Advent: A Season of New Beginnings

​Happy New Year!
 
I love new beginnings, fresh starts, and trying again.
 
For Episcopalians and Christians of many other traditions all over the world, time moves to a different rhythm from the established days, weeks, months and years set on the calendar that governs modern society. 
 
The Church’s year ebbs and flows with the energy of the cosmos.  Our Liturgical Calendar (which guides our annual patterns of worship and activities) is set each year according to the solar and lunar calendars.  Some Festivals, like Christmas on December 25, are fixed in place according to the sun.  Others, Easter most of all, arrive at slightly different points each year, according to the moon. 
 
(You may be interested to know that Easter’s fluctuating situation is a result of a conscious decision of the Church, about 1700 years ago.  The Council of Nicaea established in 325 AD that Easter will come each year on the first Sunday after the first Full Moon after the Spring Equinox.  This is why Easter can arrive much earlier or much later each year – as early as mid-March and as late as almost-May.)

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