The Year of Grace 2008

My thanks to Diana, over at Work of the People, who reminds us: The Solemnity of the Epiphany is a traditional time to announce the major feasts and celebrations of the Church for the upcoming year. Before the advent of online calendars, Blackberries, perpetual calendars, and handheld organizers, the formal announcement at Epiphany was the usual way the Church made known the date of Easter and all the celebrations that are dependent upon its date...

Proclamation of the Date of Easter on Epiphany

Dear brothers and sisters,
the glory of the Lord has shone upon us,
and shall ever be manifest among us, until the day of his return.
Through the rhythms of times and seasons
let us celebrate the mysteries of salvation.

Let us recall the year’s culmination,
the Easter Triduum of the Lord:
his last supper, his crucifixion, his burial, and his rising,
celebrated between the evening of the twentieth of March
and the evening of the twenty-third of March.

Each Easter—as on each Sunday—
the Holy Church makes present the great and saving deed
by which Christ has for ever conquered sin and death.
From Easter are reckoned all the days we keep holy.

Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent,
will occur on the sixth of February.
The Ascension of the Lord
will be commemorated on the fourth of May*.
Pentecost, the joyful conclusion of the season of Easter,
will be celebrated on the eleventh of May.
And this year the First Sunday of Advent
will be on the thirtieth of November.

Likewise the pilgrim Church proclaims the Passover of Christ
in the feasts of the holy Mother of God,
in the feasts of the Apostles and Saints,
and in the commemoration of the faithful departed.

To Jesus Christ, who was, who is, and who is to come,
Lord of time and history, be endless praise, for ever and ever.

Amen.

*In the western dioceses of the United States, the celebration of the Ascension is moved to the seventh Sunday of Easter.