The Second Vatican Council describes what the liturgical year is for: within the cycle of a year the Church unfolds the whole mystery of Christ, from the Incarnation and Nativity to the Ascension, Pentecost, and the expectation of the blessed hope and the coming of the Lord. Recalling these mysteries opens to the faithful the riches of the Lord's power and merits, so that they are in some way made present in every age. The year is not a set of anniversaries but a way of being drawn into what Christ has done. Sunday stands at its foundation. The Council calls the Lord's Day the original feast day, the weekly Easter on which the Church gathers to hear the word and celebrate the Eucharist; every other cycle is built around it. Above Sunday stands the Easter Triduum, the culmination of the entire year, and around the Triduum turns the paschal cycle: Lent prepares for it, the fifty days of the Easter Season prolong it to Pentecost. The Christmas cycle — Advent and the Christmas Season through the Baptism of the Lord — celebrates the Lord's coming in the flesh. Ordinary Time, thirty-three or thirty-four weeks in two portions, is devoted to the mystery of Christ in its fullness rather than to any single aspect of it. Woven through this temporal cycle is the sanctoral cycle, the celebrations of the saints. The Church honors them not to add to the worship due to God but because in them she sees the paschal mystery brought to completion, and in their feasts she proclaims what grace has done. The Blessed Virgin Mary is joined to her Son by an inseparable bond in this annual cycle, and her celebrations hold a special place. The Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year and the General Roman Calendar, published with the Roman Missal, govern how the two cycles fit together and which celebration takes precedence when they meet. The year begins with Evening Prayer I of the First Sunday of Advent, which falls on the Sunday nearest November 30, and ends on the Saturday after the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. Colors mark the seasons: violet in Advent and Lent, white or gold at Christmas and Easter and on feasts of the Lord, of Mary, and of saints who were not martyrs, red on Passion days and at Pentecost and for martyrs and apostles, green in Ordinary Time, and rose where it is the custom on Gaudete and Laetare Sundays. Alongside the general calendar every nation, diocese, and religious order has its own proper calendar, so that the local Church's own saints and the anniversary of its cathedral's dedication take their place in the year.

Liturgical year

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liturgical_year