Happy New Year!

Sunday is the first day of Advent, the beginning of the new church year.  So happy New Year!

I have a question for you, one that I have been unable to answer, but I’m sure you readers can answer it for me:   Last Sunday we celebrated the last Sunday of the church year, in which we contemplate the final victory of Christ the King at His return.  It was a big deal, a fitting climax to the long, long season of Pentecost.  But we don’t move from that to Advent, which is a full week away, always beginning on a Sunday.  So what’s the story of the last week of the church year?  Specifically, what’s the last day of the church year?  Saturday will be the equivalent of New Year’s Eve.  Doesn’t it have a name and some meaning?  It seems odd to me that the church year seems to just fizzle out.

I would think there would at least be a saint’s day.  In the Catholic calendar, every day, as I understand it, is devoted to one saint or another.   There is St. Andrew’s Day on November 30.   But what saint is honored on November 26?   I had thought that the specific day of the month might vary from year to year.  (Is the first Sunday of Advent always the Sunday after Thanksgiving?  Since Christmas is always on December 25, perhaps there is some consistency.  So in the secular calendar we have Thanksgiving, Black Friday [!], but then, again, what is Saturday?)

I have found that among the readers of this blog are people who are experts on just about everything, up to and including quantum physics and beyond.  So who knows about the church year?