Easter is a moveable feast!  At the simplest level, it is the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal (spring) equinox (tied into the Hebrew calendar that way).  This combination of conditions means that in any given year, Easter will fall between March 22 and April 25.  This year, Easter is on April 21—a little bit later and less frequent.

This means that Ash Wednesday falls later as well, on March 6.  So we will have a longer than usual period of Ordinary Time—all the way up to the 8th Sunday in Ordinary Time on March 3.  After Lent comes the Easter Season.  Then there are the two feasts of Holy Trinity and The Body and Blood of Christ.  The next Sunday after these is the 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time.

You see there is a gap between the 8th and 13th Sundays.  Such a gap always exists so that we will end up properly at the feast of Christ the King (the 34th Sunday).  Where do those Sundays go?  For one thing, this year we do not hear the readings for the 9th thru the 12th Sundays.  The readings for the 8th and 9th Sundays in Ordinary Time are among the least heard set of readings.  They are usually lost in Lent.  Combine that with the three-year cycle of Sunday readings (we are in Year C in 2019), and we hear some readings very seldom.

In fact, in 2011 we heard a set of readings we have not heard since the new Lectionary was set up, over 41 years!  As we move deeper into these weeks of Ordinary Time, appreciate the beauty of the Scripture, as we hardly ever hear it.  From 7th Sunday on, they are likely to be readings you have seldom heard!