Book Review – The Christian Calendar

I love books and reading.  I enjoy browsing through used book stores for hidden gems.  I don’t do it often, and I don’t do it for long, but it’s enjoyable.  Ever since I was a kid, this has been an inexpensive indulgence for me.  The reality is that most of what I pick up isn’t all that great.  At least historically.  I’ve become a lot more selective in what I buy now, but I still take chances now and then which occasionally pay off.

Such is the case with The Christian Calendar: A complete Guide to the Seasons of the Christian Year.   It combines two of my favorite things – history and historical illustrations and photos – and combines them in an examination of the liturgical year.  The historical illustrations are great and drawn from a variety of sources spanning nearly 2000 years.

The book focuses on the traditional Roman Catholic lectionary and liturgical cycle (a one-year cycle rather than the more contemporary three-year cycle).  Brief commentary or exegesis on the Gospel lesson is frequent, and the helpfulness of these comments varies widely.  But the artwork is beautiful, and there are frequent notes of local customs (particularly English but also Continental) associated with various Sundays in the Church year.  The book concludes with a list of saints venerated on literally every day of the year.  Most are just names and dates of death, but there are more expanded biographies included throughout.

If you enjoy liturgical history and artwork and can pick this up second-hand, I definitely recommend it.  Don’t necessarily take the exegetical work too seriously, but it’s a nice book to have in your library.