The
Church calendar is often a strange thing. Take tomorrow
for instance: millions of proud Welsh people will be celebrating St
David's day; millions of people a lot of whom would describe
themselves as agnostics or atheists honouring a Christian hero. But
look at the Church calendar and you will not find St David's day
marked, at least not this year.
That's
because of a technicality. This year tomorrow (1st March) is
Ash Wednesday - a 'Principal Holy Day' which marks the beginning of
the church season of Lent, the 40 days (not including Sundays) before
Easter. The technicality is that Ash Wednesday is a day of
fasting whereas St David's day is a feast, and you can't feast on a
fast day nor fast on a feast day (incidently, this also explains why
Sundays aren't included in the 40 days of Lent - Sundays are
commemorations of Jesus' resurrection and so are always feast days
therefore the Lenten fast doesn't apply on Sundays). And in the
battle of the fast and the feast, the fast of Ash Wednesday trumps
all other days, including patron saints.
When
special days clash in this way it is usual to transfer the 'losing'
day to the nearest available day (i.e. one that doesn't have a more
important designation already). However, this only happens if
the day is important enough - if it is not important it just gets
dropped, and this is the case with St David's day this year, at least
in the Church of England. Obviously in Wales St David is much
more important so the Church in Wales has transferred his feast to
today, though this won't stop most Welsh people (or males called
David!) celebrating it tomorrow as usual.
Part
of the purpose of all this complexity is to ensure that days are
given their proper focus and respect (that is, as long as they are
important enough). But what would happen if instead we held both of
these days in tension, or perhaps bashed them together to see what
the effect is? What might it mean to view St David through the prism
of Ash Wednesday fasting and to view Ash Wednesday through the prism
of celebrating St David?
The
first one is quite easy as by all accounts St David was quite into
fasting. 'Exciting Holiness' (a book about some of the saints that
have special days in the Church of England calendar) describes St
David as an “exemplar of the ascetic, spiritual life...He is said
to have based his Rule [code] for his monasteries on that of the
Egyptian desert monks, with a strong emphasis on hard work,
abstinence from alcohol and a refraining from unnecessary speech.”
It sounds as if St David spent most days in the same way the most
devout Christians spend Ash Wednesday! Indeed Exciting Holiness
glosses over some of the details: St David and his fellow monks only
drank water and only ate bread and herbs; they had to pull their
ploughs themselves and couldn't use animals; they had no personal
possessions and were forbidden to describe things as 'my …'! So in
some ways Ash Wednesday as a day of fasting is the perfect way of
commemorating St David in a way in which he would have approved!
But
what about thinking of Ash Wednesday as a day of celebration? St
David's final words were a sermon he preached a couple of days before
his death. In this sermon
he said “Lords, brothers and sisters, Be joyful, and keep your
faith and your creed, and do the little things that you have seen me
do and heard about. And as for me, I will walk the path that our
fathers have trod before us."
St David's life may seem very drab and difficult to us but he
obviously considered it to be joyful. The simplicity of his life
enabled him to concentrate on what was truly important: his faith and
caring for others and this is the way to a joyful life. Christians
often only eat one small simple meal (if any) on Ash Wednesday and
may also 'fast' from luxuries such as sweets or even T.V. and the
internet! This discipline can be quite hard as self-denial is not a
natural urge, but the time can be devoted instead to prayer, Bible
reading or looking out for others and this can be celebrated. Ash
Wednesday gives us the opportunity to concentrate on what is really
important in life, the two great commands as Jesus taught us: love
God and love your neighbour as yourself (Matthew 22:36-40). And in
doing so we will discover what Jesus describes as life in all it's
fullness (John 10:10).
So
whether you keep St David's day today, tomorrow or not at all;
whether you fast or feast or neither; may God in his mercy grant
that, following St David's purity of life and zeal for the gospel of
Christ, we may with him receive the crown of everlasting life.
