“It’s the little details in life that make all the difference.”
“Beauty is as necessary to the spirit as food and clothing are to the body.”
~Emilie Barnes
Every year we prepare our home for fall. It can be a big chore as we have many fall decorations that we’ve accumulated through the years and, well, we love the fall colors and we love to decorate. Actually… my girls love to. I told them when they’ve left the nest (not something I’m looking forward to), things will be much simpler. In the meantime, I’ll enjoy the efforts they put in to make our home cozy, warm, and autumn-y!
After all, Catholic homes can “bear silent witness to the Faith” just by their warmth and beauty.
Although we enjoy decorating, our themes are always centered around our Catholic heritage. As you can see, we have our statues nestled in among the leaves and the pumpkins. Life can be so empty if all we have are the pretty things… without faith at the foundation of it all.
This is a reflection of our own lives. There are so many good things—and we can get wrapped up in it all. But unless we have our grounding each day… our prayers, our Masses, our moments of quiet before God… what is it all worth?
Don’t you enjoy a whole lot more that cup of spiced latté knowing that you have said your prayers and done your daily duties? Sitting out in the evening around a bonfire is much nicer if we have striven to kept peace within the home that day—putting out the fires of our own frustrations before they become mountains and we say things we don’t mean. That pumpkin bread tastes pretty sweet after everyone is finished the family rosary…
The changing leaves of autumn remind us that our own hearts need changing… that, like the leaves in fall, we have to let go of our own negative behaviors, whether it be feeling sorry for ourselves, giving in to laziness, snapping at the children, or whatever it may be.
And this letting go—this quiet surrender—isn’t something we can do alone.
Catherine de Hueck Doherty, in the post The Tranquility of God’s Order, wrote that holiness begins with the “duty of the moment.” She reminds us that God’s will is not hidden in faraway dreams or big, heroic gestures, but right here in the simple things: setting the table with love, changing a diaper, sweeping the floor with a peaceful heart. When we do these small things well, with surrender and faith, we’re cooperating with Divine Providence. Our ordinary life becomes our offering, and God turns it into grace.
The letting go of the leaves also reminds us that we cannot change without the help of Our Lord. We must “Let Go and Let God.” This act of self-surrender is not easy but so necessary. We are spinning our wheels if we think we can accomplish this on our own. We can’t. And, for most of us, this will probably take a lifetime.
As St. Francis de Sales says, we need not fear tomorrow’s “changes and chances.” The same God who holds us today will meet us tomorrow—either shielding us from trials or giving us the strength to bear them. So we can put aside anxious imaginings, return our hearts to God whenever they wander, and move calmly through the day doing all things for love of Him. That is how storms become material for growth and peace returns to the soul.
With each season we learn that life is an ebb and a flow. We find there are times we can’t enjoy a favorite season because we are going through some kind of trouble. Whether it is sickness, loss, or heartache of some sort—it is part of the suffering of this life. And this is not a bad thing. It is inevitable—and it is a good thing. For we are not here forever; we have many souls to save, and we grow stronger and closer to Our Lord through these trials. We become more detached from all that is here below.
I remember 2020. Although life was upside down at the time, due to COVID, we had our many joys within the family. We still had our autumn celebrations coming up and much to look forward to. My husband and I both got COVID at the same time at the beginning of November. Mine was like a bad flu and lasted a couple of weeks. When I came out of it, I had no smell and taste.
“Oh well,” I thought, “at least it wasn’t worse.” Surely by Thanksgiving it would be back. It wasn’t. Christmas came and went—still nothing. Easter… nothing. Well, at least I’ll have it for next Thanksgiving. Nope. It didn’t come back until three years later!
If you’ve ever lost those senses, you know it’s more than just an inconvenience. Food loses its comfort, candles lose their sweetness, and even autumn’s crisp air feels strangely empty.
But that autumn—and all the holidays that followed those three years—became a lesson in finding joy beyond the senses. I had to look for the good with more intention. I had to practice gratitude without the warm help of cinnamon and cloves. It reminded me that God often asks us to love Him in the quiet, colorless seasons—when the beauty seems lost and the sweetness hidden.
I see this learning in my children, too, and it is hard, as a mother, to watch. Illnesses, miscarriages, misunderstandings, anxieties, accidents… all those crosses seemingly take away the beauty of the season. But my children and my grandchildren, too, are learning to trust that the Light will come again—and that, in truth, it had never left. It only waits for us to open our hearts to it again.
Autumn itself is a teacher of this kind of trust. The trees let go of what was once beautiful, and everything seems to fall away. Yet underneath, unseen, the roots deepen, awaiting the springtime.
Losing my sense of smell and taste was a little like that—a letting go, a reminder that joy isn’t only in what we feel, but in what we choose.
When I bake my cinnamon coffee cake and steep my autumn tea (and actually smell them again!), they remind me that even when life seems dull or stripped bare, God is still working quietly beneath the surface—and that the sweetness always returns in time.
Light & Peace, Quadrupani:
“You should resign yourself perfectly into the hands of God. When you have done your best towards carrying out your design He will be pleased to accept everything you do, even though it be something less good.
You cannot please God better than by sacrificing to Him your will, and remaining in tranquility, humility and devotion, entirely reconciled and submissive to His divine will and good pleasure. You will be able to recognize these plainly enough when you find that notwithstanding all your efforts it is impossible for you to gratify your wishes.
For God in His infinite goodness sometimes sees fit to test our courage and love by depriving us of the things which it seems to us would be advantageous to our souls; and if He finds us very earnest in their pursuit, yet humble, tranquil and resigned to do without them if He wishes us to, He will give us more blessings than we should have had in the possession of what we craved.
God loves those who at all times and in all circumstances can say to him simply and heartily: Thy will be done.
Don’t insist on perfection. Expecting perfection from yourself and others is a setup for disappointment. Things won’t go as planned and you won’t be perfectly organized. Let it go. This, too, shall pass. -Charlotte Siems
🍂🌻Sign up for the Giveaway by following this link!
Handmade, Durable & Lightweight, Wooden Cord Rosary. Available here.
Help make Advent more meaningful for you and your family with the Spiritual Christmas Coil Flip Book! Follow along and prepare your heart for the coming of Our Lord each year at Christmas using these special picturesque and prayer-filled cards to help keep your mind and heart focused each day. Keep the cards in a visible spot in your home as a reminder to your and your children. Available here.
Christmas Around the Fire ~ Available here.
Christmas is a time for celebrating the birth of Jesus with family and friends, to gather together in sacred and jovial celebration of the Incarnation. Yet in our fast-paced, hyper-digitized lives, we are losing the sense of a good story enjoyed among good friends around a good fire.
In Christmas Around the Fire, Ryan Topping invites us to turn off the television set, put down our devices, quiet ourselves, and gather our loved ones to share some of the best writing (in a variety of forms) about Christmas. Whether or not your family has an actual fireplace around which to gather is not so important, but it helps!
Included within are entries from legendary novelists and poets such as Leo Tolstoy, G. K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Willa Cather, and more. Also included are profound thoughts from great religious figures such as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Pope Saint John Paul II, and Pope Benedict XVI.
For those who love the true spirit of the “most wonderful time of the year” and love reading in almost equal measure, Christmas Around the Fire will quickly become a family tradition and the first piece excitedly pulled out of storage every year. This is one of those rarest of books—one around which family memories are made.
Celebrating a Merry Catholic Christmas: A Guide to the Customs and Feast Days of Advent and Christmas ~ Available here.
Celebrating a Merry Catholic Christmas is a treasure, one that offers its riches year after year. It is a valuable resource for understanding and celebrating Advent and Christmas as a Catholic. Beyond providing the historical roots of traditions, such as the Advent wreath and Christmas tree, it also features spiritual reflections and suggestions for practices to enrich your family’s Christmas preparation and celebration.
You’ll find all of the major Feast Days of Advent and Christmas along with devotions and traditions that will help your family get more out these important seasons.
Inside you’ll learn…
- why candles are placed in windows
- why poinsettias are used as a Christmas decoration
- the origin of the Christmas tree
- when Christmas actually ends
- and more
. . . so that you and yours can appreciate more fully the significance of these traditions and grow in love and honor of Christ.
This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support.
This was so beautiful, and being a girl, I just want to cry. 🥲 There are things not right, but holding on to the hope they will get better, or at least a little glimmer that they are in the right direction.
Thank you! 🍁🌻
Perfect reading for this particular day for me. So much that I need to let go of and let God do. But it won’t happen unless I humble myself and ask that His Holy Will be done in all instances in every moment of every day of my life. God alone is God. I am just His mere creature. I can do nothing that is of any good or consequence without He Who knew me before I was conceived in my mother’s womb, helping me to that mark. My goodness but it is taking me so long to get over myself! Like that old song says. . . ” I have a long way to go, but a short time to get there. . . ” Will I ever get there? Please, God. That you for this shot in the arm Leane, may God bless you. 🙏
Pardon the typo, spellchecker strikes again! That was supposed to be “Thank you” , not “that you”. Sorry. Silly spellchecker.😒
I love all the fall images and the reminder to turn off devices…