A Bundle of Myrrh

 

I’ve been thinking a lot lately on how and why I have chosen to use the liturgical calendar (of the Western church, the Eastern Orthodox Church has it’s own) with my family. For clarity I wanted to write some things down.

To begin with it was all very new to me, this church calendar, seasons, festivals, saints etc. I’m still learning about it. It appealed to me because it gave me a link to something bigger than just my day to day life in the particular community I happen to be a part of, because I love history and I love learning about different people in different times. And it appealed to me for the lessons it could provide that I believe are worth passing on to my children. And because somewhere along the way I picked up the idea that what we do with our bodies, with our time and with our lives makes a confession.

The Church Calendar can be used as a way to order our days. I like the joke Jim Gaffigan makes about how much McDonald’s has given our culture. McDonald’s being a compass for society to know when breakfast ends or that St. Patrick’s Day is coming because it starts selling Shamrock Shakes. Uh, he’s much funnier than that I promise.

But there is truth there. People are bound by time, by calendars, schedules and traditions. These are usually made by institutions, by our Nation’s holidays, our individual values or in our case, I choose to make it the Church Year. (Yes, of course we also keep the secular one too.)

But there has to be certain understandings if the tool of a liturgical calendar, it’s feasts and saint days are going to be used correctly.

First, I find that the church year is a helpful and good tool to use with my children, but we Christians are free to NOT use it. The feasts, fasts, seasons of the liturgical calendar do NOT make us more holy, spiritual or more righteous. In fact they can actually be stumbling blocks, create feelings of guilt, become measuring sticks and a hindrance to the Gospel. If not used carefully these tools do have the potential to take our eyes off of the ONE THING NEEDFUL, that is Christ.

Second, this calendar is man made. There is nothing in Scripture that tells us when to celebrate Christmas, Easter or even to attend church. Likewise there is nothing in Scripture that tells us which saints to commemorate or how they are to be commemorated. As with worship services, the church calendar was created by church leaders to teach, to give guidance and to create order.

Third, we can use it how we’d like. We are free in our homes, in our personal lives and even in our culture to use the tool of the liturgical calendar as we deem fitting for our own families.

Like my advent wreath. This year I’m using Red candles instead of the traditional pink and purple. Because I thought it was so pretty that way, because I don’t really like purple and pink, because other countries and churches use different colors and because I don’t want my children to panic when they see an Advent wreath with blue candles and think “oh that’s wrong!” Because there isn’t a “right way” to have an Advent wreath.

Fourth and most importantly, the church calendar and saints days should always be used to point to Christ. Jesus is the one thing needful. He is and must be the foundation of all our teaching. A good use of the “Saint Days” is to point to how Christ is faithful to his children, not the other way around. We see over and over again in the saints from history and those honored by God in Scripture how miserably sinful people are and how gracious and merciful God is.

It is His goodness and faithfulness to us that gives us the ability to live in a Christlike manner, to be able to face a martyrs death or to do anything remotely loving. Luther preached many sermons on the Festival Seasons of the church year. Joel Basely the translator of these sermons summed up what Luther wanted to teach about these festivals:

“Luther’s goal in issuing the festival sermons was to wean his people from the adoration and veneration of the saints which had crept into the church in order to lead them back to venerate Christ alone and to serve not the dead but the living saints in need, according to Christ’s command.” Joel R. Basely

Luther himself wrote:

“It is surely better to preach the Gospels appointed for the feast days of the saints than to struggle with useless fictional legends about them from which the people can learn nothing and which, additionally, only serve to mislead them.”

Remembering the saints on our Church calendar can be harmfully done. Perhaps there are saints that we wonder why in the world even get listed on the calendar. We can all use discernment in this matter and if we chose to commemorate saints, we pray that we do that in a God pleasing manner.

Here are the some of the ways I use the Saint Days of the church year. For my children I find commemorating particular saints to be useful for:

1. Teaching ways to show love to others. Good works are done not for God but for our neighbor. I can use St. Elizabeth of Hungary as an example of charitable giving. As one who gave to the needy and sick out of her abundance. We make bread for our neighbors on the day she is commemorated simply for the joy of giving to our neighbor. We could also visit the shut-in and sick or donate to a charity.
2. A History and Geography lesson. When we remember St. Martin of Tours we can learn about the Roman army, about cavalry soldiers, about Christianity being outlawed and newly legalized. We can look at a map and see where Italy and Rome are located. We can study Lutheranism in early America on Henry Melchior Muhlenberg‘s commemoration day.
3. Examples of living under the cross. We can site any of the martyrs throughout history for this one. I don’t shy away from telling my babies that some Christians are killed for the faith. We learn about the deaths of John the Baptist, Stephen, Paul, Lawrence of Rome, Perpetua and Felicity. ***I have to note here that there are often stories surrounding the deaths or quotes from those martyred that have been passed down through time. But not all of these are verifiable and therefore I’m not always comfortable teaching them as fact to my children. If I do include them I will make a point to tell them that they might have said this and if the story a martyrs death comes with a cray cray miracle I just leave that out. Suffering for Christ should not be a strange concept for Christians even for our children.
4. Gives us something specific to pray for on a certain day. Again using St. Martin’s Day it is a good reminder to pray for soldiers and though there isn’t really any way to know for certain if Martin actually stopped and cut his cloak in half for a cold beggar man, it is a good story of loving someone else, of sharing and putting another’s needs before your own. Also it reminds us to pray for the homeless or for those without the warmth and comforts we surround ourselves for.
5. Some days are just fun or have a loveliness in the traditions surrounding them that I want to include in our own family traditions. For example, St. Nicholas and St. Lucy. There is a lot of myth and legend built in to the histories of these saints. Most of them I don’t even bring up to the kids and again if I do, I point out that it is just a story and chose to instead emphasis what was probably more true. BUT how fun is it to leave your shoes out and get chocolate coins in them and eat candy canes all day as is tradition with St. Nicholas Day. And who doesn’t love coffee, hot rolls and candle light in the morning? I look forward to St. Lucy’s Day honestly because it’s so beautiful. I can enjoy this beauty and glean from Lucy’s story the reality of martyrdom and since traditionally candles are pulled out in abundance on her day, I can teach a lesson about being light in the darkness of our world and about the Light of the world Christ.
6. Teaching that we are all saints. I teach my children that all of God’s children are called Holy in Christ, we are all set apart as His and therefore all of us are Saints. The saints on our calendar are no more special and likely didn’t really perform the miracles of which a lot of them are attributed.
7. To point out bad theology or incorrect uses of vocation. I can use the actions of some saints on the calendar to show my children that a lot of the honored saints committed very bad sins! Some due to a misunderstanding of God’s Word, some because just like us, they were sinners. I liked Anna’s post on St. Elizabeth of Hungary who sinned in her vocation as a mother in committing herself to a convent. Of course I can’t say why she did what she did for certain, but I can imagine as Katy points out in the comments below the post that circumstances she found herself in and from being misguided by incorrect doctrine most likely led her to retreat from her call as a mother. I can take her good works and give a good example to my children and I can use what was not good as another kind of example for them as well. But I’m judgy like that.
   

So there’s that. And you know as more babies come our “traditions” change. The ways we celebrated saint days or seasons like Lent 2 years ago aren’t necessarily what we’ll do this year or the next. That’s ok. The Liturgical Calendar will not endure forever, only God’s Word will. His Word in the home is what we all truly need.

 

This entry was posted on Friday, December 12th, 2014 at 3:02 pm and is filed under Church Year. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.