The worship of the Catholic Church follows a calendar that is based on a cycle of liturgical seasons plus saints’ days celebrated throughout the year.
Just as we mark our lives by anniversaries, the Church celebrates the mysteries of Christ’s life in a recurrent pattern. Within the cycle of a year the Church remembers and celebrates Christ’s conception, birth, death, resurrection and sending of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.
During the course of the year we bring to mind past events and people to keep the mystery of faith alive today and we look forward to Christ’s return in glory at the end of time. As pilgrim people, we are constantly nourished by the story of Jesus and guided by the saints, our ancestors in the faith, living witness of God’s unchanging love.
In some respects the church’s way of keeping time conflicts with the secular calendar. The new liturgical year begins on the first Sunday of Advent at the end of November, just as many other things like the academic year are coming to an end.
The seasons of the liturgical year are:
Advent marks the beginning of the liturgical calendar. It consists of the four Sundays leading up to Christmas.
Today's Liturgy
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Wednesday of the Fifteenth week in Ordinary Time
Book of Isaiah 10,5-7.13-16.
Against an impious nation I send him, and against a people under my wrath I order him To seize plunder, carry off loot, and tread them down like the mud of the streets.
But this is not what he intends, nor does he have this in mind; Rather, it is in his heart to destroy, to make an end of nations not a few.
and the boastfulness of his haughty eyes. For he says: "By my own power I have done it, and by my wisdom, for I am shrewd. I have moved the boundaries of peoples, their treasures I have pillaged, and, like a giant, I have put down the enthroned.
My hand has seized like a nest the riches of nations; As one takes eggs left alone, so I took in all the earth; No one fluttered a wing, or opened a mouth, or chirped!"
Will the axe boast against him who hews with it? Will the saw exalt itself above him who wields it? As if a rod could sway him who lifts it, or a staff him who is not wood!
Therefore the Lord, the LORD of hosts, will send among his fat ones leanness, And instead of his glory there will be kindling like the kindling of fire.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 11,25-27.
Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will.
All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him."
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
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