The Liturgical Year: Seasons and Celebrations

When we last met, we talked about the rites, the rituals, the sacraments of the Church, and sort of a general way. Today I'd like to speak about particularly the Sunday celebration, the Sabbath, as it were, and then the liturgical year.

We are called as God's people to celebrate in the sense of the commandments tell us to keep holy the Lord's Day. The Christian Church for 2000 years has said we will gather on Sundays to celebrate God, God's action in our lives, the Paschal Mystery of Jesus's suffering, death, and Resurrection that we may participate in the Eucharist and be nourished.

It's a day that we're called to do three things to worship, to rest, and to do works of charity. And it's a thing for us to consider in our society with so much that goes on Sundays and Saturdays, how do we find the Sabbath for ourselves and our families?

One of the ways we find the Sabbath is through engaging that full, active, conscious participation in the Church's liturgical year and the meaning of the seasons of the Church. We often regulate our lives by whether we're in Fall or Spring or Summer or Winter. In the Church, we have the liturgical seasons, starting the year with Advent. Advent is a season, sisters and brothers, not of sadness but of joyful expectation.

There's a penitential character as we reflect on the fact that we have entered a new year and how we might indeed live in a new way, but we're focused on both the coming of Christ, the Second Coming, but also a recollection of what the Incarnation and the coming of Christ in Christmas has meant for us and for the world.

That's followed by the beauty of the Christmas season, which goes on from Christmas Day to the celebration of the Baptism of Jesus by John the Baptist. So we go through the birth and early life of Christ, celebrating and reflecting on how Christmas is incorporated into our lives, how we are indeed Christmas people every day of the year.

That season ends with a short journey into several weeks of Ordinary Time. The majority of the Church year is that green color of Ordinary Time. It means we don't always live our lives at the peak. Very often we live our lives in the ordinary. The everyday. Much of the writings of many of the great theologians have been about what is ordinary in the life of the Church, and that's what we celebrate in that long season.

It's actually 34 weeks of Ordinary Time that we have that short four weeks or so of Ordinary Times, followed by the season of Lent,  they're truly a penitential season, when we reflect on, our sinfulness or the social sin in our society, how we are being called to be indeed, people prepared for Easter.

The celebration of the Easter Vigil unlocks the Easter season. Holy Week, that great time of transition, the Easter Vigil, then followed by 50 days of Easter. It is an incredible challenge in the Church for us sisters and brothers to realize incorporate being Easter for 50 days, we’re called to celebrate, celebrate, celebrate, celebrate this wondrous gift of Christ's resurrection,

His ascension and ultimately the Feast of Pentecost, which closes off the Easter season.

We're back into that season of Ordinary Time. Sisters and brothers. This cycle, like summer, winter, spring, and fall, continues in the life of the Church each time. It offers us this tremendous gift to be ever more deeply incorporated into the life of Christ, the life of the Trinity.

Certainly that represents the majority of the Church year, but that Church year is sprinkled with all kinds of celebrations, particularly what we call the cycle of the saints, both major saints and, as it were, lesser saints, we celebrate feast days and memorial days, days that are special to communities. We celebrate October 1st every year because it's the feast of Saint Theresa of

Lisieux, our patron, is here at Saint Theresa.

October 4th, the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi, the Feast of Saint Benedict and Scholastica, the great saints we call to mind, the feast of Saint Paul Miki, and the 25 people who were persecuted under the Japanese Church in the 16th century.

All of these, saints in their stories and their examples are opportunities, as we've reflected before, to be strengthened, to be renewed, to be called to a deeper participation in the life of Christ. Sisters and brothers, whether it's in the liturgical year, that cycle that continues, or the cycle of saints, each of us offers a way in which we indeed are called to be renewed.

Reflection Questions:

1. How can I honor the Sabbath in my daily life?

2. What does each liturgical season teach me about my Faith journey?

3. How can I actively participate in the Church’s celebrations and sacraments?