Sacred Seasons
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Above our dining room window hangs a set of four tiles, each one depicting a season. A little orange house sits in the center of each picture, half-buried in snow, then surrounded by spring blooms, fresh apples, and fallen leaves in turn. These tiles travelled with us from home to home growing up, but since my mom gave them to me a few years back, they’ve hung in our dining room, where they remind us of the shape of things: lush leaves will turn brittle and fall; bare branches will leaf out again come spring.
Over the years, we’ve also adopted the shape of the church calendar into our home and learned the patterns of Lent and Easter, Advent and Christmas. We’ve found our way into this little by little, learning more where we could, but when I read the introduction to Sacred Seasons , I was struck by how much more there was to learn—and I was grateful to Danielle Hitchen for explaining it all so beautifully and graciously.
Sacred Seasons reads like a guidebook to the church year, with some flyover introductory chapters that invite readers into the idea and structure of the church calendar followed by chapters that give an array of options for how families might observe each season. These options feel like just the right kind of abundance: not so many that the choice feels overwhelming, but enough that there’s bound to be celebrations in here that will work for most families. Stephen Crotts’s illustrations, too, lend depth and beauty to this book—especially the wheel illustrating the different seasons within the church calendar.
It is good to be reminded through the church calendar that, in God’s story, life follows death just as spring follows winter. These little celebrations slow us down and remind us where we are in the scheme of things—and what we are looking toward.
Sacred Seasons: A Family Guide to Center Your Year Around Jesus Danielle Hitchen; Stephen Crotts (2023)
Bonus Book!
Ned Bustard’s new book, Saint Valentine the Kindhearted , fully deserves its own post, but alas! My copy has been delayed in the mail, so while I was able to read a digital version, I don’t currently have a physical copy to photograph. But I wanted to share it with you while you still have time to pick up a copy, pre-Valentine’s Day! So, here we go:
This is the third book in Bustard’s series of saint biographies (see also: Saint Nicholas the Giftgiver and Saint Patrick the Forgiver ), and like the first two, Saint Valentine is a charming, rhymed, gospel-rich biography for young readers. This book tells the story of Saint Valentine’s life while pointing readers back to Christ again and again, glorifying the Giver of Gifts rather than elevating the saint himself. Bustard’s art also contains some fun meditations on the four loves (be sure to read the author note at the back), which lend a depth to Valentine’s story and to our understanding of his holiday.
Saint Valentine the Kindhearted is a worthy and welcome addition to a series that gives readers a perfect way to root our Valentine’s Day celebrations in the love of Christ.
Saint Valentine the Kindhearted Ned Bustard (2024)
Though I did receive a free copy of this book for review (Saint Valentine , that is) , I am not being paid to promote it. My enthusiasm for this book is abundant and purely voluntary!
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