Celebrate the Faith All Year Long with 'Living the Seasons'

Barb Szyszkiewicz reviews influencer Erica Tighe Campbell's book about family-style liturgical living, new from Ave Maria Press.

If you want to celebrate your faith throughout the year with your family, Erica Tighe Campbell's new book, Living the Seasons: Simple Ways to Celebrate the Beauty of Your Faith Throughout the Year, is definitely the resource for you.

Instagram users probably know Erica from her work at Be A Heart Design (@BeAHeartDesign). In this book, Erica applies the same principles as she does in her creations: finding simple and fun, yet beautiful, ways to mark the events of the liturgical year. Although the title is "Living the Seasons," there's a lot of information in the book about particular feast days as well, which truly makes it a resource you can use all year long.

You don't have to be an artist or experienced crafter to use this book—and you certainly don't need to do every project, make every food, or try every spiritual practice mentioned here. Some things are better for certain seasons of your family life than others. For example, the pre-Lenten practice of going to Confession is always appropriate for parents and older children, but if your children are still preschoolers, you may wish to find another way to lead into that season.

Some of the crafts in the book are fairly complicated, so I recommend reading ahead if you're able, so that you can decide what's doable for you and stock up on the materials you'll need to have on hand to complete the projects. Other projects are simpler and are made from templates you can download free from BeAHeart.com.

While the Church year begins during Advent, you can jump into this book at any point. Lent comes fairly early this year, so the activities leading up to Lent and the ones for that season would be an excellent starting place. Living the Seasons is organized chronologically beginning with Advent and ending with the feast of Christ the King; feast days of saints are interspersed with seasonal content, in order of appearance. The book is well-organized this way, and there's an index at the back in case you're looking for a particular occasion to celebrate.

My go-to way of celebrating is by cooking rather than crafting. There's plenty of content in Living the Seasons to inspire beginning cooks or full-fledged foodies. (That said, this is not a cookbook, so you'll need to look elsewhere for recipes for the foods mentioned in this book.) And Erika makes sure to focus on the spiritual aspect of each season by sharing hymns, prayers, and practices appropriate to that time of year.

Copyright 2024 Barb Szyszkiewicz
Images: copyright 2023 Ave Maria Press, all rights reserved
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