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For purpose of this writing, what is being described here refers to the Roman Church Calendar. Things could be different in other calendars. The Church season of Ordinary Time is made up of thirty-three (or thirty-four) Sundays during the year which focus on Jesus' ministry and miracles performed. With that being said, let's proceed to the question. Attending church this week, the parish priest slipped into his sermon saying that we would be starting Ordinary Time this week. I went home and glanced at the Church Calendar. I noticed that there was a Second Sunday in Ordinary Time but no First Sunday in Ordinary Time. How can that possibly be? I immediately picked up the phone and quickly called one of my Dominican priest friends to get a detailed explanation (yes: I keep several priest phone numbers on speed dial just in case there is a sudden need!). The explanation I received was rather interesting. Epiphany Sunday is celebrated on the Sunday between January 2 and January 8th. In 2022 that date fell on Sunday, January 2nd. In 2023, with Christmas Day and New Year's Day (The Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God) falling on Sundays, the Feast of the Epiphany was celebrated on Sunday, January 8th. According to the revised Roman calendar of 1969, the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord is celebrated on the first Sunday following January 6th. The exception to this is when Christmas falls on a Sunday. In those cases, Epiphany occurs on Sunday, January 8 and the Baptism of the Lord is celebrated Monday the 9th. The bottom line is that Ordinary Time begins on Monday the day after the Sunday celebration of the Baptism of the Lord or on Tuesday after the Monday celebration of the Baptism of the Lord. Confused yet? So, the Church calendar does prescribe that Ordinary Time starts on a weekday, which is on a Monday or Tuesday, the day after the celebration of The Baptism of the Lord. So how does all of this figure into counting Sundays in Ordinary time? In my mind the first week of Ordinary Time is the week of the Baptism of the Lord. The second week, beginning with Sunday as the first day of the week, is simply counted as the Second Sunday in Ordinary Time and there is simply NO FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME. It is not on the Roman Church Calendar. The 2023 Liturgical Calendar, briefly, shows the Sundays as follow (in chronological order): Feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary Feast of the Epiphany Sundays in Ordinary Time (2 through 7) Sundays in Lent (1 through 5) Palm Sunday Easter Sunday Sundays of Easter (2 through 6) Sundays in Ordinary Time (7 through 34) Sundays of Advent (1 through 4) Feast of the Holy Family As a note, with January 1 falling on Sunday in 2023, this leads to the year having 53 Sundays (in most years, there are only 52 Sundays). This results in 2023 having 34 Sundays in Ordinary Time. Give this some meditation and thought. Meanwhile, I will start trying to find a way to explain the math behind the Easter date calculation. I promise, that is even more confusing! | |||||||
