Planning hymns by season, from Advent to Christ the King
Plan hymns by season by tagging each hymn in your hymnal with the seasons and feasts it suits (Advent, Christmas, the Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost, All Saints, Christ the King), leaving general hymns untagged, and then choosing for each Sunday among the hymns tagged for its season, longest rested first. The hymnal library holds the tags and the planning desk offers the matches.
What each season asks for
- Advent: waiting and watching. Keep the Christmas hymns for Christmas; four Sundays of Advent hymns is a short list, so rest them across years.
- Christmas: twelve days, often only one or two Sundays. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day use the best known; the Sundays after can carry the less familiar.
- The Epiphany and the Sundays after it: light, revelation and the Baptism of the Lord, then general hymns in green until the Last Sunday after the Epiphany.
- Lent: restraint. Many parishes drop alleluias; Palm Sunday and Holy Week have their own small repertoire.
- Easter: fifty days, not one. Spread the Easter hymns across all seven Sundays and the Day of Pentecost.
- After Pentecost: the long green season. General hymns carry it, with All Saints and Christ the King (or Reign of Christ) near the end.
A hymn tagged for one season and used in another is flagged on the planning desk, which catches a Christmas hymn left in a Lent plan. Hymns with no tags are treated as general: they are never flagged, and they are offered in the green seasons after the tagged ones.
Tagging a hymnal quickly
Most hymnals group hymns by season in their own order, so tagging goes fast section by section. Tag only what is specific. A general hymn of praise left untagged is more useful than one tagged for every season, because tags are what make a mismatch visible.
Topic tags (baptism, communion, harvest, evening, sending) sit beside the season tags and help with occasional services. The public domain starter index in the library comes tagged as a starting point.
Worked example: the seasons of 2026-27
The coming church year, 2026-27 (lectionary Year B), worked out by the planner's calendar, prayer book style:
| Season | Starts | Customary colour | Sundays |
|---|---|---|---|
| Advent | 29 Nov 2026 | Purple or blue | 4 |
| Christmas | 25 Dec 2026 | White | 2 |
| Season after the Epiphany | 6 Jan 2027 | Green | 5 |
| Lent | 10 Feb 2027 | Purple | 5 |
| Holy Week | 21 Mar 2027 | Purple or red | 1 |
| Easter | 28 Mar 2027 | White | 8 |
| Season after Pentecost | 23 May 2027 | Green | 27 |
For Christ the King on 22 November 2026, the demo parish is offered hymns tagged for the day first, then general hymns, each longest rested first and clear of the repeat window:
| Hymn | Last sung |
|---|---|
| 52 Rejoice, the Lord Is King | 14 May 2026 |
| 22 Crown Him with Many Crowns | 17 May 2026 |
| 41 Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah | 2 Aug 2026 |
| 44 Eternal Father, Strong to Save | 9 Aug 2026 |
| 50 Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee | 9 Aug 2026 |
| 38 Be Thou My Vision | 30 Aug 2026 |
Common mistakes
- Tagging every general hymn with every season, which switches the season warning off for them.
- Using all the Easter hymns on Easter Day and leaving six Sundays of Easter with none.
- Starting Christmas hymns in Advent without deciding to; the season warning shows where it happened.
- Forgetting that the season after the Epiphany is short in a year with an early Easter.
- Taking colours as rules: customary colours vary by parish and tradition, and the planner shows them as a note.
Plan it now
Open the planning desk to pick this Sunday's hymns with last-sung dates beside them, or the library to enter your hymnal. Everything stays in this browser; nothing is uploaded and there is no account.
Frequently asked questions
When does each season start?
Advent starts on the Sunday nearest 30 November, Christmas on 25 December, the Epiphany on 6 January, Lent on Ash Wednesday (46 days before Easter), Holy Week on Palm Sunday, Easter on Easter Day, and the season after Pentecost on the Monday after the Day of Pentecost.
How many Sundays are there after the Epiphany?
Between four and nine, depending on the date of Easter. An early Easter makes a short season after the Epiphany and a long season after Pentecost; a late Easter does the opposite.
Do Roman Catholic parishes use the same seasons?
The seasons are the same, but the green Sundays are counted in Ordinary Time, the Christmas season runs to the Baptism of the Lord, and some feasts move to Sundays. The planner has a Roman setting for this.
Are hymns tagged for seasons in the app already?
Only the public domain starter index comes with our own suggested tags. Your own hymnal is tagged by you, or imported with a seasons column from a spreadsheet you keep.
Sources
Last reviewed 27 September 2026 against:
- The Calendar of the Church Year (Book of Common Prayer, 1979), The Online Book of Common Prayer (bcponline.org), read 27 September 2026. Used for: The principal feasts, the three fixed feasts that take precedence of a Sunday (the Holy Name, the Presentation, the Transfiguration), All Saints' Day kept on the following Sunday, and feasts moved out of Holy Week and Easter Week.
- General Norms for the Liturgical Year and the Calendar, Catholic Culture library (text of the 1969 norms), read 27 September 2026. Used for: Advent on the Sunday nearest 30 November, the Baptism of the Lord on the Sunday after 6 January, Ordinary Time of 33 or 34 weeks and where it starts and stops, and Epiphany, Ascension and Corpus Christi moved to Sundays where they are not holy days of obligation.
- Selected Christian Observances (data service), US Naval Observatory, Astronomical Applications Department, years 1990 to 2070 and eight edge years fetched and read 27 September 2026. Used for: The published dates of Ash Wednesday, Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter, Ascension Day, Pentecost, Trinity Sunday and the First Sunday of Advent that the calendar engine is tested against.
This guide is our own summary, not a rule book. Rules are paraphrased, never quoted at length, and if this page disagrees with the current published rules, the rules win. Hymnwise is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to any church, denomination, diocese, hymnal publisher, lectionary body or licensing service, including the Consultation on Common Texts, Augsburg Fortress, Church Publishing, GIA, OCP, Hope Publishing, Hymnary.org, OneLicense and CCLI.