Advent to Easter

Tim Stanley has written in his Daily Telegraph column about Christmas being marked too early. The date of his article is significant because 11 November was not only Armistice Day but St Martin’s Day which in Milan and parts of Spain triggers the start of Advent on the following Sunday. But, as Tim Stanley points […]

This Sunday completes the Christian year. Christ the King Sunday 24 November is the climax of the year during which we have relived Christ’s birth, ministry, persecution, resurrection and ascension. So on Sunday we look back with Christ our king as we begin to look forward yet again to Advent next week. It is not […]

This Sunday 17 November in Milan and Toledo it is the beginning of Advent. Because last Monday 11 November was St Martin’s Day it follows that in the Diocese of Milan, which retains its own local liturgy, it must be Advent Sunday. The very long Advent is also observed in the Mozarabic rite found in […]

Expect more focus this year for the Holy House at Loreto on Our Lady of Loreto Day 10 December which Pope Francis has ordered to be included in the universal calendar. Churches dedicated to Our Lady of Loreto can be found at Kew in London and Musselburgh near Edinburgh.

In the Belgian town of Liege this year’s Corpus Christi on Thursday 20 June is being described as the 773rd. Bishop Jean-Pierre Delville of Liège says: “I am delighted by the growing interest of so many people from Liège and elsewhere for this intangible and spiritual patrimonial treasure of our city. Under the impetus of […]

Trinity Sunday marks the end of the great liturgies of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter. We are about to enter ordinary time. This is time is live out the faith after the renewal of the Easter season. The ancient celebrations will be found this weekend at Kirtlington in Oxfordshire where there is the Lamb Ale […]

The weather forecast is good for Monday which is Whit Monday and should be a Bank Holiday. Whitsun, or Pentecost as we now call it, marks the completion of Easter which seemed to end at The Ascension last week. But at Pentecost the Holy Spirit came upon the followers of Christ as they were about […]

Thursday 30 May is Ascension Day which means tower top singing and beating the bounds in many places. The special events come forty days after Easter when, according to St Luke, Jesus ascended to heaven by disappearing in a cloud. This was the last Resurrection appearance. The best place for tower top singing is Oxford […]

This year there are not so many special events on Rogation Sunday 26 May because, maybe, it falls unusually on the Bank Holiday weekend. The annual Beating the Bounds in Cambridge or Southwell are not taking place. But tradition will be maintained at Leighton Buzzard, Mudeford and in the Lea Valley. The Wilkes Walk to […]

On Wednesday 1 May the calendar provides more confusion. It manages to be not only May Day but also St Philip and St James’s Day or St Joseph the Worker Day. The May Day carol The winter’s sleep was long and deep mentions ‘two saints of God’. But the universal calendar moved Philip and James […]