A Simple Guide to a Liturgical Year Well Lived

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Happy new Liturgical Year to all my fellow Catholics! We are less than a week away from Advent and the beginning of a great liturgical season. It always seems easy for me to follow the Liturgical Year during Advent and Christmas, but the rest of the year does not seem so easy… So this liturgical year, I want to do better. Wanna come with me?

What is the liturgical year?

The Catholic Liturgical Year is very similar to the calendar year where one season follows another. The seasons have predictable patterns and special events happen around the same time year after year. The Liturgical Year follows a cycle of feasts and fasts, as well as different readings and saints being remembered each day.

In brief

The Liturgical Year starts on the First Sunday of Advent with the season of Advent, followed by the Christmas season, ending on the feast of the Baptism of Our Lord. From the Baptism of Our Lord to Ash Wednesday is called Ordinary Time. Ash Wednesday ushers the penitential season of Lent, followed by the Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday and Holy Saturday. Then comes the greatest season of the year: the Easter season where we get to celebrate for 50 days until Pentecost. Then we resume Ordinary Time until the Feast of Christ the King, the last Sunday before the first Sunday of Advent. This rhythm of fasts and feasts leads us always closer to Christ. How can we fully enter into it and live it well?

No matter the season

There are some things that we can do no matter the season. Be it the Liturgical Season or our season in life. In order to fully enter into the Liturgical Year, we do not have to wait for a special feast day. We can start today. Living the Liturgical Year with our family or on our own can be very simple. The Church offers us so many treasures in its rhythm that it can easily become overwhelming. So I would suggest that we start with one thing at a time. Then wait a little and add the next thing, if your season of life allows without overwhelming you.

Readings

The daily readings chosen for the Mass have their own cycle. As a matter of fact there are 3 separate cycles: Year A, Year B and Year C covering for each year the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, respectively. The Old Testament readings and the Psalms are carefully chosen to lead up to the Gospel reading, bringing the fulfillment of the Old Testament into the New Testament to light. 
In order to live the Liturgical Year daily we can choose to read one or all of these readings. For this coming Advent I plan on starting to read the daily Psalm with my children during our prayer time, every morning. We have been lacking in poetry lately and this is an easy way to pick the habit back up AND to focus on our Faith at the start of the day.

Resources

For the daily readings I really like Magnificat, either the app or the paperback version. You can subscribe at www.US.Magnificat.net . 
The Word Among Us: https://wau.org/,  is another one that comes in both app and paperback format, easy to use on my own or with my family. 

The Saints

I love getting to know these holy men and women of God who have led the way! Every day we remember one or more saints. Why does the Church encourage us to do this? The life of each saint was a pursuit of holiness for the greater glory of God. Therefore by getting to know these men and women and learning about their lives, we too can grow in holiness and bring glory to God. There are many compendiums of the lives of the saints, some are in picture book format, some or not, some are short, some are long. If you’re just getting started in reading the life of a saint daily, I would recommend picking a short to middling reading.

Resources

Our favorite picture book resources are mentioned in detail here. 
The compendiums of the lives of the saints that we have enjoyed in the past that do not have as many pictures are the following:

• A Saint a Day: A 365-Day Devotional Featuring Christian Saints, by Meredith Hinds, illustrated by Isabel Muñoz.
  This one is very simple and to the point. It is organized from January 1st to December 31st, making it very convenient to just pick up every morning, without having to double check whose feast day it is. For each saint is listed her dates, location, a scripture sentence that applies to her life, a short biography and a one sentence prayer asking for that saint’s intercession. 
• Our Friends In Heaven Saints: For Every Day, Volume 1 (January -June) and Volume 2 (July-December) by the Daughters of St. Paul, illustrated by Allison Gilot.
  We have used this set for many, many years! It is a very simple biography of each saint followed by a short prayer asking for the intercession of that saint or for the grace to emulate that saint’s way of holiness.

Patron Saints Feast Days

A beautiful tradition, that I dearly cherish, is celebrating each person’s patron saint feast day. For example, if your name is Clare, St. Clare of Assisi’s feast day is on August 11th. Therefore on that morning, in our home, you would find a pretty wrapped book at your seat at the breakfast table. It is always a spiritual book, a picture book and then as the children grow a book to help them in their spiritual lives. Sometimes it is an icon, a Rosary or a new medal or crucifix. It is always very simple, spiritually oriented and never extravagant. To keep celebrating we will read the biography of St. Clare and then that evening after dinner we will have dessert, which I do not serve every night. It will be a special dessert inspired by St. Clare’s life: here are some inspirations.

Sundays

Last but not least, let’s make Sundays, days of rest again. In our busy, busy lives sometimes resting on Sundays gets pushed aside to make room for sports, ball games or just catching up from the week. Let’s be different, let’s restore Sundays as the best day of the week, focused on God and family. One of my sister-in-law excels at making Sundays the best day. She now has grown children and grandchildren, but still every Sunday is the same. One day I want to be her.
They all go to an early Mass together, yes all the generations. Then after that everyone brings something to her house for brunch. Friends and visiting family members know that they are always welcome to drop by, that there will be enough food and that they will be welcomed with open arms. After brunch, everyone pitches in to clean up and either go about their own activities or just spend some time hanging out at my sister-in-law’s house for a relaxing afternoon of story telling, traveling down memory lane, playing games, etc… It is one of the most beautiful family traditions that I have seen and I want to duplicate it with my own family.

Getting started

As a new Liturgical Year approaches, and a new calendar year is not far behind, I want to challenge you to pick one thing to help you live the Liturgical Year more fully. What will you pick? A reading? Celebrating the Saints? Or making Sunday a day of rest again?
Pick one and implement that with your family for the next 3 to 6 months, once the habit is anchored, move on to the next one. And if you fail, start again. Do not get discouraged, the seasons of life affect all of our efforts, but as long as you do not lose the company of Jesus and Mary, you will be fine.

A note:

I will endeavor to write more about each season of the Liturgical Year and how to live it with our families. But for now if you want ideas on how to live the Liturgical Year well during Advent read this.

General resources

My all time favorite was recently reprinted (but an old copy is so much nicer): 
– Around the Year with the Von Trapp Family, by Maria Von Trapp
This one is also a great favorite that I refer to all the time:
– www.CatholicCulture.org
One that I used a lot in the beginning of my motherhood:
– The Year & Our Children: Catholic Family Celebrations for Every Season, by Mary Reed Newland
And one that I know is full of goodies, but do not own:
– The Catholic All Year Compendium: Liturgical Living for Real Life, by Kendra Tierney 
And last but not least: dive into your own family traditions. Both yours and that of your husband’s family and adopt the ones that are meaningful for you.