The Church Calendar: A year with Christ

 The Ecclesial Calendar can be understood, and seen, in a mixture of five things. When put together we can see and begin to understand the entirety of the Life of Christ, His Saints, and how we as the Church celebrate the events of His life and how He helped to change the world through His Saints. Those five sections are as seen below.

1. Moveable Feasts
2. Fixed Holydays
3. Seasons of the Church
4. Liturgical Colors
5. The Story

Now the fifth item is a personal touch as many just teach the calendar as the first four items, but the fifth item, as I have come to understand, helps people to understand the various parts and points of the calendar. Each of the images that I will use below will come from the "Treasure and Tradition: The Ultimate Guide to the Latin Mass by Lisa Bergman". 

Moveable Feasts - 

Some of the most important days in our Christian Faith, such as Easter, are what we call Moveable Feasts. Easter, as we call it in the predominant English speaking parts of the world, or Pascha as it is called through out the majority of the world. Easter (Pascha) is not on the same day of the year every year, and the reason behind this is because it is based on the Lunar calendar that the Hebrews went by, not our Gregorian or Julian calendar which is based on the sun. The lunar calendar had roughly 29 days each month and the leap year broken into 12 month, but their leap year had 13 months. As such from the times of the Apostles and the Early Church the feast day of Pascha was celebrated two days after the Jewish Passover. However, this would mean that Pascha would not always land on a Sunday, so an early Council of Church, most likely at the Council of Nicaea, declared that Pascha will be celebrated on the Sunday following the first full-moon of the Spring Equinox. From here we then calculate the other days of the Church year for the moveable feasts such as Septuagesima (70 days prior to Pascha, contains the 40 days of Lent), Pentecost, and the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in June. As an aside, the Orthodox Churches (most if not all) calculate Pascha to be on a different date than the rest of Christianity, and the reason is due to the counting from the Vernal Equinox instead of the Spring Equinox which happens earlier on in the year. It is counted from the vernal equinox, but Pascha will still have to occur after the Jewish Passover, which depending on the year may be as late as end of April. Which typically means when we celebrate Pascha they are still in their Lenten period of fasting and praying.

Fixed Holydays - 

Right away some may read Holydays as Holidays, and they are both right and wrong to do so. To explain Holydays is the original term that we get Holiday from. Historically, even during the Middle Ages, everyone from serf or slave to a king would rest and take the Holyday off from menial labor, the same requirement as instructed by the Church for observation of Sunday. This is because on Holy Days of Obligation, everyone was obligated to go to Mass and celebrate the particular event in the Life of Christ, the Church, or very important Saints. Nowadays there are differing number of Holy Days of Obligation depending where you are, and in the United States there are seven to ten depending on the year, as some fall on a Sunday where we are obligated to attend anyways. These days are fixed to ensure a structured calendar year for liturgical purposes, and have been maintained as these days through Sacred Tradition. 

Seasons of the Church -

The seasons of the Church, as you can see above are separated into three main portions. The Nativity is the basic start of the Church year. It contains the penitential period of Advent, the celebratory periods of Christmas, Circumcision, and Epiphany. Advent is a penitential period because it is a period of preparation, and a time to reflect, before the birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ. This is a great time to reflect on the Incarnation of Our Lord, by the teachings of the Church and by what various Saints have written. Saint Irenaeus wrote on the Incarnation in his treatise Against Heresies, in which he wrote against the false beliefs that were held by people, and upholding the right teaching of the church. Saint Athanasius also wrote On the Incarnation, in a more direct manner to explain the Incarnation the process by which God the Son,  became Man, whilst retaining His Divine Nature and assuming the Human Nature.

After the "mini-Lent" that is Advent, we celebrate with Christmas and stay in this celebratory season until the beginning of the Season of Easter. In this season we have the "proper" Lent that is 40 days in length along side that of the 40 days of fasting, and prayer, of Jesus Christ in the desert. We then go with Him in His Most Holy Passion as He sacrifices Himself to redeem us and save us. Then we rejoice with His Resurrection on Easter Sunday followed by the Octave of Easter where we celebrate Easter specifically for eight days. Lastly, in the Season of Easter, we the Ascension where Christ ascended into Heaven, under His own power and authority, which is different to assumption where one (such as Moses, Elijah, Enoch, or the Blessed Virgin Mary) is taken up to Heaven by God, and the Angels then foretold of His Second Coming and for the Apostles to have hope and do as Christ commanded. 

The third portion of the calendar is that of Pentecost. Here in the Season of Pentecost we celebrate the birth of the Church, with the feast of Pentecost, and we celebrate various feast days pertaining to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, His Precious Blood, and His eternal and universal Kingship. We also celebrate the day of the Most Blessed Trinity, and have a procession for the Solemnity of Corpus Christi, a day in honor of the body of Christ, as the name suggests. 

Liturgical Colors

There are a variety of colors used in the vestments, and linens on the altar, to denote specific feast types or classes, and various events such as a funeral mass. The colors above such as red, is for the feasts of the Holy Trinity, the Precious Blood (which the month of July is dedicated to), and to the feasts of Martyrs to represent the blood they shed for Christ. Black representing sorrow is worn for funeral masses, and on Good Friday, as that is the day that Christ died for us. Violet is worn during penitential times, such as Advent and Lent. White are for days of purity, which can be replaced with gold in some cases, but are worn for feasts of Christ, our Lady the Blessed Virgin, or even at weddings. Green is the color for "Ordinary times", although in Christ I find nothing ordinary but everything to be extraordinary. This color Green will, statistically be worn the most in the church year, especially in the Novus Ordo liturgy where they removed a wide variety of traditional feast and celebratory days from their calendar. 

The Story - 

As I said earlier, when we put all of this together, we can and do see a beautiful story of God's Love for us, and our love for God. We see how He chose to assume our human nature, teach us, love us, and die for us. In rising redeeming, and giving us the hope of salvation, if we follow His commands. The rest of the year, roughly half, is how we respond to Him, His love, and His teachings. We put in the calendar various days to celebrate the teachings of God, and His revelations that bring us closer to Him. When we study the church calendar, even if you don't have access to the Sacred Scriptures, we can learn a beautiful story of God loving us so much that he chose to die for us, and give us the hope of eternal life with Him. A story that the world should know, and a story that is played out every single day, in every single parish around the world.