The Liturgical year, which follows the church’s liturgical calendar, is divided into five seasons, each season of the Church calendar follows the different parts of Christ’s life from the build-up to His birth to His death and resurrection and ascension.
The Church seasons are called Ordinary time, Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter. Ordinary time is the longest time period in the church calendar has about 33-34 weeks divided unevenly into two sections. One being relatively short while the other being extremely long.
The order of which is as follows:
Advent, at the beginning of the year, is the build-up to Christ’s birth, Christmas picks up right afterward to follow the time of Christ’s life from His birth until His baptism, the ordinary time follows Christ’s Ministry, the Lenten season is the build-up to Christ’s Death and Resurrection. Easter celebrates the forty days He walked among us before ascending to heaven. The celebration of Pentecost, or the deception of the Holy Spirit then leads us back into Ordinary time where we stay until Advent rolls around once again.
Let’s look at each one in turn. We will start with Advent and move on from there as that is the beginning of each liturgical year.
Advent is found in the first four Sundays before Christmas. It doesn’t matter when Christmas is it’s the four Sundays before Christmas. So the Fourth week of Advent could be as short as only Sunday or a full week leading into Christmas. Purple starts the church liturgical year as a time of sorrow and morning. Advent isn’t supposed to be a joyful time a somber one, as we prepare for the coming of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Advent is to remember the time before His birth, the time of the Old Testament, which is where most of human history took place. On the third Sunday of Advent also known as Gaudete or Rejoice Sunday, everything changes once again, pink (Which most priests end up insisting is Rose) is the color of the day to symbolize the joy that Christ brought to the world with His birth. It is also used to symbolize that we are halfway through advent and it is used as a breath of fresh air. After this, we are right back to purple for the final week of Advent.
Christmas is found running from Christmas day itself until the epiphany or baptism of Our Lord. The Colors change to white in this period, to say that Our Lord has been born, with all of the trials that come with it. It is a time of feasting and celebration as hope and God has entered the world, and the Word was made flesh.
We then enter the first period of Ordinary time, when the colors of the Church change to green. During this period of time, we are following Christ through His ministry to draw closer to Him and His teachings. It isn’t to be a time of setting into the swing of things and losing ourselves in the monotonous of ordinary life, but instead, it is to be used as an opportunity to imitate Jesus in our own lives. As we go about our normal routine.
Lent starts with Ash Wednesday (Not a holy day of Obligation but rather a Holy Day of opportunity) and runs until Easter Sunday. About forty days not including Sundays, this is to symbolize us following Jesus into the desert, as we have been asked in this period of time to do some form of extra fasting. The colors once again switch to purple as we are in a somber time at the church, but it briefly changes to pink once again for Laetare Sunday about the fourth week of Lent. Lent ends at the climax of Christ’s story with Holy Week; following Christ into Jerusalem, starting with Palm Sunday and ending with Christ entombed on Saturday.
Christ has Risen and the colors change to white on Easter Sunday, the Easter Season has now begun and will continue for another forty days, following the story of Christ walking among us with a supernatural presence for forty days and ending with Pentecost.
We then transition once again into Ordinary Time and the Church colors change once again to green. As we resume following Jesus’ ministry and teachings until Advent starts the year once again.
Sources:
https://aleteia.org/2023/10/19/the-catholic-liturgical-calendar-a-brief-history