YOUCAT Question n. 185 - Part II. Why does the liturgy repeat itself every year?
(Youcat answer) 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.
A deepening through CCC
(CCC
1195) By keeping the memorials of the saints - first of all the holy Mother of
God, then the apostles, the martyrs, and other saints - on fixed days of the
liturgical year, the Church on earth shows that she is united with the liturgy
of heaven. She gives glory to Christ for having accomplished his salvation in
his glorified members; their example encourages her on her way to the Father.
Reflecting and meditating
(Youcat comment) 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.
(CCC Comment)
(CCC
1164) From the time of the Mosaic law, the People of God have observed fixed
feasts, beginning with Passover, to commemorate the astonishing actions of the
Savior God, to give him thanks for them, to perpetuate their remembrance, and
to teach new generations to conform their conduct to them. In the age of the
Church, between the Passover of Christ already accomplished once for all, and
its consummation in the kingdom of God, the liturgy celebrated on fixed days
bears the imprint of the newness of the mystery of Christ.
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