Life in churches: Seasons

The Christian liturgical calendar was designed in the northern hemisphere, pairing natural and church seasons for symbolic effect.

While my English and Canadian families are currently celebrating Easter with all the fresh greenery and new life of Spring, those of us in the Antipodes are living with a different set of juxtapositions.

Our Easter landscape looks decidedly more Lenten, such as this bare, stripped, crab-apple:

Or this tortured looking pine:

An arbutus hangs on to the last of its summer fruit:

Beaches look bleak and grey:

But when the golden light is out,

images of crowns, haloes, and resurrection come to mind,

and cities, shining on a hill.

Gold, or white, is the seasonal colour for Easter,

symbolizing purity, light, glory, and joy.

Images in this post:

• Episcopalian Church Calendar; retrieved from https://blog.ecclesiasticalsewing.com/2019/02/25/the-church-year-is-a-pageant/.

• The Entry into Jerusalem, Pol de Limbourg, Très riches heures de Jean, duc de Berry.

• The letter R from an unknown illuminated manuscript.

• Noli Me Tangere, Jacopo di Cione, painted about 1368-70.

• All other photographs and drawings, by M.C.M., including photographs from the interior of St Mary’s Anglican Church, Addington, Christchurch.