The Fourth Sunday of the Year - 31.01.2016

FATHER LIAM SAYS: If I were to ask you what time of year this is – apart from thinking what a stupid question to ask – you might say that we are in the middle of winter.  But for many people of course this is the middle of summer.  The calendar of the Church does not use words like winter and summer.  According to our present calendar Catholics all over the world are now in Ordinary Time.  We will remain in Ordinary Time until Ash Wednesday which is on 10^th February this year.  We will have to wait until 2027 for Ash Wednesday to be so early in the year again.  That might be too long to wait, so if we wait just three years we will be able to observe Ash Wednesday at the latest date possible – 6^th March.

Ash Wednesday sees out Ordinary Time every year because it ushers in Lent.  The term Ordinary Time (also known as time ‘throughout the year’) only came into existence in 1969 when the liturgical changes following the Second Vatican Council took effect.  The Latin name for Ordinary Time is ‘tempus per annum’ meaning ‘the time during the year.’  It means the time of year outside the two great seasons of the Church’s year – Christmas and Easter.  Roughly speaking about six months every year are devoted in one way or another to these two great seasons.  So, in all, there are also six months in Ordinary Time or Time Throughout the Year.  It is the time when in terms of Church festivals nothing special is happening.  The Church year begins roughly in November when the coming of Christ begins to be the focus of our celebration.  The great season of Christmas is prepared for during the four weeks of Advent and the Christmas Season concludes shortly after the Epiphany.

We then have several weeks of Ordinary Time which comes to an end with Ash Wednesday.  The timing of Ash Wednesday varies from year to year depending on when Easter occurs.  Since Easter is calculated after the fashion of the Jewish feast of the Passover and is connected with the time of the Spring full moon, it is very much a moveable feast.  Easter is the most important feast of the Church’s year and is prepared for by Lent – a period of six weeks.  Easter itself is celebrated over a seven week period culminating in Pentecost.  Easter-related feasts follow on the two subsequent Sundays – Trinity Sunday and the Feast of the Body and Blood of Christ, Corpus Christi.  After Corpus Christi we have another block of Ordinary Time which lasts well into November when Advent begins once again.

The number of weeks between the Epiphany and Ash Wednesday can vary significantly from year to year.  This year there are only five Sundays.  Next Sunday is in fact the Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time or Fifth Sunday of the Year as it is also called.  This year Easter Sunday falls on 27^th March.  This is even earlier than it will be in 2027 when it falls on 28^th March.  So I don’t expect to ever celebrate Easter on this earth as early as I will, God willing, this year. This date dictates that Ash Wednesday will be on 10^th February so St. Valentine’s Day will be in Lent!

Though we are shortly to move out of Ordinary Time we will return to it on 6^th June.   Before the term Ordinary Time was invented the Fourth Sunday of the Year would normally have been called the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, but it would not have been so called when Lent is as early as it is this year.  With Easter being in March the traditional name for today would have been Sexagesima Sunday – because it is roughly sixty days before Easter.  In the old calendar – which is still observed by some people – the three pre-Lent Sundays took on a Lenten quality.  Alleluias were not used and purple vestments were worn.  It was as if forty days of Lent were not enough.  So last Sunday – the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time - would this year have been called Septuagesima Sunday (the seventieth day before Easter).   Next Sunday – the Fifth Sunday – would have been called Quinquagesima Sunday because it is roughly fifty day before Easter. Life was even more confused in those times!   

The Sundays in Ordinary Time after the Easter Season used to be referred to as Sundays after Pentecost.  So on 5^th June when we celebrate the Tenth Sunday of the Year, this would have been the Third Sunday after Pentecost in old money.  The Easter season is much longer than the Christmas Season because Easter is the most important feast of the year.  Christmas by contrast did not become a feast at all until more than three hundred years after the birth of Christ. 

The Liturgical colour – the colour of the vestments, for example – for Ordinary Time is green.  After the celebrations of the great seasons of Christmas and Easter we are meant to grow in our faith and green is meant to signify growth and vitality.  The preparatory seasons of Advent and Lent are meant to involve a certain amount of extra effort and sacrifice and violet is meant to remind us of that.   White is the traditional colour – in the west at any rate – to mark joy and celebration and so it is used during the seasons of Christmas and Easter.  Red is the colour used at Pentecost and for the feasts of martyrs.  The colour white is used for other saints.  Sometimes golden vestments are used instead of white on such feasts as Christmas Day and Easter Sunday.  But we have no plans to invest in such splendour here.