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| The liturgical year.
The first day of September each year is the beginning of a new church year ~ the liturgical year. The liturgical year, following a certain order, offers us a cycle of prayers and commemorations that bring to our minds and hearts the teachings of the Gospel and the main events of our salvation. Celebrating a feast takes the event out of the past and makes it present. We, thereby, share in the grace and become more closely related to Christ. We are called to live the liturgical year in order to relive the whole life of Christ: from Christmas to Easter; from Easter to Pentecost. We are challenged to unite ourselves with Christ in his birth, growth, suffering, dying, triumphal rising and his being with us in his Church. The liturgical year forms Christ in us from his birth to his full stature of the perfect man. In the Beatitudes (Mt 5: 3-12 Lk 6: 20-26), Christ offers us a portrait of himself as meek, poor, hungry for holiness, suffering for justic, merciful, peaceful, pure of heart and compassionate. Reflecting on the feasts can help us come to a deeper understanding of the Beatitudes.
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