Autumn: A season for introspection and memory

 One cannot fail to notice the shift in seasons that has taken place over the past couple of weeks. Gone are the early mornings and long, lingering evenings. Now it's dog walks in the gloaming, and the central heating being switched on. Autumn it would seem is upon us.


Autumn is not just a meterological season, but also one of the spirit and soul. Human beings are, after all seasonal beings. In the autumn we move into a season of reflection and remembrance, just as in Spring we move into new life and resurrection, so earlier evenings, lingering mists and damp weather that keeps us indoors leads to a spirit of introspection. In autumn we move into a season of remembering a remembrance.


And this is reflected in our liturgical year. First comes All Souls and Saints, times to remember those whom we love but see no longer, and those whose lives have revealed something to us of God. At All Saints we call to mind those Saints and saints who are no longer remembers, and those who the Churc universally does not remember, but who we do because they revealed, by their lives and examples, the love of God in Christ.


Next then there's Remembrance Sunday. A time to remember those who died in war, that pray that we might work for a just and universal peace. A time to remember our own part in that great and ongoing work.





Autumn is then a season of memory, leading us from the light of summer into darkness of winter. It is then a season of transitions. But we need to remember that thr darkness of winter is ultimately broken at its darkest moment by the coming of the light of the world, the Word made flesh.

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