National
working Group on Worship
Theology &
Discipleship
The Uniting Church in Australia
Paper No. 11
"A
CALENDAR OF OTHER COMMEMORATIONS"
IN UNITING IN WORSHIP LEADERS'
BOOK
The most important calendar in the
Church is "The Church's Year", centring on Easter and
containing the built-up experience of the Christian Church over
the centuries: it is the Church's way of saying "we have
learned to celebrate the mystery of Christ according to an annual
pattern".
But in Uniting in Worship there
is another calendar, also covering a 12-month period, called
"A Calendar of Other Commemorations". Why this second
calendar? It is an opportunity to give thanks for the evident
working of grace in human lives. As Robert Gribben puts it:
"The whole church - apostles, martyrs, Christian pioneers,
Christian thinkers, faithful servants, people of prayer,
reformers of the Church, renewers of society, witnesses to Jesus
- are proofs of grace, witnesses to Christ's transforming power
in human lives." (A Guide to Uniting in Worship,
p.86)
There are 95 names, beginning with the apostles and other biblical figures and continuing to the latter half of the 20th century with such names as Oscar Romero and Dag Hammarsjkold. Each name has a date, as in the calendars of other Churches. If a congregation or group remembers one such person each week, it
therefore takes about two years to work
through the list.
Is this a mechanical way of praying? Not
in my experience. For the past four years in my present parish,
we have commemorated one or more persons at the 8 a.m. Holy
Communion. A brief biography is given and thanks are offered,
sometimes in the Collect (as in UIW) or in the Great Prayer of
Thanksgiving (where it says: ".... and so we praise you with
the faithful of every time and place, with the churches of
"X" country [in the Ecumenical Prayer Cycle] and with
the saints in heaven, joining with choirs of angels in the
eternal hymn: Holy, holy, holy. . ."). · This focuses our
prayers, and we become conscious that we worship not on our own
but in the presence of the communion of saints in heaven and on
earth. A further focussing takes place if the suggested readings
are followed in (UIW Leaders' Book, pp.352-364). These readings
do not replace the Three-Year lectionary but supplement it.
In the Notes (p.347) other ways of using
the Calendar are suggested:.
"It may stimulate ideas for
Christian education programs, for the work of the Sunday School,
and particularly for an address to young people during the
Service of the Lord's Day". One need never be stuck for
ideas for the children's address! A series of biographical notes
to accompany the Calendar has been on the
"drawing-board" for some years, and 1995 will, I
believe, be the year of the appearance of some at least of these
notes. This will make the use of the Calendar much easier.
Two other points are worth noting. There are many women in the list. Although the numbers are short of 50%, regrettably, there is some restoration of a balance, in worship, of outstanding women and men in history. The stories of such people as Hildegard and Caroline Chisholm are a great stimulus to prayer and create a sense of excitement at inheriting the work of diverse people of faith.
.
Secondly, the list is not exclusive. In local situations we can add our own names for commemoration. To
quote Robert Gribben again: " . . . a local congregation, presbytery or synod may add the name of a
beloved founder, leader, pastor in whom
the presence of Christ was recognised" (A Guide. .
p.86).
For many congregations there are riches
yet to be unearthed in Uniting in Worship, just as in AHB
and other liturgical resources. The "Calendar of Other
Commemorations" has been such an enrichment for me.
D'Arcy Wood
15/2/95
For notes of many of those listed in the
"Calendar of Other Commemorations" see the website
http://elvis.rowan.edu/~kilroy/JEK/home.html