We are moving into one of the “busy seasons” in parish life. Education programs are in full gear, the important months that end the liturgical year (All Saints and All Souls Day) are not far off and there are all manner of saints’ lives to celebrate. Advent this year will be shorter than some years, since Christmas falls on a Tuesday. It won’t start until December 2, and practically speaking, will be celebrated for three full weeks, then the Fourth Sunday. That’s all a ways off, but smart webmasters look ahead!
There are a few good sites that have all of the liturgical calendars on them. My favorites are the U.S. bishops’ official Liturgical Calendar, which is foolproof and particular to the United States, and the more approachable The Catholic Calendar Page, which I’ve recommended for over a decade. Catholic bookstores also sell nice print products that are handy for keeping track of things related to the Church’s seasons. I use The Liturgical Desk Calendar from Franklin McCormick, and some folks here use the more compact A Light For My Path, which includes daily and Sunday Scripture citations for the Mass readings.
Big on our calendar at AmericanCatholic.org is the feast of St. Francis of Assisi on October 4 and the pet blessings that take place all over the country in the Christian community. We’ve got a popular feature, “St. Francis of Assisi: Patron Saint of Animals and the Environment,” which has lots of new material this year from St. Anthony Messenger’s new special issue (October) on St. Francis. Our feature includes the only national listing of pet blessings, which has grown every year since we started it back in 1997. You can add your listing of place and time.
Thanks to all of you who submitted entries for “Parish Web Site of the Year.” We’ll be announcing the winner in the next issue of Web Catholic and spending some time in coming issues talking about some of the best features on sites that were submitted.
As St. Francis would say, “Peace and all good!”
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