What started as a personal exercise for Steve Bell has now turned into a year-long journey that you can join him on. 

That journey, however, doesn't follow a regular calendar. Pilgrim Year is a series of reflections spread throughout seven books that follows the seven major seasons of what's called the liturgical calendar or Christian calendar.

"Most Christians follow some version of the Christian calendar year. They'll have Christmas, Easter, and maybe Palm Sunday," Bell says. "But traditionally the Church has really, there's a full, rich tradition of almost every day being a remembrance or a fast or feast. It's a way of over the year, year after year after year telling the broad story of God and God's people, and the Gospel."

Bell grew up the son of a Baptist prison chaplain - somebody who would not typically follow the liturgical calendar closely. He says that one of the Catholic chaplains asked him to help lead music for mass when he was young, and that's where he was first introduced to the different seasons through the Christian year.

"Of course it was all Greek to me when I started . . . the more I sort of got into it, and realize there's a beauty in the way the whole thing unpacked, it really started to influence me."

Bell says he discovered a deep truth about faith by following the year. Even in the long season called Ordinary Time Bell realized there's nothing ordinary about God or the Christian faith. "Even the ordinary is meaning drenched."

The project actually began as online reflections. "I did it for myself several years ago and didn't really expect much of it and didn't get much of it."

That was until recently when Novalis Press reached out to Bell, expressing interest in publishing the reflections as a book. Interestingly enough, Bell points out, Novalis is a Catholic publishing house. "I remember meeting them in Toronto and saying, 'You know I'm not Catholic, right? And I'm not going to be Catholic.'" Bell said that's exactly why they were so interested in the project. Novalis felt that Bell brought a fresh perspective to those who had grown up with the practices and grown too accustomed. "For those who grew up with, it can become stale, and so it needs fresh language."

You can find out more about the project, and purchase the books and accompanying CD, at pilgrimyear.com