It Is Not The World That Is Remade Here, But You
by Donavon L Riley

If you wish to know Christ—not as a concept to be studied, but as a living presence that presses close to your ribs—then you must step into the liturgical year as if it were a forest, dense and alive. The liturgy is not a sequence of relics to be admired from afar; it is the breathing body of the Church, where the Holy Spirit moves as wind through branches. Through its ancient authority, the mysteries of the Kingdom of God are not remembered but made present—Heaven breaking into earth, not as thunder but as bread, not as spectacle but as presence.

The liturgical year is a rhythm that moves you—not with the harsh mechanics of logic, but with the steady pull of a river shaping its banks. To live it is to enter the wild terrain of Christ’s life, to walk with Him from the humble obscurity of the manger to the raw finality of the cross, and then to the unyielding light of the resurrection. The heart cannot remain an observer in this sacred drama; it is drawn into the story, not by force, but by the quiet gravity of grace.

This is no hollow ritual. It is not a performance to appease a distant God but an invitation to union. The smells of incense, the flicker of candlelight, the murmur of ancient prayers—they are not mere symbols, but conduits, uniting the soul with Christ. The liturgy teaches not by words but by encounter. You kneel not as an act of submission to dogma but as a surrender to the embrace of divine love, to be shaped and remade by it.

To live the liturgical year devoutly is to awaken to time as a sacred gift. It is not the calendar that dictates your days but Christ’s life that frames your own. You begin to see the seasons not as abstractions but as the very pattern of redemption—Advent’s longing, Lent’s stripping away, Easter’s dazzling rebirth. It is not the world that is remade here, but you. And when the year has run its course, you are not left the same. You are rooted deeper in the soil of faith, shaped by its seasons, and drawn ever closer to the beating heart of Christ. Here, in this unfolding cycle, is where Heaven brushes against earth, where eternity flows into time, and where Christ steps closer, offering not knowledge, but Himself.

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***Liturgy, in this case, refers to the historic, ordinary worship of the Church in the Western tradition. It is the structured rhythm of prayers, readings, hymns, and sacraments that Christians have practiced for centuries. Rooted in Scripture and shaped by the early Church, it offers a way of entering into the life of Christ through a shared, sacred pattern. This is not something created anew for every generation; it is a gift handed down, uniting believers across time and space in the worship of God. The liturgy carries us through the Church year, guiding us to encounter the mysteries of faith—Advent’s expectation, Lent’s repentance, Easter’s joy—not as distant events, but as present realities shaping our lives today.