Yearly Worship Cycle » The Worship Cycle

Here at St Clement's, as in many churches,we organize our worship around the life of Jesus. Each year has three major festivals around which are focused all our Bible readings, prayers, hymns and sermons:

Christmas (Jesus' birth)
Easter (Jesus' rising from the dead)
Pentecost (the gift of Christ's Spirit)

There are also two periods of preparation for the feasts:

Advent (four Sundays preparing for Christmas)
Lent (40 days before Easter)

There are extended periods of the year when we simply read through various books of the Bible; these are sometimes called Ordinary Time. One year we read through the gospel of Matthew, the next year the gospel of Mark, and then the third year we read the gospel of Luke. (John is read during Easter in all three years.)

Into this cycle are thrown a few other special days, so our year looks something like this:

Advent (four Sundays
Christmas (12 days)
Epiphany (the arrival of the Magi)
The Baptism of Jesus
Ordinary Time: The Sundays after Epiphany
Lent (40 days)
Easter (it's our biggest-most important season!)
Pentecost
Trinity Sunday
Ordinary Time: The Sundays after Pentecost (weeks in the summer and fall)
The Feast of St Clement (last Sunday in the cycle)