Liturgical Year
At 3rdplace we follow the ancient rhythm of the Liturgical year, a universal church calendar of sort that helps us structure our walk with Jesus, engages us in his story, and so shapes us.
“The liturgical year is the year that sets out to attune the life of the Christian to the life of Jesus, the Christ. It proposes, year after year, to immerse us over and over again into the sense and substance of the Christian life until, eventually, we become what we say we are-followers of Jesus all the way to the heart of God. The liturgical year is an adventure in human growth, an exercise in spiritual ripening.” (Joan Chittester)
“There is another approach to time that avoids the tyranny of constraint. In this practice time is not constrictive but freeing. It is experiencing time as rhythm. We find this practice of time taught in the early church and by contemplatives throughout history. I am persuaded that the practice of Christian time-personally and in the chuch-will establish a rhythm of time that will free us. It will release us from time as an evil power that tyrannizes our lives to a time that frees us to live in the rhythm of the death and resurrection of Jesus-a pattern
that will keep us in an unceasing spirituality.” (Robert Webber)
Beginning to walk through life along the path of the liturgical seasons opens us up to alternating cycles of light and life. A rhythmic cycle of anticipation, fulfillment, and proclamation under gird the passing of the seasons, anchoring us in an ever-deepening experience of the light and life of Jesus himself. Ordinary time is then the long, slow grace by which the learnings of the extraordinary season of the year become permanent within us.
“It is the liturgical year that most consistently houses, and unendingly transmits to us, the full scope and play of our Christian-ness. It is the liturgical year that gears our rhythms and courses to that of the church everywhere in all times, present and past, and all places, here and otherwise. It is the observance of the liturgical year that tells us over and over again through all the years of our lives the Story that informs us and that we are
fulfilling.” (Phyllis Tickle).
“The liturgical year is the year that sets out to attune the life of the Christian to the life of Jesus, the Christ. It proposes, year after year, to immerse us over and over again into the sense and substance of the Christian life until, eventually, we become what we say we are-followers of Jesus all the way to the heart of God. The liturgical year is an adventure in human growth, an exercise in spiritual ripening.” (Joan Chittester)
“There is another approach to time that avoids the tyranny of constraint. In this practice time is not constrictive but freeing. It is experiencing time as rhythm. We find this practice of time taught in the early church and by contemplatives throughout history. I am persuaded that the practice of Christian time-personally and in the chuch-will establish a rhythm of time that will free us. It will release us from time as an evil power that tyrannizes our lives to a time that frees us to live in the rhythm of the death and resurrection of Jesus-a pattern
that will keep us in an unceasing spirituality.” (Robert Webber)
Beginning to walk through life along the path of the liturgical seasons opens us up to alternating cycles of light and life. A rhythmic cycle of anticipation, fulfillment, and proclamation under gird the passing of the seasons, anchoring us in an ever-deepening experience of the light and life of Jesus himself. Ordinary time is then the long, slow grace by which the learnings of the extraordinary season of the year become permanent within us.
“It is the liturgical year that most consistently houses, and unendingly transmits to us, the full scope and play of our Christian-ness. It is the liturgical year that gears our rhythms and courses to that of the church everywhere in all times, present and past, and all places, here and otherwise. It is the observance of the liturgical year that tells us over and over again through all the years of our lives the Story that informs us and that we are
fulfilling.” (Phyllis Tickle).
