The Liturgical Year
This weekend we celebrate the 30th Week in Ordinary Time. There are only four more weeks of Ordinary Time and then we will begin a new liturgical year! Each year begins with the 1st Sunday of Advent and ends with the 34th Sunday of Ordinary Time, also known as the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. (Well, technically each year ends with the Saturday of the 34th Week in Ordinary Time.) Every year, our parish distributes liturgical wall calendars donated by Desnoyer Funeral Home. I thought it would be a great time to learn more about the Church’s calendar.
The calendar the Universal Catholic Church is based on the General Roman Calendar (GRC). General means that it is for the entire church.
The liturgical year consists of a seasonal cycle or the Proper of Time and a sanctoral cycle or the Proper of Saints. Both are organized and published in the liturgical calendar we receive.
The Proper of Time celebrates the “Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ—his suffering, death, and resurrection— (and) is continuously proclaimed and renewed through celebrating the events of his life and in the feasts of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the saints.” (From the USCCB, Liturgical Year & Calendar) It is made up of six seasons:
Advent – The four weeks of preparation before the celebration of Christmas.
Christmas – The Birth of Jesus Christ and his manifestation to the world.
Lent – The six-week period of penance before Easter.
Sacred Paschal Triduum – The holiest “Three Days” of the Church’s year, where the
Christian people recall the suffering, death, and resurrection of Jesus.
Easter – 50 days of joyful celebration of the Lord’s resurrection from the dead and his
sending forth of the Holy Spirit.
Ordinary Time – Divided into two sections (one span of 4-8 weeks after Christmas Time and another lasting about six months after Easter Time), during which the faithful reflect on the fullness of Jesus’ teachings and works among his people.
The Proper of the Saints celebrates the lives of Mary and the saints. The USCCB defines a saint as “the title given to someone who has been formally canonized by the Church as sharing eternal life with God, and therefore offered for public veneration and imitation.” The Church gives us these saints as an example of how to live a proper Christian life. All saints are categorized as either a martyr (one who dies for the Faith) or a confessor (one who lives a virtuous life and dies a natural death.) In circa AD 197, Tertullian, a Christian apologist and early church father wrote, “The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.” The majority of our saints were martyrs. Besides, our patron, St. John the Evangelist, all saints of the early Church were martyrs. It wasn’t until the 4th century of the Church that St. Martin of Tours (c.316-397) was the first non-martyr to be proclaimed a saint!
Saints of the early Church (before the institution of the modern investigation process performed by the Church) were canonized by local bishops, often as a result of popular devotion by the laity. On January 22, 1588, Pope Sixtus V instituted the formal canonization of saints in the Catholic Church. If you wish to know more about this process see https://www.usccb.org/offices/public-affairs/saints.
The Catholic Church recognizes over 10,000 saints. According to the Holy See, Pope John Paull II canonized 482 saints, Pope Benedict XVI canonized 45 saints and Pope Francis 926! While all of these 1,453 saint’s names have been added to the Roman Martyrology, only a small fraction have been added to the General Roman Calendar, which mentions only a very limited selection of canonized saints. It would be too much of a burden to the average Catholic to celebrate each and every saint in the Roman Martyrology. In 1969, Pope Paul VI, revised the General Roman Calendar and removed about 200 saints from the calendar. There is a common misconception that these saints, (e.g., Barbara, Christopher and Valentine) were “unsainted” or that veneration of them was “suppressed,” but this is not true. We, as Catholics, are still able to observe the feast days of these saints privately.
So what gets a saint on the General Roman Calendar? Although I was unable to locate a list of criteria, just by studying those on the calendar one can recognize certain categories:
Mary and her feasts
the Apostles
Significant early saints such as St. Stepen, the 1st Martyr
Patron Saints of Countries
Founder of significant religious orders
The first martyrs or confessors of a country or large region
When you receive your liturgical calendar this year, take some time to look closely at the saints. If you also have a daily missal, these usually contain a section called the “Proper of Saints” with a short paragraph about each saint. Or, visit the site called Catholic Saints.info at https://catholicsaints.info/. This site has a wealth of information.
May the Liturgical Year of 2025 be a fruitful one for each of you!