Time and cycle in Liturgy

Read the Catechism in a Year

Catechism in a Year: Day 164

Part Two: How We Celebrate the Christian Mysteries
- Section One: God Acts in Our Regard by Means of Sacred Signs
-- Chapter Two: How We Celebrate the Mysteries of Christ
Question 184: How does the liturgy affect time?

In the liturgy time becomes time for God.

Often we do not know what to do with our time—we look for a pastime. In the liturgy, time becomes quite dense, because every second is filled with meaning. When we celebrate the liturgy, we experience the fact that God has sanctified time and made every second a gateway into eternity.

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Question 185: Why does the liturgy repeat itself every year?

Just as we celebrate a birthday or a wedding anniversary each year, so too the liturgy celebrates over the course of the year the most important events in Christian salvation history. With one important difference, however: All time is God’s time. “Memories” of Jesus’ life and teaching are simultaneously encounters with the living God.

The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard once said, “Either we are contemporaries of Jesus, or we can have nothing at all to do with it.” Following the Church year in faith makes us indeed contemporaries of Jesus. Not because we can imagine ourselves so precisely as part of his time and his life, but rather because he comes into my time and my life, if I make room for him in this way, with his healing and forgiving presence, with the explosive force of his Resurrection.

Dig Deeper: Corresponding CCC section (1159-1165) and other references here.
Recommended Listening in preparation for Easter: Seven Last Sayings of Christ by Dr. Scott Hahn