Dear Friends,
The weeks are flying by and we are nearly into that part of the Christian year that does not seem to have the tremendously important teaching feasts like Epiphany, Lent, Easter, Ascension and Whitsun that we have hopefully been learning and re-learning about currently. The newer lectionaries tend to refer to “Ordinary Time” in thinking about that long period of time “after Trinity” or “after Pentecost” (and some other liturgically “green” periods as well), which I think is a little unfortunate. For Christians, the time that God grants to us is always in some sense really “extraordinary”, rather than “ordinary”, and there are always very particular (or “extra-ordinary”) tasks that He wills for us to accomplish day by day. Hopefully some more will be said on that subject after Trinity Sunday, which is the Sunday marking the beginning of the period of time following Whitsun Week.
The period of time in which I write now is Ascensiontide, in which we are reminded of the Ascension of our Lord Jesus to the Heavenly Throne of the Father, which was shown to mankind as an event taking place forty days after the Resurrection of Christ on the First Day of the week (and so to be thought of as the “First Day” of the New Creation of a New Heaven and New Earth). Ten days after that, as was mentioned last week, the promised special bestowal of the Holy Spirit occurred to the gathered disciples and those hearing them under Peter’s leadership in Jerusalem, who were gathered there from the surrounding areas and countries as observant Jews and “God-fearers” on the Jewish feast of Shavuot, called in the Greek language Pentecost, which marked the giving of the Law to Moses.
It is instructive to know what our pre-Christian fathers in the Faith (who were Jews and God-fearing non-Jews) thought about their feast of “Pentecost" and why a crowd was gathered in Jerusalem and around its Temple at that time. However, as Christians we do not need to observe the Jewish Feasts as such. What we will be marking this Sunday is the special bestowal of the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost), for which the Jewish feast of Shavuot or Pentecost was chosen as the occasion. I do not therefore refer to our Christian observance as either Shavuot or Pentecost, but to the name that the Prayer Book Fathers have always used, namely Whitsunday, and accordingly to the week of Whitsunday as Whitsun Week. “Whit Monday” (Monday in Whitsun Week) used to be kept as a (national) Public Holiday but this is now (so far as I am aware) no longer anywhere the case.1
The Collect for Whitsunday is
God, who as at this time didst teach the hearts of thy faithful people, by the sending to them the light of thy Holy Spirit; Grant us by the same Spirit to have a right judgement in all things, and evermore to rejoice in his holy comfort; through the merits of Christ Jesus our Saviour, who liveth and reigneth with thee, in the unity of the same Spirit, one God, world without end. Amen.
The Collect refers to the occasion - “as at this time” - of the special gift of the Spirit to the apostles and others in Jerusalem, referring to its illuminations as the “light of the Holy Spirit”, following which we pray that “by the same Spirit” we may be granted always to judge rightly and to “rejoice in his holy comfort”. (Remember, as so often we have reminded, “comfort” means “strengthening”.) The Spirit that bestowed linguistic gifts on the Jerusalem occasion is not confined to that particular gifting.
In our own time and circumstances we will, I judge, be very well blessed indeed to be granted right judgment in all the things we encounter, and to know the continual joy of the Spirit's holy comfort.
For directions about the services this Sunday the 5th June 2022, Whitsunday, please see the website www.TruthWithLanguage.com . Because the Official Service of Thanksgiving at Elmslie United Church on the occasion of HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee is scheduled to take place at 5 pm this Sunday there will be no Zoom invitation to Evening Prayer on Whitsunday.
Let us, as we keep a “weather eye” on the forecasts and on what is actually happening outside, be assured that the weather in all its unpredictability to our minds, by no means stands outside the providence of our gracious God.
In faith in the holy Name of our Lord Jesus, who will continue to provide guidance by the Holy Spirit to all His people.
+ Nicholas
1 As it happens, and so very happily, this Whit Monday in 2022 ia indeed a Public Holiday in the Cayman Islands and anywhere elsewhere in the world celebrating HM The Queen's Official Birthday this weekend. Food for thought.