Does the First Sunday in Ordinary Time exist at all?
  • tandrews
    Posts: 174
    I know that the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord is always this Sunday and then we proceed to the Second Sunday in OT, but is there hypothetically a way to have a first Sunday in Ordinary Time that is not the Baptism of Jesus? Are there even readings for this?

    Sorry if this is a re-post to an old question. This has been bugging me for a while.
  • CatholicZ09
    Posts: 284
    This is something that’s always puzzled me, and any explanation for it has never satisfied me.
    Thanked by 1tandrews
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,092
    The English usage is the source of that piece of confusion.

    There are propers for days of weeks of ordinally counted (ordinary) time. They are not all full weeks of days: (1) the first week, (3) the week in which Ash Wednesday falls, and (3) the week following Pentecost Sunday are always incomplete weeks.

    Were I in charge of clarifying that usage in the ritual books it would be the Sunday of the N Week of Ordinary Time rather than the N Sunday of Ordinary Time. (Btw, weeks of Ordinary Time are counted forward from Christmastide to Lent, and in reverse from the 34th week before Advent 1 back to Pentecost.)

    So it's not like the commemoration of the ancient First Sunday After Pentecost on the newer Trinity Sunday.

    Circa 1970, there were differences in nomenclature between the first English Lectionaries and the first English Missals about the Baptism of the Lord being part of Christmastide vs Ordinary Time, but that confusion was cleared up in due course - it's the former, not the latter.
    Thanked by 2Elmar Caleferink
  • rich_enough
    Posts: 1,048
    The First Sunday of Ordinary Time is never celebrated: either it is superseded by the Baptism of the Lord (as is usually the case), or by Epiphany if this falls on Sunday, January 7 or 8 (in which case the Baptism of the Lord is celebrated on the following day).

    There are no readings for the Sunday in the lectionary. However, the antiphons and prayers of the First Week in Ordinary Time are still used on the weekdays following the Baptism of the Lord.
    Thanked by 1hilluminar
  • reacebovietto
    Posts: 8
    It existed in the Carmelite Calendar until 2021, as Sunday in the Octave of Epiphany and First Sunday in Ordinary Time. Today, this Sunday in the Octave is celebrated as the Feast of the Holy Family.
    Thanked by 2tandrews tomjaw
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,311
    They changed it to the least good option for the Holy Family. Goodness.
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,467
    In GR the propers for this first week were previously (LU 1961) used for Sunday in the Octave of Epiphany, except for the Communio Notas mihi fecisti which comes from a Votive in Time of War. GR notes that the Sunday is always that of the Baptism of the Lord.
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