The Calendar Is Christ

In this illuminating book, Julie Canlis explores how the Christian year developed as the early church discovered what it means to live in Christ. Plunged into baptism, Christians across the Roman empire found themselves taken up into the life of their crucified and risen Lord. A calendar emerged as they learned to inhabit this astonishing gift in time: Christ's dying-and-rising life began to shape their worship, feasting, grief, and hope.

Combining riotous history with theological reflection, The Calendar Is Christ explores the astonishing gift from which the Christian seasons grew: Christ’s life has been thrown open for our participation. Through the Christian seasons, we remember the events of Jesus’ life and enter more deeply into the life he shares with us now. Amid work and rest, celebration and loss, the risen Christ forms us as his people, teaching us to inhabit our ordinary days within the new creation already begun in him.