(Lent) Living the Liturgical Year: A Bastion against Secularism

Having grown up without any religion until attending a Lutheran high school, I had a secular view of the rhythm of the seasons. There was Christmas and New Year-hockey and basketball seasons. There was Easter-the start of baseball and track season. Summer was construction jobs, more baseball, beach, and beer. Fall was football. Interspaced through the seasons were family birthdays and national holidays, like the 4th of July and Thanksgiving.

Even after becoming Lutheran, the rhythm of a religious life wasn’t always present. Only Christmas, a little Lent, Good Friday, Easter and Reformation Day were on my radar. But in all honesty, I wasn’t very concerned or devout in my faith at the time. On becoming Catholic, one of the first things that struck me was the number of solemnities, saints’ feasts, and holy days of obligation that were mentioned at weekly Mass. The first time I looked at a yearly liturgical calendar put out by the Church I was amazed that every day of the year there was “a liturgical event.”

The calendar we use today is a solar calendar based on the seasons, phases of the moon etc...It has also been known at various times as the Western or Christian calendar. It is structured around the workweek or the school week by secular societies and not around the Christian faith. However, I discovered that was not the original intent.

Pope Gregory XIII in 1582 commissioned a new, more accurate calendar because the old calendar (the Julian) was off by 10 days and thus affected the accurate celebration for Easter and other religious feasts.

The Church has defined six liturgical seasons that cover the year: Advent, Christmas, ordinary time, Lent, Easter and another ordinary time...

The liturgical calendar can lead us to meditate and reflect more fully on the daily liturgy – on what is being celebrated on any given day. By providing the “waypoints” that gives a sense of order and harmony to “time,” the calendar gives meaning to our faith. The numerous elements of the liturgical year have been designed by the Church to provide a harmonious sequence for understanding our faith.

In the liturgical calendar we see remembrances of the works of Christ, Mary, and the saints, as examples we should imitate. By reflecting on each day of the liturgical calendar we are able to insert Christ’s life and teachings into the day to day life we lead. It gives a daily connection and dialog with our faith beyond just Sunday Mass.

The liturgical calendar can serve as an overlay to the secular calendar. An analogy is a physical or topographic map (the liturgical calendar) as an overlay to a road map (the secular calendar). Whereas a roadmap (the secular calendar) shows the roads in an area, it does not show the physical nature of the area-the streams, hills valleys etc.-as does the physical map (the liturgical calendar). The liturgical calendar shows the faith overlay to our secular life.

Our day to day lives by necessity often revolve around work, school, parental responsibilities, etc. So one foot of our life experience is always in terms of secular time from New Years until December 31st. However, as Catholics, we have an additional time frame that starts with Advent and ends with the Solemnity of Christ the King. Daily Mass events that are on the liturgical calendar between those two-time periods-feasts, remembrances, etc.-provide us with signposts for our journey through faith. At the beginning of the liturgical year we start with the anticipation and need for God to become man (Advent), and at the end, we come to the ultimate celebration and declaration that Christ is our King.

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