|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
“Happy feast of ____!” is a phrase heard frequently in my home. The Catholic liturgical year has been present in my understanding of time ever since I was young. As the eldest child in a homeschooling, daily-Mass-attending, saint-loving family, I discovered very early that every single day commemorates something or someone unique and important in our Faith.
Although there are different levels of Catholic celebrations (e.g. solemnities, proper “feasts,” and memorials—many of which are optional), the same character applies to all of them: every saint is worth celebrating and every moment from the lives of Christ and Our Lady is notable. Truly, each day in the Catholic liturgical year is a day on which to say, “happy feast day!”
Still, what does this mean? Are “feast days” merely spiritual realities—do they primarily denote moments of heavenly rejoicing? How do they influence our human reality of time? Can they lend a deeper richness to how we live the Faith?
“Feast.” The word has a concrete meaning: food!—a banquet, a deliciously laden table. Does this meaning apply in a Catholic sense? Yes! Feast days have more than a merely figurative meaning. Viewed in their totality, feast days embody a rich dimension of Catholic life. They are concrete liturgical moments that bridge time and eternity, the material and the spiritual, food and faith.
Feast Days as a Foretaste of Eternity
The significance of feast days, with all their spiritual and concrete fullness, is already present in the theology of the liturgical year. Catholic convert and food writer Alexandra Greeley highlights this in the introduction to her aptly-titled new release, Catholic Feast Days: A Cookbook for Connecting Faith and Food:
Throughout the liturgical year, the Church uses the material world to communicate the sacred—from the Nativity scenes of Advent and Christmas to the ashes of Ash Wednesday. However, these sacred encounters need not be limited to liturgical rites alone. Families can and should bring the liturgy into their homes to sanctify their daily routine and draw them into the mysteries that the liturgical seasons communicate. (Catholic Feast Days, 3)
As Greeley highlights, the prominent role of feasts and memorials in the liturgical year reminds us that we are made for heaven as whole persons, body and soul. This mirrors the nature of liturgy, which the Catechism defines as “an ‘action’ of the whole Christ (Christus totus)”—the entire Church in heaven and on earth (CCC #1136). Likewise, the liturgical rhythm of our Faith is meant to involve our whole selves, souls and bodies, spiritual devotions and culinary inclinations alike.
This bigger picture connection between earth and heaven is a primary reason why Catholic liturgical living in the kitchen and around the dinner table is important: “so that families can better experience now what they will in eternity” (Greeley, 3). Catholic liturgical living provides a symbolic foretaste—literally!—of what we will one day celebrate fully with the Lord in heaven.
In fact, the word “feast” itself, in its origins and connections, reflects the reality of the divine.
Feasting Draws Us to God, and God to Us
The word “feast” comes from similar words in Middle English, Latin, and Old French—feste, festa, festum, which signify a holiday, festival, or feast. Tracing further back, our English words “festive” and “holiday” derive from the Latin festus and feriae, which are themselves rooted in Greek and Indo-European words for divinity. Therefore, the etymology of feasting is rooted in our concept of God.
Feste, festa. These words remind me of another Latin word: festina, which means “to make haste or hurry.” It forms the classical adage festina lente, “make haste slowly.” However, I first learned the word festina while singing Latin evening prayers at a Gregorian chant workshop. Deus, in adiutorium meum intende; Domine, ad adjuvandum me festina translates to“God, come to my assistance; O Lord, make haste to help me” (Ps. 70:1). In prayers that begin with this refrain, we ask for the Lord’s timely help and seek the joy of His presence.
Festina. The word sounds like an endearing diminutive, carrying the connotation of a little feast. It takes me into another Scripture verse: Exsurgens autem Maria in diebus illis abiit in montana cum festinatione in civitatem Iudae. This is the scene before us in the second Joyful Mystery: “Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country” (Lk. 1:39). The Blessed Mother journeyed to visit her cousin Elizabeth with steps of a festive sort of haste. When she arrived, carrying the infant Bread of Life within her, His presence caused Elizabeth’s unborn child to leap jubilantly.
Festina, festa, “feast”: the words sound like triumph, celebration, and abundance. These Scriptural contexts (and there are certainly many more) hints that we have every reason to celebrate as Catholics. Our God hastens to feed us by His grace and in the sacraments, our heavenly mother bestows her timely protection, and all of heaven aids our faithful passage through this life. Catholic feast days illuminate our joy as participants in the divine life.
Let the Catholics Cook
As great holy days and smaller sacred observances pass in year after year of earthly time, the rhythm of Catholic feasts, fasts, and favorite saints reminds us to seek what is above (see Colossians 3:1). What does it look like to feast with joyful intentionality, festive urgency, and a disposition of gratitude to God? In the Church’s “storied culinary tradition that spans across time and cultures,” there are plenty of opportunities for us to see the significance in what we savor (Greeley, 3).
Catholic cookbooks like Greeley’s draw on the theology of saints and holy days to illuminate the flavor of the Faith in valuable ways. They lift us out of the ordinary as they guide us through preparations for glorious Christmas and Easter spreads or while showcasing the spiritual significance of a range of ingredients. An all-white dish points to our Blessed Mother’s Immaculateness, the joy of comforting spices prepares us for the sweetness of Advent, and even a seemingly-ordinary chicken sandwich becomes meaningful on a particular Easter solemnity. Specific recipes help us enter into the lives of a variety of saints. Additionally, insights on how to use liturgical colors and symbols in table settings underscores that we can live our Faith in a deeply concrete manner that engages all our senses.
The spiritual reality of a feast day, therefore, is certainly built on the literal meaning of the phrase. Feasts matter. Food matters. Our Faith is full of flavor! Even the classical adage festina lente, to “make haste slowly,” gains new meaning in the context of living the occasions that mark the Catholic calendar. In following the theme of the liturgical year, we carry onwards carefully and intentionally—or in other words, we “make haste slowly” yet joyfully—to our heavenly goal.
Author’s Note: Check out Alexandra Greeley’s newest release, Catholic Feast Days: A Cookbook for Connecting Faith and Food, here! This book is your gateway to celebrating the Church calendar with saints and culinary delights all year round.
Photo by Filipp Romanovski on Unsplash
