Seasons of the Spirit

The principal Christian festival is Easter, experienced in miniature every Sunday. In our parent faith, Judaism, the Saturday Sabbath is a day of rest and worship.

The first Christians continued to observe the Sabbath day, but Christians no longer keep the Sabbath, the seventh or last day of the week. We gather on the first day of the week, the eighth day, the first day of God’s new creation, to break bread in honour of the crucified and raised Christ, to worship the Lord in the communion of the Spirit.

The changing seasons of the year and the changing seasons of every human life naturally connect with the changing seasons of life in the Spirit. Feasts and fasts, times of rejoicing and lament, birth and death, all have their place. The journey into God of every individual seeker and every Eucharistic community is an endless adventure, and our changing moods reflect both the constancy and surprise of God’s presence with us every step of the way.

Our pilgrimage is never predictable or pedestrian, for we are pilgrims and servants who follow wherever God’s servant and son chooses to take us. All this is reflected in the worship environment, in the simplicity or richness of the liturgical space, in the colours of altar hangings and priestly vestments.

At Grace Church Joondalup we use bright blue in Advent, the four weeks preparing for Christmas. The Christmas-Epiphany season is white. Lent is violet, and Easter-Pentecost is gold and red. The Sundays between Pentecost and Advent are green.

To learn more about the Christian Year, go to: www.crivoice.org/chyear.html