Liturgical Calendar

March 2024
SOLEMNITY (S) Feast (F)
Memorial (M) ( ) optional memorial
Abstinence ><>
(+) Lenten Observance
Fast <><
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
1
+    ><>

(St. Albinus of Vercelli)
First Friday
2
+
(St Quintus the Thaumaturge)
First Saturday
3
+
3rd SUNDAY OF LENT
(St Kathrine Drexel)
(St Cunegund)
4
+
(St. Casimir)
5
+
(St Adrian of Caesarea)
6
+
(St. Rose of Viterbo)
7
+
(Sts. Perpetua and Felicity)
8
+    ><>
(St. John of God)
9
+
(St.Francis of Rome)
10
+
4th SUNDAY OF LENT
(St John Ogilvie)
11
+
(St. Rosine of Wenglingen)
12
+
(St. Fina of San Gimignano)
13
+
(St. Roderigo of Cordoba)
14
+
(St. Matilda)
15
+    ><>
(St. Longinus)
16
+
(St Agapitus of Ravenna)
17
+
5th SUNDAY OF LENT
(St. Patrick)
18
+
(St. Cyril of Jerusalem)
19
+
ST JOSEPH, SPOUSE OF THE BLESSED VIRGIN MARY (S)
20
+
(St John Nepomucene)
21
+
(St. Giustiniano of Vercelli)
22
+    ><>
(St. Lea of Rome)
23
+
(St. Turibius of Mogrovejo)
24
25
+
Monday of Holy Week
26
+
Tuesday of Holy Week
27
+
Wednesday of Holy Week
28
Thursday of Holy Week
(Holy Thursday)
The Holy Triduum begins at sundown
29
FAST  <><
Friday of the Lord's Passion
(Good Friday)
30
Holy Saturday

The Holy Triduum ends at sundown
31
SUNDAY OF THE RESURRECTION OF THE LORD
Beginning of the Easter Octave

The Universal Church observes a fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday and abstains from meat on the Fridays of Lent.

Lent in the Liturgical Calendar: During the forty days of Lent, we continue our disciplines of penance in prayer, almsgiving, and fasting. Scripture and the Church Fathers insist on all three forms that express conversion and sorrow for sin related to oneself, God, and others (Sir 3:30; Tob 12:8; Mt 6:1-18). Lent is the season of penance in addition to each Friday in memory of the death of the Lord.  Lent is a time for spiritual exercises, penitential liturgies, signs of penance, voluntary self-denial in fasting, and abstaining from certain foods for the forty-day Lenten journey. During the Lenten season, we follow the example of Jesus in fasting when immediately after His baptism. The Spirit drove Him into the Judean wilderness, where He remained without eating for forty days and nights (Mt 4:1-11; Mk 1:12-13; Lk 4:1-13). After completing His forty days of fasting, Satan tempted Jesus three times. It was a test in which Jesus was the victor since He passed the test without sinning. His victory over Satan is an example for all Christians to follow when, in the name of Jesus and strengthened by the Holy Spirit, we can also resist temptation, sin, and the devil. In the solemn forty days of Lent, the Church unites herself each year to the mystery of Jesus' victory in the wilderness (see CCC 538-40, 1434-48, 2043). For more information, see the "The Lenten Journey" document on the Agape Bible Study website.

The Solemnity of St. Joseph, Husband of the Virgin Mary: St. Joseph was a descendant of King David and Jesus' legal link to the Davidic line of kings (Mt 1:20; Lk 2:4). His hometown was Bethlehem, the city of King David in Judea. However, as an adult, he worked as a carpenter in Nazareth in Galilee. He became betrothed to Mary of Nazareth but planned to end the betrothal when he discovered she was with child before their marriage. However, an angel revealed to Joseph that this was God's divine plan, and Mary was pregnant with the Son of God (Mt 1:20-25). Joseph married Mary of Nazareth, becoming the Holy Family's protector and the putative father of Jesus, whom He raised as his son. St. Joseph is only present in the birth narratives of Jesus in the Gospels and when Jesus was twelve years old and left behind in Jerusalem (Lk 2:41-52). Joseph probably died before Jesus began his public ministry. According to the Gospel of St. James (The Protoevangelium of St. James), St. Joseph was previously married for forty years and had sons and daughters before the death of his first wife. He married the Virgin Mary as an elderly widower. According to tradition, his son, St. James of Jerusalem, became the first Christian bishop of Jerusalem. St. Joseph is the patron saint of fathers, artisans, carpenters, and woodworkers. For all generations, Joseph serves as a model of a holy life serving the Lord. See CCC 437, 497, 532, 1014, 1846, and 2177.

The Paschal Triduum: The English word "paschal" comes from the Hebrew word for Passover, Pesach. We fast, abstain from certain foods, rest, and keep watch during the Lenten season. We do what we can to come together, observing the three disciplines of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Then, on the night between Holy Saturday and Easter Sunday, our fasting ends, and the feast begins. From sundown on Holy Thursday to sunset on Holy Saturday is the Paschal Triduum (tri-doo-um), which means "the Three Days of Passover."

Holy Thursday until sundown is the final day of Lent and the 40th day of the 40 days (counting from the First Sunday of Lent as day #1 as established at the Council of Nicaea in AD 325). However, Lent ends at sundown, and the three days of the Paschal Triduum begin. The Triduum is the heart of the year and the three days of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is the Passover of our Lord.

Good Friday is the first full day of the Triduum, when the liturgical services have no formal beginnings or endings, no greetings or dismissals. Instead, the worship services are all part of the single, three-day liturgy of the Triduum.

Holy Saturday is the middle day of the Triduum. In Latin, Holy Saturday is Sabbatum Sanctum, the Holy Sabbath. The Paschal Sabbath of Holy Saturday lasts from sundown on Good Friday to sunset on Holy Saturday. The Church "rests" in Christ today, as He rested in the tomb on the old covenant Sabbath. At nightfall, what was the blessed Old Covenant Sabbath ended. The first day of the week, which we call Sunday, was the first day of the old creation and the beginning of the new creation of the New Covenant of the Lord in the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. At sunset, which signaled the end of the Old Covenant Sabbath, the customary first task was to kindle a fire and light the evening lamp. That is what the Church does as the Easter Vigil begins. Christ completed the Old Covenant; He is the New Covenant's spiritual light in a new creation (Jn 8:12). On this special night, the Church invites her members to gather with those being received into the Church family in the Sacrament of Baptism. On this night, above all other nights, the Church "keeps watch" together as a family as we await the Lord's promised return in glory and as He continues to keep watch over His household of the Church.

Easter Sunday of the Resurrection of the Lord: In the 1st century AD, the Jews called the two feasts of Passover and Unleavened Bread either "the Passover" or "Unleavened Bread (Mt 26:17; Mk 14:12; Lk 22:1, 7). After the Israelites returned from the Babylonian exile, the name of the month was no longer known by the Hebrew name Abib but became Nisan, the name of the Babylonian month in the early spring. The combined feasts began on Nisan the 14th and lasted eight days until the 21st (as the ancients counted without a zero-place-value). The Gospel of John sets the countdown to Jesus's last Passover in John 12:1 by announcing that when Jesus ate dinner with friends in Bethany, it was six days (as the ancients counted) until the Passover sacrifice. The next day, Jesus rode into Jerusalem, the day we celebrate in the Christian calendar as Palm Sunday of the Lord's Passion. If it was six days until the Passover sacrifice from the Saturday dinner in Bethany, then, with the day of the dinner counting as day #1, the 6th day was the day of the Passover sacrifice on Thursday, the 14th of Nisan. That means Jesus rode into Jerusalem on the 10th of Nisan (Abib), on the day God commanded the Israelites to select the lambs and goat kids for the first Passover in Egypt (Ex 12:3-5). Jesus is the sacrificial Lamb of God that St. John testified "takes away the sins of the world" (Jn 1:29, 36).   According to the Gospels, it was on the first night of Unleavened Bread when covenant members (in a state of ritual purity) ate the Passover victim in a sacred meal that Jesus and His disciples celebrated as the Last Supper (Mt 26:17; Mk 14:12; Lk 22:1, 7). The Synoptic Gospels use the feast names "Passover" and "Unleavened Bread" together as one feast (Mt 26:17; Mk 14:12; Lk 22:7). Only the Gospel of John refers to both feasts as "Passover" for the entire holy week. The word "Passover" is also the only designation for the two feasts in the Jewish Mishnah, and as Jews identify the feast of Unleavened Bread today since there is no Temple to offer a Passover sacrifice.

At the Passover victim's sacred meal on the first night of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Jesus transformed the old Sinai Covenant ritual meal into the sacred meal of the New Covenant people of God by offering His Body and Blood in the first Eucharistic banquet. Afterward, Jesus and His apostles withdrew to the Mt. of Olives to pray. There, Jerusalem Temple guards, accompanied by Roman soldiers, arrested Jesus. The Jewish law court (Sanhedrin) condemned Jesus of blasphemy for claiming to be God. Since they did not have the power to execute Jesus, they took Him to the Roman governor at dawn on Friday. The Jewish religious authorities pressured the Roman governor to condemn Jesus for treason against Rome. The Romans crucified Jesus at 9 AM (Mk 15:25). Most of Jesus's disciples probably attended the required holy day ceremonies of the Sacred Assembly for the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Tamid sacrifice at the Jerusalem Temple that began at 9 AM/the third-hour Jewish time (Lev 23:6-7). On Friday, he gave up His life at 3 PM (the ninth-hour Jewish time), at the hour of the afternoon Tamid sacrifice; it was Preparation Day for the Jewish Saturday Sabbath when all "work" had to cease at sundown, and the Sabbath began (Mk 15:42; Jn 19:31, 42). His disciples placed Him in a new tomb before sunset, which began the Jewish Sabbath. Jesus descended to Sheol (the abode of the dead; Hades in Greek) to preach the Gospel of salvation to the souls imprisoned there (1 Pt 3:18-20; 4:6). Then, defeating sin and death, He arose from His tomb on the third day (as the ancients counted) on Sunday, the first day of the week. It was the Feast of Firstfruits in the liturgical calendar of Israel (Lev 23:9-14). It is the day that Christians celebrate as Jesus Christ's Resurrection/Easter Sunday and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ: In fact, however, Christ has been raised from the dead, as the first-fruits of all who have fallen asleep (1 Cor 15:20). See the book "Jesus and the Mystery of the Tamid Sacrifice" at Amazon books. The Easter Octave is from Easter Sunday to the Second Sunday of Easter. This octave is observed as eight solemnities, one after the other, or one single, eight-day-long solemnity. During this time, the Church tells the Gospel stories of the resurrection.

Michal Hunt, Copyright © 2024 Agape Bible Study. Permissions All Rights Reserved.