Advent: The Church's Liturgical Year

Do you know what time it is? Do you know what day it is? Do you know what year it is? Of course you do. Unless you are living in an alternate universe you have a watch and a calendar by which you live and structure your life. Imagine living without a watch or calendar. What would life be like if we did not divide it up into specific times and seasons? Times and seasons are the way in which we structure our lives and define who we are. Tell me how you structure time, and I will tell you who you are.

The Church has its own way of structuring time; the Church has its own Liturgical Year. The purpose of this Liturgical Year is to help us understand our lives as Christians by reminding us of the great story of salvation so that we can live our lives in light of what God has done for us in Christ. Consider the structure of the Church’s liturgical year and what it means for our spiritual life.

The Church begins with the Season of Advent, the season we are now in. During this four week period the church remembers the first coming of Christ and waits in joyful hope for his second coming at the end of the ages. Advent, then, is a season of hope—hope for God’s final salvation. It is a time when we remember how God fulfilled his promises in the past. It is a time of patient waiting for the final fulfillment of God’s promise of salvation.

The season of Advent is followed by the season of Christmas during which we remember and participate in the mystery of the Incarnation—the eternal word of God became flesh in Jesus Christ. Christmas is the fulfillment of Advent hope and expectation. During Advent we wait and hope; at Christmas we experience God’s salvation in Christ the Word made flesh.

After Christmas we enter the period the Church calls Ordinary Time, a period in which we reflect on the life and ministry of Christ who entered into our life at Christmas. The purpose of this Ordinary Time is to remind us that we live in a world of grace; we are bathed by God’s grace. For us who believe, Ordinary Time is extraordinary time because it is a time of grace.
Ordinary Time is interrupted by Lent, a period in which we prepare for the great Paschal Mystery of Christ’s death and resurrection that we will celebrate at Easter. This is a time of penance and reform, a time in which we renew our baptismal commitment to Christ and turn from our sins by receiving the sacrament of Penance.

After the six weeks of Lent, we enter the time of Easter, a period of fifty days during which we celebrate and reflect upon the central mystery of our faith—the Lord’s resurrection. This is a period of intense joy for those who have undergone the penitential discipline of Lent because having died to their sins now they enjoy the new life of the risen Christ. The culmination of Easter is the Feast of Pentecost, the fiftieth day of Easter, when the risen Christ pours out the Spirit of the Living God upon us. It is this Spirit that enables us to live the Christian life.

After Pentecost we return to Ordinary Time, that period during which we reflect upon the life of Christ, Mary, and the Saints. Each year, we read from one the Gospels, this year we will read from the Gospel of Matthew, a Gospel that calls us to live a life of holiness (righteousness) as taught by Jesus in his great Sermon on the Mountain. Ordinary Time ends with the Feast of Christ the King, which anticipates the return of Christ at the end of the ages, and the whole cycle begins anew with Advent.

What time is it? It is the beginning of a new Church Year. It is a time of God’s grace. How fortunate we are to be bathed in that grace.

Father Matera