Advent (‘coming’) marks the beginning of the Church Year. A season of waiting and expectant hope, we celebrate the reality that in the incarnation of Jesus, God took on flesh and ‘moved into the neighborhood’ of creation to restore all things. Through Christ, God has made his home with us. The color for this season is purple, a color associated with the royalty of Christ our King.

Christmas is the season of the Church Year in which we revel in the reality that God is not far off—Immanuel: ‘God with us’. In Christ, God has made his home with us. He comes,

not only to bring comfort and joy, but ‘to make his blessings flow as far as the curse is found.’ We rejoice and delight in the joy of Christ and the salvation he alone brings to sinners. The darkness is no match for God’s light.

Epiphany is the season of the Church Year in which we witness God reveal himself in all of his redemptive fullness. Epiphany comes from a Greek word meaning ‘manifestation or appearance’, highlighting the ways Christ revealed himself as the Messiah and King in his life and ministry. Epiphany as a season invites us to experience greater awareness of who Christ is, and how he is at work amongst us. During Epiphany, we stay alert, attentive to God’s ongoing love amongst us.

The season of Lent originated as a time of preparation for Easter, spanning 40 days (not including Sundays) from Ash Wednesday to Holy Saturday. The focus of Lent

is repentance–a turning of our hearts, minds, and actions from ourselves to God. The Sundays in Lent are in the season but not of it, and are celebrated as "feast" days, traditionally days on which Lenten fasts are broken as we gather together for worship and to celebrate Christ's resurrection. The color of Lent is purple, the color of a bruise, signifying penitence and humility, and is meant to remind us of humanity's suffering under sin and of Christ's suffering on the cross. Purple is also the color of royalty and anticipates the coming glory of Christ's resurrection on Easter.

Easter is the season in which the church celebrates the Resurrection of Christ and its implications on our daily lives. It is a seven-week period of tasting and seeing and celebrating that Christ is alive, and that in him, we are indeed ‘new creations’. We rejoice: “Death has been swallowed up” by the risen Christ.

Ordinary Time is the season of the Christian Year in which the Church around the world celebrates God’s ongoing work in our everyday lives. As Gerard Manley Hopkins once said, “The world is charged with the grandeur of God.” Our kitchens, pool parties, hospital waiting rooms, and front porches are not mundane places in our lives, but terrain in which God’s spirit redeems us from the inside out. Our prayer during this season is to grow in our attentiveness to and participation for God’s work in our world.