Greetings,

One of the elements of creation that we do not think about often is time. We measure it: everyone has watches, and clocks and calendars. Just think of all the blinking lights every time the electricity goes out.

We organize our time by our Jobs, by our School calendar(summer vacation), by our children's events, by sports calendars(I cannot schedule anything during a packer game), and many other things.

We, as catholics should be living our lives according to liturgical time. Living Liturgically(Our life is liturgy and the world in our church: in a broad sense). What do I mean by this:

DAY: We should see our day liturgically in view of God. We should pray in the morning(adoration, praise, offering of self). We should pray in the evening(examination of conscious, contrition, thanksgiving, etc). There should be a time of meditation(mental prayer). These could be short or they could have be liturgy of the hours, depending on where you are in your spiritual life.

WEEK: Every friday we remember the cross with abstinance or even fast. Every Sunday we celebrate the resurrection and should really celebrate in some way. So we live our week in the view of the paschal mystery. We could think of other elements on salvation, such as creation of tuesday, the fall on wednes day, Incarnation and Christ's ministry on Thurs. We can change the time of the week into an imprint of God's divine Plan. The day of the week will then influence our morning/evening prayer and meditation.

YEAR: This is the liturgical year. Advent/Christmas, Lent/Tiduum/Easter, Ordinary time. Each season has different themes and ideas. Each season plumbs different aspects of God's divine plan. We relate to God differently in each season. The Liturgical season will then effect the way we celebrate the time of the week, and our prayers of the day.

MARY/SAINTS: All time is punctuated by feast days for Mary and the saints. Yes, we honor them and call for their intercession. However, through liturgical time GREAT examples are held up. These are people transformed by the grace of God. The grace of our prayer and worship will transform us as well.

As we enter Liturgical time ourselves, with our families, and with our communities, at mass, and prayer, we are changed. Our lives are patterned on the Paschal Mystery of Jesus Christ and the patterns of God are internalized.

The way we live our Christian lives should revolve around Liturgical TIME. NOT the school year, not the football season, but the time of God.

peace

Great post, TP. I have always felt that Catholicism should be a way of life and that's what I've tried to instill in my Catholic children.

TP, I LOVE the Catholic calendar and the celebration of saints days; why are some of the days no longer celebrated? I'm specifically thinking of the Feast of St Peter's Chains, and days on the calendar that are "blank" but used to have a feast/memorial celebrated on them. I know it's probably overkill to have some saint remembered on each and every day--which is the way that I would do it--but it's SOOOOOOO comforting to have before me, every day, the example of someone who responded & whose special prayers I can request. Is it strategic in some sense to not have (at least) a memorial on every day?

Greetings,

Those days are still celebrated, but they are no longer on the 'Universal' calendar. If you can find the feast day and put it in your personal calendar, you can still celebrate it. They just cleared up the Universal calendar because it was getting a bit crowded.

peace

It is almost impossible to celebrate Advent properly in Australia as december is:

a. the end of the school year
b. end of the working year

And therefore parties & an 'end of year' mentality

Beginning of summer relaxation.

No-one understands Advent as a time of penance and beginning of the liturgical year.

I have the same problem with Fridays. It's the end of a school-week, and therefor hard to penitentialise.

Greetings,

Yes, Friday is often a going out and celebrate night because of the weekend. That is because our time is geared secular rather than religious time.

peace

TP,

Thanks for this post. I will do my best to accept your call to action and reorganize my life a bit.

Dani