Calendars...

I have lately been making calendars as gifts for some family members. Not to worry, they are not types who will likely see this blog and so even by announcing this to the blogosphere I remain relatively anonymous and the gifts will likely remain surprises.

But to the calendar - I have been putting photos of my (adorably cute etc etc) 2 year old daughter into calendar page templates. For example, January's template is snowflakes, February's is hearts, and so on. It has caused me to reflect on the disheartening fact that despite being a theologian who cares about alternate time telling, it is still the childhood memories of secular celebrations and school parties complete with homemade heart shaped sugar cookies and bright red and pink icing that capture my mind. I wish, truly, that when I think of March, I would think of St Joseph's Day rather than St. Patrick's Day. (I like St Patrick, I really do; it is just that the day is no longer about him, but about drinking green beer and, in this town, eating full Irish breakfasts at 5 am before trooping off to class.) Or that when I think of April, I would think not of easter eggs and the easter bunny but of the cross and the resurrection. Or in October, rather than images of orange and black coming to mind, that I would think more of St Teresa and St Luke and St Francis. I'd like to think I'm making time holy, in fact, but I'm not really. Not even in my best efforts as a theologian parent trying to raise an uber-theological child. (Serious psychological help is probably due to this child in the future! ;-))

This must be why Augustine mentions time in one of his (less-well-read) chapters in the Confessions. He knows how much time marks who we are even despite ourselves - because time is something that influences us without us really having to think much about it. I'm a pretty darned secular person. I admit it.

365 days in a calendar year. One of the weird things about Catholics is that so many of those days are claimed for a particular purpose - ember and rogation days, saints days, memorials, feasts, fasts. At this point in my life (6 years into being Catholic) the liturgical calendar provides only a faint background noise to the secular calendar by which I typically live my life. Still - it's a bit like dripping water, light and seemingly inconsequential, yet entirely able to carve out holes in rocks over time. Somehow, despite myself, my days are indeed getting re-ordered, however imperfectly. The rhythm of the liturgical calendar is changing my sensibility even at a low level.

So, alongside visions of snowflakes and hearts, my time since I've become Catholic has also been about the Feast of Sts Peter and Paul in June. In August, I have begun to think more of the Assumption of Mary than of beaches and back to school. In November, I have begun to think more of remembrance of deceased faithful, rather than football. And yes, even in February, I have begun to think more of Lenten sacrifice than of candy hearts.

It's kind of fascinating to reflect on this slow drip of time in my life - how small changes actually do take place, but it's hard to see in the moment.