This Sunday both concludes Christmastide and begins Ordinary Time. Is that safe to say? I would suggest that, in fact, it is the first solemnity of Ordinary Time because it inaugurates the First Week in Ordinary Time. So a case can be made that it isn't the Christmas Season at all and all decorations should be removed for this Solemnity in Ordinary Time.
But a case can be made that this Solemnity continues the Solemnity of the Epiphany becasue the baptism of Jesus is a theophany or manifestation of God particularly in God's voice being heard to say that "this is my beloved son."
Perhaps it is just a continuation of the Epiphany Season. But is it? Yes and No, not either/or but both/and.
1 comment:
Although customarily Christmas decorations are taken down after Twelfth Night, liturgically Christmastide ends with the Octave day of the Epiphany (13 Jan.) in the older rite, and with the Solemnity of the Baptism of the Lord in the newer rite. This is in the Temporal cycle; in the Sanctoral cycle Christmastide ends with Candlemas (Purification of the BVM/Presentation of the Lord) on 2 Feb.
In the newer rite the Feast of the Baptism is given greater prominence and has a new Mass written for it. If Epiphany is transferred to the following Sunday it gets displaced, which rather defeats the object of the exercise.
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