Month: May 2023

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An Extra Week this Year: 53 instead of 52 weeks

seasons-of-grace-2023-with-alphabyte-links-to-youtubeDownload

Every five or six years there are fifty-three weeks in the church calendar. This occurs when Christmas is on a Sunday or on a Saturday when the following year is a leap year. In those years, there is an extra week added.  For the first half of the 21st century, they are as follows: ’06, ’12, ’17, ’23, ’28, ’34, ’40, ’45, and ’50.

Why does this occur?  In a fifty-two week year, the result will be 364 days, not the usual 365.  Every five or six years an extra week is inserted to adjust the calendar to a return to fifty-two-week years.

In The Bible Through the Seasons, when the extra weeks occur, there are no Monday to Friday readings. In 2023, we Read Pentecost Sunday, with the Sabbath reading which will be posted at this site on June 3. 

It’s a week off from the readings.  Here’s an opportunity to look back over those passages that especially moved you, do some extra spiritual readings or whatever the Spirit prompts in your heart.

With blessings and love,

Nick Connolly

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Spirit-Water

In seasons of drought, there are strict limits on the use of water. Even then, extreme scarcity of water in affluent countries is non-existent. This is not the case for the Middle East in ancient times. For the Hebrew people, water was a blessing from God, especially manifest during the years of wandering in the desert when miracle-water from the rock flowed.

The great autumn festival of Tabernacles celebrates all these years of wandering. On the last day of this feast, the priest would walk about the altar with water freshly drawn. Today rabbis pray for rain at the close of this festival.

Picture the Temple with Jesus standing amid the crowd as the ritual of water takes place. He has overturned the money tables in chapter 2 at the Passover Festival. Now he breaks in upon the singing crowd with the earpiercing cry of today’s verse. Let it break open the rock of your heart, letting Spirit-water flow.

John 7:37–39

What are “Bible Breaths”? Learn More…
Example: Living water from my heart v. 38

Sundays are dedicated to the Gospels from the Revised Common Lectionary.
During Lent and Easter, we read from the Gospel of John.


For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information.

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A Night of Expectation 

Shavuot was originally a spring harvest in Israel. The first wheat was ripe about fifty days after the first barley harvest. The crop of barley was brought to the Temple the day after Passover began. The people were then instructed to count fifty days or seven weeks from one harvest to the other.

As time passed, the festival became one to celebrate the revelation of God on Sinai, the true harvest of God’s life to the human family. The very meaning of the word Torah is to rain or flow down. The Torah Reading is the giving of the Ten Commandments found in Portion 17 B and C, God’s revelation and teaching flowing down the mountain.

There is a tradition of taking a long nap the afternoon before the beginning of Shavuot, which begins at sundown. This is to be ready to participate in an all night vigil that many Jewish communities observe. One mystical work praises those who stay up all night in expectation of receiving the Torah.

The Christian expression of this revelation is the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the first disciples—the flowing down of God’s Spirit upon us.

Exodus 19:1—20:26

Learn about Bible Breaths Learn More…
Example: Speak to me: I will listen. 20:18

The Saturday passages follow the reading list that Jewish people use in their synagogue worship
throughout the world. They are taken from
“The Torah,” the first five books of the Bible from Genesis to Deuteronomy
that are read each year beginning with autumn.

For all the Firestarters I recommend the ebook.  You will have the entire program of well over a thousand of these introductions with you on your phone or tablet. Check the menu options at the site for more information