NaBloPoMo -- Holy Holidays

As I said in the last post, there were two prompts that inspired me today.  This is the one from the RevGalBlogPals Facebook group:

NaBloPoMo Day 19: Best liturgical holiday.

Now the first question is what does "best" mean?

Does it mean the most important? Well theologically that is not really a question is it. In Christian faith the most important is Easter, hands down.  Now to be honest Easter needs to mean the whole Holy Weekend, Good Friday through Easter Sunday (plus Easter Monday, when heavily involved church folk get to recover from the previous week).  Because if we only include Sunday then we miss so much of the power of the story we tell at Easter.

Or does it mean the most popular?  Again no contest.  Christmas, largely because Christmas mixes religious festivaling with secular festivaling.  But even without the secular trappings Christmas Eve services are still much fuller (in many churches) than Easter Sunday services. Why is that? Is it because the Christmas story (or at least the Pageant version of the story with shepherds and angels and kings--even though the "kings" are really a different liturgical festival [Epiphany] and we tend to slide over the whole jealous Herod part of that story) is easier for folks? is it because Christmas is just a bigger deal in the world around us? As I type this a month and a bit before Christmas I am sitting in a coffee shop with Christmas music (much of it faith-based) playing over the speakers.  I have never sat in a coffee shop and heard Easter music playing....

Or maybe it means favourite?  That is a bit less clear for me. I think a strong contender for me would be Pentecost.  I love the story.  I don't know as I fully understand the story. But for me Pentecost stands clear as the 2nd most important day of the Liturgical year. And the idea of being filled with that level of intensity and hope and mission!  I long for that some days.