Why Celebrate the Liturgical Year?
“Did you always do these things?” people ask when they meet a family that celebrates the feasts of the Church year at home. The answer of our family is, “No, we did not always do these things.” We are one of the families that “picked them up.” We were a typical American family stirred by an uneasiness it was hard to define. It had to do with the desire to draw closer to the Church and what she was doing as she moved from one season to another, but we didn’t know how to explain it. We loved her but we weren’t close enough to her, and we couldn’t tell why. We thought there were many more ways she could illumine our lives, but we didn’t know what they were. Stirred is a good word for it: we were quite stirred up. Strangely enough, the most important step in the changing of our family life was being stirred up. Afterwards, we learned that the Church prays for it again and again during Advent. If it is a real stirring, inevitably you begin to learn. First of all, because God wants you to le
