OK, so this morning I was struck by something as I quickly scanned the recent weeks of the Calendar project. Roughly – throughout the past four months – that is one quarter of the year – there have been on average only 3.5 commemorations per month of female saints!

Obviously this is not “scientific” – as there are some months in the year that have many more commemorations of holy women in the history and tradition of our faith. But I wonder if it might not be better to . . . “spread them around” a bit better to get a sense of the balance that is naturally there?

Balance afterall is a very Eastern idea – look at the liturgy – when we pray together there is a strict order of balance for all sorts of things – like the saints, the trinity, the Theotokos, and for our own needs and commemorations.

One reason why this balance is not immediately apparent in the calendar is that we tend to commemorate a given individual on the date he or she died. This introduces a bit of natural randomness. However, I cannot help but wonder too if there is not a bit of un-conscious bias in the compilation of the menaion?