Another Post on Catholicism and Secular Celebrations

I know, I know, it’s a bit of Vox Nova tradition now to question the easy embrace of secular traditions by Catholics, and even the incorporation into the liturgy, at this time of year (yes, I heard America the Beautiful today). Let me approach this from a historical angle, and think about the slow death of Catholic culture. In medieval times, life quite literally revolved around the liturgy. Eamon Duffy, in his masterful Stripping of the Altars, makes this point quite lucidly — there was the six-month cycle from Advent through Pentecost, and about fifty feast days scattered throughout the year — feasts on which vigil fasts were kept, and no work was done. As a result of the reformation, the Enlightenment, the modern nation state, the modern economy, and secularism, we no longer cling to this tradition. But what have we lost? We have lost a life that revolves around the faith, around the liturgy. And we have replaced it with the wholesale embrace of the secular liturgy – in the United States, this includes “feasts’ like July 4 and Thanksgiving. I am not calling for a total withdrawal from secular society and a refusal to recognize these secular rituals. But must we as Catholics rush to embrace them so willingly, to even incorporate them in the liturgy? We once had something a lot better.