Our Confusing Calendar

Please don’t misunderstand me. I love the liturgical calendar employed by the Catholic Church, with its seasons, solemnities, feasts, and memorials. It’s just that, for those trying to read ahead for the mass readings or pray the Liturgy of the Hours, it can be terribly confusing.

Yesterday, for example, some parishes heard the readings for the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time, while others heard the readings for the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul. When I woke up Sunday morning, I prayed the hours for the Third Sunday. However, my sister relayed to me that her parish (St. Paul’s) was holding a special vespers service because Paul is the parish patron and Sunday was his feast day, and this is the year of St. Paul. So, when I did my evening prayer, I prayed the hours for the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul.

Then, as is my new custom, before retiring I read what I thought would be today’s mass readings. Silly me, I read the readings for Monday of the Third Week of Ordinary Time. When I woke this morning, I prayed the hours for Monday, then sat at the computer to read my gospel meditation. It wasn’t the gospel I expected. The meditation that I received by email was actually for the gospel for the Third Sunday of Ordinary Time. “Hmm, they must have gotten confused,” I thought to myself. But I’m also in the habit of listening to Food for the Journey, Sr. Ann Shields’s daily radio program, and her meditation was on yet another gospel. “What’s going on?” I thought. It turns out that today is the obligatory Memorial of Saint Timothy and Saint Titus.

So, I guess I’ll be praying Evening Prayer from a different set of hours than Morning Prayer two days in a row.

I really gotta make myself a calendar to keep all this straight.