Spiritual Significance of the Liturgical Year

In the pastoral letter written by our bishops and the Archbishop Major Cardinal Joseph Slipyj at the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council (1965), we read: “The Liturgical cycle of our Church is very rich. Our Liturgical Constitutions guide the faithful throughout the whole year and continuously place before their eyes the mysteries of the life, passion, death, and resurrection of our Divine Saviour, the grandeur of the Divine Motherhood and powerful intercession of the most Holy Virgin Mary, the lives of holy men and women, who by their heroic imitation of Christ glorified God and the whole human race. The seasons of fast and abstinence from boisterous entertainment are to help the faithful exercise more self-control and better prepare them for the sacramental encounter with Christ in the Holy Eucharist and that face-to-face encounter with Christ on the day of his Second Coming at the end of the world.”

From what has been said, it is evident that our Liturgical Year resembles a great spiritual book that teaches us in a practical manner how to praise, love and serve God and thus save our souls. It speaks to us not only of the great love and mercy of God towards us, but also of His strict justice. This spiritual book predisposes us for prayer, sacrifice and penance.

Holy Church desires that the cycle of the Liturgical Year be for us an ever-present preacher and teacher of God’s love and the love of His most holy Mother. She desires that it serve as a school of spiritual life, virtue and holiness, and that it be our sure and faithful guide to heaven. Great indeed then, is the significance of the liturgical Year for our spiritual life, especially for the following reasons:

The Liturgical Year – Is Christ Living and Active

For us the festivals of the Liturgical Year, according to the Church, should not be mere commemorations of past historical events, but should rather be opportunities, here and now, to re-live these events and participate in them as though they were just now taking place. The person of Jesus Christ in whom the whole cycle of the Ecclesiastical Year is centered is not a dead person, who once lived, worked, and passed into history. Jesus Christ is eternally alive and active. Just as he once did on earth, so he does now. He teaches and admonishes us, sanctifies and forgives us, offers Himself up for us, saves us, and draws us to Himself by His example. “Jesus Christ,” says St. Paul,, “is the same today as He was yesterday and as He will be forever.” (Heb.13,8) The Liturgical Year, then, is a continuation of Christ’s life, work and doctrine among us today. It is the mystical repetition of the mysteries of Christ’s life in the hearts of the faithful.

In his encyclical letter of November, 1947, “Mediator of God”, Pius XII wrote: “The Liturgical Year devoutly fostered and accompanied by the Church is not a cold and lifeless representation of the past, nor a simple, bare record of a former age. Rather, it is Christ Himself who is ever living in His Church. Here He continues that journey of immense mercy which He lovingly began in His mortal life ‘going about doing good’ with the design of bringing men to know His mysteries and in a way live by them. These mysteries are ever present and active…they are shining examples of Christian perfection as well as sources of divine grace.” (165) Similarly, the decree of the Second Vatican Council on the “Constitution on the Liturgy” states that: “Recalling thus the mysteries of redemption, the Church opens to the faithful the riches of her Lord’s powers and merits, so that these are in some way made present for all times, and the faithful are enabled to lay hold upon them and become filled with saving grace.” (102)

The Liturgical Year – A Source of Profound Veneration of the Mother of God

The Liturgical Year is not only a very rich source of the love of Jesus Christ, but is also a fountain of the profound veneration of His most holy Mother. Jesus and Mary are so closely united, that one cannot love Jesus Christ without, at the same time, loving the all-pure Virgin Mary. “Whoever honors Christ,” says St. Epiphany of Cyprus (403) “honors also Mary; whoever does not honor Mary, does not honor Christ.”

The Liturgical Year gives us a wonderful opportunity to study the role and significance of the most holy Mother of God in the work of redemption, to admire her most beautiful virtues and learn to love her as our Mother, Mediatrix and Protectress. “For Mary,” says the decree on the “Constitution on the Church”, “who, since her entry into salvation history, unites in herself and re-echoes the greatest teachings of the faith as she is proclaimed and venerated, calls the faithful to her Son, His sacrifice and to the love of the Father…This most Holy Synod deliberately teaches this Catholic doctrine and at the same time admonishes all the sons of the Church that the cult, especially the liturgical cult, of the Blessed Virgin be fostered…” (65 and 67)

The Liturgical Year of our Eastern Church is particularly remarkable for its profound and sincere veneration of the Mother of God, expressed in all our church services.

The eminent scholar and authority on the tradition of the Eastern Church, a Catholic priest and Prince, Maximillian of Saxony, in his “Lectures on the Eastern Liturgies”, makes the following remark about the devotion to the most Pure Virgin Mary in the Eastern Church: “Above all, is the veneration of the Mother of God especially a characteristic of the Eastern Liturgies…The cult of the Mother of God in the East is ancient. All the great Marian feasts began in the East, so that devotion to Mary permeated the blood and bone of all the faithful of the Eastern Church…They were so reared in the veneration of the Mother of God that whosoever did not venerate her was simply regarded as an unbeliever and non-Christian. Thus, for example, a well known Greek song declares, “Those who do not kiss your holy icon, O Virgin Mother of God, consider them as infidels and deliver them over to the fires of hell.’ – All the Slavic peoples, especially the Ukrainians, inherited this love for the Mother of God from the Greeks.” Our Kievan Metropolitan George (1069-1072) in his canonical collection “Precepts to the Confessing Sons and Daughters” says: “He who does not pray to the holy Mother of God with trust, let him be cursed.”

The Liturgical Year – Is the Gospel in Practice

During the Liturgical Year, besides the festivals of our Lord and His most Pure Mother, we also celebrate the memory of the different saints. Their names fill a very great part of the Church Calendar. Every day in the year is dedicated to one or more saints. By their lives they have clearly demonstrated that they attained sanctity solely because they followed the example of Christ and His most holy Mother and lived according to the teachings of the Holy Gospel. Their example and heroic virtues speak to us in a language that is understood by all – the language of the Holy Gospel. Hence, their lives are for us the Holy Gospel in action.

Pope Pius XII in his above mentioned encyclical says: “In the course of the Liturgical Year, besides the mysteries of Jesus Christ, the feasts of the Saints are celebrated…we should imitate the virtues of the saints just as they imitated Christ, for in their virtues there shines forth under different aspects the splendor of the Divine Redeemer.” (166, 167).

The Saints by their holiness of life continually remind us of our duty to become saints – a duty we assumed by our baptismal commitment. Sanctity is not the privilege of only a few. The words of Christ apply to all of us: “Be you perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect,” (Mt. 5,48); so too, do the words of the Apostle Paul: “The will of God is your sanctification.” (I.Thes. 4,3)

The Second Vatican Council, in many places of its decrees, reminds all the faithful of this obligation to strive for holiness of life, for sanctity: “All the faithful, whatever their condition or state, are called by the Lord each in his own way, to that perfect holiness whereby the father Himself is perfect…Therefore, in the Church, everyone whether belonging to the hierarchy, or being cared for by it, is called to holiness…Therefore, all the faithful of Christ are invited to strive for the holiness and perfection of their own proper state.” (Constitution on the Church, 11, 39, 42)

By their own example, the saints teach us that sanctity is within the reach of people of all ages and all walks of life. All one has to do is love God, please Him in all things, and fulfill His holy will as the saints did.

Our liturgical Year is truly a wonderful school of spiritual life. In this school we learn the simple alphabet not only of the love of God, but also of great holiness, which flows naturally from the veneration and imitation of Jesus Christ, the most Pure Virgin Mary and the saints.

The Liturgical Year, like a beautifully painted iconostas, constantly places before our eyes the sublime history of the redemption of the human race. Let us strive, therefore, to be, not mute but vocal witnesses, and active participators in the sacred events of our Liturgical Year, who exemplify these events in the actions of our daily lives.