We’ve reached the end of the school year. The Cathedral has hosted a service and prizegiving for the Alice Ottley School and the annual King’s Day.
Tomorrow, I shall be at an awards ceremony at Bishop Perowne, where my younger son attends. My two older children have come home from college for the summer.
The shape of the academic year – including the summer holidays and in fact the whole tourist industry – are built on the fact that in the Middle Ages, young men and women had to go home in the summer to help with the harvest.
This has imprinted itself on our year, and dictates the shape of school and college terms, even today.
There are different ways of deciding when the year begins and ends. It was the Romans who counted the year from January 1.
Until 1752 England started the year on Lady Day (March 25), the feast that celebrates the visit of the Angel Gabriel to Mary to announce the birth of Christ.
Then we have the financial year, which begins on April 6.
That’s the slip of 11 days when England changed from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar and highlights again how shaped we are by history.
It doesn’t really matter when we count the beginning or end of the year. We all know what a year is, and some of us know we don’t have too many of them left!
When we’re young, they stretch out for ever; but middle age tells us that they’re fast disappearing.
I was delighted to hear about the new Bishop of Worcester last week; but I realised with a shock that my new Bishop is younger than I am.
That makes me feel my age.
Those who believe in God accept years, days, and hours as God’s gift. We talk about “using all the hours God sends”, and that’s a reminder that time is given to us to use well, not to waste or simply squander on ourselves. It’s also a reminder that while time slips away, God remains.
Centuries before Christ, the psalmist wrote: “In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands.
They shall perish but you will endure; they all shall wear out like a garment … but you are the same, and your years shall not fail”.