The end is near ... a new beginning starts tomorrow!

Today is the last day of the liturgical year.  Which can only mean one thing:

Tomorrow is the FIRST SUNDAY of ADVENT!

We LOVE Advent around here ... lots of work and fun as we prepare our house, our minds and our souls for receiving the Christ Child on Christmas Day.  I always try to do some of our "old" traditions and incorporate some news one.  For instance, this year we won't be using the our Jesse Tree but instead will be (FINALLY) crafting our own Nativity figures while reading Franciscan Christmas by Kathleen M. Carroll -- this book explains the Franciscan and Christian spirituality of each piece of the traditional creche.  Our figures will be simple, primitive and yet, elegant for their simplicity!  We'll return to using our Advent Blocks as that is such a great way to encourage us to think about the saints, doing for others, reading/working together and just generally getting us ready for Christmas.

We've chosen our patron saints for the next year -- this year, the theme is Dominican Saints (there are TONS of these folks) and I've already got the patron-saint holy cards framed and on the family altar:

Dh's patron for the year -- ironic since St. Albert is patron of scientists, philosophers and theology students!

BamBam got St. Dominic

String Bean drew St. Margaret of Hungary (whose feast day is the same as LegoManiac's bday!)

Lego Maniac drew Pius V -- interesting since LM has always thought the whole Battle of Lepanto thing was cool!

I drew St. Rose of Lima -- my high school's patron and she's also patron saint of needleworkers and World Youth Day 2011!

We've also chosen our theme for the next year ... which starts tomorrow:  CHARITY will be the buzz-word around here with scripture verses, magisterial teaching, and other quotes on Charity being learned throughout the year.  "CHARITY" in it's Catholic sense meaning full self-giving because each of us is a child of God, or as defined in the Catechism (1844):


The first quote we'll learn is from St. Albert the Great (which is also on dh's patron saint holy card):

This is the picture we have up in the dining room (right above the altar) so that we can remember it ... memorize it ... own it and use it in our daily lives!

In the schoolroom, we'll be prepping for Christmas by doing a unit based on Dickens' Christmas novels (there were 5!) and learning all about the Victorian era and work toward celebrating a Dickensian Christmas (with, of course, a Catholic slant!).  I'll be posting our Advent unit study as we go ... including recipes, crafts, decorations and gifts that we'll create as we learn how Dickens' view of Christmas permanently changed the way most folks looked on Christmas.  Here's a quote which sums up Dickens' idea of Christmas:

"But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

Come join us on our journey as we go toward Bethlehem and the morning of the Babe's birth.  May your Advent journey be blessed ... and know that you are in our daily prayers.

Feast Day: St. Margaret of Scotland

Today is the feast of St. Margaret of Scotland, one of String Bean's patron saints.  St. Margaret, born in Hungary to the exiled King of England, fled to Scotland to live under the protection of Malcolm.  They married and she brought sanctity, charity and love to the Scottish kingdom -- softening Malcolm and his court's ways and helping to reform the Catholic church in Scotland.  Margaret worked hard to obtain good teachers, to correct the evil practices, and to have new churches built. She loved to make these churches beautiful for God's glory, and she embroidered the priest's vestments herself (I wonder if she knitted, too?). 

Malcolm and Margaret had six sons and two daughters, the youngest son is St. David.

St. Margaret, you knew trials and triumphs in your lifetime and yet never wavered from your faith in God.  Let my faith be as strong in good times, and especially in bad times.  St. Margaret of Scotland, pray for us all ... especially String Bean!


 

Feast Day: St. Ignatius of Loyola

Today is the feast of the founder of the Society of Jesus (aka, The Jesuits).  St. Ignatius of Loyola, 1491-1556)

We like this guy ...  alot.  What's not to like?  He was a soldier ... a hard-talking and tough spiritual leader for the first Jesuits and he's Bam-Bam's patron saint this year.  Oh, and to top it off, he's from the Basque region of Spain (and altho we're French-Basque, we'll just go right ahead and claim him, ok?)

In my family, we have a long history with the Jesuits -- Dad went to a Jesuit college, my brothers (well, 4 out of 5) went to a Jesuit high school, and 2 brothers and I went to a Jesuit university.  We've seen the good Jesuits and the bad Jesuits (and the bad Jebs don't take a thing away from their founder).  St. Ignatius attacked heresy and lack of faith with military precision and tactics and was quite successful.  He mentored future saint and fellow Basque, Francis Xavier and many saints have come from the Jesuit ranks:  St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Edmund Campion, St. Isaac Jogues and St. Stanislaus Kostka ... to name just a few.

My favorite prayer (and one my father particularly liked) attributed to St. Ignatius is:

Lord, teach me to be generous.

Teach me to serve you as you deserve;

to give and not to count the cost,

to fight and not to heed the wounds,

to toil and not to seek for rest,

to labor and not to ask for reward,

save that of knowing that I do your will.

St. Ignatius of Loyola, pray for us!

Feast Day: St. Madeleine Sophie Barat

St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, born in France in 1779, is the patron saint of school girls for the simple reason that she dedicated her long-life to the education of girls ... founding and supporting the establishment of more than 100 schools and convents in 12 countries (St. Rose Phillipine Duchesne brought the order and its schools to America).  St. Madeleine and several friends founded the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (RSCJs) in 1800 -- a personal note:  my sister was educated by the RSCJs in San Francisco.  Two years later, St. Madeleine was elected their superior general at the age of 23 and remained in that post for sixty-three years, weathering the secularization of France (during the French Revolution) and much of Europe. 

St. Madeleine Sophie Barat, patron saint of school girls, help me to be the teacher and guide God would have me be!  Pray for us.

Feast Day: St. Catherine Benincasa (of Siena)

St. Catherine of Siena is well-loved around here.  She is one of Kotch's namesake-saints and she is dh's patron saint this year.  This was one amazing woman who lived only 33 years and yet accomplished so much through her mystic discussions -- which, for the continued benefit of Catholics today, were transcribed for the Church.

In musing about what to feast on to celebrate this wonderful Dominican tertiary, I did a "google" on recipes and found out something wonderful.  The author of one of my favorite liturgical year cookbooks, A Continual Feast, Evelyn Birge Vitz, has created a blog to continue the recipes and celebration of the liturgical year aptly named A Continual Feast ... Continued. 

I love what she said about foods for St. Catherine's feast:

What shall we eat in St. Catherine's honor? I was casting about for Italian treats--I am sure the Sienese must have something scrumptious for her feast day! But Catherine herself spent important periods of her life fasting, and indeed consuming nothing but the Eucharistic host. As she said in one of her dialogues, speaking to the Eternal Trinity: "The food of angels, you gave yourself to man in the fire of your love… In our hunger you are a satisfying food, for you are sweetness and in you there is no taste of bitterness, O triune God." I think that, if possible, the most appropriate food for us to eat in St. Catherine’s honor is the Eucharist--the bread of heaven.

So, we're off to Mass this morning!  [But, never fear, I'm sure we'll come up with something suitable for feasting tonight!]

Here are some wonderful resources we will use today to learn more about St. Catherine of Siena, one of only three female Doctors of the Church:

• Rick has been reading Catherine of Siena by Sigrid Undset and highly recommends this loving portrait of his saint.
• Catherine of Siena: The Dialogue is packed with copywork possibilities even for the youngest; although her thoughts are deeply profound, the words are quite accessible (with some explanation) for even BamBam. [Note:  the picture above, which I used to make a prayer card, is the Holy Spirit inspiring St. Catherine to dictate the Dialogue.]
• Lay Siege to Heaven: A Novel about Saint Catherine of Siena by Louis deWohl, is a wonderful telling of this lady's life.  This book is great reading for the 5th grade and up crowd.
• Catherine of Siena (the DVD) is one of those great dramas created in Italy and distributed in the US by Ignatius Press.  The ability to show the kids a saint "in real life" helps them "own" the saint and remember her and her trials and triumphs.

Happy Feast of St. Catherine of Siena ... and please say a prayer to her today for Kotch (who is heading into finals week at college) and for Rick ....

 

Advent: Preparing to Prepare for the King's Birth

We are so amazingly organized for Advent this year:

• we've picked our "patron saints" for the year -- the chosen were St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Therese of Lisieux, St. John Vianney, St. Damien Molokai and St. Catherine of Siena.  Each of these saints has a connection to the common theme of the priesthood (since this is the Year of the Priest).  We made frames for these patron saints "cards" and have them all ready to hang by each person's bed tomorrow.


• we've redone the Advent blocks we've used for the past three years.  This year, due to a lack of really good Advent calendar choices available, we are using the Advent blocks as our Advent Calendar -- starting Dec 1st, we'll pull a block which gives us the Saint of the Day, the piece of the Nativity we'll be making, the treat or craft activity we'll work on, the prayer intention for the day, and an image that represents that day.  Our previous version of these blocks were pulled randomly -- I'm striving for organization this year!

• we've got the Advent Candles -- this year we're foregoing a "wreath" and instead doing a 5-candle strip that has the white candle in the center and the four advent candles which will be changed to white candles during the Octave of Christmas.

• 
  
  our Jesse Tree is ready also
  

• so, we have everything ready EXCEPT I can't seem to find the Advent-purple cloth for the altar (yes, I do have a Lenten-purple but I KNOW I put the other one somewhere .... St. Anthony please come around and help me as the Altar is just not quite ready for Advent ...
  
  

Blessings and prayers for your own Advent events!