The cycles and feasts of the liturgical year celebrate a Christian understanding of time. It is an incarnational understanding of time, meaning that God continues to be revealed in the experiences and events of our lives today. Many liturgical texts and rites point to this incarnational reality: the events celebrated are neither exclusively past nor future events. For example, Christmas, the birth of Jesus, though rooted in the past, is experienced in the present in such a way that we are part of the experience. We remember the Jesus story in such a way that the risen Christ is revealed to us now through our living of the liturgical year.

When the Christian community gathers, it does not simply commemorate what happened in the past but the community also looks to be moved forward by its ritual. Liturgy is transformative—we are transformed as individuals while the old world is transformed and a new one emerges, the reign of God introduced by Jesus.


Advent
The liturgical year begins with the First Sunday of Advent. This season continues through the four Sundays of Advent and ends at Christmas Eve. It is a time to prepare our hearts to "receive" Jesus into our lives once again in the celebration of Christmas.


Christmas
The actual date on which the Jesus was born is not known; December 25 is a symbolic date, coming five days after the winter solstice. We celebrate Jesus birth, the coming of the Light of the World, just after the darkest point of the solar year. Christmas is a holy day second only to Easter in our liturgical year.

The Octave of Christmas begins with Christmas day and ends with the celebration of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God, eight days later on January 1.

Epiphany, celebrated January 6, commemorates the recognition of Jesus as the Son of God by the three Wise Men. The season of Christmas ends on the Monday after the Solemnity of the Baptism of the Jesus (the Sunday following January 6), which signifies the purification of the world, through Christ himself.


Ordinary Time
Two periods in the Roman calendar are called Ordinary Time: the few weeks between the end of the Christmas season (the Monday after the Baptism of Jesus) and Ash Wednesday, and the months between the end of the Easter season (the Monday after Pentecost) and the beginning of Advent. This is ordinary time because it is not part of any special liturgical season. Many feast days and solemnities occur in Ordinary Time; weekdays during Ordinary Time on which no solemnities, feasts, or memorials of saints fall are called ferial days.


Lent
The liturgical season of Lent lasts for 40 weekdays in remembrance of the 40 days and nights that Christ spent fasting in the desert, tempted by Satan. The date of Ash Wednesday, when Lent begins, depends on the date of Easter.

Lent is a time of penance, so that the faithful may share in the joys of Easter Sunday with purity of heart. The three traditional forms of penance are fasting, prayer, and almsgiving. We remember Christ’s passion for our redemption and our promise in baptism to renounce sin and live a holy life in service of the people of God.

Because of the seriousness of Lent and our sorrow and repentance, Alleluia is not said in prayer or sung in liturgy during this time.


Easter
The season of Easter begins at the Easter Vigil, the Saturday night before Easter Sunday. The week before Easter is Holy Week and it begins with Passion Sunday (Palm Sunday). On Passion Sunday the Church celebrates Christ’s riding into Jerusalem on a road strewn with cloaks and leafy branches as he set about to fulfill his mission. The week culminates with the Triduum (meaning three-day period) that includes Good Friday, Holy Saturday, and Easter itself.

The Triduum begins with the celebration of the Last Supper on Holy Thursday. The following day, Good Friday, is the most somber day of the liturgical year, for it commemorates Christ buried in his tomb. The tabernacle is empty, and the altar is stripped. The Triduum intensifies at Easter Vigil on Holy Saturday, a liturgy that begins in darkness until the Gloria is sung with a chorus of Alleluias. Christ is risen!

The Easter season continues for 50 days and comes to a close on the Monday after Pentecost Sunday (from the Greek pentekoste, fiftieth day) on which we celebrate the descent of the Holy Spirit. Ordinary Time then begins again.



The saints are presented to believers as role models whose lives are worthy to be imitated. When we look at the lives of those who have faithfully followed Christ, we are inspired ourselves to follow Christ ourselves.

Certain saints are called Doctors of the Church. This means that the writings and preaching of such a person show a particular depth of understanding and reflect the orthodoxy of their theological teachings.

A martyr is a person who dies for their faith rather than denounce Christ even though it might save his or her life.



Feast days are celebrated in commemoration of the mysteries and events recorded in the history of our redemption, in memory of Mary, the Mother of God,, or of the apostles, martyrs, and saints. A feast not only commemorates an event or person, but also serves to animate the spiritual life by reminding us of the event or person it commemorates.
They can be designated as solemnities, which have the highest rank in the liturgical calendar, and memorials, a simpler remembrance of a person or event.