Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. I'm Brandon Vat, the senior publishing director at Word on Fire.

Today we share with you another new course from our Word on Fire Institute. This course is titled Living the Liturgical Year, and it's taught by Haley Stewart.

In her course, Haley unpacks the treasures of the liturgical year and explores how liturgical living in your home can strengthen the domestic church or the life of faith in your family.

Today we're going to hear lesson one from the course which focuses on Lent and Holy Week, where a good deal of the way through Lent and we're nearing Holy Week,

Haley explains how through the purifying and transformative seasons of Lent and Holy Week, we can bring Christ's love and the Paschal mystery into our homes and families.

So I think you'll really enjoy this first lesson from her course, Living the Liturgical Year.

I also wanted to point out that right now we're offering a free trial of the Word on Fire Institute throughout Lent.

So through Sunday, April 17th, which is Easter Sunday, that means you get free access to everything inside the Institute.

That includes the rest of this course, Living the Liturgical Year, but over 20 other courses along with all the Bishop Barons films and study programs and an amazing community with over 25,000 other Catholics.

So check it out if you've been on the fence about the Word on Fire Institute. Maybe I should sign up. Maybe I shouldn't. Well, now's the time to do it. It's a total no brainer because it's free.

So sign up now and get free access throughout the rest of Lent. You can do all of that at the website word on fire dot institute.

But for now, I'll turn it over to Haley Stewart for lesson number one in her course, Living the Liturgical Year. Enjoy.

Welcome back in the last lesson. I explained what the Liturgical Year is and why it's important.

But before we get into the nuts and bolts of observing different seasons and feast days, we need to lay some groundwork.

Let's talk about the power of living by holy time in the home and ordering life around rhythms of prayer. Pope St. John Paul II said, as the family goes, so goes the nation and so goes the whole world in which we live.

If our families are in trouble, then our churches in trouble, strengthening families should be a top priority for Catholics. Faith-filled families shine the light of Christ into the world.

They're a powerful, if not the most powerful method of evangelization. So what can we do to strengthen the life of faith in our families?

The most important thing we can do, of course, is to lead our families to the sacraments. But our Catholic tradition also emphasizes something vital that's nurtured outside the walls of our parishes.

The family, which is called the domestic church, the life of faith within the home.

We're going to talk about the domestic church in terms of family life, but that doesn't mean that you're excluded if you're single or that daily liturgical living doesn't apply to you.

Whether you're single or married, of course you can pray in your home and fill your daily life with faith.

But if you live alone as we discuss the domestic church, think in terms of your community. How can you help your wider family, including friends, parents, siblings, and nieces and nephews with the important daily work of pursuing the gospel, even if they're not all living with you inside the same four walls?

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