The Day After Halloween & a Recommendation for Liturgical Living

One of the most common critiques to the Catholic Church that I hear is that we don't have to have fun, that we're boring. For example, I have heard people say that Catholics hate Halloween and don't allow their kids to celebrate.

I work at a Catholic Church, and here is what our staff we did for Halloween:

We're Scrabble! Here's what we did last year:

Anyone up for a game of Dominos?

My point isn't so much that we have some pretty witty costume ideas, but that we aren't the stuffy, nuns with rulers Church that you may think we are. Do we have a respect for Tradition and a desire to preserve the Church that Christ established? Yes! But that's what makes us so extraordinary...and fun!

I think it's fair to say that most people stopped celebrating yesterday after the candles in their pumpkins went dim and parents took the appropriate "mom and dad tax" out of their kids' candy bags. The Catholic Church, however, kept on celebrating. After all, today is All Saints Day, a day when we celebrate all those who have gone before us to be in Heaven with God forever! Tomorrow is All Souls Day, when we remember all of our loved ones who have died.

You may be wondering why celebrating All Saints Day is such a big deal and why we bother celebrating it in the first place. The reason why is that we have a crowd of cheerleader - coach combos who are there to encourage and intercede for us in heaven while we are still here on earth. I spent my morning going to Mass and then touring our "saints in the hall" tradition where the 5th graders dress up as favorite saints and give speeches about their lives. Some of my favorites were St. Agnes, whose skull is preserved now in a church in Rome, St. Lucy, who is rumored to have gouged her eyes out to give to a suitor who loved them but who she refused to marry, St. Benedict who wrote the rule on monasteries, and St. Bernadette who drank dirty water and was healed of illness. I mean, who wouldn't want to celebrate these people?

The Catholic Church has been standing for over 2000 years, and our love for and belief in the True Presence of Christ in the Eucharist is absolutely what sets us apart from every other Church. Truth be told, when you believe in what that means, it's enough. But we also get a lot of other special perks, which come about when you live liturgically. Living liturgically is all about living your daily life with the liturgical calendar, which marks the liturgical seasons such as Advent, Lent, Ordinary Time, and Easter in mind. For example, this means we see the period after Thanksgiving and most of December as preparation for Christmas, and Christmas is the 12 days from Christmas Day until the Feast of the Epiphany!

Sound confusing? It can be, so I want to make a recommendation for a book that I have been LOVING:

Ok...I'm not doing this book any justice by posting a picture of it on a Kindle, but Kendra Tierney's Catholic All Year Compendium is such a fun book for all ages! (To be honest, I couldn't even wait for it to come out on paperback, so I bought the Kindle version.) This book is all about how a family of 11 celebrates everything from Christmas to Lent; name days to birthdays, all with a focus on Jesus and the Tradition of the Catholic Church. Fun! In addition to this fun book, Kendra Tierney has been a blast to follow on Instagram (@kendra_tierney) as she documents her family's crazy life with things like dressing her kids up as Blessed Pier Giorgio Frassati and St. Lawrence (double points if you understand why he has a grill strapped on his back), Missionaries of Charity Sari Jello (St. Teresa of Calcutta is a favorite of many, not just Catholics!), hilarious rules like "don't take your pants off without a plan," chocolate chip rosaries and so much more! And the point isn't just to have punny food; it's to make the faith exciting for her little ones. She, and so many others like her, are successful in making the faith about more than just Church on Sunday because really, we're disciples of Christ EVERY DAY.

So next time you think we're just a bunch of boring people in long skirts and high collars, take a peek at our liturgical calendar...chances are, we're celebrating something!