Like a great waterwheel, the liturgical year goes on relentlessly irrigating our souls, softening the ground of our hearts, nourishing the soil of our lives until the seed of the Word of God itself begins to grow in us, comes to fruit in us, ripens in us the spiritual journey of a lifetime. So goes the liturgical year through all the days of our lives. /it concentrates us on the two great poles of the faith - the birth and death of Jesus of Nazareth. But as Christmas and Easter trace the life of Jesus for us from beginning to end, the liturgical year does even more: it also challenges our own life and vision and sense of meaning. Both a guide to greater spiritual maturity and a path to a deepened spiritual life, the liturgical year leads us through all the great questions of faith as it goes. It rehearses the dimensions of life over and over for us all the years of our days. It leads us back again and again to reflect on the great moments of the life of Jesus and so to apply them to our own ... As the liturgical year goes on every day of our lives, every season of every year, tracing the steps of Jesus from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, so does our own life move back and forth between our own beginnings and endings, between our own struggles and triumphs, between the rush of acclamation and the crush of abandonment. It is the link between Jesus and me, between this life and the next, between me and the world around me, that is the gift of the liturgical year. The meaning and message of the liturgical year is the bedrock on which we strike our own life's direction. Rooted in the Resurrection promise of the liturgical year, whatever the weight of our own pressures, we maintain the course. We trust in the future we cannot see and do only know because we have celebrated the death and resurrection of Jesus year after year. In His life we rest our own. ― Joan D. Chittister, The Liturgical Year: The Spiraling Adventure of the Spiritual Life - The Ancient Practices Series
പിരിയുമ്പോള് ,എനിക്ക് വലതും തരിക ഓര്മ്മക്കായി എന്ന് പീറ്റര് ജീസ്സസിനോട്ചോദിച്ചു ,ക്രിസ്തുവാകട്ടെ അപ്പമെടുത്ത്പറഞ്ഞു "ഇതെന്റെ ശരീരമാണ്, നീ ഇത്ഭക്ഷിക്കുക "പീറ്റര് അപ്പം ഭക്ഷിച്ചു ,ആഅപ്പം അവന്റെ ശരീരത്തിന്റെ ഭാഗമായി ,ചിന്തയുടെ ഭാഗമായി,ദര്ശനത­തിന്റെയും് നൃത്തത്തിന്റെയ­ും ഭാഗമായി,സംഗീതത്തിന്റെയും രതിയുടെയും ഭാഗമായി,കുഞ്ഞുമക്കളുടെ ഭാഗമായി-അര്ത്ഥമിതാണ് -ദര്ശനങ്ങളുടെ സുഗന്തങ്ങള്എപ്പോള് വേണമെങ്കിലും കാലം കവര്ന്നെടുക്കാ­ം ,എന്നാല് അപ്പം നല്കിയവന്റെ ഓര്മ്മഎല്ലാ കാലങ്ങളിലും നിലനില്ക്കും-ജീവിതമെപ്പോഴാണ് വിശുദ്ധമായ ഒരുതളികയിലെടുത്തു വാഴ്ത്തി വിഭജിച്ചുനമുക്ക് കൊടുക്കാനാവുക.
Our acceptance with God is sure only through His beloved Son, and good works are but the result of the working of His sin-pardoning love. They are no credit to us, and we have nothing accorded to us for out good works by which we may claim a part in the salvation of our souls. Salvation is God’s free gift to the believer, given to him for Christ’s sake alone. The troubled soul may find peace through faith in Christ, and his peace will be in proportion to his faith and trust. He cannot present his good works as a plea for the salvation of his soul. tBut are good works of no real value? Is the sinner who commits sin every day with impunity, regarded of God with the same favor as the one who through faith in Christ tries to work in his integrity? The Scripture answers, ‘We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has before ordained that we should work in them.’ In His divine arrangement, through His unmerited favor, the Lord has ordained that good works shall be rewarded. We are accepted through Christ’s merit alone, and the acts of mercy, the deeds of charity, which we perform, are the fruits of faith; and they become a blessing to us; for men are to be rewarded according to their works. It is the fragrance of the merit of Christ than makes our good works acceptable to God, and it is grave that enables us to do the works for which He rewards us. Our works in and of themselves have no merit. When we have done all that it is possible for us to do, we are to count ourselves as unprofitable servants. We deserve no thanks from God. We have only done what it was our duty to do, and our works could not have been performed in the strength of our own sinful nature. tThe Lord has bidden us to draw nigh to Him, and He will draw nigh to us; and drawing nigh to Him, we receive the grace by which to do those good works which will be rewarded at His hands.