PIPHANY, THE HIGH POINT OF CHRISTMAS. The manifestation of the Incarnation to the world reflected in:
- The Visit of the Magi
- The Baptism of Our Lord
- The Wedding at Cana
Epiphany is also a time for looking at dates. Some parishes have the custom of the Proclamation of Moveable Feasts. The USCCB has a good explanation here. They give the text of the proclamation in English and a clue as to the tune. Then Andrew Motyka and Ben Yanke put the two together and posted the result over at Chant Cafe.
If the Extraordinary Form is more your thing, head over to the Epiphany Proclamation collection at Brandt Lab where I have typed up the proclamation each year since 2003. Which is funny as it happens that 2014’s dates are identical to the dates in 2003.
In other calendrical considerations, I used to think that the Orthodox Christmas was in January because they waited for Epiphany to celebrate, but no, they are celebrating the Birth of Christ, and sort of on the same date, but on a different calendar. Some Eastern Orthodox still follow the Julian calendar (promulgated in 45 B.C.) rather than the Gregorian calendar (which started rolling out in A.D. 1582). There is a difference of 13 days at the moment so Christmas (December 25) in the Julian calendar falls on January 7 in the Gregorian calendar. Every 128 years the Julian calendar gets one day further away from the Gregorian calendar.
