What kind of culture permeates your family? Is yours an artsy family? A sports family? A wholistic living family? A foodie and hospitality family? An outdoorsy family? A music family? How do you and your loved ones like to spend your free time together?

As we begin week four of the month and our focus turns to Family Culture, what is the cultural common ground for families of faith? Sure, they can look markedly different from each other partly because of the way they like to spend their free time. But there’s one part of family culture that every family of faith should have in common — at least some degree of liturgical living.

What is liturgical living? It’s tying the daily life in the home to the Church calendar. Of course, the Church calendar commemorates the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the ways in which the saints emulate Him, from year to year. So liturgical living is designed to help the family stay connected to and grow in the life of Christ in their everyday activities.

What does liturgical living look like in practice? There are three main arenas where you can match up your family’s everyday life with the Church calendar:

•  Prayer: Your family’s prayer life together is centered around your home altar, prayer corner, or chapel. So, when you are practicing liturgical living, you change the aids to prayer on your home altar from season to season. For instance, in Advent, you’ll have an Advent wreath on your home altar or table. In Lent, you may cover your statues with purple cloth or set out the Stations of the Cross. For whatever season, you may use candles that are the color of the current season or keep your family bible open to a significant reading for that time of year. With these types of reminders in the home as to what the Church is meditating on in the season, the family can continually participate in the Church’s work of prayer.

•  Meals: Because the family table is the “altar” of communion for the domestic church, it is a natural place to follow whatever level of feasting, fasting, or ordinary time the Church is living through in that season. With our families, we may go from commemorating the austerity of Lent and Jesus’ suffering by praying the Stations of the Cross at our home altar to eating a meager meal on a Friday evening in Lent. Or we may go from setting the Christ Child into the nativity scene on our home altar to a glittering Christmas Eve feast. Every liturgical season can have a connection between altar and table, like commemorating a saint’s life in prayer on her feast day before eating a meal inspired by the cuisine of her home country, or even just the connection of the prayers of ordinary time with an ordinary meal.

•  Activities: The connection between home altar and table is a wonderfully rich way of being attentive to the life of Christ in your Trinity House. But you can take liturgical living further by incorporating activities that remind your family of Jesus and the saints throughout the seasons. For instance, you can center your dinner conversation on the liturgical season or the life of the saint whose feast is that day. Or you can read about that saint’s life at bedtime. Or you can plan a weekend outing to a shrine that encourages a particular devotion — like to a Divine Mercy Shrine sometime around Divine Mercy Sunday. Of course, it makes sense to do art projects and musical pieces that are apropos of the liturgical season as well!

The potential ways to live liturgically are endless, just like the life of the Church throughout the ages! But the main point is this — whatever you and your family like to do in your free time, first base your family culture on marking the liturgical season at your home altar and around your table.

Whatever subsequent attention we give to leisure-time activities — art, music, sports, fitness, etc — should grow out of the attention we give to God and each other in prayer and at family meals. And that attention should be tied to continually recalling the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

If we make an effort with liturgical living, then when we go on to all our other leisure activities, we know they will be permeated with the light of Christ! Because culture is not an end in itself. In a Trinity House, Family Culture should lead to Hospitality & Service.

In the end, the work that we do (and the enjoyment we have!) in bringing our families to participate in the Church’s life, is the work and joy of saving souls. So, may our home altars and tables and all our subsequent family culture activities be open to sharing our little taste of heaven with others who need it!