Seeing Red (not)

Thursday after Pentecost

Thursdays deal with prayer, worship, and spirituality on the blog. Today I'm seeing red (figuratively) because I'm not seeing red (literally). Let's start at the beginning. The Christian Year is a wonderful help in ordering a Christian's spiritual life. Most of you know this, but here are the basics:

The year starts the four Sundays before Christmas with the season of 

    Advent--The color for Advent is blue, but purple can be used in its absence

Then comes the season of 

     Christmas, December 25-January 5 (12 days of Christmas). The color is white. 

Next is

     Epiphany, January 6 until Ash Wednesday (40 days before Easter, not counting Sundays). The                color is purple

Then comes the season of 

     Easter, Easter Sunday until the Sunday of Pentecost (Easter Sunday is the first Sunday after the              first full moon after the vernal equinox). The color of Easter is white. Pentecost is 50 days after          Passover.

Then comes the very long season after Pentecost, which lasts all the way till the first Sunday of                 Advent. The color for Pentecost Sunday is Red. For United Methodists the rest of Pentecost is             green, except for Trinity Sunday (Sunday after Pentecost) and All Saints Sunday (last Sunday in         November). For these two Sundays the color is white. 

My United Methodist problem is that our best color--the bright flaming Red of Pentecost appears only once a year. Our dullest color, light green, is the majority of the year. Does this signify that United Methodists are dull people? Let's brighten up!

Episcopalians, Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox don't have this problem. The difference is that they celebrate Saints Days and we don't. I'm looking at a Methodist Calendar and an Episcopal Calendar for June. The Methodist calendar has one day with the color white (Trinity Sunday); the rest is green. 

The Episcopal calendar has 6 days of Green, 15 days of White, and 9 days of Red. 

The Red letter days on the calendar are Saints Days of Saints who were martyred. The White letter days are for Saints who were not martyred or for other special days (like Trinity Sunday). The Green letter days are often called "Ordinary time." This relates not to our ordinary use of "ordinary," but to the Latin word "Ordo," which means "order." From this we get our two kinds of numbers, Ordinal and Cardinal. Cardinals are the ones with -th at the end, like "four." (1-3 cardinals are irregular). Cardinals are also a bird species, which happens to be red, hence, the red letter saints days. Also the Catholic priests who become Cardinals wear Red hats. 

So what shall we do about Saints Days. Methodists seem to keep only the two saints days the ones that have become secularized, i.e. St. Valentine's Day and St. Patrick's Day. One is for love and chocolate; the other for Ireland and beer.

So my proposal (don't worry. It will never happen) is that United Methodists start venerating some Saints. Venerating means showing them honor. It does not mean that we pray to them or that we think of them interceding for us with God.  We can go to God directly. We don't have to venerate all of them (the Catholics have thousands), but some who have particular importance to our faith. How about St. Francis of Assisi, for example, or St. Mary, or St. Luke, or St. Anthony ("San Antonio" in Spanish). 

So occasionally in future blogs I will mention the Saint for that day and say something about him or her. Saints are a great tool for teaching the history of Christianity. 

Faithfully,

Christian