The liturgical year, also called the church year, Christian year, ecclesiastical calendar, or kalendar, consists of the cycle of liturgical days and seasons that determines when feast days, including celebrations of saints, are to be observed, and which portions of scripture are to be read.
Ecumenism – also called interdenominationalism, or ecumenicalism – is the concept and principle that Christians who belong to different Christian denominations should work together to develop closer relationships among their churches and promote Christian unity. The adjective ecumenical is thus applied to any non-denominational initiative that encourages greater cooperation and union among Christian denominations and churches.
Trinity Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost in the Western Christian liturgical calendar, and the Sunday of Pentecost in Eastern Christianity. Trinity Sunday celebrates the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, the three Persons of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Ember days are quarterly periods of prayer and fasting in the liturgical calendar of Western Christian churches. These fasts traditionally take place on the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday of the weeks following St Lucy's Day, the first Sunday in Lent, Pentecost (Whitsun), and Holy Cross Day, though some areas follow a different pattern. The Catholic Church ended its practice of fasting on these days in 1966, and the Anglican Communion made fasting optional in 1976. Ordination ceremonies are often held on Ember Saturdays or the following Sunday.
The Paschal Triduum or Easter Triduum, Holy Triduum, or the Three Days, is the period of three days that begins with the liturgy on the evening of Maundy Thursday, reaches its high point in the Easter Vigil, and closes with evening prayer on Easter Sunday. It is a moveable observance recalling the Passion, Crucifixion, Death, burial, and Resurrection of Jesus, as portrayed in the canonical Gospels.
The Feast of the Ascension of Jesus Christ commemorates the Christian belief of the bodily Ascension of Jesus into Heaven. It is one of the ecumenical feasts of Christian churches, ranking with the feasts of the Passion and Pentecost. Following the account of Acts 1:3 that the risen Jesus appeared for 40 days prior to his Ascension, Ascension Day is traditionally celebrated on a Thursday, the fortieth day of Easter according to inclusive counting, although some Christian denominations have moved the observance to the following Sunday, sometimes called Ascension Sunday. The day of observance varies by ecclesiastical province in many Christian denominations, as with Methodists and Catholics, for example.
Eastertide or Paschaltide is a festal season in the liturgical year of Christianity that focuses on celebrating the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Preceded by Lent, it begins on Easter Sunday, which initiates Easter Week in Western Christianity, and Bright Week in Eastern Christianity.
The Society of the Atonement, also known as the Friars and Sisters of the Atonement or Graymoor Friars and Sisters, is a Franciscan religious congregation in the Catholic Church. The friars and sisters were founded in 1898 by Paul Wattson and Lurana White as a religious community in the Episcopal Church. The religious order is dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary under the Marian title of Our Lady of Atonement.
Anglican Papalism, also referred to as Anglo-Papalism, is a subset of Anglo-Catholicism with adherents manifesting a particularly high degree of influence from, and even identification with, the Roman Catholic Church. This position has historically been referred to as Anglican Papalism; the term Anglo-Papalism is an American neologism and it seems not to have appeared in print prior to the 1990s. Anglican Papalists have suggested "that the only way to convert England is by means of an 'English Uniate' rite". Anglican Papalists have historically practiced praying the Dominican rosary, among other Marian devotions, Corpus Christi procession, as well as the reservation of and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.
The Church of England commemorates many of the same saints as those in the General Roman Calendar, mostly on the same days, but also commemorates various notable Christians who have not been canonised by Rome, with a particular though not exclusive emphasis on those of English origin. There are differences in the calendars of other churches of the Anglican Communion.
"Octave" has two senses in Christian liturgical usage. In the first sense, it is the eighth day after a feast, reckoning inclusively, and so always falls on the same day of the week as the feast itself. The word is derived from Latin octava (eighth), with “dies” (day) implied and understood. In the second sense, the term is applied to the whole eight-day period, during which certain major feasts came to be observed.
Prior to the revision of the Anglican Church of Canada's (ACC) Book of Common Prayer (BCP) in 1962, the national church followed the liturgical calendar of the 1918 Canadian Book of Common Prayer. Throughout most of the twentieth century, the situation in Canada resembled that which pertained in much of the Anglican Communion: There was uncertainty as to whether post-Reformation figures could or should be commemorated. In the words of the calendar's introduction, "New names have been added from the ancient calendars, and also from the history of the Anglican Communion, without thereby enrolling or commending such persons as saints of the Church." The 1962 revision added twenty-six post-Reformation individuals, as well as commemorations of the first General Synod and of "The Founders, Benefactors, and Missionaries of the Church in Canada." Of the calendar days, twenty-eight were highlighted as "red-letter days" — that is, days of required observation.
The Catholic Church has engaged in the modern ecumenical movement especially since the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) and the issuing of the decree Unitatis redintegratio and the declaration Dignitatis humanae. It was at the Council that the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity was created. Those outside of the Catholic Church were categorised as heretics or schismatics, but in many contexts today, to avoid offence, the euphemism "separated brethren" is used.
Paul Irénée Couturier was a French Catholic priest and a promoter of the concept of Christian unity. He was instrumental in the establishment of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.
Paul Wattson, SA, born as Lewis Thomas Wattson, was an American priest who co-founded the Society of the Atonement with Mother Lurana White, and the Christian Unity Octave in The Episcopal Church. He was later received into the Catholic Church and is remembered as an advocate for ecumenism.
Pope Benedict XVI, who led the Roman Catholic Church as Pope from 2005 to 2013, continued manouevring the Church through the dynamics of modernity, which the Church had begun engaging in with the Second Vatican Council. Because the question of religious pluralism is a key issue raised by modernity, ecumenism, the establishment of harmony and dialogue between the different Christian denominations, is a significant concern of a post Second Vatican Council Church. Pope Benedict XVI's approach has been characterised as leaning toward the conservative while still being expansive and engaged, involving the full breadth of Christendom, including the Orthodox Churches and Protestant churches, as well as freshly engaging with other Christian bodies considered by Roman Catholics to be more heterodox, such as the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
After the Second Vatican Council, Pope Paul VI contributed in two ways to the continued growth of ecumenism and inter-Christian dialogue. The separated brothers and sisters, as he called them, were not able to contribute to the Second Vatican Council as invited observers. After the Council, many of them took initiative to seek out their Catholic counterparts and the Pope in Rome, who welcomed such visits.
The Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in England and Wales is a personal ordinariate in the Latin Church of the Catholic Church immediately exempt, being directly subject to the Holy See. It is within the territory of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, of which its ordinary is a member, and also encompasses Scotland. It was established on 15 January 2011 for groups of former Anglicans in England and Wales in accordance with the apostolic constitution Anglicanorum coetibus of Pope Benedict XVI, which was supplemented with the Complementary Norms of Pope Francis in 2013.
Pentecost season, also known Pentecostide, as well as the time of Sundays after Pentecost or Sundays after Trinity, is a liturgical period, celebrated by some Christian churches, which immediately follows the Easter season. Although the start and end dates vary by liturgical tradition, the season typically begins on the day of Pentecost and continues throughout the rest of the liturgical year, ending just before the season of Advent. The liturgical color for this period is typically green or red.
Lurana Mary Francis White (1870-1935) was a Roman Catholic nun, a convert from the Episcopal Church, and co-founder of the Society of the Atonement. This founding was an unusual example of a woman who, in the words of congregation historian Father Charles LaFontaine, "had the distinction of founding a religious community on equal terms with a man."
