Eclipse and Liturgy

Millions of people in North America are gathering this weekend ahead of Monday’s total eclipse of the sun. Observers from Lincoln Beach, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina will converge along the path of the total eclipse to see the moon completely cover the sun—a phenomenon that hasn’t happened in the continental United States for nearly 40 years. The total eclipse begins in Lincoln Beach at 10:16 a.m. PDT and will pass through more than a dozen states before ending in Charleston at 2:48 p.m. Parts of the United States and other parts of the world not in the path of a total eclipse will be able to see at least a partial eclipse.

 Wherever there is a cosmic event, there are crowds of people. In fact, it is the movements of both the sun and the moon that have gathered multitudes of believers throughout the ages. The Jewish calendar was calculated by these movements. For Jews, the notion of the day is from sunset to sunset. That’s why the Jewish Sabbath and all Jewish holidays begin at sunset. The oldest major feasts, influenced by the positions of the sun and the moon, were agricultural. Passover and Pentecost, for example, began as festivals that celebrated the harvests of barley and wheat. It was only later that these harvest festivals incorporated the religious commemorations of the Exodus and the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai for which Passover and Pentecost are named.  

Our Christian liturgical calendar is also governed by the cosmos. The full moon of spring determines the date of Easter, and the date of Easter determines how the entire liturgical year is arranged. Christmas, the day on which we celebrate the coming of the Light of the World, takes place around the winter solstice which heralds the beginning of longer days and shorter nights.

As the ancient world believed, the cosmos is where God encounters humankind. Scholars call the cosmos the first bible. Time, nature, the sun and the moon are all symbols that reveal and lead us to God’s very presence.