Living Liturgically Throughout the Year

A new calendar year often brings with it a renewed commitment to deepening our spiritual life. This year, go beyond a commitment to simply "pray more"; let's up the ante by committing to living liturgically. 

What does that mean? Living liturgically means integrating our daily life with the daily life and rhythm of the Church, namely through the Church liturgical calendar. By observing the Church seasons, feast days, and holy days in our daily life (not just by attending Mass), we build the Domestic Church and fill our homes and communities with the vitality of Christ. Keep reading for some ideas to kickstart liturgical living in your home.

Develop a Strong and Integrated Prayer Life

Developing a strong prayer life is essential to Catholic living, and tailoring your daily prayer to the liturgical year will bring you more in rhythm with the life of the Church. One way to do so is to add the daily readings and Mass prayers to your routine. Another is to pray the Divine Office, also called the Liturgy of the Hours. The Liturgy of the Hours is the official prayer of the Church; clergy and most religious are required to pray it, and the laity are strongly encouraged to. It extends the worship of the Divine from the Mass to daily life, and integrates that worship into the rhythm of the day. There are seven different 'hours' - distinct times of day to stop and pray; some take close to five minutes, while others take close to 20. If your busy schedule doesn't allow for all seven, just choose a couple that fit in your routine. If there were ever a perfect way to commit to living liturgically in your prayer life, the Liturgy of the Hours is it!

Find daily readings and Mass prayers in a missal (here's one for the Ordinary Form and one for the Extraordinary Form) and the Liturgy of the Hours in this prayer book.

Bring the Sacred Home

Encourage yourself to live liturgically by imbuing your home with a sense of the sacred. Fill the walls with beautiful Catholic art, the bookshelves with spiritual classics, and the windowsills with sacred statues. Adjust your décor with the liturgical seasons by rotating different prints throughout the year; maybe a frame that holds a print of Mary with the baby Jesus for most of the year can hold one of the Pieta during Lent.  Keep your home simple during penitential seasons by covering statues and crucifixes during Lent and putting off Christmas decorating until the end of Advent. Have a devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus? Proudly display that by your front door (remember - Jesus promised that to bless any home  "in which the image of my Sacred Heart shall be exposed and honored")! Keeping Christ visible in the home will inspire you constantly to recommit to your faith. 

The Theology of Home series has wonderful stories and ideas for bringing the sacred into your home. Their fourth edition focuses on using the natural world (flowers and such) to mirror the liturgical season.

Observe the Liturgical Seasons and Celebrate Feast Days 

One of the easiest ways to live liturgically is to intentionally celebrate feast days. The best part is, this is totally flexible! You can choose which feast days to celebrate, and how you want to celebrate them. If you love to cook, tailor your weekday meal to the feast at hand. Have a king cake on Epiphany and corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick's Day, or get creative - shish kebabs are Catholic mom and author Kendra Tierney Norton's favorite St. Sebastian day meal to commemorate his martyrdom! If you have kids, pick a craft or activity; it doesn't have to be super complicated, it just needs to honor something about the saint's life (or death)!

Of course, you should also follow the guidelines and spirit of whichever season the Church is in. Abstain from meat during Fridays in Lent (or really, all Fridays during the year - that's still the official suggestion!) and have a ball during the Christmas season. But maybe go one step beyond; add some spiritual reading for each season (maybe this devotional for Lent and Easter, or this one for Pentecost) and pray some suggested seasonal devotions and blessings (like the house blessing on Epiphany).

Use a book of saints to choose which ones you want to celebrate at home; resources like Drinking with the Saints and Kendra Tierney Norton's Catholic All Year Compendium will provide you with recipes and creative ideas galore!

Take Christ to the World

Of course, we as Christians shouldn't be content to simply build a thriving Catholic home; we want to build a thriving Catholic world! Liturgical living also means taking the Good News outside of the home, so be sure to build community in your neighborhood and parish (maybe by throwing a feast day party for your block) and practice the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy. If you commit to liturgical living both inside and outside of the home, you'll be finding Christ in every nook and cranny before you know it!