The Christian holidays
by ENZO BIANCHI
“Be holy”, then, means “be different”, be capable of avoiding the daily idolatrous seduction, that what impeded seeing beyond, be capable of being “other”

There are seasons in which the normal succession of years becomes colored with unprecedented accents, thus causing us to rediscover the novelty that can dwell in even the most ordinary of days. [...] Even, and perhaps above all, in non-religious circles attention was given to dates, anniversaries, memories, festivities. In this, Christianity, which from its very origins rooted in that wise architecture of time that is the history of salvation already narrated in the Old Testament and celebrated in Jewish feasts, has always been careful to see the flow of time not as a cyclic succession of events and seasons, but as renewed opportunity for the irruption of the eternal in history.
In Jesus Christ, the Word of God become man, time has become a dimension present in God, the living and eternal God; time, has become totally sanctified. Now, what does “sanctifying time” mean? God, even before addressing to Israel the invitation “be holy, because I, the Lord your God, am holy” (Lv 19, 2), already “in the beginning” of his creating work, at the completion of the work of six days, “called”, made time holy by making one day, the Sabbath, an “other” day. It is written in fact, “God blessed the seventh day and made it holy” (Gn 2, 3). This, the rabbis comment, occurred to remind us that the sanctification of time is possible above all because of the Creator’s intention and that man’s sanctification begins with rendering time holy, different.