Celebrating the Liturgical Year in the Home
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Early in my marriage, a very wise priest once told me that home should be an extension of the church. When one walks into the catholic home, they should know that it is catholic.
This is why the catholic home is often referred to as the domestic church. I have a post about creating a domestic church if you’d like some ideas with building up yours.
And an important part of keeping the faith alive in the daily life is to follow the liturgical season. There are many ways that you can do so that would work with your family dynamic and home life.
So I am not here to say which way is right or wrong. I’m just sharing a few of my favorite resources to help inspire liturgical celebrations in the home.
Celebrating the Liturgical Year
There are many wonderful books that have been written throughout the years to help families with celebrating the liturgy in the home. It could be as simple as using your daily missal and catholic calendar to follow along with the feast days.
But there are also great resources specifically for creating festivities around the beautiful catholic liturgical year.
These celebrations are something that I cherished while growing up. And they are something that I am slowly incorporating into our catholic family home.
I say “slowly” because it is easy to become overwhelmed with trying to do all of the fun activities when the children are young. But it is also important to know your limits to avoid burnout or overwhelm.
The important thing is to instruct the children in the faith and teach them their daily prayers. And then we can do the fun things like celebrations for their feast days (celebrating the saints they are named after).
What is the Liturgical Year?
The liturgical year in the Catholic Church is made of cycles celebrating the lives of Our Lord, the Blessed Mother, and the saints.
The liturgical year or cycle begins with the First Sunday of Advent. The liturgical seasons are Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost.
And each month has a specific theme or dedication in the lives of Our Lord or the Saints. And also to keep track of the fast days, feast days, and holy days of obligation, a traditional catholic calendar is must have for every catholic home!
January – month of the Holy Name of Jesus
February – month of the Sacred Passion
March – month of St Joseph
April – month of the Blessed Sacrament
May – month of Our Blessed Mother
June – month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus
July – month of the Precious Blood
August – month of the Immaculate Heart of Mary
September – month of Our Sorrowful Mother
October – month of the Holy Rosary
November – month of the Holy Souls
December – month of the Divine Infancy
Be sure to check out my Liturgical Planner pages on Etsy!
Favorite Resources for Liturgical Celebrations
I am sharing a few of my favorite resources that I hope will be helpful in guiding you towards celebrating the liturgical year in your catholic home.
Around the Year with the Von Trapp Family – a friend shared this with me many years ago and I knew that I wanted to add it to our home. I hunted on eBay and thrift stores for a long time!
And then it was reprinted and became available few years ago. It is wonderfully done and has beautiful artwork throughout.
This book follows wonderful liturgical celebrations and customs, has recipes, music, crafts, and more.
The Year and Our Children – I have a really old copy of this book, but have found that it has been reprinted in 2007.
This is another excellent book that I would definitely recommend for learning about celebrations and customs to be done in the catholic home.
Religious Customs in Family – this guidebook is so helpful for creating a family life focused on the faith. This book goes deeper than fun celebrations, feast days and religious holidays.
And it incorporates the importance of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Sacraments, family prayer, and much more.
The Lives of the Saints – I highly recommend having a good copy of the lives of the saints to read as a family. This edition of Butler’s Lives of the Saints is a 4 volume set and was edited in 1956 to include 2,565 saints compared to the original 1,486.
The Saints and Our Children – an additional lives of the saint book that covers some of the more popular saints such as St John Bosco, St Maria Goretti, St Dominic Savio, St Therese, and St Bernadette.
It is a great addition for the catholic home because it gives the parents great insight and encouragement in their efforts in raising their children. This book goes deeper into the lives of the saints and their home life, how they grew up, what their faults were and how they overcame them.
Divine Intimacy – I highly recommend this book for daily meditations for every day of the liturgical year. It is really helpful for morning mental prayer and it covers the whole spiritual life, based on the traditional liturgical calendar.
It is such a great investment to have in any traditional catholic home!
More resources
I don’t have all of the liturgical seasons or how we incorporate them into our home written into blog posts yet. But here are a few of my favorites…
Advent Traditions in the Catholic Home
May Devotions in the Catholic Home
Preparing for Lent in the Catholic Home
I also recently found this really neat resource for seasonal customs throughout the year. And I hope that all of this information is helpful to you as you build up your own liturgical customs in the home.
