Living the Liturgical Year: January (Part 2)

January 6th - Epiphany (falls on January 7th this year)

My plans for Epiphany ...

• Add the three kings to our Nativity
  
• Bake a king cake
  
• Read poem The Journey of the Magi by T.S.Eliot (could be used as copywork for older children)
  
• Sing 'We Three Kings of Orient Are'
• House blessing. In the past we have used one from Domestic Church. This year I think we will use either this Franciscan Epiphany House Blessing from Helen at Castle of the Immaculate, or a shorter blessing posted by Jenn in this thread.
  

We have these books for Epiphany on our shelves. I'm not sure we will get round to reading any this year, but if we do it will be The Greatest Gift.

The Legend of Old Befana by Tomie de Paola
The Last Straw by Frederic Thury
The Greatest Gift: the Story of the Other Wise Man by Susan Summers
The Stone by Dianne Hofmeyr

January 8th - The Baptism of the Lord
Ideas on my list ...

• Use this renewal of Baptismal promises
• Read and narrate the story of Jesus' Baptism
  
• Say the First Mystery of Light (Rosary)
• Catechism - focus on the sacrament of Baptism
• Copywork - Baptismal promises from the Easter Vigil
• Do a notebook page on Baptism - include pictures of items used in Baptism (candle, white garment, oil, water) and the words of Baptism
• Look at Baptisteries (Florence and Pisa, for example) and fonts - add pictures to liturgical year notebook.
• Display children's baptismal candles next to our liturgical candle. Other things to add to display ... holy water, baptismal certificates, picture of Baptism of the Lord, photos from children's baptisms.

Living the Liturgical Year: January (Part 1)

A bit behind the event here, but I'm posting what I have in my folder so far for the first three days of January. It may come in useful next year!

January 1st - Mary, Mother of God (Solemnity)
(Not a Holy Day of Obligation here, though I think it is in the US?)

I had never seen this picture - Kissing the Face of God, by Morgan Weistling - until Rebecca of A Gypsy Caravan put it into this post. I think it is beautiful. Rebecca is kindly sending me a copy and I plan to make it the centrepiece of a display for both this feast (next year!) and other Marian occasions. Aren't blogging friends nice :).

I collected some prayers together and made our own simple family prayer books for the Advent and Christmas seasons (only one sheet of folded printer paper for each). This is the prayer I included for this feast. I can't remember where I found it. Possibly Catholic Culture?

Father, source of light in every age,
the virgin conceived and bore Your Son
Who is called Wonderful God,
Prince of Peace.
May her prayer,
the gift of a mother's love,
be Your people's joy through all ages.
May her response,
born of a humble heart,
draw Your Spirit to rest on Your people.
Grant this through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

January 2nd: St.Basil
Katherine at A Living Education posted about St.Basil and Vasilopita (St.Basil's bread) here, and also gives a recipe for Vasilopita. I am a Grecophile, so I like the idea of adding an edible tradition with a Greek flavour to our New Year.

January 3rd: The Holy Name of Jesus
As the month of January is dedicated to the Holy Name I plan to have the girls focus on this later in the month. A few activity ideas:

• make IHS monograms
  
• make posters decorated with the different names of Jesus (I noted down Lord, Saviour, Emmanuel, King of Kings, Lamb of God, Prince of Peace, Son of God)
• read the story of St.Bernardine in Saints for Young Readers for Every Day (May 20th), or 57 Stories of Saints by Anne Heffernan
• copywork - first verse of hymn 'At the name of Jesus'
• catechism - focus on the second commandment "You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain" (CCC 2142-2167)
  

Today we said the Litany of the Holy Name as our morning prayer. (Angel and Star are less fond of litanies than I am. At the end they said rather plaintively, "we don't have to say that every day, do we?")

As the year goes on I hope to build up a collection of items to display with our liturgical candle. This year it will be very much a work in progress, but hopefully next year we will be pretty much set after this year's efforts. As well as the picture of Our Lady I want to add an icon of St.Basil and the monograms and Holy Name posters to my stash.

Living the Liturgical Year

Not a resolution exactly, but one of the things I hope to do this year is to begin to live the liturgical year more fully. I say begin, because I think this year will be as much about collecting and preparing as doing. I usually do quite well when it comes to the "big" seasons - Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter - but want to develop the habit of marking more saints' days and other feasts.

I was pondering this when I saw a thread on the 4 Real Forums about planning and organising for the liturgical year, which has inspired me to get organised. I have begun by starting a file for January where I am collecting ideas, prayers, pictures and miscellanous other stuff. I know my chances of success are best if I am not too ambitious, so I plan to be selective, using just a few ideas and keeping things simple.

I am planning to post some specific ideas and resources over the next few days.

Happy New Year!

Wishing you a happy, healthy and blessed 2007

HAPPY NEW YEAR!


(Photo of London Eye by Vijaya Phanindra: from BBC News website)

New Year's Resolutions (this year)

For 2007 I am keeping it simple ... though I can never restrict myself to just one. The scattergun approach gives me a better chance of something hitting the mark.

Three resolutions this year:

1. Say the Rosary daily. I've made this resolution before and failed. Can I succeed this time?

2. Speak pleasantly at all times - no yelling, no sharp tones, no grumbling, no criticising. I'll fall down on this one daily, but I'm going aim for a real, noticeable improvement. (Hopefully success with resolution number one will help.)

3. Lose weight. Time to get rid of the remaining baby fat, plus the pre-baby fat that had crept on over the previous couple of years. I'm aiming for 20 lbs, though 25-30 lbs would be ideal.

I'll post updates so you can all cheer me on. Trust me, I'll need it!

New Year's Resolutions (last year)

At the beginning of 2006 I posted my resolutions for the year, hoping to keep myself accountable. Most fell apart under the pressure of pregnancy, new baby, and general lack of self-discipline. Here is the final reckoning ...

Faith
Commit to saying morning and evening prayer from the Divine Office daily. I used to do this, but over the last few years it has slipped from regular, to spasmodic, to almost never.

Morning prayer was almost a total washout. Evening prayer I said more or less regularly for a while, but for most of the year it has been sporadic ... though I never gave up totally!

Family
Fit regular one-on-one time with both girls into our normal routine - time to read aloud at their own level and just to chat. Make a monthly night out with Tevye a priority (we can do this, but are lazy about making the effort to arrange it).

I did succeed in making more one-on-one time for the older two girls. Taking them to Mass and out for a hot chocolate or other edible treat on alternate weeks is working out beautifully. Time out with Tevye fell by the wayside, inevitably I suppose. Maybe next year!

Fitness
Aim for an aqua-aerobics class and two trips to the gym each week. Getting into a regular fitness routine was one of the resolutions (the only resolution?) I stuck to last year, and I'm determined to get back to it now my energy levels are improving.

Ugh!

Formation
I have decided that this year I'm going to improve my scientific knowledge, so I'll commit to reading at least one "living" science book each month. And for faith formation I'll add one piece of spiritual reading monthly. And I'll post reviews here.

I kept up quite well with science reading - though not as much as a book a month - but not with the spiritual reading. I think this was largely because the spiritual books I want to read are rarely available from the library, whereas scientific books are.

Fun
Set aside some time each week for scrapbooking, even if it is only an hour. If I get much further behind I'll never manage to fit in a new baby scrapbook!

I wish! I did get quite a lot of scrapbooking done when I spent some weekends at my Mum's resting towards the end of my pregnancy. I've realised, though, that I need longer chunks of time to get into scrapping - a whole afternoon or evening, or better still, a whole weekend when I can leave all my stuff out to pick up at intervals.

Devotions Meme

Considering myself tagged by Karen and Faith ...

1. Favourite devotion or prayer to Jesus
The Anima Christi and the Jesus Prayer.

2. Favourite Marian devotion or prayer
The Rosary

3. Do you wear a scapular or medal?
No. I used to wear a small gold crucifix I was given when I first entered the Catholic Church and a St.Benedict medal, but got out of the habit. The crucifix is on a fine gold chain, which is definitely not baby-proof, so it will be a while before I wear it again. I do have a St.Benedict medal on my keyring.

4. Do you have holy water in your home?
Used to, but lost that habit too. I'm trying to remember to get some so that we can do a house blessing on Epiphany, but forgot last Sunday.

5. Do you 'offer up' your sufferings?
Yes.

6. Do you observe First Fridays and First Saturdays?
No.

7. Do you go to Eucharistic Adoration?
Rarely. Our parish only has adoration for 30 minutes on a Saturday morning, which is difficult for me to get to.

8. Are you a Saturday evening Mass person or a Sunday morning Mass person?
Sunday morning, almost always.

9. Do you say prayers at mealtime?
Yes - grace before meals. Sometimes the Angelus at lunchtime (usually if morning prayers got missed!)

10. Favourite saints
St.Benedict, St.Francis, St.Peter, St.Thomas More, St.Thomas of Canterbury, St.Thomas Aquinas, St.Teresa of Avila, St.Edmund Campion, St.Helena, St.Hilda, St.Cuthbert, St.Nicholas Postgate

11. Can you recite the Apostles' Creed by heart?
Yes

12. Do you usually say short prayers (aspirations) during the course of the day?
No, though I wish I could remember to do so!

13. Bonus question: When you pass by an automobile accident or other serious mishap, do you say a quick prayer for those involved?
Yes

14. Helen's bonus question: If you could visit any of Our Lady's apparition sites, which one would you choose?
Lourdes - as a pilgrim, not as a tourist. I once passed through with Tevye while we were travelling in France, and it was very strange to be there 'on the outside' and observing partly through his Jewish eyes. I want to go back and pray there.

Like my weather sticker?

... in the sidebar.

Hat tip to Dorothy!

The world according to Star

(1) Star: What colour are my toes?
Me: [Looks] Red.
Star: Do you know why they are red?
Me: No. Nail varnish?
Star: No. It's felt tip [marker]. I coloured them red to remind me to wear socks. If I forget the socks then everyone will see my red toes and I'll look silly.

(2) Star (with set of quiz cards): Which English king abdicated?
Me: Edward the eighth.
Star: No ... Edward the vee-triple-one.

Hmm! Seems we need to look at Roman numerals. And yes, she did remember to wear socks. (Star refused to wear socks for a long time, until I clicked that she is sensitive to the feel of clothing. Now she will wear them so long as they are soft, fluffy ones, but hasn't quite got into the habit.)

Commonplacing

One of my Christmas gifts this year was a nice, thick bound notebook, with a brightly striped cover, that I plan to use as a journal. I love having an empty book to write in - particularly a good quality one - and I enjoy writing properly, the old fashioned way, with a pen. Much as I love my computer, tapping away at a keyboard just isn't the same, for all the convenience of being able to cut, paste and edit without dispiriting scribbles highlighting every error and second thought.

I think it will be part journal, and part commonplace book. In the past I have tended to use different notebooks for different things - notes on books I am reading, copywork, diary, homeschool planning. This year I plan to keep everything in the one place, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the book develops. So far it has only some ponderings on new year resolutions and notes on what I am planning for next term.

I'm so enthused about the idea of commonplacing that I have assigned it a blog label. It sounds so much nicer than "miscellaneous stuff".

Last Term

Hits ...

Maths 2XL (also known as Conquer Maths) - apart from one brief hiccup a few weeks in, maths with Angel has been painless. What can I say? Patrick Murray, the Australian tutor who wrote and presents these maths lessons, is my hero. Maths is no longer a trauma. Long may it last!

Saint Patrick's Summer by Marigold Hunt - catechism the easy way for Star.

Latin Prep 1 from Galore Park - just the right choice for Star, who is sailing through the basics of Latin. Challenging, but she is responding to the challenge.

Gloria Whelan - three great read alouds in one term (Homeless Bird, The Angel in the Square and The Impossible Journey).

And misses ...

Story of the World vol.2 by Susan Wise Bauer - we tried, but Star grumbled and we just didn't get into it.

Hands-on science - great in theory, and I'm sure the girls would have enjoyed themselves, but with a young baby (what was I thinking?) and afternoons out decluttering Mum's house it just didn't happen.

Adventure of the Amethyst by Cecily Hallack - I love it, but Angel didn't.

Saint Thomas of Canterbury

One saint I almost feel I know personally is Saint Thomas of Canterbury. At university I was tutored by the editor of his letters, and her enthusiasm for Thomas rubbed off. I took a course she taught on King Henry II, in which she spent almost as much time discussing Thomas as she did the king and his reign. My good luck!

Feast Day: December 29th

A Few Facts
Born 1118 in London, died 1170 at Canterbury
Ordained as archbishop of Canterbury 1162
Patron of clergy
Saint Thomas is often known as Thomas Becket, though he himself never used the surname, or as Thomas a Becket, which is a much later variation. His correct title is Thomas of Canterbury.

Reading
If All the Swords of England by Barbara Willard (published by Bethlehem Books)
Murder in the Cathedral by T.S.Eliot (play)

Online: Thomas Becket the Chancellor and Thomas Becket the Archbishop from Stories from English History by Alfred J.Church
Eyewitness account of the martyrdom of St Thomas
And my own version of the story of St Thomas: Murder at Canterbury

A Virtual Tour
Find Cheapside, the street where St. Thomas was born, on a map of the City of London. The City of London is the old city, now the financial district and only a small part of modern city. The ancient medieval streets still exist, but they are now lined with office blocks.

Any surviving remnants of the City St. Thomas would have known were destroyed by the Great Fire of 1666, which also destroyed the medieval St. Paul's Cathedral. You will have to make do with a visit to the "new" St. Paul's designed by Sir Christopher Wren.

Visit Canterbury Cathedral, the site of St. Thomas's martyrdom.

Activities for the Feast of St. Thomas
from Catholic Culture

Other Resources
Teaching activity from the British Library using original sources to investigated the story of St Thomas.
Links to articles and activities from Schoolhistory.co.uk
(Both of these are aimed at 11-12 year olds)

Prayer
O God, for the sake of whose Church the glorious Bishop Thomas fell by the sword of ungodly men: grant, we beseech Thee, that all who implore his aid, may obtain the good fruit of his petition. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Who livest and reignest with Thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, forever and ever. Amen.

Christmas comes but once a year ...

... and with it a rendition of Christmas carols from Star and A-next-door on the Mongolian nose flute (more commonly known as the recorder). Believe it or not, they sounded good.

Our usual Christmas routine was upset this year as my poor Mum was still in hospital. There were no physiotherapy services over Christmas, and the physio had not been able to work through everything with her beforehand, so she was stuck, poor dear. We hoped she would come home today, but the doctor is concerned her wound isn't healing as it should and wants to take another look tomorrow. God willing she will be allowed home then. Other than that she is doing well.

Tevye took Angel and Star to visit Grandma in the morning, while I stayed home with Little Cherub and cooked our Christmas dinner (which we have at lunchtime). After years of having my mother, my brother, and my mother's friend with us for Christmas it was sad to have empty spaces at the dining table - not just Mum absent, but also her friend who moved to a different part of the country last spring. Then, of course, we had Little Cherub added into the mix ... and delightful as she is, she can be rather a handful at mealtimes once her own dinner is finished! She appreciated her stocking, though ...

Advent Retrospective

Our makeshift Advent blundered on until it fell apart more or less totally for the last week ... Mum in hospital, Christmas preparations, six month old baby ... 'nuff said.

We did manage to make six O Antiphon ornaments ...

Yes, I know there are seven O Antiphons, but this was one of those activities I wished I hadn't started and six was enough of a challenge to my patience. The theory was this. Cut out card templates, scrunch up kitchen foil and glue to each side to give 3D effect, wrap entire ornament in more foil, add a layer of papermache and paint. Have you ever tried making a pointed crown or sun out of foil and papermache? If not, then my advice to you is DON'T. It is not fun. Your children will head rapidly for the nearest exit leaving you in a muddle of foil and newsprint, getting more frustrated by the minute. Star at least stuck around long enough to make a book (to represent Wisdom), but Angel saw the way the wind was blowing and scarpered. Still, I soldiered on, having got to the point where I had invested too much effort to give up, and the end result - with the addition of some gold marker - was not bad. Not brilliant, probably not worth the time and frustration, but good enough. I decided to scale down by buying a purple star for the top of our Advent tree for the seventh, "O Emmanuel" antiphon. Of course I then couldn't find a purple star, so O Emmanuel will just have to wait for next year.

We also made sixteen of the twenty four Jesse Tree ornaments before our Jesse Tree readings fell apart. I'll add the other eight this week (I know, I know ... what is the point of adding to an Advent tree after Christmas? At least we will then have them ready for next year.).We never did manage to match up the readings and the ornaments after the first few days, but we got through more readings than ornaments, which is probably the better way round.

At least I am going to be really organised for next Advent, with nice new Jesse Tree symbols and O Antiphon ornaments all ready to go! I just need to find a purple star, or it will be back to the papermache ...

Some Christmas listening

Thanks to the BBC's "listen again" facility you can still enjoy these Christmas treats ...

Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King's College, Cambridge.

Beatrix Potter: A Life in Nature - abridged version of a new biography, being broadcast in 15 minute chunks Monday to Friday this week. Available to listen again for seven days.

A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas. (Skip the first two minutes if you don't want a news broadcast including this story.)

Happy Christmas!

Little Cherub wishes you all a very
HAPPY CHRISTMAS!

She isn't quite sure what all the fuss is about, but she thinks wrapping paper tastes good.

Have a wonderful day celebrating the birth of Jesus. Better still, make it a wonderful twelve days!

Bid Thou our sad divisions cease

This morning as I drove to Mass our neighbours were three cars in front driving to their Church, and we passed a friend and her family walking to yet another Church, and the reality of Christian division hit me in the face. (Yes, I know. I'm slow. It is only 450 years or so since the Reformation.) I thought how wonderful it would be if we were all going to the same Church - ONE Church - worshipping together, celebrating the same feasts, visibly part of the single Body of Christ ... and I grasped at a deeper level than before that this was once reality. And it was bigger and more fundamental than just all Christians belonging to the same Church - in western Europe it meant the whole of society, for with few exception all were Christians. Of course I appreciate the sense of being part of the Body of Christ that comes with being Catholic, but imagine how much greater that sense would be if Christianity was not divided. Then imagine what it must have been like to live in a truly Christian country, with a complete overlap between Church and society.

For the first time I understood the way the Reformation fractured not only the Church but society as a whole. That sense of unity ripped away; the common understanding of the meaning of life (and death) gone. And also I understood why the rulers of Western Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were prepared to fight (literally, catastrophically and regrettably) to maintain unity, whether Catholic or Protestant; why the Tudor and Stuart kings and queens were prepared to persecute dissenters - both Catholic and Protestant - in order to ensure as best they could that English society and the Church of England remained one and the same. It was not just a megalomaniac urge to have everyone worship the way they chose; they truly believed it to be an essential for a united realm.

Ever the optimist, I always tend to focus on what we share with other Christians, but today I was just overwhelmed by the tragedy of a fractured Church. At the most simple level, friends headed in different directions to worship the same Lord ... and tomorrow to celebrate the birth of the Son of God. Divisions within divisions, making unity harder than ever to achieve. And worst of all, here in England at least, Christian society broken ... Christians a minority, where faith is considered at best a harmless eccentricity and at worst a threat to the very society that was built on Christian principles in the first place.

Still, as I said, I am an optimist. If there is ever a time when we can feel hope for an end to division, it must be Christmas. This morning at Mass we sang my favourite Advent carol, O Come, O Come Emmanuel, which includes this verse ...

O come, Desire of nations, bind
In one the hearts of all mankind;
Bid Thou our sad divisions cease,
And be Thyself our King of Peace.

I love that at Christmas is that there is enough peace and goodwill in the air to feel a little of that lost unity. Tonight there will be community carol singing in our High Street, organised by the local Churches Together and attended by people from all the Churches and none ... all singing to welcome the Baby whose birth changed not just the world but heaven too - Emmanuel, God With Us. Thank God for that Baby, and for Christmas!

Party time

Last night was Hannukah party time. This has become a favourite annual tradition, when we invite our neighbours over to celebrate Hannukah with us. Tevye reads the story of Hannukah to everyone, we light the candles, play dreidls for sweets, and eat latkes and salt beef (if we can get it, or slices of roast beef if we can't) followed by doughnuts. Then the children disappear to make noise while the adults sit around drinking tea, coffee or wine and engaging in (slightly) less noisy conversation. At the end all the children get "hannukah gelt" - chocolate money - except that last night I forgot to give it to them and nobody noticed!

Playing dreidl at Hannukah is a highlight for most Jewish children. As a child Tevye attended a children's synagogue where they always supplied a sack of monkey nuts to use as chips. We usually opt for Smarties (similar to chocolate M&Ms). A dreidl is a four sided spinning top, with a Hebrew letter on each side. To start, each player puts two sweets (or nuts, or whatever ...) into the pot. Then everyone takes turns to spin the dreidl and follow the instructions for whichever letter lands face up:

• נ (Nun) - Do nothing
• ג (Gimel) - Win everything in the pot
• ה (Hay) - Win half the contents of the pot
• ש (Shin) - Put two into the pot

After a gimel each player puts two sweets into the pot. The game continues until everyone is out of sweets (there tends to be a certain amount of attrition during play) or the players get bored.

I usually skip the dreidl playing to grate potatoes and fry latkes (you can find the recipe on my Cookbook blog). Every year I make more than the year before, and every year the bowl ends up empty.

Overheard yesterday afternoon:

Star: It's Hannukah tonight
A-next-door: Hannukah! I love Hannukah!
Star: That's weird. You're not even a bit Jewish ...

Hospital update

Mum is doing OK ... not great, but not badly either. She was anaemic and has had blood transfusions which have made her feel a lot better, but this meant a delay in getting her up and moving. Hopefully she will be allowed to try walking tomorrow. As she will not be allowed home until she can walk up and down stairs, it is beginning to look as though she may be in hospital over Christmas. Also visiting is difficult as the weather has turned against us, with frost and fog making it a very nasty drive. Prayers for her continued recovery and mobility appreciated!

Where is my pudding?

There is no doubt about it. Little Cherub is a baby who knows her own mind.

She has recently discovered food - with an enthusiasm that suggests she might need to be renamed Little Piglet. Over the past few days, if she has still looked peckish after eating a meal, I have given her fruit for dessert (or "pudding" as dessert is often called here). Yesterday she had her lunch along with the rest of us. After feeding her a fair amount of her food - which she apparently enjoyed - I took a break to eat some of my own. When I turned back to give her some more, she became inexpicably grumpy. Didn't want it. Wasn't pleased. Various efforts to mollify her failed. Cherub was decidedly cross. Then it dawned on me. She wanted her pudding! She had worked out that a pause in the arrival of food normally meant that first course was done and something fruity was on its way. She was expecting fruit, and there was I trying to shovel down more of the main course she thought was finished. Result: one seriously displeased baby. I fetched fruit. One mouthful and the Cherub's angry squawks stopped ... and she proceeded to wolf down the lot.

I have a sneaky feeling that Little Cherub as a toddler could be something of a challenge.