The Liturgical Calendar
The year does not begin in January.It begins in Advent, in the dark.
Most of the pieces in this collection are made for a moment, and almost every one of those moments falls somewhere in the Church’s year. So the year is here as well: the seasons and the colours they are kept in, the solemnities the whole calendar turns on, and the date of the next Lent — because a piece prepared for Lent has to be ready before Ash Wednesday, not after it.
The calendar below is worked out for the year you are reading in, not printed once and left to age.
Season and moment
A piece is made for a moment. The year gives that moment its colour.
It matters which season a baptism is kept in, and which season a funeral is kept in. The same imagery carries a different weight in Lent than it does at Easter, and a piece that is given at the right time of year is read differently for the rest of its life.
Green
Ordinary Time
Green for growth, and the longest season of the year. Most weddings and anniversaries are kept in it, and most ordinations too.
Violet
Lent
Forty days of penance, with rose allowed once, midway, as a small relief. Confirmations are often kept here, and the Office for the Dead is prayed here more than anywhere.
Red, then white
The Triduum
The three days that are one day. The chrism is blessed on Holy Thursday, which is where the oil in an ordination piece comes from.
White and gold
Easter
Fifty days, the longest feast in the year. The Vigil is the great baptismal night, and first communions follow it in white.
A piece for the season you are in.
Tell us the moment and the date it falls on, and we will tell you what the season gives it — the colour, the imagery, and the text. The design conversation costs nothing.
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