Liturgical means that something is part of a ritual or prescribed religious format.

The Roman Catholic Mass is a good example of liturgical worship.

Most churches, whether RC or Protestant, have some form of liturgy shaping their worship services. Of course, liturgy isn't confined to Christianity.
Wherever people meet and worship according to a carefully constructed and widely known structure, you are seeing liturgy.
Non-liturgical means that worship is conducted without a specific set of prayers and rites. Friends (Quakers) used to and still to in some meeting
houses sit silently until someone in the congregation is moved to speak. They believe that God moves them to speak and that is a purer form of
worship than reciting liturgical prayers. Other examples are some Ana-baptist sects, the Shakers nd many New Ages type churches.
Liturgical worship involves specific forms and rites, which emphasizes unity among believers. Nonliturgical worship is free-form, perhaps following
loose general guidelines but emphasizing a "leading of the Spirit". Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox would be examples of Christian liturgical
worship; Baptist and fundamentalist denominations would be examples of nonliturgical platforms.
Like many other 'churchy' words, 'liturgy' comes from the language used by the early church in its worship and writings - Greek. The word liturgy is
derived from leitourgia which was used to refer to any public work or function exercised by the people as a whole. The people who do the work of
liturgy are the people of God, all baptised.
A well-known word that is close in meaning to 'liturgy' is the word 'worship'. Butwhile worship can be done privately, 'liturgy' is always a public,
group activity.
A working definition of 'liturgy' that is helpful is 'The official, public worship of the Church'.
Some of the best-known forms of liturgy in the Roman Catholic Church areMass (or
Eucharist), Baptism, Confirmation, Marriage, Funerals and Penance (or Confession). In the Catholic Church, we worship using forms and patterns of
worship that have developed during the Church's 2000-year history. Every day of the year falls into a particular place into the church's liturgical
calendar, and certain scripture readings and prayers are assigned for use at Mass each day. The celebration of the rites of Baptism, Marriage, Funerals
and so on are set out in the Church's ritual of books.
Liturgy is always an action, something we do. It is a public action, a ritual action, and a symbolic action. It is the proclamation of the word that God
speaks to us; it is in the breaking of the bread that we recognise Christ. We participate in the action of the liturgy by responding, singing, listening and
joining the gestures.
The liturgical year, also known as the church year or Christian year, consists of the cycle of liturgical seasons in Christian churches that
determines when feast days, including celebrations of saints, are to be observed, and which portions of Scripture are to be read either in an annual
cycle or in a cycle of several years. Distinct liturgical colours may appear in connection with different seasons of the liturgical year. The dates of the
festivals vary somewhat between the different churches, though the sequence and logic is largely the same.\
Liturgical cycle
The liturgical year of some western churches other than the Catholic Church, indicating the liturgical colours.
The liturgical cycle divides the year into a series of seasons, each with their own mood, theological emphases, and modes of prayer, which can be
signified by different ways of decorating churches, colours of paramentsand vestments for clergy, scriptural readings, themes for preaching and even
different traditions and practices often observed personally or in the home. In churches that follow the liturgical year, the scripture passages for each
Sunday (and even each day of the year in some traditions) are specified in a lectionary.
After the Protestant Reformation, Anglicans and Lutherans continued to follow the lectionary of the Roman Rite. Following a decision of the Second
Vatican Council, the Catholic Church revised that lectionary in 1969, adopting a three-year cycle of readings for Sundays and a two-year cycle for
weekdays.
Adaptations of the revised Roman Rite lectionary were adopted by Protestants, leading to the publication in 1994 of the Revised Common
Lectionary for Sundays and major feasts, which is now used by many Protestant denominations, including also Methodists, Reformed, United, etc.
This has led to a greater awareness of the traditional Christian year among Protestants, especially among mainline denominations.
Biblical calendars[edit]
Scholars are not in agreement about whether the calendars used by the Jews before the Babylonian captivity were solar (based on the return of the
same relative position between the sun and the earth) or lunisolar (based on months that corresponded to the cycle of the moon, with periodic
additional months to bring the calendar back into agreement with the solar cycle) like the present-day Hebrew calendar.[1] ` The first month of the
year was called ( Aviv),[2] meaning the month of green ears of grain.[3] It thus occurred in the spring.
At about the time of the Babylonian captivity, the Jews adopted as the name for the month the term ( Nisan),[4] based on the Babylonian name
Nisanu.[5] Thomas J Talley says that the adoption of the Babylonian term occurred even before the captivity. [6]
In the earlier calendar, most of the months were simply called by a number (such as "the fifth month"). The Babylonian-derived names of the months
currently used by Jews are:
1. Nisan (MarchApril)
2. Iyar (AprilMay)
3. Sivan (MayJune)
4. Tammuz (JuneJuly)
5. Av (JulyAugust)
6. Elul (AugustSeptember)
7. Tishrei (SeptemberOctober)
8. Cheshvan (OctoberNovember)

9. Kislev (NovemberDecember)
10. Tevet (DecemberJanuary)
11. Shevat (JanuaryFebruary)
12. Adar (FebruaryMarch)
In Biblical times, the following Jewish religious feasts were celebrated :

Pesach (Passover) 14 Nisan/Abib (sacrifice of a lamb), 15 Nisan/Abib (Passover seder)

Shavuot (Pentecost) Fiftieth day counted from Passover, normally 6 Sivan

"Day of Blowing Shofar/Trumpet" (now known as Rosh Hashanah) 1 Tishrei

Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) 10 Tishrei

Sukkot (Tabernacles) 15 Tishrei

Hanukkah (Dedication or Lights) 25 Kislev (instituted in 164 BC)

Purim (Lots) 14 Adar (instituted c. 400 BC)

The Liturgical Season
The different milestones in the life of Our Lord are celebrated between the First Sunday of Advent and the last Sunday of the Churchs calendar
which is the feast of the Kingship of Christ. There are six seasons in the Liturgical Season:

Advent

Christmas

Ordinary Time I

Lent

Triduum

Easter

Ordinary Time II
The Liturgical colours
The Catholic Church offers guidelines as to the use of particular colours during the different celebrations of its calendar.
White symbolises purity and joy and is used during Easter and Christmas, also on certain feast days commemorating Our Lady, the Angels & Saints
Red symbolises charity and is used on Palm Sunday, Good Friday & Pentecost Sunday. It is also used on the feast days of Martyrs.
Green symbolises hope and is the colour used to represent Ordinary Time.
Purple represents purification and penance. It is used during the seasons of Advent & Lent. It is also a common colour used at funerals,& on the
commemoration of All Souls. For Funerals some diocese use white vestments.
The Liturgical cycles
The readings from the Lectionary follow a Sunday cycle and a weekday cycle. The Sundays follow a three year cycle, A, B, & C. The weekday cycle
is a two year block and this is called Year I and Year II
During the Sunday cycle The Gospel of Matthew is read in Year A, the Gospel of Mark for year B and in year C the gospel of Luke is read. During
Eastertide the gospel of John is read. In the weekday cycle Year I is read during odd number years, eg, 2007, 2009.
Year II is read in even year such as 2008. 2010.
Advent
This season consists of four weeks leading to the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Many parishes mark the four Sundays of this time with an Advent
Wreath,
The mantra associated with this time of preparation and reflection on our need of the Lord to continually fill our lives is, Come Lord Jesus.
Christmas
This season begins on Christmas Day and ends with the feast of the Epiphany. This is a time of thanksgiving for the gift of the Word Made Flesh to
our world, God coming among us as a humble servant and affirming each human being in the world. The Baptism of Our Lord is celebrated on the
following Sunday.
Ordinary Time
Ordinary Time begins after the feast of the Baptism of Jesus and ends on the Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. During the Sundays of these weeks the
readings are remembering the many aspects surrounding the life of Christ.During this year the gospel of the Sunday is from the Mark the evangelist
as is the gospel of the weekdays. There are occasions when the reading are particular to a feast day and are to be found at the end of your weekday
missal. There are several commemorations of Saints where the readings are in Ordinary Time of a particular week.
The celebrant of the Eucharist will wear green vestments with the exceptions of Feast days. If a martyr is being commemorated red will be worn by
the priest, otherwise white is the choice in the case of all other commemorations.

Lent
This season begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Holy Saturday. Its a time of renewal and repentance and its making an effort to be more single
minded in living our faith and allowing it influence our everyday lives. It recalls the forty days Jesus spent in the desert fasting and praying. The
scripture readings are continually calling us in these weeks to live better lives.
Triduum
The three great days of the Triduum, Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday commemorate the suffering, death & Resurrection of Our
Lord.
Holy Thursday marks the celebration of the first Eucharist, Good Friday has a very stark mood about it as we remembering the crucifixion of Jesus.
Holy Saturday is a day of quiet and stillness as the world waits to celebrate the Resurrection of Our Lord with the Easter Vigil.
Easter
This begins with the celebration of the Christ risen from the dead on Easter Sunday. This is followed by the second Sunday of Easter to the sixth
Sunday of Easter The next Feast we celebrate is the Ascension of Our Lord. The following Sunday the period of Eastertide ends with the celebration
of Pentecost.
Ordinary Time II
We begin with Trinity Sunday, this is the church celebrating the unity between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and how we and all creation
share in this relationship and are infused with the energy coming from this relationship.
After this we celebrate the Feast of the Body & Blood of Our Lord, also the feast of the Assumption of Our Lady, and finally the feast of the
Kingship of Christ.