HOW we spend our own time tells us something about our priorities and what we consider to be important. This book is an invitation to give more time and attention to the turning feasts and fasts of the Christian year as laid out in the 2019 Prayer Book of the Anglican Church of North America (ACNA).
The author, an African American priest, guides the reader through the Christian year from Advent to the Feast of Christ the King. The themes and mood of each season are introduced, relevant activities are suggested, and there are brief notes on the feast days that fall in the period. The overall aim of the book is to encourage a more prayerful engagement with the Christian story as it unfolds through the observance of the year. The focus is on the seasons, and so individual saints’ days receive rather scant attention. The book progresses, Sunday by Sunday, through each season, listing the readings and the collect of the day, as well as a set of questions for self-reflection.
The Christian year is seen as being formative, and the book is written in an engaging style. Inevitably, there is the occasional use of rather jarring American idiom, but there is also some elegant phrasing, such as the description of Epiphany light as “the weight and wonder of God’s glory”. Atcho recognises that Ordinary Time, between Epiphany and Lent, and between Trinity Sunday and Advent, does not mean insignificant time, but “ordered time”. As in Common Worship, the readings on one of these Sundays are on the theme of the transfiguration; but creation, alas, is very muted here.
Although ACNA is not recognised as a member Church of the Anglican Communion, there is a family likeness in its prayers, and some spiritual wisdom is to be gleaned from this book.
The Revd Christopher Irvine is a teaching fellow of St Augustine’s College of Theology, teaches for the Mirfield Liturgical Institute, and is Interim CMD Officer for the diocese of Chichester.
Rhythms of Faith: A devotional pilgrimage through the church year
Claude Atcho
Ebury £16.99
(978-1-84604-892-0)
Church Times Bookshop £15.29
