Incorporate the beauty and depth of the liturgical year into your daily life with these easy-to-follow suggestions.
The Catholic Church offers a treasury of wealth in her liturgical year, the intentional celebration of which can be a source of many blessings and spiritual growth. When living the Church’s calendar, we embark upon a “great voyage of faith,” as Pope Benedict XVI stated — we are swept into Christ’s life.
Living the liturgical year entails more than knowing and observing the current liturgical season. It involves celebrating the Church’s feast days, keeping the prescribed days of rest and penance, and incorporating devotions into our daily lives. So, practically speaking, how do we set out on the “great voyage of faith?” Here are eight easy ways to incorporate the liturgical year into our daily lives:
1. Celebrate the specific monthly devotions.
Each month is dedicated to a certain person or specific devotion and offers the opportunity to grow in the faith by learning about and fostering a love for the month’s devotion. We can read an article or book or incorporate daily prayers, reflective of the month’s devotion. For instance, October invites us to pray the Rosary daily (if we are not in the habit of doing so) and to learn its origin. Similarly, November can spark within us a devotion to the souls in purgatory by praying the Prayers for the Dead, by praying at the cemetery for those deceased, or by learning about saints such as St. Faustina, who was said to have received visits from the Holy Souls.
2. Ponder the devotion for each day of the week.
Just as there is a devotion for each month, the Church gifts us a devotion for each day of the week. We can arrange our week meditating upon the daily devotion that the Church offers.
For example, Mondays, dedicated to the Holy Souls in Purgatory, afford us the opportunity to pray for them and our deceased loved ones. Meanwhile, Thursdays invite us to enter into the mystery of the Eucharist. As there is no greater gift than the Eucharist, we can begin the day by attending Mass, making a spiritual communion or thanking God for giving us himself in the Eucharist. We can also stop by our local parish for a visit to the Blessed Sacrament, whether it be for 10 minutes or for a holy hour, or say a prayer for priests, especially our parish priests that day.
3. Cook, eat and drink with the saints.
What better way to celebrate the liturgical year than by creating a festive dinner and drink for saint’s feast days?
Cook your way through Cooking With the Saints and Dining With the Saints.
Both pair daily feasts with a recipe from the saint’s homeland and give a short biography of the saint’s life. Meanwhile, Drinking With the Saints supplies cocktail recipes for daily feasts and a glimpse into the saint’s life through a lively biography. It even features fun trivia for each feast!
4. Plan activities that reflect the liturgical year.
By their example, the saints teach us how to follow Christ. So why not commemorate their feast days with an activity that reflects their spirituality or interests? Start by picking one or two saints a month to intentionally celebrate.
For instance, in December, contemplate turning on your outdoor Christmas lights on the feast of St. Lucy, whose name means “light.” Allow St. Thomas Aquinas’ feast in January to invite you to read one of his meditations, sermons or articles from his Summa Theologiae.
To honor St. Joseph, find or make St. Joseph’s pastries (Zeppole di San Giuseppe or Sfinge) in March. By observing saints’ feast days in festive ways, we invite our heavenly friends into our lives, reflect on their witness, and recall their presence among us.
Families can discover additional ideas for living the liturgical year at blogs such as Catholic Icing, which provides numerous ways to celebrate the feasts and seasons of the Church!
5. Celebrate patron saints and sacrament anniversaries.
There are no better intercessors for us than our patron saints — the saints we are named after. A beautiful tradition that honors our patron saints entails celebrating our name day (which occurs on our namesake’s feast day) by attending Mass, reading about their lives, praying to them throughout the day, having a special dinner with family and friends, or planning a celebratory activity.
Similarly, we can remember our confirmation saint, other saints to whom we have acquired a devotion, and our Baptism and confirmation anniversaries in the same manner. In so doing, we become more conscious of the gift of faith, of the saints’ company, and show our gratitude for their presence and intercession in our lives.
6. Observe Sundays as a day of rest.
On Sundays, we are called to imitate God who created for six days and rested on the seventh. The first way to observe Sunday is to fulfill our Sunday obligation: attending Mass. For the duration of the day, we should engage in activities that enable Sunday to be a day of rest, and disengage from activities that prohibit leisure for oneself and others, such as shopping or running errands. This may involve some clever rearrangement of how we spend the rest of the week, but is well worth it!
To help differentiate Sunday from the rest of the week, spend the day with family or friends, make a nice dinner, or eat dessert together.
7. Keep Fridays as a day of penance.
Regardless of whether we are in Lent or not, Fridays have always been observed as days of penance in the Church. If it is not a habit of giving something up on Friday, start to do so, and be intentional about it. Avoid eating meat on Friday (traditionally, this has been the practice of the Church), or sacrifice something else in its stead, as the Church teaches.
If you are already in the habit of observing Fridays as a day of penance, consider incorporating another penitential day into your week — perhaps Wednesdays, which traditionally were observed by the Church in remembrance of Judas’ betrayal.
8. Pray with the daily Mass readings.
The Church invites us to daily enter into God’s Word by meditating on Scripture for at least 15 minutes. Pope Benedict XVI emphasized this necessity: “It is important to reserve a certain time each day for meditation on the Bible so that the Word of God will be the lamp that illuminates our daily path on earth.”
Vatican II’s constitution on Scripture, Dei Verbum, quotes St. Ambrose, noting that in praying with the Scriptures “God and man may talk together; for ‘we speak to Him when we pray; we hear Him when we read the divine saying.’”
United with the universal Church when meditating upon the Mass readings proper for the day, we encounter Christ and gaze upon his life, allowing his Word to transform us, and enabling us to follow his example. A daily Missal, Magnificat subscription or e-mail subscription of the daily Mass readings from the USCCB will help with this endeavor.
By implementing these above practices in our daily lives, we integrate the life of the Church into ours. The mysteries of Christ’s life and the saints in heaven will slowly become woven into ours and we will experience and live on a deeper level each year, as Pope Benedict reflects, “the mystery of [the] faithfulness of God.”
