At first glance, it might not seem like it, but this is one of the most important questions a human being can ask!
Thankfully, there’s an Anglican answer! Or better, there is a Christian answer, which the Anglican tradition helps proclaim!
Keeping Sacred Time: The Liturgical Year
Whereas many world religions seek salvation as an escape from time, Christianity proclaims salvation as a redemption of time (Schmemann, For the Life of the World, 47-8).
Keeping sacred time did not begin with the Christian movement, however, for the Church calendar traces its origins to the principal feasts of Judaism:
- the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Passover; Deut 16:1-8),
- the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost; Deut 16:9-12), and
- the Feast of Booths (Deut 16:13-17).
In order to commemorate God’s redemptive acts and continual blessings, these three feast days required special worship at the temple in Jerusalem. According to Christians, however, the redemptive acts of God commemorated in Judaism find their fulfillment in God’s invasion of and triumph over time through Jesus Christ.
Much like the gospel the Church proclaims, the calendar the Church keeps revolves around these two divine movements:
- the invasion of the Incarnation, and
- the triumph of the Resurrection.
The former is remembered through the Christmas cycle, from Advent until Lent, and the latter through the Paschal/Easter cycle, from Lent until Pentecost (Mitchell, “Sanctifying Time: The Calendar,” in The Oxford Guide to the Book of Common Prayer, 476-7).
The Incarnation (Christmas Cycle): from Advent to Lent
Advent
The Church year begins with Advent, a season which encompasses four weeks of preparation – first to await Christ’s second advent to judge the living and the dead (2 Pet 3:11-14; 1 John 3:2-3), but also to celebrate his first advent at the Incarnation.
Just as the Israelites awaited a Messiah to fulfill God’s promises from Genesis 3:15 to Jeremiah 31:31-34 and beyond, so Christians await the return of Jesus the Messiah to renew all things (Rev 21).
(If you’d like to learn more about Advent, click here to read our Rookie Anglican Guide.)
Christmas
Christmastide begins with the Nativity of Our Lord Jesus Christ on December 25, and extends for twelve days of celebrating the Incarnation (John 1:17).
(To learn more about the 12 days of Christmas, click here to read our Rookie Anglican Guide.)
Epiphany
Epiphanytide begins with the Epiphany of Our Lord Jesus Christ on January 06, and extends to the Presentation of Our Lord Jesus Christ [at the Temple; Luke 2:22-52] on February 02.
This season commemorates the revelation of Christ to the Gentiles in fulfillment of prophecy (Isa 60:1-3), as exemplified in the visitation of the Magi (Matt 2:1-12; McKenzie, The Anglican Way, 127-8).
(If you’d like to learn more about Epiphany and Epiphanytide, click here to read our Rookie Anglican Guide.)
The Resurrection (Easter/Paschal Cycle): from Lent to Pentecost
Lent
Just as the Christmas cycle begins with a season of preparation, so the Paschal cycle begins with Lent –the period of fasting and penitence from Ash Wednesday until Holy Saturday.
Because Lent lasts for forty days, not counting the six Sundays which are celebrations of the Resurrection, it recalls Christ’s fasting during temptation in the wilderness (Matt 4:1-11).
(To learn more about Lent, click here to read our Rookie Anglican Guide.)
Holy Week
The last week of Lent, Holy Week, remembers the last week of Christ’s earthly life, beginning with Palm Sunday’s commemoration of Jesus’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem (Matt 21:1-11).
(If you’d like to learn more about Holy Week, click here to read our Rookie Anglican Guide.)
The Triduum (“Three Days”)
The Paschal Triduum (“three days”) begins on the evening of Maundy Thursday and lasts until evening on Easter Sunday. It includes:
- Maundy Thursday (commemorating the institution of the Eucharist at the Last Supper [Matt 26:20-35] and Christ’s washing of the disciples’ feet [John 13:1-15]),
- Good Friday (a commemoration of the Crucifixion; Matt 27:27-54),
- Holy Saturday (remembering Christ’s time in the tomb), and
- Easter Sunday, which celebrates the triumphal Resurrection of Christ from the dead (Matt 28:1-20).
Eastertide
Eastertide then lasts for fifty days – first for forty days until the remembrance of Christ’s Ascension to the Father’s right hand (Acts 1:1-11), and then for ten more days until the commemoration of the Holy Spirit’s descent at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-41).
This season emphasizes the typological fulfillment of the feasts of Unleavened Bread and Weeks in the Christian celebrations of Easter Sunday and Pentecost (Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy, 339).
(To learn more about the Great Fifty Days of Eastertide, click here to read our Rookie Anglican Guide.)
“Ordinary” Time: The Season after Pentecost
The time between Trinity Sunday (the Sunday after Pentecost, focusing upon the Triune identity of God) and Christ the King Sunday (the Sunday before Advent, proclaiming Christ’s Lordship)—from approximately June through November—is called the Season after Pentecost, or Ordinary (numbered) Time.
This remainder of the liturgical year is “the time in which the church is to live out its calling in the world, fulfilling the mission of God” (Chan, Liturgical Theology, 164). Instructed in the school of sacred time, Christians go forth to love and serve the broken world which God has invaded, and over which He triumphs.
(If you’d like to learn more about the Season after Pentecost, click here to read our Rookie Anglican Guide.)
God bless You!
Can you recommend a few books to help me better understand the Liturgical Year and Calendar?
Thank you,
Patrick Halferty
Pastor, Christian Life Center
Chipman, NB
CANADA
Hi Patrick,
The Wikipedia article for the Liturgical Year is a good place to start: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liturgical_year
Also, check out The Anglican Way by Thomas McKenzie, specifically pages 124 and following: http://www.amazon.com/Anglican-Way-Guidebook-Thomas-McKenzie/dp/0996049908
Finally, Ancient-Future Time: Forming Spirituality through the Christian Year by Robert Webber: http://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Future-Time-Forming-Spirituality-Christian/dp/0801091756
Hope that helps!
Thank you!
Joshua, I’ve seen, heard, and read that on Ash Wednesday a grey, or ashen colored stole is appropriate. Have you ever come across that before? A couple of years ago I ordered a box-lot of “vintage stoles”, one was ashen, with a red heart sewn to it. Good post, simple to understand.
Dale, very interesting! I haven’t come across that before. I’m more familiar with a Tenebrae service at which choir dress is worn…a tippet in place of a stole.
This article was really, really helpful to me as I’m editing a newcomer’s guide to our Anglican church, and I’m trying to introduce the church calendar in a helpful and concise way. May I use some of the language you present, especially the “invasion of and triumph over time” idea, citing this article?
Thanks,
Scott DeLong
Communications Director
Imago Dei Anglican Church
Hi Scott! Thanks for letting us know that you enjoy the piece. Feel free to use the language if you’d be so kind as to cite this article! Blessings to you and your ministry.
Two things is like to come in on: 1. Interspersed with all of the festivals which celebrate the life of Jesus (I lived your way of describing them as invasion and triumph!) we also have feasts of various saints which are really a commemoration if what the Holy Spirit has been up to for the last two thousand years. 2. Dale Hall mentioned “ashen” colored vestments. These are called “Lenten Array” and are the older traditional color for Lent according to the medieval practice of Salisbury Cathedral (called the Sarum Use). Must modern Anglican churches use the simpler color scheme that Rome was using in the 20th century. The Parson’s Handbook by Percy Dearmer does a good job of explaining the Sarum Use, though he’s pretty prejudiced.
Thanks for this, especially the Lenten color information!
Why is the Anglican Liturgical Year different than the Catholic Liturgical Year?
Hi Annie! Thanks for this question. Apart from a few specific feast days dedicated to particular saints, the Anglican liturgical year is actually very similar to the (Roman) Catholic liturgical year. Do you have any specific differences in mind that you’d like to know more about? Read this overview of the Anglican Calendar of Saints by Ben Jefferies to learn more: https://anglicancompass.com/the-calendar-of-saints-a-rookie-anglican-guide/
Hello Joshua, thanks for this excellent information.
I would like to import a calendar of the liturgical year into our online calendar for the Church Council, rather than have to laboriously write all the Sundays in by hand (or rather keyboard). Do you happen to know of one? A Google search hasn’t found anything.