The Liturgical Year with Fr. Chad E. JarnaginHow to start a new year rhythmLiturgical times raises our sights above the dailiness of life to the essence of life. — ChittisterOur habits are formative and that repetition is formative. When we practice healthy rhythms and practices, this holistic approach to living enables thriving sustainable spiritual growth. Sometimes we need to add to rhythms, and sometimes it means removal.The Liturgical Year helps to know when to take deep breaths along the way... like regulating our breathing, the Liturgical Year helps to slow our breath into a mindful pace.We are immersed in rhythms. Repeated and regulated patterns, consistent tempo metering out our existence. They aren't just around us – they are within us. Our hearts beat and our lungs breathe. Our veins expand and contract as life flows through them. It is even by rhythms that we mark time. Hours, days, years, are all lived in the ebb and flow of work, sleep, and meals. All are rhythms – within and without. We are created to be rhythmic beings.Think of the Liturgical Year as circular instead of linear if that is helpful... like we go around the sun. The Liturgical Year is also about the great cloud of witnesses who have lived life before us.Throughout Scripture, God provides us with rhythms to order our lives. In the Old Testament, we see that God gave the people of Israel Sabbaths and feasts to help them remember God’s work as Creator and Savior. In the Gospels we read that, on the night before Jesus died, he instituted the Sacrament of Communion. When we receive the bread and wine, we remember his suffering and death. Over the past 2,000 years, the Church has instituted feasts, holy days and seasons in order that we might orient our lives around the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. All these patterns and practices are given as means of grace by which we are reminded who God is and who he's called us to be.It is possible that there is no formation without repetition. That is to say that over time, our rhythms and practices help us to find healthy ways to live holistic spiritual lives as disciples of Christ. It is what we do routinely, not what we do rarely, that delineates our character. (Chittister).Lectionary Calendar & Daily OfficeYearly pattern of the seasons of the Church. Each season intentionally guides us through the importance of the first Advent of Christ all the way through an season of growth, blessing, and sending called Ordinary Time (or Season After Pentecost).The Daily Office is the Scripture reading / prayer guide on a three year cycle (Year A, B, & C). This culminates each Sunday as we worship together. Each season and holy day has a specific color so to assist us with its identity and intention. Weekly WorshipWe gather on Sundays to celebrate, lament, and commune with God and one another within these sacred rhythms of the Lectionary and Daily Office.

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