Only recently have I really come to appreciate this. During Lent, I started using the CatholicCalendar app and I quickly found myself asking a different saint for their intercession each day.
For the first time in my life, I knew when the two solemnities during Lent were, and I thanked God for the Annunciation and Mary’s fiat, and for St. Joseph’s selfless love and dedication to his wife. This surge of gratitude impelled me to recognize and celebrate the solemnities in the way the Church knows best — by going to Mass. And in the case of St. Joseph’s solemnity, which was on a Friday, I celebrated by eating some meat.
If you want to practise your faith, you can’t just be a one-day-a-week Catholic. Instead, experience the Church every day. You will thank God for the powerful witness of Sts. Peter and Paul on June 29. You will wish Mother Mary a happy birthday on Sept. 8. And you will ask all the saints for intercession on their feast days and solemnities.
We will not fulfill our call to live in the Communion of Saints — the Church — until we learn to live in harmony not only with the people on Earth, but those in heaven as well.
By following along with the daily liturgical life of the Church, you will form relationships with so many more saints that you will inevitably come to a richer faith and a fuller life. Thriving or merely surviving: which one are you doing?
(Keong, 21, is an English literature major at the University of British Columbia.)
Knowing the Church one day at a time
By Jeremy Keong, Youth Speak NewsThere are two ways to live. You can merely survive or you can thrive.
Jesus Christ became human so that all of us might thrive, that we “may have life and have it to the full” (John 10:10). But while Jesus promises life to the full, He also gave all power and authority to the Church to be an instrument of guidance and grace for all of God’s people.
If Christ calls us to resurrection, then it is through the earthly kingdom — the Church — that we come to that new life. Of course we should receive the sacraments and pray, but we should do so while entering into the fullness of the liturgical life of the Church.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church poses this to us: “What is the Church if not the assembly of all the saints? The communion of saints is the Church” (946). The saints, enjoying God’s glory now, are always praying for us. If we want to get closer to Christ, then we should be learning about the ones who knew Him best and learning about their holy witness. The Church’s feasts throughout the liturgical year highlight this fact. In all her wisdom, she understands that we need help in attaining our heavenly goal, giving us shining examples by which to live. Far from distracting us from the source and summit of our faith — the Eucharist — the liturgical feasts lift us up and point us back towards Christ.
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