Patron Saints for the New Year
A New Year's Resolution for Seasons and Saints
Christmas landing on a Monday is the worst.
You see, when Christmas lands on Monday, it makes sense for the workweek prior to end on Friday as usual. The downside, then, is that you’re launched into a weekend of Christmas festivities with no gradual ramp up.
Even worse, the line between Advent and Christmas is blurred and that weekend becomes a mess of seasons due to Christmas Eve beginning on the final Sunday of Advent… so are we preparing or are we celebrating? Not only that, you still have to fulfill your Sunday morning Mass obligation before going back that same evening for Christmas Eve Mass. It’s a lot.
And I hate to break it to you, but if you celebrated your Christmas service on Sunday morning (or worse, Saturday night), what you *really* celebrated was a Fourth Sunday of Advent service. Christmas Eve doesn’t start until the evening of Christmas.
So… and I don’t want be *that guy*… but you technically skipped Christmas.1
Don’t blame me—I’m just a messenger. I wasn’t the one who created the liturgical calendar.
I jest.
Kinda.
Where was I? Oh yes, the travails of Christmas falling on Monday…
Really, what I’m trying to do is blame my ill-preparedness for the Christmas season on the fact that Advent 2023 was as short as it possibly could be because Christmas fell on a Monday. Of course, we both know that I’m just making up excuses. There’s a lot I could try to blame it on, but truthfully, I didn’t order my time around the right things.
Or rather, maybe I didn’t let time order me.
And it’s ironic—as you’re about to read—since this past fall we’ve tried to correct that.
In late September we began inviting friends to celebrate various feast days throughout the liturgical year. The impetus for this now bimonthly tradition of hosting friends for prayer was, at least originally, to catechize our children.
If you’re not familiar with the liturgical calendar, the quick and dirty version is that it divides the year up into seasons in order to help the Church celebrate the liturgy, each season with its own emphases. Advent and Lent, for instance, are seasons of penance and preparation that precede Christmas and Easter, which are celebratory seasons. Scattered between those seasons you’ll find yourself in Ordinary Time, which is the liturgical season that makes up most of the year. And within each of those seasons are days that memorialize events or saints that are significant in the life of the Church.2
Anyway, we decided that we wanted to pick a few of the Church’s feast days where we would actually feast together with friends. A few of the reasons we decided to start doing this…
→ The liturgical year provides an opportunity to catechize our children and discuss important saints and events throughout salvation history.
→ We often get together with friends for either prayer or party. This is an opportunity for both (which honestly, shouldn’t be something we have to work on but here we are).
→ Along those lines, we want prayer to be a more natural part of our encounters with other people. We are fortunate to have friends and family who so naturally and *genuinely* incorporate prayer in any social setting. Their example has encouraged us to be more intentional in this area.
→ We have many pockets of friends (did you catch that humble brag?) and this has been a fun opportunity to bring those different friend groups together.
→ Jaroslav Pelikan famously remarked that “tradition is the living faith of the dead…”.3 These get togethers serve as an opportunity to enter into the Church’s faith and ask for the intercession of her many saints.
→ We want to develop the senses that realize we live in an enchanted world.
And so on…
We began by choosing the Feast of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael—really for no other reason than that I think angels are dope (as the kids say). The story of Elisha opening his servant’s eyes to the spiritual world around him in 2 Kings 6, in particular, has long been a source of encouragement and fascination:
15 When an attendant of the man of God rose early in the morning and went out, an army with horses and chariots was all around the city. His servant said, “Alas, master! What shall we do?” 16 He replied, “Do not be afraid, for there are more with us than there are with them.” 17 Then Elisha prayed: “O Lord, please open his eyes that he may see.” So the Lord opened the eyes of the servant, and he saw; the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
As an aside, the Feast of the Archangels renewed my interest in angels and sent me down the craziest rabbit trail where I eventually decided aliens exist. How about that for today’s non sequitur?
About month later we again hosted a dinner to celebrate the Feast of St. Leo the Great. If you know anything about St. Leo, you probably already know why I chose this feast day.
As much as I’d like to tell you that it’s because of his significant contributions to Christology… it’s actually because of this story about St. Leo preventing Attila the Hun from sacking Rome.
Sts. Peter and Paul with flaming swords flanking each side of St. Leo… I mean, c’mon! It gets me fired up. every. single. time!
But remember, all of this is totally not for me. “It’s to catechize my children!” I tell myself. That, of course, sounds like such a noble excuse for deciding to take the liturgical year more seriously.
The reality, however, is that I need to take the liturgical year more seriously. I believe in the reality of the spiritual world. I’m sure Elisha’s servant did, too. And yet, it seems that we both let worldly troubles largely dictate how we see reality.
And I suppose that’s really the problem. Our hope, though, is that the more we continue to lean into the Church’s liturgy and lean on her saints, the better we’ll be able to see what is truly real.
And to that end, we have also decided to pick patron saints for the year. Throughout the year we’ll learn a little more about the saints we chose, include those saints in our prayers asking them for encouragement and intercession, and celebrate their feast days.
Jack has chosen St. Pope John Paul II (Feast day, October 22). Krista introduced him to Jack during our celebration of All Saints’ Day this past year. Jack, who still hasn’t clearly explained why, has become fond of Pope John Paul II. And since my mom was always fond of him too, I’ve been encouraging Jack to learn more about him.
Bennett is too young to choose, so Jack took that responsibility upon himself and has chosen St. Brendan the Navigator (May 16th) for Bennett. Honestly, I was going to choose Padre Pio, who I’ve recently taken an interest in due to something he once said that seemed to affirm the existence of aliens4 … and, uh, totally because he was a really holy guy, too. I don’t know much about St. Brendan, but am excited to learn more about him.
Krista has chosen Thérèse of Lisieux (October 1). I’m excited to learn more about this choice and the impact it has on her year. She says she chose St. Thérèse is because St. Thérèse exemplifies the significance that someone can have on the world by living out her vocation faithfully and simply. She’s like the anti-influencer.
And my choice is St. Joseph (March 19). This past year has spurred me on towards thinking more about my vocation as a husband and a father… and who is a better father than St. Joseph? I admire his wisdom, patience, humility, and especially meekness. “Meek” conjures connotations of weakness, but comes from a greek word meaning “strength under control.” #Goals.
So, here’s to 2024 and developing our spiritual senses! I pray that all of us come to more deeply realize that we live in an enchanted world.
Sts. Pope John Paul II, Thérèse, Brendan, and Joseph, pray for us!
P.S. Fortunately Christmas 2024 lands on a Wednesday, which is the best possible day to celebrate Christmas. No excuses this year…
Alright, you caught me—I actually love to be *that guy.*
Like I said, this is the “quick and dirty” version.
Jaroslav Pelikan full quote: “Tradition is the living faith of the dead; traditionalism the dead faith of the living.”
Yeah, yeah, this might sound insane. But based on what I know about Padre Pio, I’m going to take his word for it.