Proclomation of the Christian Year

Good Christian People:

As we have with joy celebrated the Birth and the Epiphany of our Lord Jesus Christ, so through the year we will continue to celebrate the mysteries of our salvation, culminating in Christ's Resurrection on Easter Day.  From that date of Easter are derived the dates of most of our other feasts and commemorations, and it is an ancient custom at this time to proclaim the times and the seasons of the liturgical year.

In this year of our Lord two thousand twelve, there will be four Sundays after the Epiphany, until Septuagesima Sunday on the fifth day of February.  On the twenty-second day of February, the day called Ash Wednesday, we will commence the great and holy fast of Lent.  On the sixth day of April, the Church will mark with appropriate solemnity the crucifixion and death of our Lord Jesus Christ, and on the eighth day of April we will gather to celebrate with all holy joy His glorious Resurrection from the dead.

The Ascension of our Lord into heaven will be recalled forty days thereafter, on the seventeenth day of May; and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles at Pentecost will be celebrated on the twenty-seventh day of May.  The feast of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity will be observed on the thrid day of June.  There will be twenty-four Sundays after Trinity, until on the second day of December a new year of grace will begin.

And so, through the times and the seasons, the pilgrim Church on earth proclaims the Paschal Mystery of our Saviour Jesus Christ, who was, and is, and is to come, who is the Lord of all time and all history, to whom be ceaseless praise, world without end!

Amen.