LIBBY: The world is made up of rhythms,
the stages of human life, of birth and death,
of everyday highs and lows.
KAI: The rhythm of the seasons,
of sunset and sunrise.
LIBBY: The cycles of the moon, the tides,
the orbits of the planets.
KAI: Held up like a mirror to all these rhythms
is a special calendar.
It's the calendar of the Liturgical year
of the Catholic church.
(upbeat music)
KAI: I'm Kai.
LIBBY: And I'm Libby, and today on Catholic Central
we're talking about the Church's Liturgical year.
KAI: And looking at the questions
"Why are we talking about it?" and "What does it do for me?"
LIBBY: Let's start with the word Liturgy.
Liturgy comes from a Greek word meaning public service.
The Catholic Mass is often referred to as the Liturgy.
KAI: There are eight seasons in the Liturgical year.
Advent, Christmas, Ordinary Time, Lent, Holy Week,
Easter, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time again.
You might guess the year starts
with Christmas or Easter, right?
Wrong.
Actually it starts with Advent,
the four weeks leading up to Christmas.
LIBBY: Advent connects with the very human experience
of hopeful beginnings, of setting out,
looking forward to new life, and anticipating opportunities.
Like getting accepted to college or
planning a vacation.
KAI: Each Sunday in Advent
represents a different aspect of anticipation.
On the first, second and fourth Sundays,
priests wear purple vestments.
LIBBY: Purple represents prayer and contemplation.
Setting out on any journey we pray and reflect,
asking God to strengthen our hearts for what is to come.
KAI: On the third Sunday in Advent,
the clergy wear rose vestments.
Because everyone looks good in rose.
Am I right?
LIBBY: Because rose represents joy.
In this case, the joy of what lies ahead
in the manger in Bethlehem.
KAI: Which brings us to everybody's favorite season
KAI: Lent. LIBBY: Christmas.
It's Christmas.
The birth of Jesus.
The welcoming of new life, light, and love into the world.
Even people who don't believe in Jesus
feel that extra love that spills out everywhere
from the celebrations of His birth.
KAI: Christmas, as we all know, is on December 25th,
but what you might not know
is that in Catholic Church Christmas Day
is just the beginning of the celebration.
The Christmas season lasts until
the feast of the baptism of Jesus,
which is in January.
LIBBY: That's why Catholics
often have their decorations up
long after others have taken theirs down.
The traditional song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas,"
starts on Christmas Day
and goes to the Feast of the Epiphany.
The coming of the Magi, the three kings to visit Jesus.
♪ On the first day of Christmas my true love ♪
KAI: Thank you, thank you, thank you, Libby.
KAI: Thank you for that so much. LIBBY: You're welcome.
KAI: Thank you. LIBBY: Anytime.
KAI: But that song is an example
of how the symbols of Christmas have deeper meaning,
like Nativity scenes portray the humble circumstances
of Jesus' birth.
LIBBY: Christmas lights and candles
reflect how Jesus brings the light to the darkness,
and priests wear white vestments
to signify the purity of Christ,
and those gifts underneath the tree,
they represent the three kings bringing gifts
to the baby Jesus.
KAI: Christmas is unique
and it's joy and it's hope,
but there are other seasons in our life, too,
in which we experience the start of a new life,
like a honeymoon, or a new job.
Christmas reminds us of these phases in life
that we share with God.
LIBBY: After Christmas is Ordinary Time.
KAI: (sigh) Good old Ordinary Time,
so humble, so plain.
Hum hum.
LIBBY: Ordinary Time doesn't mean boring,
it means ordered time, from the Latin Ordinalis.
It represents living life as it unfolds,
and as we grow in experience and wisdom.
KAI: Liturgically this is when we walk with Jesus.
The readings of Church
focus on Christ's daily life and teaching.
LIBBY: Our own experiences of the ordinary can include
the middle of a semester,
or a time in our careers when there are no major changes.
It's the experience of ourselves, others,
and God in ordinary ways.
No big crisis, no super ecstasies,
yet these are still important times of learning and growing.
Next up is everybody's most challenging season
KAI: Christmas. LIBBY: Lent.
Seriously what-- KAI: What?
I like Lent.
LIBBY: I give up.
KAI: That's the spirit.
Giving things up for Lent is part of the Lenten tradition
of fasting, prayer, and alms giving, or acts of charity.
It can really be great for spiritual growth,
having more of a compassion than we wanna have
all year round.
LIBBY: Lent is the 40 days leading up to Easter.
On Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent,
ashes are distributed to remind of the cycle
of our earthly life.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Priests wear purple vestments
to represents penitence and sacrifice.
KAI: And Lent represents the forty days Jesus spent
fasting in the desert tempted by the devil.
It can be a season of self discovery for Catholics
when they can learn what they hunger for,
what they are blind to,
and what they need to let go of in their lives.
LIBBY: Lent isn't easy, but it's good for the soul.
KAI: Which brings us to Holy Week
and the Holy Paschal Triduum.
It starts with Holy Thursday
which is the celebration of the Last Supper,
then Good Friday, the day Jesus was tried,
killed on a cross, and laid in a tomb,
and Holy Saturday, when it seemed to the followers of Jesus
that all was lost.
LIBBY: The days of Triduum
speak powerfully to the experience of loss and death,
the times that seem impossible to recover from
like getting fired, failing in school,
or having a break up with someone close.
KAI: It's an amazingly intense three days
and they lead to the season of Easter,
the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus.
LIBBY: Which begins on the Vigil of Easter,
a beautiful celebration the late night before Easter Sunday.
KAI: And my favorite mass of the year.
LIBBY: It's great.
KAI: Fun fact, Easter falls on the first Sunday
after the first full moon after the Vernal Equinox.
LIBBY: Whoa. (egyptian music)
Trippy.
KAI: Actually, we do that
because the Passover Jesus celebrated on Holy Thursday
would have fallen in accord with the Jewish Lunar Calendar.
Easter, the rising of Jesus from the dead,
is about renewal and rebirth,
the universal rhythm of darkness to light,
winter to spring, death to new life.
It's about rebuilding after something tragic
and finding hope after loss.
LIBBY: And just like it takes time after losing a loved one,
or recooperating after a serious illness,
it takes time to learn how to live out
the hope of the resurrection of Jesus.
The 50 days of Easter
allows us the time and space
to forge new hope and new way of being.
KAI: On that 50th day after Easter comes Pentecost,
which means 50th day,
and which celebrates the descent of the Holy Spirit
on the First Apostles.
LIBBY: The Holy Spirit is represented
as breath, fire, or a dove.
It fills His disciples with a new power
to communicate and spread the gospel.
KAI: It can be a Pentecost experience
when, in our own lives,
we recognize how to use the gifts that God gives us.
LIBBY: Easter is like finding acceptance in a new school.
Pentecost is when we start to make friends and get involved.
KAI: And after Pentecost, we come full circle
to another season of Ordinary Time.
The readings and rites of the Church year
are a spiritual framework
for the day of the greatest joy, or the worst nightmare.
And always it reminds transformation is coming.
LIBBY: God gives new life, death is not the end the story,
and resurrection is promised.
I'm Libby from Catholic Central.
KAI: And I'm Kai.
Until next time.
Keep your eye on the calendar.
(mysterious music)
(upbeat music)