HOLIDAYS AND HOLY NIGHTS: Celebrating Twelve Seasonal Festivals of the Christian Year

Three of the 12 chapters of this illustrated guide deal with Advent, Christmas and Epiphany, while the others tackle different days of the Christian year, including Easter and Pentecost. Especially interesting are the chapters on various lesser-known holy days like Michaelmas, All Saints' Day, Candlemas, the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene and the Feast of the Transfiguration. Hill has his reasons for wanting to resurrect the rhythms of the liturgical calendar: "We are all Bob Cratchits these days, chained in our money-changing cubbyholes for hours that even Ebenezer Scrooge would hesitate to demand." This book is a call for experiencing sacred time, and recovering the drama of incarnation, liberation and rebirth. (Sept.)