The Year

What this is: the readings kept as a year, the way a church keeps one: Advent first, then Christmas, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, and the long green stretch of ordinary time. Join at any week; you fall into the rhythm the way anyone joins mid-year.

How to use it: each week, open the unit listed. Its Gospel reading is what you read aloud at step 4 of the order card; its "word for the week" is the teaching; its table question is for the talk.

Advent (weeks 1-4)

The weeks before Christmas: a season of waiting and making room.

Christmas (weeks 5-6)

God arrives, low and humble, laid in a feeding trough, and the outsiders find him before the experts do.

Time after Epiphany (weeks 7-12)

Who he is, and the start of the way: the Word made flesh, the voice at the water, the first sign, the heart of the law, and the light on the mountain just before the road turns toward the cross.

Lent (weeks 13-18)

The road to the cross. The temptation, the hard teachings, the cost of following, and the forgiveness that has no ceiling.

Holy Week (weeks 19-21)

His last days. The towel, the garden, the cross. A household may gather midweek for these, not only on Sunday.

Easter (weeks 22-27)

He is risen. The resurrection season: the empty tomb, the garden, the road, the wounds, the breakfast, the peace.

Ordinary Time (weeks 28-52)

The long green season of growing: the parables, the meals, the healings, kept through ordinary days, before the year turns back into Advent.