“It’s More than a Liturgical Calendar: It’s a Way of Life” Reverend Mary Altalo INTRODUCTION Our entire world has one glorious model of liturgical cycles—the seasons. Cycles of birth, life and death abound as living examples of the patterns, complexities, ever-changing state and glories of life—this life, in “flesh”, here and now. Nature itself is the one common experience of all humankind-- the one uniting pattern for all of the religions and sects, of all time; and if we destroy the seasonal nature of our planet, do we not destroy the immanent pattern for religion as well? The cycles are not confined to this earth existence alone, as we participate in the “seasonality” of the entire universe, in a constant cycle of expansion and contraction, a state of constant change, evolving into complexity, in a constant state of “becoming”. And it is this light that I write this paper, with the goal of representing our liturgical cycles in context: the context of our ever constant journey towards union with the Divine Consciousness and aiding humanity in doing the same. Jesus was the role model for this and his ultimate gift to humanity was teaching us that attaining Divine consciousness through the fusion of the transcendent nature of God and the immanent qualities of the life –force contained in the body was possible. The body/mind-soul-spirit “combo” was now sufficiently evolved to aid us in the process of transformation. In fact he commanded us to do this and to follow his lead. But somewhere along the line, some of the followers lost sight of the goal, or rather began to doubt that this transformation was possible and thus the attention was diverted from teaching HOW to attain mystical union as Jesus taught and demonstrated, to teaching ABOUT Jesus. And if we are not careful, that is what our liturgical cycles may represent in today’s world—teaching us about Jesus as opposed to coaching us through the transformation process modeled by Jesus. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE LITURGICAL CALENDAR IN THE CONTEXT OF CIVIL CALENDARS OF A “PERFORMANCE- BASED” SOCIETY Greg Dues in his Catholic Customs and Traditions: A Popular Guide urges us to view the Liturgical calendar as a concept of evolution of “sacred time” from “profane time”. It is an invitation for Christians to understand time differently, to see time in a new way which will call into play life’s purpose. Life is not just a time to reap and sow, to toil and rest, but an opportunity, in time, for the Soul to discover exactly who and what it is.—an admiral goal, if and only if our true purpose, our highest purpose according to Jesus is understood and articulated and fully incorporated into the body of the Church. This I believe is the basic distinction between religions today—the end game of the life on this earth— the union with the Divine “where we are” as Jesus told us, or the union with the Divine after we die- In heaven. Never before have I seen this distinction so clearly. Never before have I realized the different impacts of the two views of “where” we unite with the Beloved, on humanity. In the “academic calendar”, the year revolves around the semester, (or alternatively around the “athletic seasons”) and is performance- based. Children progress up the tree of learning in a graded system whereby at the completion of each stage, one is deemed ready to proceed to the next step. The goal is clear—to develop the mind so that the “future adult” will be totally capable of contributing the most it can according to its own gifts, to an “mature adult” world. Once the mentored teaching role is completed, the person is then handed over to the “school of life” to continue the education through grown-up experiences. Most often in this country, this “continuing ed.” occurs in the “business world”, whose metrics for success are quite different, but the performance based approach is still the same. This is where an internal guidance system is so clearly needed to aid in the journey for the next 80 years or so. Thus the education of the mind needs to be in concert with the education of the heart/soul, and this is where our ethical institutions come in. In business, the year revolves around the fiscal cycles of funding, usually Oct 1 to Sept 30th, and thus the metric of success- profit- is determined at the end of each fiscal year as a way to show progress. Individual performance indicators and “targets” for personal growth or mainly fiscal targets for “company growth” are set at the end of each fiscal year based upon the previous year’s performance. Reward in terms of salary, the “Christmas” bonus, promotion, and stocks depended upon how well financially the company and the individual “performed” during the past year. This of course has direct consequences on the family and as such is the “calendar” with all of its implications as to goal, what drives most people. Thus, in our American society, families juggle many calendars, those relevant to the physical prosperity and educational growth of the family, be it corporate, government or academic; and those cycles which are related to the spiritual growth and welfare of the family—the calendars of the Christian or Jewish or Buddhist and Indigenous “feasts”-- are often put last. Perhaps this craving in the US for experiences of “spirituality” from Yoga to sweat lodges, from wilderness retreats to “women’s circles” signify this longing for the Divine in their lives , as our souls “know” that they are being neglected and the body suffers when the soul does. In many western cultures, the “breadwinner’s” preoccupation with the business cycle, left the teaching of the Liturgical cycle to the parent at home or more likely to the schools and churches they belonged to. With two parents now typically working, unless the child goes to a Christian school, the liturgical year is lost on many a family except for the Socially “blessed” commercial feasts of Thanksgiving, (USA) Christmas, and Easter, (universally a Christian feast day) and All Hallows Eve ( predominantly a western “feast”). There seems to be two main reasons for the Christian Liturgical calendars- to track Church time, and to teach about Jesus. The tracking of the progress toward towards personal illumination seems to be left to the individual. However this wasn’t the case in the early Church as the consciousness of the Church depended upon the consciousness of all of the individuals. Today “Church” seems to mean the “hierarchical” institutionalized consciousness—that of the clergy, which is assumed to be higher than the laity. This separation in clergy and laity also separated the concept of one “unified consciousness of the divine”. Liturgical calendars could also be an external expression of an inner progressive experience of the spirit- the problem is that , for most folks, there isn’t that inner experience of the adult consciousness, and they feel left with the childish interpretation of a “life in Christ”. Perhaps in this study, we may see more clearly where filling this gap might be aided. Our teachings need to be up-leveled. So thus we begin our exploration of the Liturgical calendars of the various religions and their meaning to our way of life. Although it was not my original intention, it appears that not only am I describing them in reference to one another, but also assessing them along the way in terms of their fulfilling the “longing of our souls” for wholeness. COMPARISON OF SACRAMENTAL CHRISTIAN-BASED LITURGICAL CALENDARS --The Roman Rite Catholic Liturgical Calendar- Figure 1 illustrates the basics of the calendar wheel for the Roman Catholic liturgical year. The year begins with the first Sunday in Advent, proceeds through the Nativity on December 25th, and ends on the feast of the Epiphany on Jan 6th. This is followed by what is termed “Ordinary time” which is followed by the Lenten season, culminating in Passion Sunday, Holy Week and the Easter Triduum. It is during these times that we commemorate the Institution of the Holy Eucharist, the Crucifixion and death of Jesus. Easter Sunday celebrates the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and is marked as the Holiest of feasts. Without Easter, the Catholic Church would not exist. Easter Season runs to the Feast of Pentecost and includes the Ascension the Thursday before. The rest of the year resumes “ordinary time” and begins with the solemnities of the Most Blessed Trinity and Corpus Christi. The feasts of the Transfiguration and the Assumption of Our lady are celebrated midway through the cycle. All Hallows Figure 1: Roman Catholic Liturgical Year Eve, All Saints day and All Souls day commemorate the departed in November, and the season ends with the feast of Christ the King in late Fall. The cycle repeats once again with Advent. The diagram also refers to the colors associated with each of the seasons- purple for Advent and lent, White for the feasts of the nativity, and Easter, and red for Pentecost and feasts of martyrs, and will be discussed in further detail in the second paper when discussing the “energies” of the church year. There is a second cycle 3-year cycle within the church calendar, Year A, B and C, in which the scriptural reading for each day are spread out over 3 years so as to accommodate more of the Old and particularly the New Testament. After Year c, the Readings cycle back to Year A.