With November approaching, a prayer plan emerges...

Rosaries by Allison

Happy Halloeen, everyone! This morning, I raided my embarrassingly large rosary supply 😬 and brought out my Dia de los Muertos rosary, which is absolutely *perfect* for November, the month of All Souls! It's a great time to remember our family and friends who have passed before us, and to ask them to intercede for us. Speaking of that specific rosary, it is made by my dear friend, Allison, and she's having a special in her Etsy shop for 3 days only! So if you'd like to grab one of these rosaries, definitely hop onto her site and order asap!

As I was praying and driving into work this morning (for an 8 am class 😴), it occurred to me I'd like to plan another community novena. I ended up posting the St. John Paul II novena in our Facebook group recently, kind of spur of the moment, and it was very well received. I thought we could select an upcoming feast day and decide to pray as a community for those 9 days. I can post the prayers daily in the Facebook group, for those who follow along there, and I'll link to them here, of course, so that you can follow along regardless of if you participate over at Facebook or not. So! This begs an important question...

*beams*

Which novena would you like to pray? I'll include some ideas below, and please comment on this post with your vote!

St. Cecilia (feast Nov. 22nd)
All Souls (sort of a general November theme, feast is Nov. 2nd)
St. Francis Xavier Cabrini (feast Nov. 13th)
Christ the King (feast Nov. 24th)
St. Andrew Christmas novena (this would start on his feast of Nov. 30th, and is 25 days long leading up to Christmas)

Oh gosh, I'm getting so excited. :-0 Let me know your thoughts! We could potentially pray more than one of these!

Pondering the rosary...

I've been on a rosary kick lately, as I talked about last week. :-) It's hard for me to develop and stick with spiritual habits, but so far, this one is going pretty well. I pray the rosary a lot in the car, but sometimes on the weekends I'll pray it while I'm waiting for Mass to begin. This week, I was home sick one day with a horrible headache/24 hour bug, and I prayed a rosary while flat on my back in bed, because I had no choice but to lay there. The act of finding and wrenching my St. Francis rosary out of the pocket of my robe while it was still tangled around my body is not a rosary experience I'm looking to repeat, but I'll take what I can get. :-0 The point is that I have been committed to praying it daily, and it's stuck.

Towards that end, my ears perked recently when my sister Shauna'h mentioned that she'd been going through a short Bible study aimed towards better understanding the mysteries of the rosary. When she said that it was designed to last about a month, I offiically looked into it, as Advent is just over a month away. Once I espied it on Amazon, I knew that I had to get it. It's called Ponder, by Elizabeth Foss, and it's published by Take Up and Read.

I'm not particularly good at sticking with daily devotionals like this. But given that this one is designed to last 28 days, I'm cautiously optimistic that I can stick with it for the duration. Each day is only a short time commitment, and takes you through one of the 20 mysteries of the rosary. The other 8 days introduce the mysteries, or have you reflect on them when you complete all five in that set. I received my copy this week, and have just completed day three. The first day was an introduction to how the study will run, and then I've made my way through the first two Joyful Mysteries, the Annunciation and the Visitation. You're provided with the relevant scripture right there in the book, as well as a personal story by the author relating to the mystery. You also have space to answer questions each day:

• What personal message does the text have for me?
  
• What do I say to the Lord in response to His word?
  
• What conversion of mind, heart, and life is He asking of me today?

These are the same each day, but I'm already seeing how different my answers are each day depending upon the mystery and the scripture. You're also provided with some action item suggestions related to the mystery.

I have been agog the past two days over how much the discussion of the mystery for that day has related back to things I'm going through in my life right now involving my kids, the worry that I'm carrying in my heart each day. I'm getting a lot out of this! And I'm slated to finish up around November 19th. This works out well, because if for some reason I miss a day, I still have over a week before Advent begins. My goal is to have gone through the entire devotional, spanning all four mysteries of the rosary, before Advent. I'm particularly excited about getting to the Luminous mysteries! When I re-started my rosary quest recently, I was shocked to realize that it had been so long since I'd prayed them, that I had actually forgotten them. 😳 That has happily been remedied.

Has anyone else used Ponder, or another devotional in the Take Up and Read series? I'd love to hear about it in the comments!

Our Lady of Fatima has a hold on my heart...

https://www.etsy.com/shop/allisonkinyon

As May approaches, my thoughts automatically turn towards the feast of Our Lady of Fatima, which we celebrate on the Church calendar May 13th. There are lots of other exciting things going on in May: May Crowning at the kids' school, Anne's birthday, Sam's birthday, confirmation season, Pentecost, my dance family returns from Egypt, the long Memorial Day weekend...all fantastic stuff that I cannot wait for. Always though, my mind turns to our Blessed Mother, and the role she is known for amongst three young Portuguese children in the early twentieth century.There is something about her that has become special to me in my adulthood, and in my role as wife and mother. That image of her is so appealing to me, so filled with tender understanding.

The week before Holy Week, I stopped in at our parish for the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I had been dealing with (and continue to deal with) the aftermath of a few difficult emotional situations. It's all part of life, you know? But for someone with a personality like mine: very gentle-natured, always wanting to please others, experiencing a great deal of empathy for others at all times - it's hard to climb out of a dark abyss like that. It's hard to feel like myself again, because my mind always wants to take me back to things that have hurt me and that I cannot control. It's something I've dealt with my whole life, but as an adult it has helped a bit to do some research (*pins on librarian super cape*) and realize that these qualities about myself are not only God-given (and thus, I cannot change them even if I wanted to) but they are in fact positive characteristics that I should not see as weaknesses. I should revel in being compassionate, loving and trusting, and in the resulting beautiful and lasting relationships I have in my life. It has given me a lot of peace and healing to focus on those things.

And so, as I was leaving the confessional that recent week late in Lent, I was struck by inspiration - Our Lady of Fatima. Her feast day is in the spring, and I just felt compelled to carry her with me on a day-to-day basis. So I texted Allison to see if she would accept a custom order for a one decade, springy rosary with an Our Lady of Fatima center, and she did. It is, of course, the rosary you see featured in this post. Isn't it lovely?!

I love one decade rosaries for the ease of being able to tuck them into your pocket. If you need a little extra courage or strength on a given day, you can easily reach for the rosary and feel the solace that it offers. I'm so thrilled with this particular rosary and the association I have with it for Our Lady in a particularly sweet, motherly role. Granted, I don't think we ever see Mary in a non-motherly role :) but this one strikes a special chord with me. I am relying heavily on Our Lady of Fatima this spring.

Maybe we could pray her novena this year? It would start next week, on May 4th, I believe. I can dig up the prayers if anyone would like to join me!

"No you may NOT drink the holy water!" - An evening with my Catholic children...

I was home with Anne yesterday, and sometime in the late morning I saw her setting up a station of some kind in the dining room. There were wooden cupcakes and pieces from her Melissa & Doug pizza set, a small box, an (unlit) tealight candle, and a few prayer books. When I asked her what it was, she said:

"A stable. Baby Jesus is in here, sshhhhhh Mommy! YOU DON'T WANT TO WAKE HIM UP."

*serious face*

Ah. Baby Jesus was sleeping, and apparently, like toddlers everywhere, he wishes to eat nothing but frosted cupcakes and pepperoni. She begged me for an actual baby Jesus to put "into the fresh straw" (the straw being the small box, she explained) so I allowed her to raid her packed away nativity set for baby Jesus. She was quite happy after that, and placed him adoringly atop her small purple box.

And I think all of this stemmed from our newly embarked upon venture into the Bible storybook that she received from her Godmother (my older sister) back at her baptism. I had tucked it away because it's not a board book, and I didn't want her to destroy the pages when she was smaller. But I came across it the other day and popped it onto her book shelf, since she is now very good with taking care of books. She discovered it literally minutes later ("Look Mommy, a new book!!") and we've been reading it before naps and bed. I have to say, I love this particular Bible storybook. If you're wondering, it is Catholic Bible Stories for Children, put out by Our Sunday Visitor press:

We've owned Bible story books that skip *the Crucifixion* and I'm certain it's because the publisher didn't want the material to be upsetting for children, but really. This book tells the whole story, tough parts in the Old and New Testaments alike, but does it in a gentle and understandable way for children. I give it a thumbs up.

At any rate, Anne really took to the story of the nativity, and hence the stable that now exists in our dining room. Later in the day, I had a spark of inspiration, and asked Anne if she wanted to wear a veil, like Mary. Well, as you can imagine, that went over pretty big:

I mean, did you ever? SO PRECIOUS. I figured all of this pious reenacting would make it a good night to do the house blessing that I keep forgetting to do. At first, Anne was more interested in her Frozen puzzle than in participating, but once she saw Henry wielding the holy water bottle, she quickly took notice:

"Ok, let's move into the living room. Henry, do you have...no! You are not supposed to DRINK the holy water!"

*Henry looks sheepish*

"Holy water?! I WANT TO SQUIRT THE HOLY WATER!"

So now we have little Mary on the scene, demanding to be a part of things, and I will say that she did not attempt to drink the water. She did, however, squirt out enough in small puddles in each room that our socks were wet for the rest of the night. You can't have everything, I suppose. :0 

How are you today, dear reader? :)