Not coming from a liturgical church community, it’s only been recently that I’ve discovered the other Christian “holidays” outside of Christmas and Easter. Living the Christian Year is a good introduction to the idea of living a year with Christian rhythms and seasons. In the protestant denomination I grew up in, Advent and Lent were seen as Catholic. Not something that was bad, just not something that our community participated in. The downside to this is, that it seems pretty boring to just wait for either Christmas or Easter to arrive. As a kid it felt like there was nothing to break up the monotony. Even reading the Old Testament, I saw that the ancient Israelites had some sort of festival happening at least once during each season.
I shared this experience with one of our friends, who just happens to be a hospital Chaplain, and she recommended that I read Living the Christian Year. The book showed me how in many liturgical churches, one holiday (aka season) leads into another. Advent leads into Lent which leads into Easter, which leads into Pentecost, etc. Rinse and repeat. While it was a lot of information to process, I did like the idea of a cycle or rhythms. I can see how some who are new to this idea might see this as being more of a burden, but for me, looking for something to anticipate, something to enrichment my faith, it was exciting.
If you’re new to the liturgical Christian community or maybe want a refresher, I would give this a read. There’s a lot of references in the back of the book for further exploration if you want to go deeper.