A Calendar Set in Stone

When a calendar only represents the past, it is a symbol of death. Only dead things have no future. When a calendar is unable to speak to the present, there is nobody available to use it. A calendar that is set in stone is good for walking on but cannot lead us anywhere. And yet, the Church calendar is all three at the same time.

The Church calendar is fixed in that it commemorates the past. Today for example is the commemoration of the Holy Protection of the Virgin Mary, the day when a vision of the Holy Theotokos was found in the Church of Blachernae in Constantinople in the 10^th Century.

The Church calendar is flexible in that today is the 2^nd Saturday of Luke. That means the Feast of Holy Cross was just three weeks ago. Today won’t be the 2^nd Saturday of Luke next year, nor was it last year.

I write this today because something special happens when we allow the calendar to guide us in life. Sometimes those blessings blend the past with the present (or very recent past) as is the case today. In most of the Orthodox Christian world, today is the Feast of the Protection of the Theotokos. This is the case everywhere but in Greece, and where Greeks are a major population.

After World War II, the Church of Greece relocated (in Church terms that is transferred) the Feast of the Protection of the Theotokos to October 28^th to coincide with OXI Day in Greece. OXI Day was the day the Greek people stood up to the Italians during the war. Their faith in the protection of the Theotokos drew them to merge the national holiday with her protection.

This is a calendar working for the present looking into the future. It is an annual reminder for Greeks that the Theotokos is watching over them and protecting them. It gives the people hope for the future that when oppression comes again, and it always comes again, they will depend upon the Theotokos for her protection.

The problem with things set it stone, is they must be destroyed to be changed. You cannot ‘reset’ a carving and start over. The Church calendar honors that past but is not stuck in the past. Today is a new day in Christ, and the beginning of a New Life In Christ. Every day is a day on which we are inspired by the faithful past for strength in the present as we look with hope to the future. All this is possible because we have a living calendar, and not a calendar set in stone.