Diana Butler Bass Invites Us Into “A Beautiful Year”
What surprising insights can the Christian liturgical calendar offer us?
In the new Daily Meditations video below, we hear from author Diana Butler Bass. She joins the Center for Action and Contemplation’s Publications Manager Mark Longhurst to discuss themes from her new book A Beautiful Year.
Join us by subscribing to our Daily Meditations as we find our way in a flawed world that nevertheless brims with warmth and light.
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You’re invited to rediscover the Christian liturgical calendar as an alternative spiritual rhythm shaped by Jewish, Roman, and ecological traditions. Reflect with us on the season of Lent as a sacred time a season of realism, inward reflection, and moral reckoning.
Diana also highlights emerging scholarship on Mary Magdalene and the role she played as the “Apostle to the Apostles.” CAC emeritus faculty Cynthia Bourgeault shares a similar view, writing, “Like myself, a great many Christians have absorbed most of what they know about Mary Magdalene through the dual filters of tradition and the liturgy, which inevitably direct our attention toward certain aspects of the story at the expense of others.”
Good News for a Fractured World
Diana explores our Daily Meditations theme of Good News for a Fractured World by discussing the Magnificat, which Mary prayed while pregnant with Jesus.
“[God] has brought down princes from their thrones and exalted the humble. [God] has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away with empty hands.”
—Luke 1:52-53 NLT
Through the Magnificat, Mary proclaims not what God will do, but what God has done — exalting the humble, feeding the hungry, and removing hierarchy. The word “has” means God’s healing work is already real and ongoing, inviting us to live into solidarity and oneness.
If God’s healing work is already real and ongoing, what does that mean for your spiritual life?
“Jesus isn’t teaching us to pray. Jesus is praying for us.”
—Diana Butler Bass
This year’s Daily Meditations themeis Good News for a Fractured World. In 2026, rediscover the liberating message of Scripture that contributes to the world’s mending, rather than its breaking. Each week, we’ll explore what it would mean for us to turn to the Bible to inspire our contemplation and loving action — our inner and outer wholeness.