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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Tuesday of the Eighteenth week in Ordinary Time
Book of Jeremiah 30,1-2.12-15.18-22.
Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel: Write all the words I have spoken to you in a book.
For thus says the LORD: Incurable is your wound, grievous your bruise;
There is none to plead your cause, no remedy for your running sore, no healing for you.
All your lovers have forgotten you, they do not seek you. I struck you as an enemy would strike, punished you cruelly;
Why cry out over your wound? your pain is without relief. Because of your great guilt, your numerous sins, I have done this to you.
Thus says the LORD: See! I will restore the tents of Jacob, his dwellings I will pity; City shall be rebuilt upon hill, and palace restored as it was.
From them will resound songs of praise, the laughter of happy men. I will make them not few, but many; they will not be tiny, for I will glorify them.
His sons shall be as of old, his assembly before me shall stand firm; I will punish all his oppressors.
His leader shall be one of his own, and his rulers shall come from his kin. When I summon him, he shall approach me; how else should one take the deadly risk of approaching me? says the LORD.
You shall be my people, and I will be your God.
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Matthew 15,1-2.10-14.
Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They do not wash (their) hands when they eat a meal.
He summoned the crowd and said to them, "Hear and understand.
It is not what enters one's mouth that defiles that person; but what comes out of the mouth is what defiles one."
Then his disciples approached and said to him, "Do you know that the Pharisees took offense when they heard what you said?"
He said in reply, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted.
Let them alone; they are blind guides (of the blind). If a blind person leads a blind person, both will fall into a pit."
Copyright © Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, USCCB
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