Bonfires for Beltane

Photo credit: wyldwitchery.com

Pastor’s Epistle—April, A.D. 2018 B

Holy Week has come and gone, but Easter’s here to stay. Indeed, the Easter season lasts a full 50 days, culminating in Pentecost come late May. And so for the next seven weeks, our Paschal candle will continue to burn brightly, heralding the Lord’s Resurrection, and our vestments and paraments will remain white-and-gold as befits our high holy days.

No matter how early or late the date of Easter falls on our Western calendar, one holiday that is always part of the greater Easter season is Beltane, also known as May Day. In Gaelic countries, Beltane marked the day when cattle would be driven out to summer pastures. The herdsmen would build up bonfires—or more literally bone-fires—in which old animal bones would be burned to produce an acrid smoke. This smoke had the effect of ridding their cattle of parasites and pests that had accrued over the winter. Brave young men and women, not always known for making the best decisions, would prove their virility to would-be sweethearts by leaping the fires themselves.

Then out would come the food, of course, and festivities thus commence. It’s hard not to celebrate the turning of the seasons. In Ireland people would decorate a thorny May Bush with ribbons or shells, and visit local holy wells (a staple of Celtic Christianity). The morning dew of May Day is still said to hold rejuvenative properties for those willing to wake up early enough to bathe their faces in it. It was a holiday of fires, flowers, and fairies, or so the folklore claims.

For the Church, Beltane was a Cross-Quarter Day, midway between Lady Day (the Annunciation in March) and Johnsmas (Midsummer come June). Beltane and indeed the entire ensuing month were dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, which is why even today we celebrate Mother’s Day in May.

Then of course there’s the tradition of leaving anonymous May baskets by the neighbors’ front doors—something many members of our congregation remember from our youth. The Victorian era showed renewed interest in floriography, the “language of flowers,” whereby each sort of flower in the basket held a special symbolic meaning: friendship, romance, displeasure, &c. Some of those May baskets could be downright impertinent, depending on one’s disposition towards one’s neighbor. All of this is part of Easter as well!

We celebrate the Resurrection of Our Lord not for one day or for eight days but for 50 days straight, and then on every Sunday throughout the year besides. We have rich traditions from which to draw, which help to aid us in our Easter remembrance and to further our continuing joy. So throughout this month of April—the month of opening, the month of love—let us remember that it is still Easter, and every flower or fire or glimpse of a fairy may yet reveal to mortal eyes how the whole of Creation rejoices that Christ is Risen and we shall arise.

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.