The Book of Leviticus, which we begin reading this week, gets its name from the tribe of Levi, Jewish priests involved in worship. Among their duties, they kept the Jewish calendar of feasts, which began with the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, a day “of complete rest, a declared holy day; you shall do no work. It is the LORD’s sabbath wherever you dwell.”

Leviticus then lists the Jewish feasts of Passover, Unleavened Bread, Atonement, Booths. We can recognize feasts of our Christian calendar – Sunday, Easter, Pentecost. We follow the Jewish calendar as it’s found in Leviticus, now complete with the mysteries of Jesus Christ.

I appreciate calendars more and more, especially our religious calendars. As a psalm says, they help us “number our days aright that we may gain wisdom of heart.” There are “appointment calendars” for marking where or when you might be going to the doctors or meeting someone for dinner, but religious calendars go a step further. They not only mark the day for you, but they put you in touch with the past and point to the future. 

They invite you into the presence of God and the saints. 

I try to put a calendar at the beginning of each month in this blog. We will be publishing a calendar for 2024. For more on the calendar see. https://vhoagland.com/confraternity/