liturgical calendar of the church year
click on the season for additional information
- Advent Season
- Christmas Season
- Ordinary Time
- Lenten Season
- Easter Season
Advent is the four-week season starting our liturgical year. The most poetic and appealing of seasons, this is the time when we prepare ourselves properly for the coming feast of the Lord's birth.
The celebration of Christmas reminds us that God keeps His word. God promised to send us a savior, and so indeed, He did. He sent us Himself. This is the mystery of the Incarnation: that God became one of us to lead us to the fullness of life, grace and salvation.
Ordinary Time, meaning ordered or numbered time, is celebrated in two segments: from the Monday following the Baptism of Our Lord up to Ash Wednesday; and from Pentecost Monday to the First Sunday of Advent. This makes it the largest season of the Liturgical Year.
Lent is that season of approximately 40 days when we prepare ourselves for a proper observance of the Lord's Sufferings, Death and Resurrection. Liturgically, Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and ends six weeks later, on the Thursday of Holy Week. This is our time of the year for prayer, penance and helping others.
Triduum simply means “a three-day festival.” The parish liturgy of the Lord's Supper, usually celebrated in the evening, opens the Triduum and officially closes the season of Lent. On Tuesday evening, the bishop, surrounded by his priests, blessed the oils that will be used in the coming year throughout the diocese for the anointings at Baptism, Confirmation, the Sacrament of the Sick, and Holy Orders.