Liturgical Calendar

I have included the main feasts and fasts in the cycle of the church’s year, plus one or two other dates that are mentioned (e.g. Michaelmas and Lady Day when rents were traditionally collected) in these stories.

 

Advent – begins four Sundays before Christmas

Christmas – December 25th

Holy Innocents – December 28th

Epiphany – January 6th

Baptism of our Lord concludes Christmastide, Sunday after January 6th

Candlemas – February 2 (Purification of Blessed Virgin Mary, Presentation of Christ in the temple)

Lent – Ash Wednesday to Holy Thursday – start date varies with phases of moon

Holy Week – last week of Lent and the Easter Triduum

Lady Day – March 25th (at one time the beginning of the calendar year)

Easter Triduum (three days) of Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday

Ascension – forty days after Easter

Whitsun (Pentecost) – fifty days after Easter

Trinity Sunday – Sunday after Pentecost

Corpus Christi – Thursday after Trinity

Sacred Heart of Jesus – Friday of the following week

Feast of John the Baptist – June 24th

Lammas (literally ‘loaf-mass’; grain harvest) – August 1st

Michaelmas – feast of St Michael and All Angels, September 29th

All Saints – November 1st

All Souls – November 2nd

Martinmas – November 11th