The liturgical year "is Christ Himself, living on in His Church..."

Following up a bit on the previous post about the significance of the liturgical calendar, here is an excerpt from Barbara Morgan's essay, "Liturgy, Catechesis, and Conversion":

In order to grow in participation in the mystery of Christ the Church wisely arranges the liturgical year to cover all of the mighty acts of God. The possibility for contemplation of all of the stages of God’s salvific action in sacred history are there. The Church maintains the important link between God’s promise and His oath: from the promise of and subsequent longing for redemption in Advent; to the stupendous realization of God’s Word in the Incarnation; to the depths of His love in the events of Christ’s Pasch; to the establishment of His Mystical Body, the Church, on Good Friday and Pentecost. The "sacraments" of the Old Testament prefigure the sacramental order of the New Testament and the promises which precede Christ are all fulfilled in Him.

Even more important in the scheme of the liturgical year then the recounting of sacred history centered on Christological events is the prime mystery of the Trinity, wherein lies the birth of the plan for mankind: union with God in the Trinitarian family. There is one Sunday set aside for celebration of the Triune Godhead but in reality all of the feasts of the Church converge upon the feast of the Most Holy Trinity.

This central mystery of the Faith is always presupposed and so must always be freshly proposed, therefore the wisdom of the Church provides regular opportunities to reconsider it. In fact, each liturgical event which the Church celebrates has more and more depth to plumb. Dom Ghesquiere makes the following point:

The great stages of the history of salvation are outlined in the chain of their providential development: Israel, the Church on earth, the Church in Heaven. Facts speak, events answer one another, the mysterious links which God has willed are brought out by the conjunctions which in themselves are worth more than any commentary. [6]

Catechesis should carefully shape itself around the mysteries found in those events and remember that what is most crucial in the liturgical year is that the faithful are called to live the celebrations of the feasts. In Mediator Dei (no. 176) Pope Pius XII taught that:

... the liturgical year ...is no cold and lifeless presentation of past events, no mere historical record. It is Christ Himself, living on in His Church ... (The mysteries of His life) ... are still now consistently present and active ... (and are) sources of divine grace for us by reason of the merits and intercession of the Redeemer.

Preparation for these feasts is an integral factor in them not becoming "lifeless presentations of past events." These mysteries should "form the high points of biblical catechesis" according to Fr. Hofinger. He emphasizes that believers will experience the mysteries in the liturgy long before they may understand them. There they become "present religious values" and not just historical narratives. [7] In fact, it is often after the fact that at the practical level the liturgical year becomes a principal means by which the effects of the mystery of Christ are conveyed. It is a "magnificent unity" expressed in a "sublime manner," which plunges the believer directly into the heart of God’s plan.

Read the entire essay on Ignatius Insight:

Comments

[Brad]

In either (I forget) Venerable Mary of Agreda's Mystical City of God or Blessed Anne Emmerich's Dolorous Passion..., the visionary tells us that she comprehends/is told that one liturgical year is sufficient to catechize a soul minimally yet properly. Of course, in pre-modern times, the life of Joe Average was very sedate and less distracted from the Church's daily calendar: cf. Millet's The Angelus.

[LJ]

Perhaps this is a little tangential but this post got me dreaming a little, Carl.

Politically/philosophically speaking this is one of the reasons I tend to offend people when I tell them I would prefer a Catholic country, probably a Kingdom, but one which does not insist that the separation of Church and State necessarily means that the State must be secular.

Even the Muslims understand this quite well. In order to give the societal context that gears the economy and the laws around the practice of the faith, it is necessary to have the "Church" and the State in alignment. (Their notion of religious tolerance, to the extent that it even exists, leaves a whole lot to be desired.)

Looking ahead at the post regarding the Chesterton view that society needs to be built around family, it seems to me that the two coincide very nicely, that is, a Catholic country based around family.

It is somewhat amusing to listen sometimes to the effusions of pity for those so-called "backward" Catholic societies such as Quebec used to be, or that some South American countries have been until recently.

In reality, those people who make such commentary (often Protestants) are making their assessment based strictly on a level of wealth and standard of living as compared to the rest of the west. Yet in another breath they will decry the moral state of western nations obsessed with nothing but accumulating wealth.

Duh!

I think that although it is not necessarily the case, in practical reality, if we are to have a society that is geared to the faith and built around the Church's liturgical calendar, and I think that would be a great thing, we would find that the standard of living would not measure up to what a narcissistic, 24/7/365 maniacally productive society can produce.

Oh well, I can live with that, if I could live in the society that not only permits but encourages me and my family to follow my faith, and facilitates it, by taking the Church's liturgical calendar and building society around that, instead of just allowing me to fit my private religion in somewhere if I can, as long as it doesn't interfere with production and sales.

Perhaps that is medieval thinking, and then again perhaps they didn't have it all wrong.

[Carl E. Olson]

Nicely put, LJ. I find that with each passing year, the liturgical calendar/year becomes more and more meaningful and real to me, with riches that cannot be exhausted, if only I stop, listen, pray, contemplate, live, and worship as I should.

[Manuel G. Daugherty Razetto]

Thanks Carl for bringing this subject of the Liturgical Calendar; very
appropiate now when on April 17 we take part in the most Holy and Solemn Week of our Faith. No Liturgy is as sacred and meaningful than the Holy Week. Let us pray more Catholics participate in the rituals.