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 Second week in Ordinary Time
Letter to the Hebrews 7,1-3.15-17.
And Abraham apportioned to him "a tenth of everything." His name first means righteous king, and he was also "king of Salem," that is, king of peace.
Without father, mother, or ancestry, without beginning of days or end of life, thus made to resemble the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.
It is even more obvious if another priest is raised up after the likeness of Melchizedek,
who has become so, not by a law expressed in a commandment concerning physical descent but by the power of a life that cannot be destroyed.
For it is testified: "You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek."
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 3,1-6.
They watched him closely to see if he would cure him on the sabbath so that they might accuse him.
He said to the man with the withered hand, "Come up here before us."
Then he said to them, "Is it lawful to do good on the sabbath rather than to do evil, to save life rather than to destroy it?" But they remained silent.
Looking around at them with anger and grieved at their hardness of heart, he said to the man, "Stretch out your hand." He stretched it out and his hand was restored.
The Pharisees went out and immediately took counsel with the Herodians against him to put him to death.
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
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