Catholics and Calendars

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Everything must be done by turns; no activity, here beneath the heavens, but has its allotted time for beginning and coming to an end. Men are born only to die, plant trees only to displant them. Now we take life, now we save it; now we are destroying, now building. Weep first, then laugh, mourn we and dance; the stones we have scattered we must bring together anew; court we first and then shun the embrace. To-day’s gain, tomorrow’s loss; what once we treasured, soon thrown away; the garment rent, the garment mended; silence kept, and silence ended; 8 love alternating with hatred, war with peace.

(Ecclesiastes 3:1-8)

A few weeks ago I received not one but two calendars while exiting church after Holy Mass. The first was a diocesan calendar and the other a Franciscan one (the mission church where I attend Mass is run by the Order of Friars Minor). 

Calendars are everywhere here. Grounding ourselves IN time is normal here and the ubiquity of calendars is a significant embodiment of that truth as expressed in the above quote. There is, after all, a time for everything. Maybe even more so in Korea where it balances its modern commitments (as seen in the solar calendar) and its traditional roots (as seen in the lunar calendar).

Religious calendars can always be hit or miss. I love ones with beautiful pictures, and I try not to look at them until the month changes so that I can be surprised by the new monthly picture. The one I used during 2020 certainly was beautiful (I pretended to be walking out of Mass at the Immaculate Conception Cathedral aka Myeongdong Cathedral just so that I could get a copy). It was all black with white letters. So cool. The drawback is that you can't write on it, and what is written is sparse. Other ones I've had are the opposite : sparse on beauty but very informative. For example calendar for both the Novus Ordo Mass and the Vetus Ordo/Traditional Latin Mass, Scripture quotes, etc.

But regardless of which kind I get here, WHEN I get it is always the same : on or around Christmas. Why? Probably because more people come to Christmas Mass or times thereabouts. Another reason is that it is closer to the end of the secular year and perfectly timed for the new year.

That has always bothered me. I think this seemingly small gesture speaks volumes about the state of the Church more generally as well as specifically in Korea.

As Saint Paul warns in his epistle to the Romans, "you must not fall in with the manners of this world" (Romans 12:2), and as Saint John the Evangelist recounts Christ saying, 

If the world hates you, be sure that it hated me before it learned to hate you. If you belonged to the world, the world would know you for its own and love you; it is because you do not belong to the world, because I have singled you out from the midst of the world, that the world hates you. 

(John 15:18-19)

We Catholics have become accustomed to living by the values and rhythms of the secular world rather than trying to transform it. We aren't doing this because "there must be an inward change, a remaking of your minds, so that you can satisfy yourselves what is God’s will, the good thing, the desirable thing, the perfect thing." (Romans 12:2).

One of the more well-known aspects of this is the moving of Ascension Thursday to the following Sunday. Why? Because its just so darn difficult to get Catholics to come to Mass on a weekday. But of course, if its not important enough to celebrate on the actual day, maybe its not important enough to celebrate at all. Which, based on the statistics of Mass attendance, is precisely what many Catholics seem to believe. 

But it all really starts at the beginning. That is the 1st Sunday of Advent and the 1st of January. If more people come to Mass on Christmas and secular new year (the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God in the New Rite and the Circumcision in the Old Rite) then that is all the more reason to preach on the importance of going to Mass every Sunday and reaching out to those who have fallen away. 

What good is it to have these larger Christmas crowds and not exhort them to avoid the serious sin attached to willfully missing Mass? Why not encourage them to come to Mass every Sunday, every day of obligation, and indeed every day? And what better way to emphasize that than to hand out the calendars on the REAL new years day (the 1st Sunday of Advent)?

If the Church could make a resolution I think it should be to take what we believe seriously and act that belief out concretely (what we used to call Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi). One small way, perhaps, is to "remix" the common slogan "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year" to the proper order of "Happy New Year and Merry Christmas." First things first.

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