Unlike pagan religions which see time as an endless cycle, Christians see time as being linear; it has a beginning and will have an end. Within Christianity's linear, "big picture" sense of time, though, the passing of hours is experienced as cycles of meditations on holy things. Think of a spiral -- of a circle of time moving ever forward toward His Coming -- and you will have a sense of "Catholic time."

The Catholic year (the "liturgical year") is made special by cycles of celebrations commemorating the lives of Jesus and His mother, the angels, and the legion of Saints who modelled lives of sanctity.

---