Celebrations are ranked, and the rank decides what happens when two land on the same date. Solemnities are the greatest days and begin the evening before. Feasts are kept within the day itself. Memorials are smaller commemorations of saints, and are either obligatory or optional — an optional memorial is one the priest may keep or not.

When a solemnity is outranked, it is not lost: it moves to the next free day. That is why Saint Joseph sometimes falls on March 20 rather than March 19, and why the Annunciation can end up after Easter week in years when March 25 lands inside Holy Week.

A memorial that falls on a Sunday, or in Lent, or in the last week of Advent, gives way to the day instead. This calendar shows those under the heading “Falls today but is not celebrated this year.”

White is worn in Christmas Time and Easter Time, and on celebrations of the Lord that are not of his Passion, of Our Lady, of the angels, and of saints who were not martyrs. Red is worn on Palm Sunday and Good Friday, at Pentecost, and for the apostles and martyrs. Green is worn in Ordinary Time, and violet in Advent and Lent. ²

Rose may be worn on two days in the year, and only two: Gaudete Sunday, the third of Advent, and Laetare Sunday, the fourth of Lent. Black may be used at Masses for the dead, though violet is usual in the United States.

In the United States the holy days of obligation are Christmas, Mary the Holy Mother of God on January 1, the Ascension, the Assumption on August 15, All Saints on November 1, and the Immaculate Conception on December 8. They are marked here with a gold dot.

Two qualifications matter. When January 1, August 15 or November 1 falls on a Saturday or a Monday, the obligation to attend Mass is abrogated — the celebration remains, the obligation does not. The Immaculate Conception is never abrogated, because it is the patronal feast of the United States.

The Ascension is the genuinely variable one. In the ecclesiastical provinces of Boston, Hartford, New York, Newark, Omaha and Philadelphia it is kept on the Thursday, forty days after Easter. Everywhere else in the country it is transferred to the following Sunday. This calendar shows it on the Thursday and says so on both days.

Optional memorials are included where they are widely kept, but the list is not exhaustive. A parish may celebrate one that does not appear here, and that is the parish being right rather than this page being wrong.

Diocesan and religious calendars are not included at all. Every diocese has its own patron and its own proper celebrations, and religious orders keep their founders and their own saints; those outrank the general calendar locally.

The readings are not here either. Each day links to the USCCB’s own page for that date, which carries the Lectionary citations and the readings in full. ⁴

It is calculated rather than copied. The date of Easter is computed, the seasons and movable feasts follow from it, and the fixed celebrations come from the General Roman Calendar together with the proper calendar for the dioceses of the United States. The ranks, the colors and the order of precedence are those laid down in the Universal Norms on the Liturgical Year. ¹²

It is calculated for a reason. The USCCB publishes the official calendar for the United States as a set of PDFs which are their copyright, and reproducing their tables is not something we have permission to do. What the norms prescribe — which celebration falls on which date, at what rank, in what color — is a matter of public ecclesiastical law rather than an authored work, so this page derives it and links to the bishops for everything that is genuinely theirs.

The practical consequence for you as a reader: where this page and the USCCB’s calendar disagree, the USCCB is right and we have a bug. Please tell us, and check anything that matters against their calendar. ³