1 LITURGICAL YEAR BOOK including the ORDER for the celebration of the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours according to the General Roman Calendar, the Calendar for England and Wales and the Calendar of the Diocese of Salford Liturgical Year 2014—2015 2 3 the expectation of the coming of the long- INTRODUCTION awaited Messiah; at Christmas we hear of the great events of his birth. In Lent we are called to renew our membership of Christ, first given in Christ is the centre of the Liturgical Year. In the Baptism, and renewed at Easter, when we hear year we follow Christ, come to know Christ more, once more of his triumphant victory. Throughout die and rise to life with Christ, look forward to the “ordinary” Sundays of the year we walk with eternity with Christ. The Liturgical Year is a gift Christ in Galilee and Jerusalem: we stand on the which enables us to be members of Christ, whose hillsides, by the lake and in the porticoes as he body is the Church. For the Liturgical Year to speaks to us; we learn who Christ is, so that we achieve this, it must be celebrated, not simply can declare him to be the Messiah, the One sent observed. It must become a heartbeat in the life by God. And every time we hear the story, it is of the Diocese, of the Parish, of each of Christ’s sealed by the sacramental gift of Christ himself – faithful people. The Year should somehow inform his Body and Blood given to the people who are the rhythms of our everyday life, so that it can his Body. fulfil its mission to allow us to be with Christ. As with all liturgy, the year is more than simple ru- Sunday is, however, more than our Sunday Eu- brics and data; it is the scaffolding on which we charist. It is a day given over to something else – build ourselves as Christ’s body. to God and the things of God. Wherever possible, we must take this day and set it aside, as a gift So how do we “celebrate” the Liturgical Year? from the Lord. It is to be our weekly re-creation We must allow it to be a journey, which carries and renewal. It will be coloured by the Seasons – us through the mysteries of our faith, journeying we should take Advent and Christmas, Lent and with Christ the Lord, with Mary, and with the Easter from our Churches, and allow the colours, many saints whose days shine like guideposts on images and stories of the Seasons to fill our the way. The Liturgical Year can be the festive homes. We should carefully take home the gift of wedding-garment that we put on – its colours, God’s Word each Sunday, and find time to dwell images, symbols, prayers and themes transform- on (and in) the picture of Christ given each week. ing “everyday” into “holyday”. Thus, each Sunday, a parish should develop a This Order in itself is simply a guide to observing keen sense of how Christ is present to us this the Liturgical Year in the Diocese of Salford. Each week: always in the Eucharist, but also in differ- community should use its ingenuity and imagina- ent ways through the Word and the Season. So tion to build that observance into celebration. we see the expected Messiah in Advent, the child This preface is a reflection, which seeks to at Christmas, the suffering servant and the Risen prompt that imagination – suggesting ways in King at Lent and Christmas, and throughout Ordi- which the Year can become a powerful pastoral nary Time, the teacher, the healer, the leader, tool in the life of our parishes. the carer. As Sunday mounts up on Sunday 1. SUNDAY through the year, so our picture of Christ should deepen and develop, as we are all led through The Church teaches us that Sunday, the weekly the unfolding mystery of God’s purpose. Easter, is at the very heart of the meaning of the Liturgical Year. Each Sunday commemorates the 2. ADVENT Paschal Mystery, and each Sunday the communi- The Year begins in darkness – a deep purple dark- ty assembles, as it has since the time of the apos- ness where we long for light and the bright shim- tles, to acclaim Christ as Risen Lord, to celebrate mer of a star is a sign of hope and life. In the Li- our victory over sin and death, and to be re- turgical Year, purple or violet is a colour of long- newed as the Body of the Risen Christ. Sunday is ing, renewal and expectation: in Advent and Lent, always, and in every sense, “special”. at funerals or in the Sacrament of Penance, pur- As we come together on the 52 or 53 Sundays of ple should speak to us of that which we long and each year, we are presented with the whole of yearn for: like a deer longs for running streams, the mystery of salvation: in Advent we hear of so we yearn for the living God to come to us, to 4 heal us, to be with us. Our purple is a sign of all light that all things are revealed, and we become, we long for: the presence of Christ, the washing like John the Baptist, “witnesses to the light”. For clean of all sin, the resurrection of the dead. Pur- this reason, it is important that to some degree ple is also a sign of kingship and majesty – the our Churches look different: there must be some One who comes, the One who heals, the One transition from Advent to Christmas that an- who raises the dead is himself the King who nounces without the need of words that some- reigns from the cross. To celebrate truly this part thing has changed. Traditionally the colour of of the Year, Advent should be seen, felt and vestments has always achieved this, as sombre heard by all the faithful. The Church and the litur- purple flashes into gold. But how much more we gy should be waiting – not quite there yet, just can do! Let the Season engage the senses. around the corner. Our decoration, our music, There is no reason why a Christmas tree cannot our gatherings should somehow create a sense of be part of the decorations in Church – there is a expectation – on the one level our expectation of very beautiful prayer of blessing in the Book of Christmas, and the light and joy and glory that Blessings: decorate it with red baubles to speak will burst forth in our liturgy – but also on anoth- of the tree of Eden, where the “happy fault of er level our longing for Christ to come again. Ad- Adam” led to this moment of salvation. Let it vent is the unfilled glass – polished and made remind us of the wood of the cross, where the ready – speaking in its emptiness of what is to fill newborn Saviour triumphed over sin and death. it. Many symbols can emphasise this – an empty manger scene, an undecorated tree, the unlight- The traditional manger scene also teaches and ed candles on the Advent wreath, even the uno- inspires – let it be in a place where people, young pened doors on the Advent Calendar. Our very and old, can quietly spend time gazing at the fig- Church buildings, and all our Advent celebrations, ures. Let there be a festivity in the flowers and should lead us to cry out in our hearts other decorations of the Church, which raises the “Tomorrow there will be an end to the sin of the hearts of all. But also remember the need for world, and the saviour of the world will be our quality and taste – our Churches must always king!” strive to be places of beauty. Remember too the pastoral needs of the Parish Church – let the pro- 3: CHRISTMAS found beauty of our Christmas music, apparel If Advent has been celebrated full of longing and and decoration speak always of the deepest joy desire, then Christmas will explode upon us as a that Christ is here – so that the presence of a Season of true joy. Not joy in the lights and bau- coffin at a Funeral is not embarrassed by a gaudi- bles and glistening array of the world, but true ness which belongs to the world, not the Lord. joy that “God-is-with-us” – Emmanuel! Even so, Christmas is a Season, not a day. This is difficult the lights and glistening array can help us to feel to realise in our liturgy, since the world wants to that joy and that presence – after four weeks of get “back to normal” long before we have arrived purple, of subdued decoration and music, of at the last day of Christmas: the Feast of the Bap- waiting, then the flash of white and gold, the tism of the Lord. Each Parish must think of ways peals of bells and call of trumpets, the colour and to sustain the joy of the Season through the great vibrancy of our Christmas celebrations should feasts – Nativity, Holy Family, Epiphany, all the inform a very deep part of ourselves that some- way to that day when we celebrate the fullest thing has happened, that Christ is born, and the revelation that Christ is the Messiah and the Son world will never be the same again. of God – that moment when the voice from the The key to Christmas is light – “on those who live cloud says of Jesus, “This is my Son, the Beloved.” in a land of deep shadow, a light has shone”.