THEOLOGICAL CLUE

The "count" of the Sundays in this period of the year tells those initiated in the mysteries of the church year that it is approaching its conclusion. This, the Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost, is the last of the Sundays of Pentecost to be used with any frequency over the years; Easter has to occur in March in order for the number of Sundays in Pentecost to surpass 25, including Christ the King Sunday. One might begin Tennyson's In Memoriam on this Sunday - for the church, not the secular, year: "Ring out the old, ring in the new! Ring, happy bells, across the snow! The year is going. Let it go!"

But with the approaching end of the church year, one constant note is sounded by the Sunday celebration of the gospel: "Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!" Every Sunday o…