The Church’s Liturgical Year is a harmonious interplay of feasts and fasts interwoven in both the temporal and sanctoral cycles that define the rhythm and rhyme of Catholic life. While there are many customs associated with the seasons of the liturgical year and high-ranking feast days, the entire year is replete with opportunities to live out our Catholic heritage through the customs our forefathers instituted. Catholic culture is more than just going to Mass – much more. Catholic culture is filled with fasting and feasting, processions, sacramentals, decorations, family customs, charitable works, and much more. Cherished devotions and customs have filled the lives of Catholics for centuries. This is our heritage. These traditions are our birthright. They are ours as much as they were our ancestors. We must reclaim them. We must spread them. We must love them and observe them. And this book will show today’s Catholic how. In this informative book, Matthew Plese, who has devoted himself to studying and living the traditional calendar, takes us step by step through some of the most important ‘lost customs of Christendom.’ Restoring them, here and there, one by one, we restore ourselves and our families to all that Catholic life can be. –Dr. Peter A. Kwasniewski, scholar, lecturer, composer author, The Once and Future Roman Rite www.peterkwasniewski.com This complete compendium of Catholic traditions by Matthew Plese will help integrate the ancient traditions of our faith in our families and homes. –Fr. Scott A. Haynes www.mysticaltheologyofthemass.com This tome, akin to a cartographer’s detailed map, guides the wayward traveler back to the almost-forgotten lands of Catholic tradition and custom. This book transcends mere observation of rites; it is an exhortation to breathe life into them, to ensconce them in the everyday, thus fortifying the bulwarks of faith against the relentless siege of secularism. –Keith Jones Director & Producer, Foundations Restored: A Catholic Perspective on Origins