As a follow-up to our post on the seasons, feasts, and festivals in the Church Year, we’ve compiled a list of Church Year commemorations to help deepen your understanding. Read below for more information on the Church Year. Then follow the links to learn about each commemoration.

For many people, Christmas is an exciting time of reuniting with family, spending quality time together, and eating too many cookies.

But for others, it’s a painful reminder of broken families, loss of loved ones, or long distances that separate you.

As a follow-up to our post on the seasons of the Church Year, we’ve compiled a list of Church Year feasts and festivals to help deepen your understanding. Read below for more information on the Church Year. Then follow the links to learn more about each day.

For the past 12 years, I’ve called myself a “stay-at-home mom.” Last fall, my youngest started kindergarten and, as he headed off to school, I did also. I started substitute teaching. A few years ago, I started writing and speaking. About that time, I started to ask myself questions about each of these vocations.

In all of my vocations, I struggled to define what a successful day, year, or lifetime would look like. I’ve come up with ideas, but they often shift with experience, the realization of responsibility, or even my mood.

This post is an excerpt adapted from A Martyr’s Faith in a Faithless World by Bryan Wolfmueller.

The Christian hero is not the person who has obtained all that he or she desires in this life. Our heroes are not those who have gained the entire world but lost their soul. Our heroes are not those who have achieved a great degree of worldly success or notoriety. Our heroes are those who have fought the good fight and kept the faith, and who have finished the race. Our heroes are those who have stood against the wiles of the devil, who have stood against the wild beasts (see 1 Corinthians 15:32) of the world and the flesh. And having stood, our heroes are those who have died the blessed death.