Calendars and Colors

 Thursday after Trinity Sunday

Corpus Christi

Lectionary Texts: 

1 Samuel 10:27b-11:15

Mark 3:19b-30

Thanks to Glenn for his question. Perhaps I should have just entitled "Thursday after Pentecost." There is no Trinity season. I just put in the days after Trinity Sunday for variety, having seen it done for this one week in one of my worship guides. Trinity Sunday is always the Sunday after Pentecost. Trinity Sunday's color is white. Pentecost Sunday is red. 

Here's where things start getting complicated. The season after Pentecost is also known as Ordinary Time. The color for the season after Pentecost on all Sundays except the first and last is green. The first, Trinity Sunday, is white. The last, Christ the King Sunday, is white. 

The United Methodist calendar has no saints days and makes no distinction between the different days of week. Other than Trinity and Christ the King Sundays, the entire half of the year that is the season after Pentecost is just one big sea of green. The color red is used for only one day of the year, Pentecost. I could sometimes wonder whether this is the United Methodist effort to make the Christian Year boring. 

The Episcopal, Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox calendars do have Saint's Days and do have different colors for those days. If the saint were a martyr, the color is red. If the saint were not a martyr, the color is white. For days during ordinary time that are not Saint's Days the color is green. 

I have both Episcopal and Methodist calendars. Both the ones I have are made by the same company, Ashby's Churchman's Ordo. I go by the Episcopal calendar during the season after Pentecost/Ordinary Time. I go by the Methodist calendar during all the other seasons. 

 

My reasons for going by the Episcopal calendar during Ordinary Time are more than purely aesthetic. I believe that Methodists should celebrate Saint's Days. I would even go so far as to say that we should canonize some of our own saints. John and Charles Wesley would be obvious examples. Even if we don't call them St. John Wesley and St. Charles Wesley, we should at least have a day each year to commemorate them. Even the Episcopalians do that. 

I'm looking at the calendars for June right now. The Methodist Calendar is all green. The Episcopal Calendar has different colors: Green--9 days, Red--9 days, White--12 days. All Sundays are green. Perhaps since all Sundays are green, and the only time most people are in church is Sunday, it doesn't make much difference. But if you practice any form of the Daily Office, it does. 

Today is Corpus Christi (Body of Christ) day. Especially for those of us who have not yet had Holy Communion in a congregation of people, we might contemplate not the physical body of Jesus, but rather a loaf of bread, and what taking a portion of that eucharistic loaf means to us. 

From now on, on Saint's Days and special commemorations, I will note what those particular days commemorate. Since many of you read this blog a day after I publish it, I'll also note what the next day is. 

Tomorrow, June 4, the color is green.

 

I do recommend that you by an Episcopal calendar. You can order from Cokesbury, on special now for $2.49. Doubtless you can get one from Amazon as well.

God of every year, every season, and every day, 

We are grateful for both the secular year and the Christian Year, for both Thanksgiving and Christmas, for both Mother's Day and All Saints Day. Help us in our Christian lives to order our time by the Christian Year. In the name of the one born on Christmas and risen on Easter. Amen.

 

Faithfully,

Christian