We had a double whammy of saint feast days this past week so I thought I'd share the excitement! :)
St. Patrick Social and Feast Day
Teresa loving the balloons
Get down wit' yo bad self, Joseph.
For St. Patrick's feast day, we went to our parish's St. Patrick social with both sets of our parents and enjoyed Irish food, a Polish Irish string band, and lots of dancing and prizes! Oh the kids had a BLAST!
Then on St. Patrick's actual feast day, we attended our little homeschooling playgroup, made a St. Patrick craft and then, because I couldn't resist the beautiful weather, we headed to a local lake with some friends and let the kids dig, explore, play and run around like wild Indians. Later that day, the boys helped me make some Irish Potatoes for our dessert time.
Those boys loved chowing down WHILE they made the Irish Potatoes
We prayed together, ate the yummy Irish potatoes, prayed St. Patrick's breastplate prayer, colored a picture of St. Patrick and then taped up some shamrocks onto our front window with the shamrock symbolizing the Blessed Trinity...(I'm sure you've heard of St. Patrick's renowned analogy for the Trinity).
Wow, Bill can color in between the lines!
Voila! Our simple but special St. Patrick's day.
St. Joseph's Feast Day
I really was not feeling St. Joseph's day after a previous longer day but we knew we just had to do it since he's Joseph's patron saint. I haven't been on-the-ball with planning these out better...maybe at the most I'll figure out the dessert ahead of time because I'll have to include it in our grocery shopping trip. But everything else pops in Bill and I's head a day or two before and we just keep it simple. Nothing elaborate. But it adds to growing family traditions around our Catholic faith (something I thought I'd have figured out soon after we got married...but I was naive and ambitious and now I realize that family and Catholic traditions with naturally grow and happen).
I did make these for the boys during the kids' naptimes the day before St. Joseph's feast day...I couldn't resist because it was simple enough and I knew they'd love a piece of wood to hammer on and "build" with. Wood obviously because St. Joseph was a carpenter and because the builders who are building our addition left a nice little pile of scrap wood in our backyard, so it was easy to scoop up. ...Otherwise, I wouldn't have made the trip to the store in only a couple days' notice...so it was a nice little blessing! I used a wood-burner I bought from a craft store way back when and it always sat up in the attic, unused...until now x)
So we started our St. Joseph's feast day with a Bible story about him and then went to Mass. I think the priest heard John-Paul's fussing and crying through the cry room glass window... We met up with some friends and the kids played and ate lunch. Then when I brought the kids home and put them down for their naps, I napped too (phew!). Then woke up and at the last minute decided to make our own rendition of a Catholic custom from Italy called a "St. Joseph altar." You make the little prayer altar on 3 tiers and each tier stands for a Person of the Blessed Trinity; it also could symbolize the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Then you're supposed to place a statue of St. Joseph at the top to honor him, but ours shattered a couple years ago (all of the statues in our house are chipped and have been broken/glued back together except - THANK GOD - the beautiful Our Lady of Fatima statue on our family altar that Bill bought from Portugal a few years ago). Here was our St. Joseph's altar:
There's supposed to be 3 tiers, but you really can't tell... And the statue is an Olive wood statue of the Holy Family, made in the Holy Land since our St. Joseph statue is non-existent right now.
Then we ate some dinner...of which I told the boys they could eat only with their hands, right off the table, since St. Joseph was a worker and used his hands a lot in his trade and taking care of Jesus and Mary. Oh, they loved it! (Bill passed on the opportunity) Got this idea from the blog Catholic All Year!
John-Paul ate his macaroni one-by-one....haha
Then Joey suggested we take a "family walk," which we did...
Not looking too thrilled...
After our little walk, later that evening, we prayed the Litany of St. Joseph as part of our family prayer time and wrapped it up eating some chocolate eclairs (bought from the frozen section of the grocery store). By the way, my favorite title of St. Joseph in the litany: "Terror of demons"!
What is my real point in sharing all of this?
Ok, my real point in sharing our celebration of these feast days is that WE LOVE BEING CATHOLIC. Building our family life and traditions around our blessed Catholic faith is entirely new to us. Bill and I are learning that it's SO MUCH MORE than just going to Mass on Sundays and saying grace before meals. Not only do we have the already-tough task of struggling and striving to live out our own personal call to holiness and love of God, but we need to embody our faith in a tactile, real way to our children. Our Catholic faith can't be compartmentalized and involve basically only Sunday Mass, attending church functions and activities here and there, and some prayer. I mean, it really has to permeate daily life. Well, this is all new to us and we're learning as we go. Every day we need to ask God how we can fulfill our vocations as husband and wife, mother and father, in the way God wants. Do you pray about that daily? And more importantly, is that a number one priority to you? Because as we know, in the vocation of marriage, married and family life now become our "avenue of sanctity." This means it is the pre-ordained way that God wants to accomplish His will in our lives, and our children's lives, and is the way to our personal growth in holiness.
It is such a wonderful thing to have all the saints in heaven interceding for us. That's what we believe as Catholics. Here you can read those references in Scripture and then quotes from the early Christians and Church Fathers in history.
When someone dies in a state of grace, and their soul goes to heaven, we don't believe that heaven is just separate and apart from us and that those in heaven just "look down and watch." No, the saints in heaven are still active - they still pray for us. As Catholics, we believe that just like we have family here on earth, that the communion of saints are our family in heaven. Just like we ask family and friends to pray for us, we can also ask those in heaven to pray for us and bring our prayers before the throne of God, as John observes in the book of Revelation. People mistakenly think we worship saints, but we don't. We honor them because of the glory their lives brought to God. In reality, a saint would probably be embarassed to have a feast day - and no saint would honestly want one because it would be contrary to humility. But God has guided the Church to recognize saints for us. It's not for them; it's not to detract from God's glory but to add to it and see how His power was made manifest in their lives!! They are holy people who lived and walked the earth just like us - who struggled with the same sins we do and faced the same troubles we do. Saints are not just those who were priests or nuns either. This is something I used to think back before I actually cared about being Catholic. There are many, many married saints, widowed saints, children saints, saints who were of royalty and wealth, who held high positions and careers; there are saints who were crippled, and poor and outcast; there were saints who were pure and faithful all their lives and then there were saints who were great sinners and struggled with all kinds of sinful passions and had a great conversion. Some saints had intense spiritual gifts while others had none at all and just lived by simple faith. There are ALL DIFFERENT KINDS OF SAINTS just like there are all different kinds of people. God uses these people to show us that union with Him is possible; that holiness is possible - no matter what state of life you are in and no matter what the condition of your life. God calls you to be a saint RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW! (So get off your butt, stop procrastinating, and respond to the call!!)
And it's so fun to read the unique stories of the saints and then somehow make it come alive to your children to fill their minds with ways in which they can love God and be faithful to Him, no matter what. Personally, I love to read about the saints because they inspire me with concrete examples of how to live the Gospel according to my state in life. For example, I think of Mother Teresa and her detachment to things. She saw everything in passing and saw it valuable only in the way in which it glorified God in that moment. This is the virtue of detachment (in case you wrongly thought it meant being emotionally remote and cold). For example, she was given a huge piece of property and mansion by a wealthy man who owned an estate in the mountains. She humbly thanked him but said she didn't need it. Then he said, "But Mother, you may need it later if you want to build another convent." And she simply looked at him and said, "God in His providence will provide us with exactly what we need when it is time. But now we are not in need of this." What would I do? Take it! Save it! I could save my clothes that I haven't worn in 3 years, this, that and the other... But I always think of this example of Blessed Mother Teresa and it helps me practice detachment and living more simply with a childlike trust in God, knowing He'll provide what we need when it's time, rather than relying all on myself and wanting to have complete control. SO INSPIRING!!
There are really SO MANY inspiring stories and I wish I could remember them all!
But see what I mean? God leaves us the saints to give us inspiring, concrete examples of all the millions of ways we can give glory to God and live out the Gospel most faithfully! We can look to the saints to see how their lives mirrored ours and how we can relate. The saints are such a treasure that we have as Catholics!
Thank You, Lord, for giving us saints!!!