I am writing about the Christian year, the liturgical year, the year that puts in relief the full array of Christian mysteries and spiritual cycles for all to see…. This book, then, does not concentrate simple on what it means to grow older as one year succeeds another.  This book is about growing wiser, growing holier, growing more embedded in the essentials of life as the years go by rather than simply moving from one time of life to the next.  The liturgical year is an adventure in bringing the Christian life to fullness, the heart to alert, the soul to focus.  It does not concern itself with the questions of how to make a living.  It concerns itself with the questions of how to make a life.

—from The Liturgical Year by Joan Chittister