THE LITURGICAL YEAR The Liturgical Year - available at Saint Bonaventure Publications In 1841, Dom Prosper Guéranger (1805 - 1875), who was a Benedictine priest, abbot of Solesmes Abbey and founder of the French Benedictine Congregation, began to publish a mystical work (the Année Liturgique) by which he hoped to arouse the faithful from their spiritual torpor and to supplant what he deemed the lifeless or erroneous literature that had been produced by the French spiritual writers of the 17th and 18th centuries. "The calendar of the Church (the Liturgical Year), renews before our spiritual and intellectual vision--it may almost be said before our eyes of sense--the supreme worship of the ever blessed Trinity, in the communion of the saints. Into this interior world of heavenly beauty, splendor, and peace, the liturgy of the Church admits us day by day. And the abbot of Solesmes has rendered a signal help to all who love this prelude of a better world, and this avenue to the vision of peace, by his beautiful and spiritual commentary on our seasons and solemnities. The work is truly Benedictine in its aim and spirit. The sons of Saint Dominic have attached themselves to the scientific theology of the Church, and their mission is to cry aloud in the streets as preachers, and to stand in the breach as defenders of the faith. The sons of Saint Benedict have a more tranquil mission, within the walls of the sanctuary, and on the steps of the altar. The Liturgical Year is the fruit of this interior and peaceful spirit. It is a prolonged meditation on the wonderful order of divine worship, which has formed itself around the presence of the Incarnate Word. It is the 'adoration of the Father in spirit and in truth' in the circle of His divine acts for the redemption of the world." The Liturgical Year - Introduction by Archbishop of Westminster Henry Edward Feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary 1867