The Christian Year in Sixteen Feasts

Begins the year at December 8, nine months before the Nativity of Mary on September 8. The feast concerns Mary's own conception, not the virginal conception of Jesus, and it is a holy day of obligation across much of the Catholic world.

Dated to December 25 in most of the Church and January 7 for those on the older calendar, and fixed to late December by the fourth century. It follows Advent and absorbed midwinter customs of light and feasting.

Kept within the octave of Christmas for the children of Bethlehem killed by Herod, counted as the first martyrs. Its mood is deliberately discordant with the surrounding festivity, and in medieval Europe it was the day of the boy bishop.

January 6 in the West centres on the visit of the Magi. In much of the Spanish-speaking world it, not December 25, is the day gifts are given, with a ring-shaped roscon de reyes hiding a figure of the child.

The Eastern keeping of the same January 6 turns to the baptism of Christ in the Jordan and the manifestation of the Trinity. Its central act is the Great Blessing of Waters, sometimes through a hole cut in the ice.

Forty days after the Nativity, on 2 February, the Presentation of the Lord is marked by blessing the year's candles and processing with them, answering Simeon's words about a light to lighten the Gentiles. It closes the Christmas and Epiphany season.

Falls on March 25, exactly nine months before Christmas, when Gabriel announces the Christ to Mary. In England Lady Day was the civil new year until 1752 and remains a quarter day.

Held on the fortieth day after Easter, so always a Thursday, with the paschal candle extinguished. The nine days that follow, waiting for Pentecost, are the origin of the novena as a form.

The descent of the Holy Spirit on the apostles fifty days after Easter, regarded as the birthday of the Church. It coincides with the Jewish festival of Shavuot, and churches use red for the Spirit's fire.

A Eucharistic feast on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday whose characteristic act is a street procession of the host, over carpets of flowers or painted sand as at Genzano, Sitges and La Orotava. It was extended to the Latin church in 1264.

Christ's glory revealed before Peter, James and John on the mountain. A Great Feast of the Orthodox year, with grapes and first fruits blessed, and central to the hesychast account of the uncreated light seen on Tabor.

On 15 August the principal Marian feast of the year. Herbs are blessed in central Europe, boats in Mediterranean fishing towns, and in France the day carries the vow of Louis XIII in 1638.

The Eastern counterpart on the same August 15, called the falling asleep and preceded by a strict fourteen-day fast. The East narrates Mary's death, burial and an empty tomb and declines the 1950 Roman definition.

Kept on September 14 in both East and West as a feast of the cross as trophy rather than horror. In the Orthodox churches it is a Great Feast and a strict fast day, with the cross venerated and bowed to the four directions.

On November 1 the Western church honors all saints, known and unknown, growing from early commemorations of the martyrs. It expresses belief in the communion of saints and is followed by All Souls.

Closes the year on 2 November with prayer for the faithful departed, fixed by Odilo of Cluny about 998. With All Hallows' Eve and All Saints it forms Allhallowtide, and in Mexico it merges with the Day of the Dead.