Viewing all items in Resource Category: Holy Days

June, of course is the month of the summer solstice, the month of the Sun.  Sol + stice come from two Latin words meaning ‘sun’ and ‘to stand still’.  As the days lengthen, the sun rises higher and higher until it seems to stand still in the sky.   The Summer Solstice results in the longest...

Alban was the very first Christian martyr in Britain – or at least the first we know of. A ‘martyr’ is someone who has died for the faith – the word literally means ‘witness’. He was probably killed during the persecution under the emperor Diocletian in the early years of the fourth century, in the...

On June 22nd the Church remembers St Alban, who was put to death on that day in 250AD, on the site of the town in Hertfordshire that now bears his name and has a splendid cathedral which houses his shrine. Christianity was struggling to survive in third century Britain under Roman rule. In the middle...

St Alban should be the patron saint of anyone who impulsively offers to help a stranger in need… and finds their own life turned upside down as a result. The story goes that Alban was a Roman citizen quietly living in England in the third century.  Then, miles away in Rome, the emperor, Diocletian ordered...

John the Baptist is famous for baptising Jesus, and for losing his head to a woman. He was born to Zechariah, a Temple priest, and Elizabeth, who was a cousin of Mary, the mother of Jesus.  John was born when his mother was advanced in years, and after the foretelling of his birth and the...

The two most famous apostles are remembered this month, for they share a feast day. St Peter (d. c. 64AD), originally called Simon, was a married fisherman from Bethsaida, near the Sea of Galilee.  He met Jesus through his brother, Andrew.  Jesus gave him the name of Cephas (Peter) which means rock.  Peter is always...

Like Peter, Paul (d. c. 65) also started life with another name: Saul.  This great apostle to the Gentiles was a Jew born in Tarsus and brought up by Gamaliel as a Pharisee.  So keen was he to defend the god of his fathers that he became a persecutor of Christianity, and even took part...

Editor:  As the Church’s year does not change, much of this material has appeared before.  The item on Comgall is new. 1                      May Day 1                      Philip the Apostle/James the Less 2                      Athanasius 8                      Julian of Norwich 9                      Pachomius New*10          Comgall 14                    Matthias the Apostle – called by lots 16                    Caroline Chisholm 19                    Dunstan...

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’...

Is there someone in church whom you respect for their spirituality and common sense combined – someone you feel easy about approaching to ask questions?  That person’s patron saint should be Philip. Philip came from Bethsaida, and was a disciple of Jesus from early on.  He knew how to lead others to Jesus – he...

One thing for sure:  the apostles were not self-obsessed.  In fact, many a church historian has wished that they had left us just a few more personal details about themselves in the New Testament.   James the Less is an excellent example. This is the name we give to James the son of Alphaeus, but –...

This is the name behind the Athanasian Creed.  Athanasius (296-373) was born into a prosperous family in Alexandria in Egypt, studied in the Christian school there and entered the ministry. He was twenty-nine years old when he accompanied Alexander, the bishop of Alexandria, to the Church’s first ecumenical Council, at Nicaea in 325. Although Athanasius...