Division Of The Ecclesiastical Year.

Text from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal,
unless stated otherwise.

The Ecclesiastical Year begins on The First Sunday of Advent and ends on the Saturday following The Twenty-Fourth Sunday After Pentecost.

It is composed of Liturgical Seasons, or Times.

THE TEMPORAL CYCLE, or, PROPER OF THE TIME, reveals Our Lord to us in the Traditional setting of the great mysteries of our Holy Religion.

Simultaneously with this TEMPORAL CYCLE, is a secondary one, called THE SANCTORAL CYCLE, or, PROPER OF THE SAINTS, because it is composed of all the Feasts of those Blessed Souls in which the work of the redemption is already accomplished.

This Circle, or Cycle, is divided into two parts: 

That of Christmas and that of Easter.

Both of the Cycles containing these two great Feasts 

are divided into three periods: 

The time before the Feast;

The time during the Feast;

The time after the Feast.

Thus having for its aim:

To prepare the Soul for the Feasts;

Then to allow the Soul to Celebrate the Feasts with Solemnity;

And, finally, to prolong the Feast for several weeks.

Advent is comprised of four weeks, during which, 

with the Patriarchs and Prophets, we long for the Advent, 

or coming, of Our Lord.

Christmas brings before our eyes:

The Birth of The Word Incarnate, Who is born in us by Grace;

And The Epiphany, or His Manifestation to the World.

The Time After Epiphany includes from one to five Sundays; 

it recalls to us the hidden life of Christ at Nazareth, and manifests to us His Divinity.

This Cycle depends upon the Easter Moon 

and begins between 18 January and 22 February.

Nine weeks lead us up to the Great Feast of Easter.

These weeks are divided into three periods:

Septuagesima.

During three weeks, brings before us the Public Life of Our Lord and, with Lent, which follows it, gives us a summary of it.

Lent.

Which begins on Ash Wednesday, represents by forty days 

of Penance, the forty days’ Fast of Our Lord in the desert, 

in which we participate.

Passiontide.

Which comprises the last two weeks of Lent and brings home to us the last sufferings of Christ and His Death on The Cross. That, with Him, we may die to our sins.

Paschaltide.

Permits us to participate in the greatest of all the Feasts. 

It is at Easter, with its Privileged Octave, that our Soul, 

risen with Christ, lives with Him during forty days, 

whilst He Founds The Church and then ascends to Heaven 

on Ascension Day.

The Feast of Pentecost closes this period with the 

descent of The Holy Ghost into our Souls.

The Time After Pentecost.

Shows us during twenty-four weeks the fruits of holiness which The Holy Ghost and The Blessed Sacrament cause to develop in The Church and her Saints to the end of the World.

This last event is brought before us on 

the Last Sunday After Pentecost.

The Feast of Easter, the centre of the year, is

always Celebrated on the Sunday after the fourteenth day

of the March Moon. This day is counted only from the

twenty-first of March.

If it is Full Moon before the twenty-first of March, 

the Paschal Moon will be the following one; hence, 

the difference sometimes of a month.

In other words, the extreme dates for the Celebration of Easter are the twenty-second of March and the twenty-fifth of April.

The Sanctoral Cycle will follow in due course.