Life has a rhythm, even if we don’t always notice it. There are seasons when everything blooms, seasons when things fall away, and quiet stretches in between. For centuries, the Christian calendar has mirrored this natural rhythm—marking time not just with dates, but with meaning.
Advent – The Season of Hope
Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas and marks the start of the Christian year. At its core, Advent is waiting. It’s a time of preparation—not just for Jesus’ birth celebration, but also for considering hope in our own world. Every week, candles are lit in churches that symbolize peace, joy, love, and hope. In a cluttered world full of noise and demands, Advent gently invites us to stand still and ask ourselves: what are we really waiting for?
It’s also a season of reconnecting—with family and friends, with community, and with our own sense of purpose. Even the smallest gestures of kindness are big in impact.
Lent – The Season of Reflection
Lent is 40 days prior to Easter, omitting Sundays, and aligns with the period when Jesus spent in fasting in the wilderness. In the past, people used to give up something during Lent—chocolate, social media, or even rumors, —not just to make themselves better, but to make space for something more. It’s a moment to reflect on our lives, face what we must do better, and what we can do to be more generous, earthier, or more forgiving.
It’s not guilt. It’s growth and honest self-reflection. Lent challenges us to become the kind of person we know we can be, if only in small steps at a time.
Easter – The Season of New Life
Easter is more than a day or two of chocolate eggs and spring flowers. It’s the culmination of the Christian story—celebrating Jesus’ resurrection, a reminder that hope will overcome despair and life will overcome death. For Christians, it’s the building block of faith. But for even those on the periphery, Easter is a reminder that difficult times do not get to win. After winter, spring comes. New life is always possible.
The Easter season actually lasts 50 days, stretching out the celebration and contemplation of new beginnings and revived belief. It helps foster happiness, thankfulness, and renewed focus on what matters most.
Ordinary Time – The Everyday Season
Following all the high points—Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter—are something maybe even greater: Ordinary Time. It’s not “ordinary” in the dull or unnecessary way. It’s about living faith, love, and charity in the ordinary, often unremarkable parts of life. It’s where real life takes place—in conversations, in quiet acts of mercy, in the little decisions we make every day.
Ordinary Time keeps in mind that the holy does not live in the fixed pieces only—it lives in the day-to-day routine, familiar faces, and the small but habitual deeds of goodness.
In honoring the rhythm of the liturgical calendar, we are reminded that every season, whether marked by hope, reflection, renewal, or the quiet beauty of the everyday, offers a chance to live with deeper intention and meaning.
