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J+M+J

Awaiting the Messiah: A Musical Advent Calendar {Week 1}

Posted on November 26, 2016March 16, 2019by Genie

Welcome to Week 1 of our musical advent calendar, Awaiting the Messiah! Thank you for joining us!

As a real quick summary, each day of Advent has movements of Handel’s oratorio, Messiah, assigned to it. I have provided videos of the pieces, the Scriptures each piece was inspired by, the sung text, a Spotify list of the week’s movements, and a music appreciation lesson, fit for the whole family, based on a single movement each week. This devotion is meant to be very flexible for families of all ages and sizes. Some may only want to read the Bible verses and listen to the pieces. Others may want to try all the activities below. Do what will work for and help your family grow closer to the Lord this season – everything else is straw. If you just found us and would like more background on this devotion, please visit the Overview post from last week.

J+M+J

Awaiting the Messiah: A Musical Advent Calendar {Overview}

Posted on November 18, 2016March 16, 2019by Genie

The trembling baroque vibrato of strings, the challenging vocal runs, the stirring scriptural text that begs a physical response, since it’s 1742 performance in Dublin, George Frederic Handel’s most popular oratorio, Messiah, has captivated audiences and is now synonymous with Christmas. However, with its prophetical text that spans the old testament foretelling of Jesus’ birth and […]

“‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’” — Jeremiah 29:11

As the beginning of the new Catholic year, Advent is the perfect time to slowly slide into liturgical living with your family. And knowing which holy days fall when is the first step to getting your year of commemorations off on the right foot.

When we were first starting out in this endeavor my best tool was the perpetual calendar I made to keep all my ideas and future plans contained. So to help you have everything together in one place and give you a clear but simple overview of the liturgical year to prevent overwhelm, I’m sharing our list of all the feasts, fasts, and ferias of both the new and traditional calendars in this reuseable Perpetual Liturgical Planner. With its compact size it’s thorough without being bulky and is the perfect size to slip inside your Liturgical Binder of resources.

Pick a couple personally meaningful feasts or fasts for your family to mark each month, and, with the space provided, write what worked in your home. Then year after year you can revisit you notes and add, or adjust, more Catholic customs and liturgical traditions as your family grows in each new season of life.

The gift of your donation helps cover the needs of this apostolate. And we appreciate it more than you can know.

You can also find this printable and all the other resources, help, and encouragement you need for living liturgically every month by joining our Feast + Fast + Feria Collective.

“The feasts! What precious memories these simple words bring to me. I loved them; and my sisters knew so well how to explain the mysteries hidden in each one. Those days of earth became days of Heaven.” — St.Therese of Lisieux

Ad majórem Dei glóriam,

Roráte, coeli, désuper, et nubes pluant justum: aperiátur terra, et gérminet Salvatórem. Benedixísti, Domine, terram tuam: avertísti captivitátem Jacob.

Drop down dew, you heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened and bud forth a Savior. Thou hast favored, O Lord, Thy land; Thou hast restored the well-being of Jacob. — Introit of the Rorate Caeli Mass

A Rorate Caeli Mass is an Advent Votive Mass in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary. It is the Advent cousin of the Holy Week Office of Tenebrae.

In the early morning hours, while still dark, this Mass is said by candlelight until the sun rises, signifying Christ coming as the Light of the World.

Its name is taken from this Mass’ Introit found in Isaiah 45:8: “Rorate, caeli, desuper,et nubes pluant justum; aperiatur terra, et germinet salvatorem.”

A Votive Mass is a set of Mass propers that may be said on days when there is no assigned feast. And this votive is an off shoot of the Mass for Ember Wednesday in Advent, however, with white vestments used for Our Lady instead of the customary Advent violet.

Going back at least to the Middle Ages, when it was called the Angelic or Golden Mass – Missa Aurea – this beautiful Advent tradition is not to be missed. It also fits in our liturgical living with boys philosophy of “if in doubt, add fire.”

But even if this beautiful Mass is not offered by your parish or you can’t make it that early in the morning, as my little early Christmas gift to you, your family can still bring this meaningful custom into your home in this final week of Advent.

Light some candles and use this mini missal to pray the Rorate Caeli propers with your family. This Mass is usually celebrated on a Saturday during Advent, but fit it in whenever your family can the remainder of this season.

Your family may also be blessed by our:

You can also find this printable and all the other resources, help, and encouragement you need for living liturgically every month by joining our Feast + Fast + Feria Collective here.

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened, and bud forth a savior: and let justice spring up together: I the Lord have created him. – Isaiah 45:8

Ad majórem Dei glóriam,

Feast + Fast + Feria Collective

ABOUT CONTACT JOIN You can live the liturgical year with peace and confidence.The Feast + Fast + Feria collective is a monthly mentorship and community for busy Catholic mothers that takes the stress and guess work out of liturgical living. Each month our mentorship provides all the resources you need to shape your children’s hearts […]

“O Lord, the God of my salvation: I have cried in the day, and in the night before thee. Let my prayer come in before thee: incline thy ear to my petition.” – Psalm 88:1-2

After adding in the meal blessing and thanksgiving, our next little steps to liturgical living were to add a prayer at supper for the monthly dedication. Each month of the Catholic year has a traditional dedication and December’s is the Immaculate Conception. Pinning a related prayer to supper is our daily reminder of the month’s dedication and what it’s commemoration is supposed to be teaching us over these few weeks.

So as a visual reminder for your family and mine, I made a set of our favorite prayers for the Immaculate Conception and Advent. Add as many or few to your meals, school day, or anytime as works for your particular family.

This set contains 18 digital prints that can be used and chosen from year after year.

Included are the:

St. Andrew Christmas Novena prayer
O Mary Conceived Without Sin prayer
In Thy Conception O Virgin Mary prayer
O Mary Thou Didst Enter The World Without Stain prayer

Each prayer print is in both English and Latin when available. And you can choose to print them in ether black ink or one of our two Icon inspired color ways that best matches your seasonal decor. Magnetic poster holders make for easy displaying and switching out of prints each month.

The gift of your donation helps cover the needs of this apostolate. And we appreciate it more than you can know.

Your family may also be blessed by our:

You can also find this printable and all the other resources, help, and encouragement you need for living liturgically every month by joining our Feast + Fast + Feria Collective here.

“I sought the Lord, and he heard me; and he delivered me from all my troubles.” – Psalm 34:4

Ad majórem Dei glóriam,

If our family was forced to choose just one Advent devotion this would be it. Why? Because the Christmas Novena includes the best of all the other Advent devotions. Like a mini 9 day Jesse Tree it traces the history of salvation thorough sacred Scripture, and combines monastic prayers like the O Antiphons, hymns, chant, and, when family & friends are invited, the Latin Advent tradition of Las Posadas.

Learn more, pray, and sing along with us with our 58 page printable prayer booklet and the provided music recordings.

The gift of your donation helps cover the needs of this apostolate. And we appreciate it more than you can know.

Your family may also be blessed by our:

And you can have our family’s tried and true liturgical recipes sent to you _every_ month when you join the Feast + Fast + Feria Collective here.

Beatus auctor saeculi,
servile corpus induit;
ut carne carnem liberans,
ne perderet quos condidit.

Behold a thrilling voice calls out
And chides the darkened shades of earth
Pale dreams are gone, dim shadows fly
Christ in his might now shines on high.

Ad majórem Dei glóriam,

In our house full of boys the feast of St. Nicholas is a HUGE DEAL. No joke. The feast gathers so much excitement from our dear ones that around noon the day before little shoes begin to multiply in front of the fireplace and some try to sneak in an extra pair or two. It is a celebration filled with impromptu reenactments of the heretic, and fellow bishop, Arius getting an episcopal knuckle sandwich for denying the divinity of Christ, as well as favorites like “bishopswill” (bishopswyn – Dutch mulled wine) charcuterie, pickles, and other preserved foods. Not to mention the essential Nicene Creed. And who wouldn’t love the one day each year when it is perfectly acceptable to have chocolate and oranges for breakfast!?

Some years St. Nicholas brings to our shoes a Christmas book for our Advent book basket or the year’s cozy winter pajama’s that St. Martin of Tours doesn’t quite have his budget together for by Martlemas on November 11th. But every year St. Nicholas is sure to fill our shoes with at least sweet oranges and golden chocolate coins. To add a bit more fun and pizzazz, in the leaner years, I started adding little pictures of St. Nicholas to our coins with a simple glue stick. And with these printable St. Nicholas coin toppers you can too.

There are 15 different designs that can be divvied up with one style for each child or all shared by the whole family. These toppers fit the larger 1.5” coins but can be used for the smaller 1” coins when printed at 70%.

The gift of your donation helps cover the needs of this apostolate. And we appreciate it more than you can know.

Your family may also be blessed by our:

And you can have our family’s tried and true liturgical recipes sent to you _every_ month when you join the Feast + Fast + Feria Collective here.

“The giver of every good and perfect gift has called upon us to mimic God’s giving, by grace, through faith, and this is not of ourselves.” – St. Nicholas of Myra

Ad majórem Dei glóriam,

Over the years our family started to see glass pickle ornaments in local stores more and more. Our son’s were always amused when we would come across them, so one year I got one on clearance and the St. Nicholas Pickle was born.

For several of the other liturgical living traditions in our home, like our Advent gingerbread houses for St. Barbara’s Day or Our Lady of Loreto, I took things that we wanted to include in our family and then worked them into our busy schedule through a Catholic connection that would benefit my children spiritually. The St. Nicholas Pickle is our family’s Catholic adaptation of the Christmas pickle tradition.

In addition to putting our shoes out for the Eve of St. Nicholas Day on the 5th of December, our brood also hunts for the St. Nicholas Pickle on his feast. Similarly to the finding of chocolate coins in their shoes in memory of the dowry coins St. Nicholas often provided, as part of our grizzly, Flannery O’Connor style liturgical living that our boys love, the St. Nicholas Pickle is a tangible reminder of his miracle of raising the three pickled boys from the dead after their gruesome murder. This event contributed to St. Nicholas becoming the patron saint of children and was often illustrated in medieval books of the hours making it a simple option for the week’s picture study as well.

This miracle of St. Nicholas is also why we make a charcuterie board of preserved and pickled foods for supper on his feast with our traditional Ginger Bend Speculaas cookies and “Bishopswill” (dutch mulled wine or warmed grape juice) typically called Bishopswyn by those not in our family. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, in the midst of this rare pre-Christmas merriment, we pause between impromptu reenactments of the heretic, and fellow bishop, Arius getting an episcopal knuckle sandwich, for denying the divinity of Christ, to recite the Nicene Creed.

Print, cut out, and hide the pickle on the first page and use the Nicene Creed print below as part of your St. Nicholas Day Celebration this year. In our home the one who finds the pickle in our Advent greenery opens a small gift for the family or receives the first warm Speculaas cookie.

The gift of your donation helps cover the needs of this apostolate. And we appreciate it more than you can know.

Your family may also be blessed by our:

And you can have our family’s tried and true liturgical recipes sent to you _every_ month when you join the Feast + Fast + Feria Collective here.

“Let us therefore strive to preserve the holiness of our souls and to guard the purity of our bodies with all fervor.” – St. Nicholas of Myra

Ad majórem Dei glóriam,

+JMJ+

Participating in Palm Sunday at Home

Posted on April 3, 2020April 5, 2020by Genie

The main additions to the Mass that mark Palm Sunday are the blessing of the palms, the Palm procession around the inside or outside of churches, and the reading of the Passion. And thankfully all these pious devotions can easily be transferred to our homes. The PalmsIf like us you can’t get your Palm branches, olive […]