How (and When) we Celebrate Epiphany, and Why This Christmas Card is Definitely Not Too Late

Today is January 6th, which is the traditional date of Epiphany, the day that the three Wise Men arrived in Bethlehem, having followed the star to meet the baby Jesus. But for Western Catholics, we celebrate it tomorrow, on the Sunday after January 1st.

Liturgical nerd details to follow, feel free to skip these next two paragraphs if that's not you.

Before the 1969 liturgical calendar revisions, Christmas was an octave that went from December 25-January 1 (the Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God), each day of Christmas was a solemnity, as is the case with the Easter octave. Christmastide went all the way to twelfth night, January 5th. January 6th was Epiphany, which was its own octave, and (until 1955) the celebration of Epiphany included the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord. Epiphanytide lasted until Candlemas (the Feast of the Presentation) on February 2nd. After Candlemas, the holidays were considered over and it was time to prepare for Lent.

Now, in the Latin Church, Christmas is one Solemnity: December 25, and is an octave, but not an octave of solemnities. This is to preserve the celebrations of the liturgies of the feast days that fall during the octave: St. Stephen, St. John, and the Holy Innocents. Under the new liturgical calendar, in order to emphasize Sunday and Solemnity Masses and the readings that go with them, those celebrations supercede lesser feast days. A saint's day that falls on a Sunday or during the Easter octave only gets bumped every seven years, since Easter moves, but those Christmas octave feasts would get bumped every year. (All it really means for us at home is no Christmas meat Friday.