The Liturgical Year

At the heart of the year is the three-day memorial of Jesus’ death and resurrection called the Paschal Triduum.  It begins with the celebration of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday evening, continues with the Commemoration of the Lord’s Passion on Good Friday afternoon, comes to a climax with the Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday night, and concludes with Evening Prayer on Easter Sunday.  

This intense series of celebrations ushers in the fifty-day season of Easter.  From Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday the Church revels in the Spirit of the Risen Lord.  Just as the Church takes time to immerse itself in the mystery of the resurrection, so it takes time to prepare for the Triduum.  It does this by observing a forty-day season of repentance and renewal called Lent.  This starts on Ash Wednesday and concludes on the morning of Holy Thursday.

The other two seasons are centred on the birth of Jesus.  The first is the four-week season of Advent.  This is a time of hope and promise that looks first to the final coming of Christ and then to his birth in human history.  The celebration of Jesus’ nativity is not confined to Christmas Day.  The season of Christmas continues beyond New Year’s Day and concludes with the feasts of Epiphany and the Baptism of the Lord.

Together these seasons make up about five months of the year.  The remaining seven months are divided into the two parts of what is called rather misleadingly Ordinary Time.  Week by week through this season the church follows the path of Jesus’ public ministry – no ordinary journey.  In one year (Year A) we read from the gospel of Matthew, in the second (Year B) from the Gospel of Mark, and in the third (Year C) from the Gospel of Luke (the Gospel of John is read every year from late Lent to the end of the Easter season).

Thus in chronological order from the beginning of December to the end of November the following year, we have:

• Advent

• Christmas

• Ordinary Time Part I (anywhere from 5 to 9 weeks)

• Lent

• The Paschal Triduum

• Easter

• Ordinary Time Part II (from about 24 to 27 weeks). 

Punctuating these seasons are special feast days of Jesus, Mary and the Saints.  Sometimes these are so important that if they fall on a Sunday they take over from the normal Sunday observance.

Image Attribution - Calendar of the Easter Dates, Ravenna, Apatak