The Church follows two calendars simultaneously. First, she
developed her liturgical year, as registered in the Proper of
the Season. When dating by the calendar months became customary,
she also developed her system of immovable Feasts in honour of
the Saints. And we refer to this combination of moveable and
immovable Feasts, this union of the Church's Year and the civil
calendar, as the Church Kalendar...
Each Churchman is expected to know the Church Year, just as he
knows the chief anniversary dates of his own family, without
having them in a printed form.
After the death and resurrection of our Lord, the event which
every Christian wished to celebrate was Christ's Easter victory
over pain, death, and sin. "This is the day which the Lord
hath made" was the passage from the Psalms which seemed
to describe Easter Day. Straightway they called the first day
of the week "The Lord's Day," and celebrated it as
the weekly Feast of our Lord's resurrection. The yearly anniversary
of Easter they kept for fifty days, ending with the Feast of
Pentecost (or Whitsunday) in honour of the Holy Ghost. For Easter
came at the time of the Jewish Feast of the Passover which after
fifty days was followed by the Jewish Pentecost. In preparation
for Easter, they kept a solemn commemoration of the Passion,
which finally grew into Lent and Passiontide. Eventually they
instituted a commemoration of the coming of Christ, first in
the form of the Feast of Epiphany, later still as the Feast of
his Nativity, on December 25th, just nine months after March
25th, the Feast of the Annunciation (which traditionally is also
the calendar month date of the Crucifixion). By the time the
immovable Feast of Christmas had been accepted, the Church found
herself committed to the calendar month system in addition to
her calendar of moveable Feasts.
Thus the liturgical year developed into three main cycles, in
honour of the three central mysteries of the Catholic religion.
A moment's thought makes clear that all Catholic doctrine is
focussed in three concentric mysteries, (a) the mystery of God
(namely, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity), (b) the mystery of
the Incarnation (which is the manifestation of God to us), and
(c) the mystery of the Church or of Sanctification (which reveals
to us how we are to attain God and his holiness).
Of course, these ideas overlap and are constantly repeated in
the Church Year. Even in Passiontide the Church does not use
a chronological method. Rather, she takes a theme and illustrates
it from many different angles, shewing thereby the inter-relationship
and unity of the Faith. The Church Year is like a great musical
composition, its main theme being thanksgiving (or Eucharist)
for God's goodness, with the minor themes of the three mysteries
being developed in and through each other.
The Church begins with the manifestation of God to the world
in the Person of Christ. First comes Advent, with its setting
forth of the three themes of preparation - (a) the preparation
of humanity for Christ's first advent to the world, (b) the preparation
of the Church for his second advent by a consideration of the
four last things (death, judgement, heaven, and hell), and (c)
the preparation of the individual soul for the coming of Christ
in the Christmas Communion. As a season of penitence the Advent
colour is violet.
Then comes the white of Christmas with its midnight, dawn, and
midday Masses, so tender and human in their appeal, followed
by three Feasts which remind one of the passion which Christians
must share - (a) the Martyr (exemplified in St. Stephen) who
suffers unto death, (b) the stalwart servant (exemplified in
the Beloved Disciple) who testifies throughout a long life of
service, and (c) the many (exemplified in the Holy Innocents)
who suffer unknowingly and without choice but who nevertheless
are part of Christ's glorious heritage of weakness made into
eternal triumph. The Octave Day shews us the divine Babe shedding
his first blood (the Circumcision). On January 6th under the
title of the Epiphany we celebrate the manifestation of Christ's
divinity made to humanity in the coming of the Magi, in his Baptism,
and in his first miracle. The Christmas season does not really
end until the Purification (Feb. 2nd), theoretically forty days
after the Nativity, and constituting the first course of forty
days in the Church Year. But after the Epiphany Octave begins
the ferial season known as Epiphanytide, which uses green as
does Trinitytide, and does not end unto Septuagesima comes with
its violet of penitence.
Thus is the cycle of the Incarnation ended, and a new cycle begun,
the cycle of redemption which manifests the mystery of sanctification,
or as it is better called, the mystery of the Church. This cycle
is the most interesting and varied of the three, with its tracing
out of the suffering and victory of Christ, the coming of the
Holy Spirit, and the founding of the Church whereby is revealed
to us the mystery of God and of his blessed will.
First there is an introduction, so that we may not leave the
joys of Christmas too suddenly for the penance of Lent. This
is the pre-Lenten (or Gesima) season of Septuagesima, Sexagesima,
and Quinquagesima, approximately seventy, sixty, and fifty days
before Easter. Then Lent begins with Ash Wednesday, and extends
for another period of forty days (i.e., not counting the Sundays
which are never fast days) through Passiontide and Holy Week,
and issues in the Queen of Feasts, the yearly anniversary of
Christ's Resurrection. Then comes the Great Forty Days (when
Christ again walked the earth), ending in the Ascension of Christ.
But Eastertide itself does not end until Pentecost (fifty days)
is finished with its Octave Day of Trinity Sunday whereon we
worship God in his final revelation of himself.
The foregoing cycle has been violet with penitence (from Septuagesima
till Easter, except for the black of Good Friday) and white in
honour of Christ the Immaculate, except for the red which is
used for the fire of the Holy Spirit during Whitsuntide. Trinity
Sunday is also white, as is the Feast on the Thursday after Trinity
Sunday, Corpus Christi, the day whereon the revelation of the
mystery of God is seen to be completed and fulfilled in the Blessed
Sacrament of the Altar.
Trinitytide is the third cycle, and deals with the mystery of
God and his blessed will in our lives. It uses green on Ferias,
as did Epiphanytide, and ends with the Sunday Next
before Advent,
when the glorious worship of the Church in the three cycles of
the mysteries of our Faith is begun again.
But all through these three cycles come the immovable Feasts
with their presentation of heroic servants of Christ ( the Apostles
and Evangelists, the Martyrs, the Confessors, the Virgins, the
Holy Women) and many commemorations of mysteries or of titles
of our Lord and our Lady, such as the Precious Blood or the Seven
Sorrows. For all Feasts in honour of martyrdom the Church uses
red. For other Feasts white.
The moveable Feasts, which so often occur throughout the year,
may seem to interrupt this gradual unfolding of the three-fold
mystery of our Faith (i.e., the doctrine of God, the Incarnation,
and the Church). But if we see the moveable Feasts against the
background of the Season, and thus think of them as evidence
of the Faith expressed in human life and action, they serve to
illustrate and illuminate this three-fold mystery. And let it
not be forgotten that we, as Catholic Christians, are an integral
part of this mystery, for St. Paul says that the Church is "the
fellowship of the mystery".