world rested from all your works and sanctified a day of rest for all your creatures: Grant that we, putting away all earthly anxieties, may be duly prepared for the service of your sanctuary, and that our rest here upon earth may be a preparation for the eternal rest promised to your people in heaven; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.²

And God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for holy days, and for days and years."

As we observe the eternal festal calendar we naturally form a community of identity, shaped by the remembering, the rehearsing, and the anticipation of a people shaped by these events of history past and future. We are these people and we are not yet these people. But we are the first-fruits; we have the down payment; we are to form colonies of heaven in the midst of a world of despair.

1. Jack Franicevich. Sunday: Keeping Christian Time. Theopolis Books. Kindle Edition. (p. 11).

2. THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER (2019), Anglican Liturgy Press. (p. 24).