“For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven”
Ecclesiastes 3
Last week I was handed a copy of the new Common Worship lectionary readings for Advent 2021 to Advent 2022. At the Bield we use this booklet to guide our biblical readings for morning and evening prayer. As we near the end of another liturgical year, I am reminded of how important this rhythm is for me – the movement through Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter and so on.
Having a rhythm to our living can be extremely comforting and spiritually nourishing. In a world which many times seems to be spinning out of control or which feels as if it is in a state of continual flux, it gives us something we can depend on, something that gives a pattern to our days.
Years ago, I visited a Trappist monastery, Christ in the Desert. I was participating in a retreat at Ghost Ranch, a beautiful retreat centre in the high New Mexican desert. We were to spend a day at the monastery joining the monks in their daily rhythm of prayer, silence and work. I was young and free-spirited. While I admired the discipline of the monks, I couldn’t grasp the importance of this daily rhythm. It felt regimented and confining. But that was not how the monks experienced it. To them it was life-giving, enabling them to slow down and helping them draw closer to God.
Now that I am older I have grown to appreciate the rhythms of life, be they the seasons in nature or the liturgical seasons, bracketing the day with morning and evening prayer as we do at the Bield, or my own regular spiritual practices. They ground my life and ground my faith.
I wonder what rhythms you find helpful. Are you being invited into a new rhythm?
Or maybe it’s time to let go of an old one.
Valerie