Festive Faith - discussion and giveaway!

An invitation to Friday's live discussion with Steffani Aquila

Feb 18, 2026

∙ Paid

After our chat, a link to its recording will be posted below!

Welcome! Whether you’re a longtime friend or a new kindred spirit here (I recommend visiting the Village Green to get your bearings), I’m delighted to be a companion to you through the liturgical year.
Pax+bonum, Kristin.

Friends, here’s a Lenten admission for you: I find something to be consistently uncanny about the Church calendar’s seasons of preparation…I almost always skid into them feeling extra un-prepared.

I try different approaches, focus on letting go of my own internal expectations, and I generally aim to soften my landing in these preparatory seasons of Advent & Lent.

…but it turns out that I’m quite adept at finding new and creative ways of making the season of Lent into an idol when I focus too much on my vision of it rather than listening to God’s voice in it.

“I have often found that, similar to Advent, Lent is a season that we enter with high hopes for slowing down. We tell ourselves that this year is going to be different. We tell ourselves that this year is going to be different. We are going to stick to our sacrifices, pray more, and not do so many extra things that distract us from the true spirit of it all. Then Lent begins, and in the midst of our spiritual training, our imperfections are highlighted and we quickly learn our frailty. With slightly dashed hopes for our Lenten efforts, we come to see the real lesson of the season, which is that we desperately need and are utterly dependent upon God.”
Steffani Aquila, Festive Faith

It’s easy to turn the liturgical year into a list of checkboxes…and in so many ways, guidelines can indeed be helpful reminders. The devotional practice embodied by this season, though, is a call toward a much greater depth of freedom; and even though I’ve been steeped in it for years, I find myself annually in need of re-orientation in my very approach toward this season of re-orienting! (Sometimes, the more familiar we become with the Church calendar, the easier it is to reduce or box-in the mystery it describes).

That’s one of the many reasons I’m so grateful to be companioned in this ‘liturgical living’ journey by kindred spirits like Steffani Aquila: as we’ve known each other online for years, her friendship has continually been a refreshment and reminder of the vast approachability of the liturgical year. She reminds us all that the calendar offers a pattern for spiritual formation at any age or stage of life.

“As I began speaking and working with Catholic adults across the country to help them establish a liturgical life through growing a festive Catholic culture in homes, parishes, and neighborhoods, I quickly saw that many people were indeed being left out of the current groundswell of efforts to reclaim Catholic festivity rooted in our liturgical year and calendar.”
Steffani Aquila, Festive Faith

Stef’s approach is particularly resonant for me: I personally didn’t encounter liturgical living until adulthood, and the Church calendar has turned out to be one of the greatest tools of catechesis in my own faith journey…its exposure even helped to bring me to faith, since I had finally found the sacramental language I’d been craving. Because of that, I’m passionate about reclaiming the breadth and depth of liturgical living: not as an idol or an end unto itself, but as an ongoing rehearsal of our faith in the attributes of God and salvific work of Christ. I believe that these rich traditions, spanning cultures and eras, can be profound devotional practices…whether we’re crafty or not, whether we like to bake or not…whether we’re with or without spouses or kids, in a city or in the country, young or old.

The celebration tips that Stef shares are informed by an immense depth of theological study, and they invite us to re-examine the biases we have toward liturgical living - she helps to free this catechetical tool from the box in which we tend to place it.

As an extension of all her work online (and her local parish efforts), Stef wrote Festive Faith: a gorgeous and practical book that helps us to graft liturgical living into our own lives in doable, meaningful ways. Whether you’re Catholic or not, this is a wonderful resource full of rich traditions and thoughtful reflections that can support you wherever you are.

So, I’m thrilled to have Stef joining us for a live conversation about liturgical living! And, as an added delight: I’ll be giving away one autographed copy of her book to an attendee.

Steffani Aquila is a Catholic wife and the founder of His Girl Sunday, an online space inspiring Catholic culture and liturgical living for people in all seasons of life. She is the author of Festive Faith and a national Catholic speaker. Aquila has 18 years of experience working in Catholic institutions holding titles such as Director of liturgical life at the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart and Director of Communications for the University of St. Thomas. She also has experience working with Catholic high schools as a dean and honors-level theology teacher. Aquila earned a master of arts in theology from the University of St. Thomas.