The Liturgical Year

This week I wanted to take a moment to introduce you to a series of books that have played an important role in my own spiritual journey these past few months. I stumbled upon this series of books by chance but I am very glad that I did. The Liturgical Year is a fifteen volume set written by Abbot Dom Gueranger, O.S.B. in 1910. If you are a daily Mass attendee or anyone who has a serious desire to deepen their faith than I highly recommend adding this series to your library.

This series was translated from the original French by Dom Laurence Shepherd, O.S.B. Gueranger. It is an absolute gem of a resource. Included in each volume are multi-page readings for every day of the year! These vary in length with obvious circumstances such as feast days having more to read than others. Also included are writings on the saints based upon the calendar that was in use at the time Gueranger wrote the volumes. Each volume leads off with a section about the season the reader in for example Lent and Advent. What I find to be helpful to me are the included before and after communion prayers. There are multiple ones included and they again are relative to the season at hand. Additionally, there are morning and night prayers that are written to the season of the liturgical calendar as well. The prayers are presented in both English and Latin.

The length of each volume varies with some volumes being around 400 pages long to 700 at the most. One might wonder how long such a work like this took to complete. Simply put, these fifteen volumes took Abbot Dom Gueranger a lifetime to complete. They are rich, and insightful, and immerses the reader into the heart of the liturgical calendar. Don’t take my word for it however. This series was used to teach a saint. Louis Martin used this series as part of the daily routine in the Martin home and read from them to his five daughters including the future Saint Therese of Lisieux. This alone warranted a shelf in my library to this excellent series.

I would encourage you to check out the series at Refuge of Sinners Publishing, Inc. A great publisher I have also discovered in the past year that offers some incredible classic works. You can find their site at https://www.traditionalcatholicpublishing.com/