The Church has its own calendar called the liturgical year. Each year it walks with Jesus through His whole life, from waiting for His birth to the coming of the Holy Spirit.
Each season has its own color:
- Advent (violet): four weeks of joyful waiting and preparing for Christmas.
- Christmas (white or gold): we celebrate Jesus' birth and the visit of the wise men.
- Ordinary Time (green): we grow as disciples. “Ordinary” comes from counting the weeks in order.
- Lent (violet): forty days of prayer, fasting and almsgiving to prepare for Easter.
- The Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and the Easter Vigil, the high point of the whole year.
- Easter (white or gold): fifty days of joy, ending at Pentecost, when the color is red.
The Church calls Easter the “Feast of feasts.” Throughout the year we also celebrate feasts of Mary and the saints.
And every Sunday is a little Easter: the Lord's Day, when we remember that Jesus rose from the dead.