Living the Church Year

The Book of Common Prayer lays out a calendar for the Church year, which is centered on two principal feasts, Christmas and Easter. In the tradition of the Church, these feasts are preceded by two seasons of preparation, Advent and Lent, respectively. Advent signals the beginning of a new liturgical year, and is a season marked by anticipation, judgment, and hope—all focused on both the incarnation and the return of Jesus. Lent is a season of penitence as well as joy as Christians prepare themselves for the high point of the liturgical calendar: the yearly remembrance of Jesus’ passion, death, and resurrection. In addition to these seasons, the Church year is marked by the season of Epiphany, which celebrates Christ’s manifestation to the Gentiles, and the season after Pentecost, which is a time of Christian growth and maturation.

One of the primary virtues of following the Church’s calendar is that it allows the Church to live into God’s time as opposed to that of our culture. It also is a way for the Church to never stop remembering those stories that matter most and that continue on today.