Copyright © 2026 Women of the ELCA. Reprint permission is granted for use in Women of the ELCA units, clusters/conferences and synodical women’s organizations provided each post is reproduced in its entirety. If you enjoy this resource, Donate Now.
Tradition and ritual ground us as human beings. Our memories of holidays and other special occasions are full of well-loved foods, music, clothing and repeated actions that connect us across generations and time, with what has been and with what is yet to be.
The church is full of once-a-year traditions too: waving palm branches on Palm Sunday, tolling the bell as loved ones who have died are proclaimed on All Saints Sunday, lighting candles on a wreath in Advent. Taken together, these separate actions performed once a year, tell the story of who we are as people of faith. The familiar words and actions anchor our lives, our relationships with God and each other. Even as we grow and change, we continue to order our lives by these rituals. Each time we encounter these rituals anew, we are slightly different people, tempered by current hopes and hardships, and at different points in our journeys through life and faith. The constancy of commemorating days and seasons in the church year give us a larger context for the shifting moments of our individual lives and events in our communities and world.
This message is excerpted from “A place for us all” by Jordan Miller-Stubbendick in the May 2019 Gather magazine.