Here continueth EASTERTIDE
8 Apr. Solemnity of the Annunciation [transferred from 25 Mar.] 11. St. Stanislaus of Szczepanów (1030-1079), Bishop and Martyr
14. Second Sunday after Easter (Easter III)
21. Third Sunday after Easter (Easter IV), also called Good Shepherd Sunday
23. St. George (ca. 270?-303), Martyr, patron saint of England
25. St. Mark the Evangelist
28. Fourth Sunday after Easter (Easter V)
29. St. Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), Virgin and Doctor
30. St. Pius V (1504-1572), Pope
1 May. St. Joseph the Worker
2. St. Athanasius (), Bishop and Doctor
3. SS. Philip and James the Less, Apostles and Martyrs
4. The English Martyrs
5. Fifth Sunday after Easter (Easter VI), also called Rogation Sunday
9. Solemnity of the Lord’s Ascension
NOTES ON THE CALENDAR
In General
This calendar follows the Ordinariate in the US, also called the Anglican Use: we are Catholics, in full communion with the Pope, but retain a heritage from the Church of England as the Anglican patrimony, i.e. a cultural expression of faith. Sundays, solemnities, and feasts are marked in boldface; distinctives of the Anglican patrimony are in blue; extra info is in italics.
Catholics normally must attend Mass on all Sundays and Holy Days of Obligation.* Holy Days in the US are normally as follows:
– Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8th
– Christmas Day, Dec. 25th
– Solemnity of the Mother of God, Jan. 1st
– Ascension, ten days before Pentecost (widely transferred to the following Sunday)
– Assumption of Mary, Aug. 15th
– All Hallows, Nov. 1st
Catholics also normally must do some form of penance on all Fridays of the year.†Abstinence from meat (not including fish and shellfish) is the obligatory form of this penance during Lent (and, in the Ordinariate, on the Ember Fridays of September and December); outside Lent, the choice of penance is left mainly to individual discretion (though abstinence is traditional).
*The duty to attend Mass is waived for any Catholic with a serious reason not fulfill it: e.g. lack of transport, not wanting to spread illness, etc. (Contrary to common belief, Ash Wednesday has never been a Holy Day of Obligation.)
†If a solemnity falls on a Friday, the duty of Friday penance is waived, even during Lent.
The Paschal Cycle: Eastertide
The Paschal cycle is the third of the Church’s year devoted to the mystery of the Redemption (as the Christmas cycle which preceded it is to the Incarnation, and the Trinity cycle which follows it is to the operation of the Holy Ghost); it falls roughly into the halves “Lent” and “Eastertide.” It lasts fifty days, that being the interval between Passover and the Feast of Weeks, the latter being the festival of the wheat harvest in Canaan and the day on which Pentecost fell. The first forty of these days commemorate the time the resurrected Jesus spent on still on earth visiting his disciples, up to the Thursday after the sixth Sunday of Easter. (If that number seems confusing when 6 × 7 = 42, not 40, the old-fashioned Anglican numbering might be more helpful here—the sixth Sunday of Easter is the fifth Sunday after Easter; 5 × 7 = 35, + 1 for Easter Sunday itself, + 4 for Monday through Thursday = 40.) That fortieth day commemorates Jesus’ ascension into heaven.
The next nine days were spent waiting for the descent of the Holy Ghost, which is taken as the model for the novena, a nine-day cycle of prayer customary in the West for fervently-desired intentions. Then comes Pentecost, which like Candlemas is a cardinal feast, the hinge on which is hung the door from the Paschal season to Trinitytide.
The Month of April
April isn’t given a lot of extra significance unto itself, which I’m guessing is a strategic choice: no matter how early or late Easter falls, at least part of it is invariably devoted to the fifty days of Easter, and usually the bulk of the month! I will note, especially given it’s Year B, that the Feast of St. Mark the Evangelist falls on April 25, the latest possible date for Easter in our calendar.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In