Introduction
In his meditations for the Christmas Season, St. Alphonsus writes: “Time is a treasure of inestimable value because in every moment of time we can gain an increase of grace and eternal glory. Time is a treasure which can only be found in this life: it is not to be found in the next, in hell or in Heaven. If the Blessed in Heaven could grieve, they would do so for having lost so much time; and in hell the lost souls are tormented with the thought that there is now no more time for them. “According to St. Bernadine of Siena, a moment of time is of as much value as God; because in each moment a man can, by acts of contrition or of love, acquire the grace of God and eternal glory.” This excerpt is taken from Meditations and Readings for Every Day of Christmas by St. Alphonsus Liguori (The Fatima Center, 2023), p. 66.
A Catholic Understanding of Time
We should never forget that time itself is a creation of God. It is hard for us to define exactly what time is.1 We can never return to the past nor can we move into the future. We can only live in the moment that is “now” and yet by the time you have read this sentence that moment is gone, and we exist in a different, unique, and irrepeatable “now.” In the final analysis, perhaps all we can do is be conscious of our existence in time. Our only way of “grasping” time is by measuring it, which we do through the movement of the celestial bodies. God also created these bodies and has likewise decreed their proper place and motion. To sanctify time is to sanctify life itself. God, Who created all things “in measure, and number, and weight” (Wis. 11:21), also ordained time as the arena of man’s salvation. The Church, as the Mystical Body of Christ, extends the sanctification wrought by the Incarnation into every hour and season through her liturgical life. The traditional Catholic calendar – rich with feasts, octaves, vigils, fasts, and commemorations – is more than a schedule of devotions. It is a spiritual architecture that orders our days according to the mysteries of Christ and His saints. In contrast, the modern world treats time as a commodity to be managed, filled, and spent. But in the traditional Catholic view, time is not money; it is grace.
Time as a Sacred Reality
From the very beginning, God sanctified time. “God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it” (Gen. 2:3). In this act, the Creator set apart one day for Himself, establishing the rhythm of worship and rest. After the Fall, man’s labor became toilsome, yet even then, God continued to mark His dealings with humanity through sacred times and seasons – the Sabbath, the Passover, the Jubilee. With the coming of Christ, time itself was redeemed. The eternal Word entered history at a particular hour: “When the fullness of the time was come, God sent His Son” (Gal. 4:4). As St. Augustine explained: “The Lord did not change times by abolishing them, but by filling them” (Sermon 219). Thus, the Church inherited not only the truths of the Gospel but a new sanctification of time: the liturgical year, wherein the mysteries of Christ’s life unfold from Advent through Easter to Pentecost and beyond.
The Traditional Calendar and the Sanctification of Life
Before the reforms of the mid-twentieth century, the Church’s calendar presented a profound interplay of fasts, feasts, vigils, and octaves – a structure that formed the rhythm of Catholic civilization. The year was not secular time punctuated by holy days; it was sacred time intersecting with earthly realities. Each feast carried both theological meaning and practical grace. Advent prepared the soul for Christ’s coming; Lent purified the heart for Easter; Pentecost spurred missionary zeal. The ‘triduum’ of All Hallows Eve, All Saints, and All Souls proclaimed the mystery of the communion of saints by bringing into sharp relief the Church Militant, Church Triumphant, and Church Suffering, respectively. Every season has great Marian feasts keeping Our Lady at the forefront of our minds. These feasts conveyed the chief dogmas and honors of Our Lady – which in turn always defend the truths of Christ and man. The feasts of saints filled the year with models of virtue and heavenly intercession. The octaves extended great mysteries across eight days of joy or contemplation. Fr. Pius Parsch summarized this spiritual pedagogy: “The liturgical year is Christ Himself, ever living in His Church. Each day the Church places before us a mystery of Christ’s life, that we may live by it and thus transform our whole being into Him” (The Church’s Year of Grace, vol. 1).
The Hours of the Day: A School of Prayer
Just as the liturgical year sanctifies the seasons, the Church sanctifies each day through the Divine Office – the liturgical hours of Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline. In the traditional rhythm of monastic and clerical life, these hours mark the passage of time with psalmody and prayer. Dom Prosper Guéranger, in The Liturgical Year, wrote: “The Hours are the echoes of that divine hymn which the Son of God sang upon earth when He glorified His Father in all the moments of His human life.” By uniting with the Church’s prayer, the faithful learn to perceive every hour as a meeting place with God. Even for the laity, the spirit of the Divine Office can be lived by praying the Angelus at morning, noon, and evening; saying Compline before bed; or meditating on a psalm corresponding to the hour. Time thus becomes not a sequence of empty intervals but a succession of sanctified moments.
The Domestic Church and the Liturgical Year
Traditional Catholic families once shaped their homes and routines according to the Church’s feasts and fasts. Ember Days reminded them of gratitude for creation; rogation processions sanctified the land; and saints’ days were occasions for celebration and virtue. In a home faithful to the liturgical year, children learn the faith not merely from books but through living memory: lighting the Advent wreath, fasting on Fridays, blessing homes at Epiphany, crowning statues of Our Lady in May, spreading the Rosary in October, and praying for the dead in November. Pope Pius XII praised this harmony of home and Church: “The family, sanctified by the sacraments and animated by the spirit of the liturgy, becomes the first school of Christian life and the first altar of God” (Mediator Dei, no. 78).
Modern Disruption and the Loss of Sacred Time
The twentieth century’s liturgical and social revolutions have obscured the Catholic sense of time. The suppression of octaves, the reduction of fasting, and the calendar’s simplification, while presented as reforms, stripped the faithful of spiritual milestones that once shaped Catholic life. The result has been a flattening of the sacred year into an indistinct sequence. The rich cycle of preparation, feasting, and recollection gave way to a rhythm indistinguishable from the secular calendar. Sundays have lost their primacy, and Feast Days once celebrated as Holy Days of Obligation are ignored or transferred for convenience. Pope Pius XI foresaw this danger when he warned that modern man, “forgetful of the divine majesty, makes an idol of time and labor” (Divini Cultus, 1928).
Recovering the Sanctification of Time
To recover Catholic time is to recover Catholic life. This begins with rediscovering the traditional calendar and observing it within the family and parish. Even in the absence of full liturgical observance, the faithful can sanctify time by:
- Praying the Angelus morning, noon, and evening.
- Observing the traditional fast and abstinence days, especially Ember Days and Fridays.
- Praying the Mass Propers of the day, meditating upon the Roman Martyrology, or reading the life of the saint honored each given day.
- Praying the Stations of the Cross, especially in Lent, but also on any Friday during the year.
- Making First Fridays and First Saturdays in honor of the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts.
- Celebrating Feast Days with appropriate joy, meals, or hymns, and especially devotions. There are countless examples; here are just a few:
- Blessing of candles at Candlemass, Feast of the Purification.
- Blessing of throats on St. Blase’s Feast Day.
- Praying monthly litanies.
- Participating in Eucharistic processions on the Feasts of Corpus Christi and Christ the King.
- Organizing a public Rosary on October 7.
- Giving of small presents on the Feast of St. Nicholas.
In this way, Catholics begin to re-enter the sacred rhythm of time – a rhythm that forms souls in patience, gratitude, and dependence on grace.
Time and Eternity
The ultimate goal of sanctifying time is to prepare for eternity. Every day and season is a rehearsal for that eternal Sabbath which has no evening. As Dom Marmion taught: “By sanctifying our time, we make our life a continual preparation for that eternal day when time shall be no more”(Christ the Life of the Soul). See also “Blessed Columba Marmion on Living a Daily Catholic Life.” The faithful soul learns to see hours, days, and years as opportunities for showing our love of God. The ticking clock becomes not an enemy but a teacher – a reminder that every moment draws us closer to the vision of God.
Conclusion
The traditional Catholic calendar is not nostalgia; it is theology lived through time. It transforms the days of labor and the hours of rest into occasions of grace. It reminds us that history is not random but ordered by Providence and redeemed by the Cross. To sanctify time is to acknowledge God as Lord of all moments. As the psalmist prayed, “My lots [times] are in Thy hands” (Psalm 30:16). Let us then recover the ancients’ reverence for time – beginning with our homes and hearts – so that every hour may echo with the rhythm of Heaven.
Call to Action
You will find privileged days of prayer and penance in The Fatima Center’s 2026 Devotional Calendar.
- Traditional Feast Days of the Church, including norms for penance (now optional) as they existed when Our Lady appeared at Fatima in 1917;
- A saint for each day, whose powerful intercession you can invoke and about whom you can learn more via daily posts on The Fatima Center’s website;
- Reminders for important monthly novenas throughout the year, and a special page highlighting simple ways everyone can live the Fatima Message;
- An explanation and checklist for practicing the First Saturdays devotion on all twelve First Saturdays of 2026; and
- A Timeline of Devotion to the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts, which demonstrates that Heaven’s patience regarding the fulfillment of Our Lady of Fatima’s requests may soon come to an end.