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Course 3 · Lesson 4.4

The church year: Advent to Pentecost and the ordinary weeks

9 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 3 outline

Module 1: The Idea of a Rule

  1. What a rule of life is, and what it is for
  2. Pachomius and the first written rule
  3. Basil of Caesarea and his Rules
  4. Benedict: the Rule as a school of the Lord’s service
  5. Adapting a monastic rule for ordinary life

Module 2: The Hours and the Psalms

  1. Origins of fixed-hour prayer in Jewish and early Christian practice
  2. The Divine Office in the West and the hours in the East
  3. How to pray the Psalms: lament, praise, trust, wisdom and imprecation
  4. Building a simple office for one person

Module 3: Scripture and the Prayer of the Heart

  1. Lectio divina: reading, meditation, prayer and contemplation
  2. Meditative reading compared with study and with Ignatian imaginative prayer
  3. The Jesus Prayer: its words, its history and its Eastern setting
  4. Practicing the prayer of the heart, with its cautions

Module 4: Fasting, Giving, Rest and the Year

  1. Fasting in Scripture and tradition, and its safe limits
  2. Almsgiving and care for the poor
  3. Sabbath rest and the Lord’s Day: how traditions differ
  4. The church year: Advent to Pentecost and the ordinary weeks

Module 5: Conscience, Confession and Worship Alone

  1. Examination of conscience: methods old and new
  2. Confession in the Catholic, Orthodox and Protestant traditions
  3. Repentance, confession to God and to a trusted person when no minister is available
  4. What worship alone can include: prayer, Scripture, song, the hours
  5. What the traditions say requires a church or ordained minister

Module 6: Seasons and Ordinary Duties

  1. Silence as a discipline and its dangers
  2. Planning a day, a weekend and a longer retreat
  3. Work as part of the rule: ora et labora
  4. Hospitality, family and neighbor

Module 7: Dryness, Perseverance and Review

  1. Dryness and the dark night: what the tradition teaches
  2. Acedia: Evagrius, Cassian and the noonday demon
  3. Doubt and perseverance
  4. Accountability for a rule of life
  5. Reviewing and revising a rule at thirty days, ninety days and one year

All courses

Program / Course 3: The Rule of Life / Lesson 4.4

What you will learn

  • Name the seasons of the Western church year and what each commemorates.
  • Explain how the Orthodox year differs, including the dating of Easter.
  • Describe how traditions differ on whether to keep the church year at all.
  • Plan a simple way for one person to follow the seasons.

The big idea

The church year is a yearly cycle of seasons that retells the life of Christ: waiting at Advent, birth at Christmas, manifestation at Epiphany, repentance in Lent, death and resurrection at Holy Week and Easter, and the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost, followed by ordinary weeks. Catholics, Orthodox, Lutherans, Anglicans and Methodists keep it. Many other Protestants keep only a few days or none. A person can follow the seasons alone by choosing readings, prayers and practices that fit each.

Key terms

Liturgical year
The church’s annual cycle of seasons and feasts, also called the church year.
Advent
The season of preparation before Christmas, beginning on the fourth Sunday before December 25 in the West.
Lent
The forty days of repentance before Easter, not counting Sundays in the Western reckoning.
Triduum
The three days from Holy Thursday evening to Easter, commemorating the Last Supper, the cross and the resurrection.
Pascha
The Greek and Slavic name for Easter, from the Hebrew word for Passover.
Ordinary Time
In the Western calendar, the weeks outside the major seasons, numbered rather than named.

Background

The church year grew over centuries from two roots: the weekly celebration of the resurrection on Sunday and the yearly celebration of Easter. By the second century Christians kept an annual Easter, though they disagreed on its date. The Council of Nicaea in 325 addressed the dating. Over time other seasons arose: Lent as a period of preparation, Christmas and Epiphany in the fourth century, Advent in the fifth and sixth centuries in the West, and Pentecost, which appears in Acts 2 and was kept early.

The year serves as a way of living inside the Gospel story. Each year the church tells it again, and each person is invited to retell it in their own life. The tradition is not a set of demands but a rhythm. Christians who keep it find that it gives variety and depth to daily prayer. Christians who do not keep it often worry that it adds to Scripture what it does not command, as Paul warned about observing days (Galatians 4:10; Colossians 2:16). Those who keep it answer that they keep the days freely and for love of Christ.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The Western cycle

Advent begins the year. It lasts about four weeks and looks toward both the birth of Christ and his coming again. The tone is hopeful and quiet. Christmas begins on December 25 and runs twelve days to Epiphany on January 6, which recalls the visit of the magi, the baptism of Jesus and his first signs. Ordinary Time follows until Lent.

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday and lasts until Holy Week. It is a season of repentance, prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday and includes Maundy or Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Easter Sunday begins the fifty days of Easter, which end at Pentecost, when the church remembers the gift of the Spirit (Acts 2). After Pentecost Ordinary Time resumes until Advent.

Step 2: The Orthodox year

The Orthodox church year begins on September 1. At its center is Pascha, and it keeps twelve Great Feasts, including the Nativity of Christ, Theophany, the Annunciation, Palm Sunday, the Ascension, Pentecost and the Dormition of Mary. Great Lent leads to Holy Week and Pascha, and there are further fasting seasons.

Easter is often celebrated on a different date in the East and West. Most Orthodox churches calculate the date of Pascha using the older Julian calendar, which falls after the Western date in most years and sometimes coincides with it. Some Orthodox churches use a revised calendar for fixed feasts such as Christmas, and others keep the Julian calendar for all feasts. The differences are historical and not doctrinal.

Step 3: Traditions that do not keep the year

The Reformed tradition, particularly Puritans in England and Scotland, rejected holy days not commanded in Scripture and kept only Sunday. The Westminster Directory for Public Worship of 1645 did not include feast days. Many Baptists and others have followed this, though they often keep Christmas and Easter as popular observances. In recent decades many Protestants have rediscovered the seasons, especially Advent and Lent.

Lutherans, Anglicans and Methodists generally keep the year, with the Revised Common Lectionary, a three-year cycle of Scripture readings published in 1992 and used widely among them. Catholics use their own lectionary, with a Sunday cycle of three years and a weekday cycle of two.

Step 4: Following the year alone

A person alone can follow the year simply. Find the readings for each Sunday from a lectionary and read them during the week. Add a few seasonal practices: an Advent wreath or a quiet evening reading, a Lent practice of fasting and giving, a Holy Week reading of the Passion, and an Easter practice of joy and visiting. Use the Psalms suited to the season.

A solitary reader should also remember that the year is a communal pattern. Reading the same Sunday passages as other Christians connects the reader to them. Where a church is nearby and one is welcome, attending its services during Holy Week or Easter can be a good way to join the pattern with others. This course does not require it.

  1. Which season of the year do I find most meaningful, and which do I ignore?
  2. What does my tradition say about observing days and seasons?
  3. How might a season shape my daily prayer?
  4. Do I tend to rush from Christmas to Easter and skip Advent and Lent?
  5. Which practices from Lent could I carry through the rest of the year?
  6. How can I connect my private reading with the readings of other Christians?

Examples

Advent at home

A household lights one candle each Sunday evening for four weeks, reads a short passage from Isaiah and sits in silence for a few minutes. (A constructed example.)

Lent for one

A man gives up evening television during Lent, reads one Gospel through the forty days and sets aside the money he would have spent on entertainment to give to the poor at Easter. (A constructed example.)

Easter fifty days

A woman marks the fifty days after Easter by adding a psalm of praise to her morning prayer and by inviting a neighbor to dinner each week. (A constructed example.)

Different perspectives

The Catholic view

Catholics see the liturgical year as the unfolding of the mystery of Christ through time, with Sunday as the foundation and Easter as the center. The Church promotes observance of the seasons in worship and in home prayer.

The Orthodox view

Orthodox Christians experience the year as an entering into the events it commemorates. Pascha is the feast of feasts. Fasting and feasting follow the calendar, and the cycle is kept chiefly in the church’s services.

The Lutheran, Anglican and Methodist view

These traditions retain the seasons and a lectionary, seeing them as a help to proclamation and prayer, and as kept by freedom and church order.

The Reformed and free-church view

These traditions have often held that only Sunday is commanded and that other holy days risk adding to Scripture. Their members may still observe Christmas and Easter, and a number have taken up Advent and Lent as optional practices.

Why it matters

Time shapes attention. A person who lives only by the secular calendar of deadlines and sales lives in a different year from one who also keeps the Christian year. The seasons also give a rule variety, so that it does not become monotonous. They add themes of waiting, repentance and joy to the daily pattern.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: Easter and Christmas were borrowed entirely from pagan festivals.

Correction: The popular claim is stronger than the evidence. Scholars debate the origin of the December date, with some arguing for a calculation based on the date of the crucifixion and others for a link to Roman festivals. Easter is tied to Passover and the resurrection.

Misunderstanding: All Christians celebrate Easter on the same day.

Correction: East and West often differ because of different calendars used to compute the date. In some years they coincide.

Misunderstanding: Keeping the church year is required for salvation.

Correction: No tradition teaches this. The year is a help to devotion kept by church order or personal freedom.

Knowledge check

Name the main seasons of the Western church year.

Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Ordinary Time, Lent, Holy Week and the Triduum, Easter and Pentecost, followed by Ordinary Time again. Advent begins the year about four weeks before Christmas. Easter lasts fifty days to Pentecost. The center of the year is Easter.

Why do East and West often celebrate Easter on different dates?

Because most Orthodox churches calculate the date using the older Julian calendar, while Western churches use the Gregorian calendar. The calculations follow the same rule but yield different dates in most years. The difference is historical and not doctrinal.

Why did many Reformed Christians reject holy days?

They held that only the Lord’s Day is commanded in Scripture and that other holy days add human inventions to the worship of God. The Westminster Directory for Public Worship of 1645 included no feast days. In recent decades many have taken up Advent and Lent as optional practices.

How can one person follow the church year?

By reading the Sunday lectionary passages during the week, adding seasonal practices such as an Advent candle, a Lent discipline of fasting and giving, a Holy Week reading of the Passion and an Easter practice of joy, and choosing Psalms to suit the season. Joining a church for major days is also a good way.

Think it through

  1. Which season would add most to your present rule?
  2. What do you think of the idea of retelling the Gospel story each year?
  3. How would you answer a friend who says the church year is unbiblical?

Independent assignment

A year plan

In your notebook, write 300 to 450 words. List the seasons you would keep in the coming year and the date each begins. For each, name one practice of prayer, reading, fasting or giving. Note the readings or lectionary you will use. State which parts your tradition requires, encourages or leaves free. Do not post this.

Further study