High Days and Holy Days
1 May Day
21 Rogation Sunday
24 David of Scotland
25 Ascension Day
*31 Mary, the Blessed Virgin
1 May Day
May is the month when the ancient pagans used to get up to all sorts! The Romans held their festival to honour the mother-goddess Maia, goddess of nature and growth. (May is named after her.) The early Celts celebrated the feast of Beltane, in honour of the sun god, Beli.
For centuries in ‘Olde England’ the people went mad in May. After the hardship of winter, and hunger of early Spring, May was a time of indulgence and unbridled merriment. One Philip Stubbes, writing in 1583, was scandalised: “for what kissing and bussing, what smooching and slobbering one of another, is not practised?”
Henry VIII went ‘maying’ on many occasions. Then folk would stay out all night in the dark rain-warm thickets, and return in the morning for dancing on the green around the May pole, archery, vaulting, wrestling, and that evening, bonfires.
The Protestant reformers took a strong stand against May Day - and in 1644 May Day was abolished together. Many May poles came down - only to go up again at the Restoration, when the first May Day of King Charles’s reign was “the happiest Mayday that hath been many a year in England”, according to Pepys.
May Day to most people today brings vague folk memories of a young Queen of the May decorated with garlands and streamers and flowers, a May Pole to weave, Morris dancing, and the intricacies of well dressing at Tissington in Derbyshire.
May Day is a medley of natural themes such as sunrise, the advent of summer, growth in nature, and - since 1833 - Robert Owen’s vision of a millennium in the future, beginning on May Day, when there would be no more poverty, injustice or cruelty, but in harmony and friendship. This is why, in modern times, May Day has become Labour Day, which honours the dignity of workers. And until recently, in communist countries May Day processions were in honour of the achievement of Marxism.
There has never been a Christian content to May Day, but nevertheless there is the well known 6am service on the top of Magdalene Tower at Oxford where a choir sings in the dawn of May Day.
An old May carol includes the lines:
The life of man is but a span,
it flourishes like a flower
We are here today, and gone tomorrow
- we are dead within an hour.
There is something of a sadness about it, both in words and tune, as about all purely sensuous joy. For May Day is not Easter, and the joys it represents have always been earth-bound and fleeting.
21 Rogation Sunday
Rogation means an asking of God - for blessing on the seed and land for the year ahead. It is appropriate in any emergency, war, plague, drought or foul weather.
The practice began with the Romans, who invoked the help of the gods Terminus and Ambarvalia. In those days a crowd moved in procession around the cornfields, singing and dancing, sacrificing animals, and driving away Winter with sticks. The people wanted to rid the cornfields of evil.
In about 465 Europe was suffering from earthquake, storm and epidemic. So Mamertius, Bishop of Vienne, aware of the popular pagan custom, ordered that prayers should be said in the ruined or neglected fields on the days leading up to Ascension. With his decision, ‘beating the bounds’ began to become a Christian ceremonial.
Rogation-tide arrived in England early in the eighth century, and became a fixed and perennial asking for help of the Christian God. On Rogation-tide, a little party would set out to trace the boundaries of the parish. At the head marched the bishop or the priest, with a minor official bearing a Cross, and after them the people of the parish, with schoolboys and their master trailing along. Most of them held slender wands of willow.
At certain points along the route - at well-known landmarks like a bridge or stile or ancient tree, the Cross halted, the party gathered about the priest, and a litany or rogation was said, imploring God to send seasonable wealth, keep the corn and roots and boughs in good health, and bring them to an ample harvest. At one point beer and cheese would be waiting for the walkers.
In the days when maps were neither common nor accurate, there was much to be said for ‘beating the bounds’ - still very common as late as the reign of Queen Victoria. Certainly parish boundaries rarely came into dispute, for everyone knew them. (Do you know yours today?)
24 David of Scotland
If you like Scotland, you’ll appreciate St David of Scotland, who lived c.1085 – 1153.
David became king of Scotland in 1124, and devoted himself to improving his country. This included a feudal system of land tenure in place of the Celtic tribal one; an Anglo-Norman judicial systems, and the development of towns such as Edinburgh, Berwick and Perth.
Above all, David re-organised the Church in Scotland. Contact with Rome was close, but he opposed Canterbury’s primatial claims. David founded several bishoprics, including those of Dunblane and Aberdeen. David was loved for his justice in administration, his accessibility to all, and his intense interest in gardens and orchards and buildings.
He was generous in alms-giving, and a devout Christian. When dying, and ordered to rest by his doctors, he said: “Allow me rather to think about the things of God, so that my soul may be strengthened…when I stand before God’s judgement seat, none of you shall answer for me….” David died on 24 May and centuries later his name was inserted in the calendar of the Prayer-book for Scotland. His historical importance is that he founded the Scotland which defied Edward I.
25 Ascension Day - Forty Days with the Risen Christ
May continues the season of Eastertide, and 40 days after Easter comes Ascension Day.
It may seem crazy to call it Eastertide when Easter is clearly over! - but these are the forty days during which the Risen Christ appeared again and again to his disciples, following his death and resurrection.
The Gospels give us little of Christ’s teachings and deeds during those forty days. Jesus was seen by numerous disciples: on the road to Emmaus, by the Sea of Galilee, in houses, etc. He strengthened and encouraged his disciples, and at last opened their eyes to all that the Scriptures had promised about the Messiah. Jesus also told them that as the Father had sent him, he was now going to send them - to all corners of the earth, as his witnesses.
31 Mary, the Blessed Virgin
Mary – the virgin mother of Jesus. For centuries the eastern and western churches have considered her pre-eminent among all the saints.
In the gospels, Mary makes her first appearance as a teenager. Nothing is known of her childhood, and what we do know of her is found mostly in Matthew 1 – 2 and in Luke 1 – 2. If you read both accounts, you’ll notice that Luke’s account seems to give the story from Mary’s standpoint, whereas Matthew concentrates more on Joseph’s side of things. In both accounts the virginal conception of Christ is clearly stated. Mary’s quiet devotion to God and her acceptance of his will shine forth.
After Jesus is born, Mary fades into the background, and makes few appearances: when the family visits Jerusalem and she loses her son on the way home; when she urges him to help the wedding party in Cana with its wine problem; and when Jesus gives her into the keeping of the beloved disciple when he is dying on the cross. .
Mary obviously joined the early Church, but her role was never one of teaching and preaching, and indeed she remained so much in the background that nothing more about her is known for certain. Both Ephesus and Jerusalem have claimed to be the place of her death.
Mary, chosen to be the mother of Jesus Christ, one who is both God and Man, holds a unique place in the history of mankind. Down the centuries that have followed, the Church has paid special honour to Mary.