Calendar (Ecclesiastical)
The Seasons of the Church’s Year
The Church’s year is divided up into times and seasons and each has a particular focus. These times celebrate different aspects of the life of Jesus Christ and our salvation.

The Season of Advent: The Church’s year begins with the Season of Advent. This is a time of preparation for the celebration of the Lord’s birth at Christmas. It covers the four Sundays before Christmas Day and all the weekdays between the first Sunday of Advent and Christmas Day, therefore it can vary in length from year to year. In the Church, the priest wears purple vestments which signify that we are preparing for a great event.

The Christmas Season: The First Mass of Christmas marks the end of Advent and beginning of the joyous Christmas Season when we celebrate the Mystery of the Incarnation, the moment when God took human flesh and was born of the Virgin Mary.

January 6 is the Solemnity of the Epiphany when our Saviour was made known to the world at the visit of the three Wise Men. In the Church, the priest wears white vestments which signify rejoicing.

The Season of Lent: The Season of Lent is one of intense preparation for the death and Resurrection of our Lord. It is a time of conversion from sin to thevalues of the Gospel. The season a period of forty days (not including Sundays) begins with Ash Wednesday, so-called because on this day ashes are blessed and distributed to the faithful.
This custom goes back to Old Testament times when the people would lay aside their expensive garments and instead put on sackcloth and ashes to symbolise their atonement for sin or in times of great intercession before God. From Ash Wednesday, the Season of Lent covers the next six Sundays - the last being Palm Sunday which marks the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem - and the first three days of Holy Week. The season is forty days because Christ himself spent forty days in the wilderness fasting and praying, and the Jews spent forty years wandering in the desert when they fled from Egypt.

The theme of this season is one of reconciliation with God, of turning away from sin and being faithful to the Gospel. The faithful are asked to do something in particular during this season to help make them more aware of the great gift that Christ gave us by dying for our sins. They may decide to give up something for Lent - some luxury they enjoy such as sweets, etc. - or they may decide to take up something such as visiting the Church every day or donating time or money to a charity. Ash Wednesday is also a day of fast (eating less than usual to remind us of the poor and those who go without food) and abstinence (meat is not consumed on this day). In the Church, the priest wears purple vestments to signify repentance.

Lent ends on the Wednesday of Holy Week. On the next day Maundy Thursday we commemorate the Last Supper. This commemoration takes place in the evening so as to coincide as closely as possible with the time when Christ celebrated the Passover Feast with his disciples in the upper room. This is also the night when the Eucharist was Instituted by our Lord - during this Passover Feast he took bread and wine and gave it to his disciples as his body and blood with the instruction that we should do this again in his memory. After the Passover Feast, Christ went to the Garden of Gethsemane to pray and it was here that he was arrested. This is symbolised in the Church by the emptying of the tabernacles and stripping the altars bare, and they shall remain in this way until the Resurrection on Holy Saturday night. On Holy Maundy Thursday night the priest wears white vestments.

Good Friday is a particularly sombre day and one of great meditation and prayer because it is the day on which Christ was crucified for us.

The Easter Season: The Easter Season commences with the celebration of Easter Day and continues until the Solemnity of Pentecost which is fifty days later. It is a time of particular joy and celebration in the Church and throughout the season the priest wears white vestments. On the Solemnity of Pentecost however, he wears red vestments which also signify the Holy Spirit, which was given to the disciples on that day.

Ordinary Time: During the first half of the year (Advent to Whitsuntide) the Church's focus has been on what God has revealed to Man, particularly through the history of the Christ becoming man and of his divine deeds on earth.

Now , in this second half of the year (from Whitsuntide back to Advent) our attention is focused on Man's response to God - through faith, through commitment, through loving deeds and through trying to understand Christ's transforming work within each individual man and woman.

So the smaller festivals of this second half of the year give us a magnificent opportunity to remember the lives of different saints down the centuries, we too can seek to respond to the promptings of the Holy Spirit in our own lives.