Exploring the Time After Pentecost in the Liturgical Year | Reflection

Vintage prayer card of Pentecost

In the 1962 Church calendar (which I prefer more often than not over the current liturgical calendar for various reasons that I will address at a later time), three overall seasons make up the liturgical year: the Season of the Nativity, the Season of Easter, and the Season of Pentecost. (These are also sometimes referred to as the Christmas Cycle, the Easter Cycle, and the Time After Pentecost.)

These three larger seasons then have smaller seasons within them:
  • The Season of Nativity is made up of the season of Advent, the season of Christmas, and the season of Epiphany.
  • The Season of Easter is made up of the season of Septuagesima, the season of Lent, and the season of Easter.
  • The Season of Pentecost is made up of the season of Pentecost (which is simply the octave of Pentecost) and all the time from then until the end of the liturgical year.
There is some debate as to whether Pentecost is included at the end of the Season of Easter or the beginning of the Season of Pentecost, but for the purposes of this post, I don't think it makes much of a difference at the moment, so we'll leave the current classification as-is.

As you can see from the breakdown above, the Season of Pentecost is pretty wide-ranging and not quite as neatly defined as the rest of the liturgical year. And I would argue from personal experience that the lack of definition is noticeably felt when trying to live out the liturgical year at home.

What do we do with the time after Pentecost to feed our souls spiritually? It's such a long stretch of time, and unlike the Christmas and Easter cycles, doesn't culminate in major events surrounding the life of Christ upon which to meditate throughout the season. This time of year, in my opinion, can feel a little dull and aimless without a kind of end goal to help us focus our attention on the areas of our lives we need to improve. We use Advent devotionals to help us prepare our souls for Christmas and likewise use Lent devotionals to prepare for Easter. But what is there left to prepare for after that, if anything at all?

There may not be a right answer, but here at least is my answer: the end---or more so, death.

If we examine more closely the months that comprise the Season of Pentecost, we find that they typically include some or most of June through most, if not all, of November. We can then look at the dedications assigned to each month for further guidance:
  • June: the Sacred Heart
  • July: the Most Precious Blood of Jesus
  • August: the Immaculate Heart of Mary
  • September: Our Lady of Sorrows
  • October: the Rosary & the Angels
  • November: the Souls in Purgatory
As you can see from this progression, we have a kind of transition from Jesus' Passion and Resurrection to our own deaths by ending the liturgical year with a focus on the angels and purgatory, reminding us of the divine and the possibilities of heaven and purgatory that await us beyond death. It seems fitting, too, that this message of ending our earthly lives comes at the end of the liturgical year.

Also within this time, we have the births and deaths of the Blessed Mother and St. John the Baptist (although not "in order" for Mary, per se, with the Assumption being celebrated in August and her birth being celebrated in September). This again recalls the cycle of life and death for ourselves, impressing upon the notion that every human will die, even the ones conceived and born without Original Sin.

And really this theme of death is present throughout each season of the liturgical year; it's just viewed through different lenses depending on the season.

During Advent and Christmas, we recall our inevitable death with the hope that the Savior is coming into the world to open the gates of Heaven for us. This then leads into Lent and Easter, the means by which Jesus conquers our death with His own.

From there, let's pause for a moment on Pentecost---when the Lord asked the new leaders of His Church to evangelize, to spread the Good News. This spirit of evangelization, then, sets the tone for the rest of the Time After Pentecost, implying that we, too, are now called to go out and spread our Faith with renewed vigor. 

But one could argue that for this call to evangelize to have its fullest, deepest meaning, we need to underscore it with an acknowledgment that everyone is fated to die, so we therefore must repent and follow Christ if we wish to gain eternal life. Without this acknowledgment, the need for evangelization (and by extension, the continual preparation of our own souls) loses its urgency.

By the time we reach November, we capitalize on this idea that our time for the year has come to a close, symbolizing the ending of our own lives. And as is appropriate to do at the end of any journey, we review and reflect on our progress. So in this context, we can ponder: How well did we evangelize? Is the state of my soul properly prepared to be in the presence of God?

Therefore, we can now look through this lens of Memento Mori ("remember your death") more clearly as we move from June through November and overlay it with each of the monthly dedications given to us by the Church to better ground us throughout the Season of Pentecost, in turn providing more nourishment for the soul and aiding us in the never-ending process of spiritual refinement.


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