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A Message about the Church Calendar
There seems to be some confusion concerning the differences between the calendar used in daily life and the Church calendar. Hopefully the short item below will help sort things out.
The Gregorian calendar we use in our every day lives was introduced in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII and remains in use in most of the world. The first day of the year based on the Gregorian calendar is January 1. It runs for 12 months with the calendar year ending each December 31.
The calendar used by the Church, however, is somewhat different. The first day of the Church, or Liturgical calendar is not date dependent, but is rather the first Sunday in Advent. For the upcoming 24-25 Church year the first Sunday in Advent will fall on December 1, 2024. The last Sunday of the the Church year will be November 23, 2025 with the first day of 25-26 Church year falling on Sunday November 30.
If we take a look the upcoming months of November and December we will notice that the 23-24 Church calendar ends on Saturday November 30th. Since Trinity bases all services each weekend on the corresponding Sunday in the Liturgical calendar we will begin celebrating the Advent season at our November 30th 6:00 PM Saturday service.
In order to avoid confusion all volunteer schedules for Saturday services should be determined using the next day’s date. In short, on weekends when a month ends on Saturday it is considered to be the first week of the next month for liturgical and scheduling purposes.
If anyone is interested the LCMS website has an informative section on the Liturgical calendar called “Sundays and Seasons.”
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