The regular recurrence of the different seasons with their own festive times convey an underlying feeling of being carried and held. The single feasts are highlights, which lift us from our everyday lives and join us together as a community with other people and with the spiritually-divine world. The purpose of festivals and feasts is to help us to renew our dialogue with questions of recognition and purpose, not only theoretically, but through living customs, displayed in rituals, symbols, stories, images, statues, artwork, music, songs, dishes, drinks ect. See also: Aspects of Planning Festivities

Through that, the transcendent purpose of the feasts can be clarified and brought to life.

In this way, the temporal and visual can be connected to the eternal and invisible.

Festive Subjects not only lead to the historical roots (Jewish, Christian, Near Eastern, Greek, Roman, Germanic, Celtic) and traditions of our Occidental traditions, but also to a salvation-historical perspective, which looks far into the future.

A Festival is like a Tree

A Festival is like a tree.
With its roots it reaches deep within the earth,
into dark spheres, which support and nurture it.

A true Festival arises from afar.
T’is not like the Maypole, without root and hold
and withered on the next day.

A true Festival is rooted in the depth,
in the beginnings of the history of God and men.

A Festival is like a tree,
that blossoms and grows, year after year,
always different, always the same,
always renewed for us today.
For it has to be our Festival, not yesterday’s,
our festival, that creates us anew.

A festival is like a tree.
Its crown is bathed in light,
stretches through the heavens.

A true festival brings heaven unto earth,
reaches ahead of the future,
brings courage and a renewed love for life.

A festival is like a tree,
who is a ladder reaching up to heaven,
centre of the word, abundance of life.

Hubertus Halbfas, translation Aline Stotzer