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Category Archives: Lent

Customs of Good Friday ~ Maria von Trapp / Good Friday Activities ~ Mary Reed Newland

14 Thursday Apr 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in by Maria Von Trapp, Lent

≈ 2 Comments

From Around the Year With the Trapp Family

On Good Friday Holy Mother Church gives her children a beautiful opportunity for a profession of faith: the adoration of the cross. Behind the priests and altar boys follows the whole congregation.

We remove our shoes when we go to adore the cross. Three times we prostrate ourselves as we come closer, until we finally bend over and kiss the feet of the crucified.

As we, the church choir, follow right behind the priest, we sing during the rest of the adoration. Our songs are the heartrendingly moving “Crux fidelis” by King John of Portugal, and Eberlin’s “Tenebrae factae sunt,” of such haunting beauty.

When the adoration of the cross is finished, the candles on the altar are lighted, the cross is most reverently taken up from the floor and placed on the altar, and a procession forms to get the Blessed Sacrament from the “Altar of Repose.”

During this procession the hymn “Vexilla Regis” is sung. And then follows a ceremony that is not a real Mass, although it is called the “Mass of the Pre-Sanctified.”

The priest consumes the Host that was consecrated the day before. On the anniversary of Our Lord’s death–the bloody sacrifice–the Church does not celebrate the symbol of the unbloody sacrifice.

After the official service is finished, the altar is stripped again. The tabernacle is left open, no vigil light burns in the sanctuary. But in front of the empty tabernacle lies the crucifix on the steps of the altar, and the people come all during the day for adoration.

In Austria another custom was added.

At the end of the official service the priest would carry the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance, covered with a transparent veil, and expose it on the side altar, where a replica of the Holy Sepulchre had been set up with more or less historical accuracy, with more or less taste, but always with the best of will.

Like the crèche around Christmas time, so the Holy Sepulchre on Good Friday would be an object of pride for every parish, one parish trying to outdo the other.
The people in Salzburg used to go around at Christmas time and in Holy Week to visit the Christ Child’s crib and the Holy Sepulchre in all thirty-five churches of the town, comparing and criticizing.

There would be literally hundreds of vigil lights surrounding the Body of Christ in the tomb of rock, which was almost hidden beneath masses of flowers.

There would be a guard of honor, not only of the soldiers, but also of firemen in uniform and of war veterans with picturesque plumed hats.

I still remember the atmosphere of holy awe stealing over my little heart when as a child I would make the rounds of churches. There in the Holy Sepulchre He would rest now, watched over by His faithful until Holy Saturday afternoon.

Here in America we have found another lovely custom: people going from church to church not on Good Friday but on Holy Thursday.
On that day, the churches are decorated with a profusion of flowers, as a sign of love and gratitude for the Holy Eucharist. The contrast with the bare churches the day after, on Good Friday, is all the more striking and gives a tremendous feeling of desolation.

Good Friday is a very quiet day with us.

There is little to do in the kitchen, since fasting is observed rigorously on this day.
We have no breakfast, and all that is served for lunch, on a bare table without tablecloth, is one pot of thick soup, “Einbrennsuppe,” which everyone eats standing up in silence. There is little noise around the house.

Talking is restricted to the bare essentials, as it would be if a dearly beloved was lying dead in the house.
As we are so privileged as to have a chapel in our house, we use the day when the holy house of God is empty and desolate to clean and polish all the sacred vessels and chalices and the ciborium, the monstrance, candlesticks, and censer.

The vigil light before the picture of the Blessed Mother in the living room is also extinguished, because on Good Friday Christ, the Light of the World, is dead.

From twelve until three, the hours of Our Lord’s agony on the cross, all activity stops. We sit together in the empty chapel before the cross and spend these hours in prayer, meditation, and spiritual reading. From time to time we rise and sing one or the other of the beautiful Lenten hymns and motets.

On Holy Saturday, a new stir of activity starts in the kitchen. Eggs are boiled in different pots containing various dyes–blue, green, purple, yellow, and red.

Every member of the household who wants to participate in this art takes some eggs to his or her room, after they have dried, to work on them in secret.

One takes some muriatic acid with which she etches the most intriguing patterns out of the colored foundation. It is quite popular in our house to etch the first line of Easter songs–staves, notes, and words.

Our cleverest artist sits with paint and brush, and under her fingers appear pictures of an Easter lamb, or of Our Risen Savior Himself, or of the Blessed Mother, or of the different patron saints of the family. Sometimes they turn out to be little gems.

Others fasten dried ferns or little maple leaves or other herbs around the eggs before they are boiled in dye. When these leaves are finally taken off, the shape of the flowers and herbs remains white, while the rest of the egg is colored. This is easily done and looks very pretty.

These eggs first appear on trays and in bowls on Easter Sunday morning at the foot of the altar for the solemn blessing of the food. Afterwards they will be distributed at the solemn Easter breakfast.

For those mothers who cannot make the Triduum services because of little children and duties at home, here are a few things to get your creative mind going…

The Year & Our Children: Catholic Family Celebrations for Every Season
For the hours spent at home by those who cannot get to the rites of Good Friday, it is good to plan special activities in order to help all keep a spirit of recollection. With many little children, silence is almost impossible, but as they grow older, they begin to cooperate.

Friends of ours have had their children make the garden of Joseph of Arimathea outdoors, separately, on Good Friday. They used whatever they could find at hand – stones, mosses, sticks, acorns.

(My interjection – We talked about a Resurrection Garden today and here is a Pinterest page with many interesting ideas for one.)

A drawing project will keep Peter occupied. Having said the Stations of the Cross during Lent, he applies himself seriously to illustrating them.

(Follow the link here for the coloring pages.)

Rereading the passages about the Passion will keep another child busy, read out of Scripture or from a favorite life of Christ.

(Here is a good translation for the Passion.)

For a boy who is fidgety and must be active, a solitary chore that is a penance is better: perhaps cleaning the goat stalls or spreading hay and manure from the goose’s pen on the garden.

I know many mothers who, because they must be at home with their babies during this time, save a task that especially tries them.

Each has his or her way of best spending the hours of Good Friday, but it will work out most successfully if the program for the day is well planned.

Perhaps one of the tasks for several of the children can be copying Psalm 21 to be used at night prayers this evening. Our Lord quoted the first line of it from the Cross. It prophesied Christ’s Passion and death and our salvation: “My God, my God, why have You forsaken me….”

This was the great prayer of our Lord on the Cross. The family may divide itself and read the lines alternately.

Prayer from Divine Intimacy…

images“O Christ, Son of God, as I contemplate the great sufferings You endured for us on the Cross, I hear You saying to my soul: ‘It is not in jest that I have loved you!’

These words open my eyes, and I see clearly all that Your love has made You do for me. I see that You suffered during your life and death, O Man-God, suffered because of that profound, ineffable love. No, O Lord, it was not in jest that You loved me, but Your love is perfect and real.

In myself, I see the opposite, for my love is lukewarm and untrue, and this grieves me very much.

O Master, You did not love me in jest; I, a sinner, on the contrary, have never loved You except imperfectly. I have never wanted to hear about the sufferings You endured on the cross, and thus I have served You carelessly and unfaithfully.

Your love, O my God, arouses in me an ardent desire to avoid anything that might offend You, to embrace the grief and contempt that You bore, to keep continually in mind Your Passion and Death, in which our true salvation and our life are found.

O Lord, Master, and Eternal Physician, You freely offer us Your blood as the cure for our souls, and although You paid for it with Your Passion and Death on the Cross, it cost me nothing, save only the willingness to receive it.

When I ask for it, You give it to me immediately and heal all my infirmities.

My God, since you agreed to free me and to heal me on the one condition that I show You, with tears of sorrow, my faults and weaknesses; since, O Lord,  my soul is sick, I bring to you all my sins and misfortunes.

There is no sin, no weakness of soul or mind for which You do not have an adequate remedy, purchased by your death.

All my salvation and joy are in you, O Crucified Christ, and in whatever state I happen to be, I shall never take my  eyes away from Your Cross.” (St. Angela of Foligno)

“The very presence of a woman who knows how to combine an enlightened piety with mildness, tact, and thoughtful sympathy, is a constant sermon; she speaks by her very silence, she instills convictions without argument, she attracts souls without wounding susceptibilities; and both in her own house and in her dealings with men and things, which must necessarily be often rude and painful, she plays the part of the soft cotton wool we put between precious but fragile vases to prevent their mutually injuring each other.” – Monseigneur Landriot, Archbishop of Rheims, 1872 -Loreto Publications

Coloring pages for Holy Week…



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If you have trouble reading saint books and find the story lines boring, you need to try these!

We love these books and have had them on our book shelves for years! They are very well-written and make the saints come alive!

Louis de Wohl has the amazing capacity to take historic Catholic figures and breathe life into them by creating a novel around what their life might have been like.

They are meant for high school and adult level. Some of the books could have  adult content, for instance, St. Augustine’s life before conversion. Parents may want to read them first.

Louis de Wohl Historical Religious Novels

This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support.

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Holy Thursday ~ Fr. Frank Weiser

13 Wednesday Apr 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Lent, Seasons, Feast Days, etc.

≈ 1 Comment

Beautiful Traditions for a very holy day….

Article by Francis Weiser, The Easter Book

NAMES  

Holy Thursday bears the liturgical name “Thursday of the Lord’s Supper” (Feria Quinta in Coena Domini). Of its many popular names the more generally known are:

Maundy Thursday (le mand; Thursday of the Mandatum) ~

The word mandatum means “commandment.” This name is taken from the first words sung at the ceremony of the washing of the feet, “A new commandment I give you” (John 13, 34); also from the commandment of Christ that we should imitate His loving humility in the washing of the feet (John 13, 14-17). Thus the term mandatum (maundy) was applied to the rite of the feet-washing on this day.

Green Thursday ~

In all German-speaking countries people call Maundy Thursday by this name (Grundonnerstag). From Germany the term was adopted by the Slavic nations (zeleny ctvrtek) and in Hungary (zold csiitortiik).

Scholars explain its origin from the old German word grunen or greinen (to mourn), which was later corrupted into griin (green). Another explanation derives it from carena (quaclragena), meaning the last day of the forty days’ public penance.

 Pure or Clean Thursday ~

This name emphasizes the ancient tradition that on Holy Thursday not only the souls were cleansed through the absolution of public sinners, but the faithful in all countries also made it a great cleansing day of the body (washing, bathing, shaving) in preparation for Easter.

Saint Augustine (430) mentioned this custom. The Old English name was “Shere Thursday” (meaning sheer, clean), and the Scandinavian, Skaer Torsdag.

Because of the exertions and thoroughness of this cleansing in an age when bathing was not an everyday affair, the faithful were exempted from fasting on Maundy Thursday.

Holy or Great Thursday ~

The meaning of this title is obvious since it is the one Thursday of the year on which the sacred events of Christ’s Passion are celebrated.

The English-speaking nations and the people of the Latin countries use the term “Holy,” while the Slavic populations generally apply the title “Great.”

The Ukrainians call it also the “Thursday of the Passion.” In the Greek Church it is called the “Holy and Great Thursday of the Mystic Supper.”

MASSES

In the early Christian centuries the bishop celebrated three Masses on Maundy Thursday. The first (Mass of Remission) for the reconciliation of public sinners; the second (Mass of the Chrism) for the blessing of holy oils; the third (Mass of the Lord’s Supper) in commemoration of the Last Supper of Christ and the institution of the Eucharist.

This third Mass was celebrated in the evening, and in it the priests and people received Holy Communion. It is interesting to note that in ancient times Holy Thursday was the only day of the year when the faithful could receive the Blessed Sacrament at night after having taken their customary meals during the day ( since it was not a fast day).

Today the Mass of the Chrism is still solemnly celebrated in every cathedral. During this Mass the bishop blesses the holy oils (oils of the sick, holy chrism, and oil of the catechumens ).

In the evening the Mass of the Lord’s Supper is celebrated in all churches. It is one of the most solemn and impressive Masses of the year, since the very “birthday” of the Holy Sacrifice is com-memorated in it.

The altar is decorated, crucifix and tabernacle are veiled in white, and the priests wear rich vestments of white, the liturgical color of joy.

At the beginning of the Mass the organ accompanies the choir, and through the Gloria a jubilant ringing of bells proclaims the festive memory of the institution of the Blessed Sacrament.

After the Gloria the bells fall silent and are replaced by a wooden clapper and not heard again till the Gloria of the Easter Vigil is intoned on Holy Saturday.

Only one priest celebrates Mass in each church on Holy Thursday; the other priests and the lay people receive Communion from his hand, thus representing more vividly the scene of our Lord’s Last Supper.

The faithful are expected and invited (but not strictly obliged) to attend this Mass and receive Holy Communion.

REPOSITORY  

After the Mass, the Blessed Sacrament is carried in solemn procession to a side altar, richly decorated with candles and flowers, where it is kept in the tabernacle until the Good Friday service.

This “repository” altar is a highly venerated shrine in every church, visited by thousands of people. A popular custom in cities is to visit seven such shrines. Throughout the night, in many countries, groups of the clergy and laymen keep prayerful watch in honor of the agony of Christ.

In the Latin countries of Europe and South America the Maundy Thursday shrine is called monumento. It is much more elaborate than the shrines of other nations.

Usually a special scaffolding with many steps, representing a sacred hill, is erected, so high that it almost reaches to the ceiling. On the top of this the Sacrament is elevated, raised above a glorious forest of candles, palms, orchids, lilies, and other decorations.

Dressed in black, the city people visit at least seven such monumentos, which, in many places, are open through the night. On their way from church to church they say the rosary.

DENUDING OF ALTARS

 After the Mass and procession on Holy Thursday, the altars are “denuded” in a ceremony of deep significance. Priests robed in purple vestments remove the altar linen, decorations, candles, and veils from every altar and tabernacle except the repository shrine.

Robbed of their vesture, the bare altars now represent the body of Christ, Who was stripped of His garments.

In medieval times the altars used to be washed with blessed water and wine, the priests using bundles of birch twigs or palms to cleanse and dry them.

In the Vatican this ceremony is still performed by the canons of St. Peter’s on Holy Thursday.

MANDATUM

 Finally, there is the ancient rite of the Mandatum, the washing of the feet. It is prescribed by the rules of the Roman Missal as follows:

After the altars are denuded, the clergy shall meet at a convenient hour for the Mandatum. The Gospel Ante diem festum (John 13, 1-17) is sung by the Deacon.

After the Gospel the prelate puts off his cope and, fastening a towel around him, he kneels before each one of those who are chosen for the ceremony, washes, wipes and kisses the right foot.

From ancient times, all religious superiors, bishops, abbots, and prelates, performed the Maundy; so did the popes at all times. As early as 694 the Synod of Toledo prescribed the rite.

Religious superiors of monasteries washed the feet of those subject to them, while the popes and bishops performed the ceremony on a number of clergy or laymen (usually twelve).

In medieval times, and in some countries up to the present century, Christian emperors, kings, and lords washed the feet of old and poor men whom they afterward served at a meal and provided with appropriate alms.

In England, the kings used to wash the feet of as many men as they themselves were years old. After the Reformation, Queen Elizabeth I still adhered to the pious tradition; she is reported to have used a silver bowl of water scented with perfume when she washed the feet of poor women on Maundy Thursday.

Today, all that is left of this custom in England is a distribution of silver coins by royal officials to as many poor persons as the monarch is years old.

The washing of feet is still kept in many churches.

In Mexico and other sections of South America the Last Supper is often re-enacted in church, with the priest presiding and twelve men or boys, dressed as Apostles, speaking the dialogue as recorded in the Gospels.

In Malta, a “Last Supper Table” is richly laden by the faithful with food that is later distributed to the poor.

RECONCILIATION OF PENITENTS

An ancient rite of Maundy Thursday now totally extinct was the solemn reconciliation of public penitents. As on Ash Wednesday, they again approached the church dressed in sackcloth, barefoot, unshaven, weak, and feeble from their forty days’ fast and penance.

The bishop led them into the house of God, where he absolved them from their sins and crimes after the Gospel of the Mass of Reconciliation.

With his blessing they joyfully hurried home after the Mass to bathe, shave, and cut their hair in preparation for Easter, and to resume their normal dress and routine of daily life, which had been so harshly interrupted during the time of their public penance.

ROYAL HOURS  

The Greek Church celebrates a night vigil from Holy Thursday to Good Friday, in which the texts of the Passion, collected from the Bible and arranged in twelve chapters (called the “Twelve Gospels”) are sung or read, with prayers, prostrations, and hymns after every chapter.

In the cathedral of Constantinople, the East Roman emperors used to attend this service; hence it was called the “Royal Hours.” Its original name is Pannuchida (All-Night Service).

In Russia people would carry home the candles that they had used in this vigil, and with them they would light the lamps that burned day and night before the family ikons (holy pictures).

The Ukrainians celebrate the “Royal Hours” on Good Friday morning.

FOLKLORE

Many popular customs and traditions are connected with Maundy Thursday. There is, above all, the universal children’s legend that the bells “fly to Rome” after the Gloria of the Mass.

In Germany and central Europe the little ones are told that the church bells make a pilgrimage to the tomb of the Apostles, or that they visit the pope, to be blessed by him, then sleep on the roof of St. Peter’s until the Easter Vigil.

In France the story is that the bells fly to Rome to fetch the Easter eggs that they will drop on their return into every house where the children are good and well behaved.

In some Latin countries sugared almonds are eaten by everybody on Maundy Thursday. From this custom it bears the name “Almond Day” in the Azores.

In central Europe the name “Green Thursday” inspired a tradition of eating green things. The main meal starts with a soup of green herbs, followed by a bowl of spinach with boiled or fried eggs, and meat with dishes of various green salads.

Following the ecclesiastical custom, the bells on farm buildings are silent in Germany and Austria, and dinner calls are made with wooden clappers.

In rural sections of Austria boys with clappers go through the villages and towns, announcing the hours, because the church clock is stopped. These youngsters (Ratschen-buben) sing a different stanza each hour, in which they commemorate the events of Christ’s Passion.

Coloring pages for Holy Week…





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Holy Week ~ Maria Von Trapp

10 Sunday Apr 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in by Maria Von Trapp, Lent

≈ 1 Comment

Photos courtesy of Kelcey McCune




by Maria von Trapp, Around the Year With the Von Trapp Family

According to an old tradition, the first three days of Holy Week– Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday–are dedicated to spring cleaning. In the days before the invention of the vacuum cleaner, this was a spectacular undertaking: sofas, easy chairs, and all mattresses would be carried out of the house and beaten mercilessly with a “Teppichpracker” (carpet-beater).

Walls were dusted, curtains were changed–a thorough domestic upheaval. There is little time for cooking, and meals are made of leftovers.

By Wednesday night the house looks spick and span. And now the great “Feierabend” begins. “Feierabend” is an untranslatable word. It really means vigil–evening before a feast, the evening before Sunday, when work ceases earlier than on any other weekday in order to allow time to get into the mood to celebrate.

“Feier” means “to celebrate,” “Abend” means “evening.”

From now on until the Tuesday after Easter no unnecessary work will be done on our place. These days are set aside for Our Lord. On Wednesday, with all the satisfaction of having set our house at peace, and after the dishes of a simple early supper are finished, we go down to the village church in Stowe for the first Tenebrae service.

In the sanctuary, a large wrought-iron triangular candlestick is put up, with fifteen dark candles. We take our places in the choir, and the solemn chanting of matins and lauds begins.

This is the first part of the Divine Office, which has been recited daily around the world by all priests and many religious since the early times of the Church.

In the cathedrals and many monasteries it is chanted in common. For the last days of Holy Week, it is performed in public, so to speak–not only in cathedral churches, but in any church, so that the faithful may take part in it.

We always consider this the greatest honor for us, the singing family, the greatest reward for all the trouble that goes along with life in public, that we can sing for all the Divine Offices in church.

Matins has three nocturnes, each one consisting of three psalms with their antiphons and three lessons. The first nocturne is always the most solemn one. We sing all the psalms on their respective “tonus”. We sing the antiphons, some in Gregorian chant, some from the compositions of the old masters such as Palestrina, Lassus, Vittorio.

The lessons were sung last year by Father Wasner, Werner, and Johannes.

In the second and third nocturne we only recite the psalms in “recto tono” in order not to make it too long. Some of the antiphons and all of the lessons, however, are sung.

After each psalm the altar boy extinguishes a candle, reminding us of how one Apostle after the other left Our Lord. Matins is followed by lauds, consisting of five psalms and antiphons which we recite. At the end of lauds there is only one candle left–the symbol of Our Lord all by Himself crying out, “Where are you, O My people!” And we, in the name of all the people, recite now the “Miserere,” the famous penitential psalm, while the altar boy is carrying the last candle behind the altar and the church is now in complete darkness.

At the end of the “Miserere” we all make a banging noise with the breviary books. This custom is quite ancient. It is supposed to indicate the earthquake at the moment of the Resurrection. After this noise, the altar boy emerges from behind the altar with the burning Christ-candle and puts it back on the candlestick. This is a ray of hope anticipating the glorious Easter night. (In Austria the Tenebrae service is called “Pumpernette,” or “noisy matins.”)

The congregation is following closely with booklets in which the whole service, which we sing in Latin, is given in English. This is the most moving evening service of the whole year. When we sing “Tenebrae factae sunt,” an awesome silence falls upon the whole church, and when we sing the famous “Improperia `Popule meus'” by Palestrina we all are moved to the depths.

Is there anything more heartrending than to listen to the outcry of the anxious Redeemer: “My people, what have I done to thee, or in what have I grieved thee, answer Me. What more ought I to do for thee that I have not done?”

On the morning of Holy Thursday, the Church in her service tries most movingly to combine the celebration of the two great events she wants to commemorate “Who lives in memory of Him,” Our Lord had said on the first Holy Thursday when He gave Himself to us in the Holy Eucharist; and, “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

This cry He uttered only a few hours later. Therefore, as the Solemn Mass begins, the festive strains of the organ accompany the chant of the Introit and Kyrie, and when the priest intones the Gloria, all the bells on the steeple, as well as in the church, ring together once more for the last time because, right afterwards, Holy Church, as the Bride of Christ, goes into mourning as she accompanies the Bridegroom through His hours of unspeakable suffering. The organ remains silent when she reminds the faithful in the Gradual: “Christ became obedient unto us to death, even unto the death of the Cross….”

The Gospel of this day tells of the lesson Jesus gave us in brotherly love and humility as He first washed the feet of His disciples, afterwards saying: “Know you what I have done to you? You call me Master, and Lord; and you say well, for so I am. If then I being your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also.” Therefore, in all cathedrals and abbey churches the bishops and abbots go down on their knees on this day after Holy Mass and wash the feet of the twelve oldest members of their communities.

It is wonderful that in our days more and more parishes are adopting this beautiful custom, which brings home to us better than the most eloquent sermon that we should remember this word of Our Lord “For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also,” which should become increasingly the watchword in our daily life.

This is what the Church wants us to take home with us on that day the attitude of washing one another’s feet; and, because we Catholics have not awakened to this fact, we are rightly to be blamed for all wrong and injustice and wars going on in the world!

As Good Friday has no Mass of its own, but only the “Mass of the Pre-Sanctified,” an extra big host was consecrated by the priest during Mass on Holy Thursday, which is put into a chalice and covered up with a white cloth. This chalice is now incensed immediately after Mass and carried in solemn procession to the “Altar of Repose,” while the “Pange Lingua” is chanted solemnly.

This repository should remind us of the prison in which Our Lord was kept that terrible night from Thursday to Friday. Unlike that first night, where He was all alone after all the Apostles had fled, the faithful now take turns in keeping watch.

There is an old legend circulating in the old country, still fervently believed by the children, that all the bells fly to Rome on Holy Thursday, where the Holy Father blesses them; they return in time for the Gloria on Holy Saturday.

Another custom still alive in the villages throughout Austria is this: As the bell cannot be rung for the Angelus on these three days, the altar boys man their outdoor “Ratschen” (a kind of rattle looking like a toy wheelbarrow, whose one wheel grinds out deafening noise) and race through the streets, stopping at certain previously designated corners, lifting up their “Ratschen” and chanting in chorus:

Wir ratschen, ratschen zum englischen Gruss,

Den jeder katholische Christ beten muss.

(We remind you by this noise of the Angelus,

Of a prayer to be said by every faithful Christian.)

Needless to say, many a little boy’s heart waits eagerly for these three holy days. While he might be too young to understand the great thoughts of Holy Week, he certainly is wide awake to his own responsibility of reminding his fellow-men, “Time to pray!”

My son Werner is living with his family just a little way down the road. When his little boys, Martin and Bernhard, are big enough to shoulder the responsibility, their father will make them such an old-world “Ratschen” and their mother will teach them the rhyme going with it.

In the house also, the bells have to be silent. The bell rung for the meals or for family devotions is replaced by a hand clapper worked by the youngest member of the family, who announces solemnly from door to door that lunch is ready.

Holy Thursday has a menu all its own. For the noon meal we have the traditional spring herb soup (Siebenkraeutersuppe).

Spring Herb Soup

Dandelions

Chervil

Cress

Sorrel

Leaf nettle

The mixture of the above herbs should total about 7 ounces. Whether bought at the market or picked, they should be washed well. Steam in butter with finely chopped onions and parsley. Press through a sieve into a flour soup and let it boil. You may put in one or two egg yolks, one to two tablespoons of cream, or 1/4 cup milk. You also may use sour cream.

Afterwards there is the traditional spinach with fried eggs. In Austria, Holy Thursday is called “Gruendonnerstag” (Green Thursday). Many people think that the word “gruen” stands for the color, but this is not so. It derives from the ancient German word “greinen,” meaning “to cry or moan.” Nevertheless, “Gruendonnerstag” will have its green lunch.

The evening of Holy Thursday finds us in our Sunday best around the dining-room table. Standing, we listen to the Gospel describing the happenings in the Upper Room. On the table is a bowl with “bitter herbs” (parsley, chives, and celery greens), another bowl with a sauce the Orthodox Jews use when celebrating their Pasch, and plates with unleavened bread (matzos can be obtained from any Jewish delicatessen store, but can also be made at home).

Unleavened Bread

1-1/2 cups flour              1 egg, slightly beaten

1/4 tsp. salt                 1/2 cup butter

1/3 cup warm water

Mix salt, flour, and egg (and butter). Add the water, mix dough quickly with a knife, then knead on board, stretching it up and down to make it elastic until it leaves the board clean. Toss on a small, well-floured board. Cover with a hot bowl and keep warm 1/2 hour or longer. Then cut into squares of desired size and bake in 350-degree oven until done.

Then comes the feast-day meal of a yearling lamb roasted, eaten with these bitter herbs and the traditional sauce. Each time we dip the herbs in the sauce, we remember Our Lord answering sadly the question of the Apostles as to who was the traitor: “He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, he shall betray me.”

Afterwards the table is cleared and in front of Father Wasner’s place is put a tray filled with wine glasses and a silver plate with unleavened bread. While breaking up portions of bread, he blesses the bread and wine individually and hands it to each one around the table and we drink and eat, remembering Our Lord, Who must have celebrated such a “love feast” many times with His Apostles.

This was the custom in His days; just as we in our time will give a party on the occasion of the departure of a member of the family or a good friend, the people in the time of Christ used to clear the table after a good meal and bring some special wine and bread, and in the “breaking of the bread” they would signify their love for the departing one.

The first Christians took over this custom, and after having celebrated the Eucharist together, they would assemble in a home for an “agape,” the Greek word for “love feast.” To share bread and wine together in this fashion therefore, was not in itself startling to the Apostles, but the occasion was memorable on this first Holy Thursday because it was Our Lord’s own great farewell.

As we thus celebrate the breaking of the bread around our table at home, we keep thinking of the words He had said immediately before: “A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you….”

Every Holy Thursday night spent like this knits a family closer together, “careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, one body and one Spirit…one Lord, one faith…” as St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians.

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“Who shall blame a child whose soul turns eagerly to the noise and distraction of worldliness, if his parents have failed to show him that love and peace and beauty are found only in God?” – Mary Reed Newland, http://amzn.to/2mTKR3w (afflink)

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Drawing is tomorrow…Tuesday!

Don’t forget to sign up for the Easter Giveaway by following this link!!

countryplaidheartsline2What happened to Veronica’s veil was simply an outward expression of what happened in Veronica’s soul. Are we “Veronica’s” in our everyday life? Do we seek to serve, to encourage, to listen….?

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Coloring pages for Holy Week….

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In With God in Russia, Ciszek reflects on his daily life as a prisoner, the labor he endured while working in the mines and on construction gangs, his unwavering faith in God, and his firm devotion to his vows and vocation. Enduring brutal conditions, Ciszek risked his life to offer spiritual guidance to fellow prisoners who could easily have exposed him for their own gains. He chronicles these experiences with grace, humility, and candor, from his secret work leading mass and hearing confessions within the prison grounds, to his participation in a major gulag uprising, to his own “resurrection”—his eventual release in a prisoner exchange in October 1963 which astonished all who had feared he was dead.

Powerful and inspirational, With God in Russia captures the heroic patience, endurance, and religious conviction of a man whose life embodied the Christian ideals that sustained him…..

Captured by a Russian army during World War II and convicted of being a “Vatican spy,” Jesuit Father Walter J. Ciszek spent 23 agonizing years in Soviet prisons and the labor camps of Siberia. Only through an utter reliance on God’s will did he manage to endure the extreme hardship. He tells of the courage he found in prayer–a courage that eased the loneliness, the pain, the frustration, the anguish, the fears, the despair. For, as Ciszek relates, the solace of spiritual contemplation gave him an inner serenity upon which he was able to draw amidst the “arrogance of evil” that surrounded him. Ciszek learns to accept the inhuman work in the infamous Siberian salt mines as a labor pleasing to God. And through that experience, he was able to turn the adverse forces of circumstance into a source of positive value and a means of drawing closer to the compassionate and never-forsaking Divine Spirit.

He Leadeth Me is a book to inspire all Christians to greater faith and trust in God–even in their darkest hour. As the author asks, “What can ultimately trouble the soul that accepts every moment of every day as a gift from the hands of God and strives always to do his will?”
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Palm Sunday ~ Fr. Francis Weiser

09 Saturday Apr 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in FF Tidbits, Lent, Seasons, Feast Days, etc.

≈ 1 Comment

You may also like to read this post: Palm Sunday by Maria von Trapp

Article by Francis Weiser, The Easter Book

PALM SUNDAY LITURGY

As soon as the Church obtained her freedom in the fourth century, the faithful in Jerusalem re-enacted the solemn Palm Sunday entry of Christ into their city on the Sunday before Easter, holding a procession in which they carried branches and sang the “Hosanna” ( Matthew 21, 1-11).

In the early Latin Church, people attending Mass on this Sunday would hold aloft twigs of olives, which were not, however, blessed in those days.

The rite of the solemn blessing of “palms” seems to have originated in the Frankish kingdom. The earliest mention of these ceremonies is found in the Sacramentary of the Abbey of Bobbio in northern Italy (at the beginning of the eighth century). The rite was soon accepted in Rome and incorporated into the liturgy.

A Mass was celebrated in some church outside the walls of Rome, and there the palms were blessed. Then a solemn procession moved into the city to the basilica of the Lateran or to St. Peter’s, where the pope sang a second Mass.

The first Mass, however, was soon discontinued, and in its place only the ceremony of blessing was performed.

Everywhere in medieval times, following the Roman custom, a procession composed of the clergy and laity carrying palms moved from a chapel or shrine outside the town, where the palms were blessed, to the cathedral or main church.

Our Lord was represented in the procession, either by the Blessed Sacrament or by a crucifix, adorned with flowers, carried by the celebrant of the Mass.

Later, in the Middle Ages, a quaint custom arose of drawing a wooden statue of Christ sitting on a donkey (the whole image on wheels) in the center of the procession. These statues  Palm Donkey; Palmesel) are still seen in museums of many European cities.

As the procession approached the city gate, a boys’ choir stationed high above the doorway of the church would greet the Lord with the Latin song Gloria, laus et honor. This hymn, which is still used today in the liturgy of Palm Sunday, was written by the Benedictine Theodulph, Bishop of Orleans.

Glory, praise and honor, O Christ, our Savior-King,

To thee in glad Hosannas Inspired children sing.

After this song, there followed a dramatic salutation before the Blessed Sacrament or the image of Christ. Both clergy and laity knelt and bowed in prayer, arising to spread cloths and carpets on the ground, throwing flowers and branches in the path of the procession.

The bells of the churches pealed, and the crowds sang the “Hosanna” as the colorful procession entered the cathedral for the solemn Mass.

In medieval times this dramatic celebration was restricted more and more to a procession around the church. The crucifix in the churchyard was festively decorated with flowers. There the procession came to a halt.

While the clergy sang the hymns and antiphons, the congregation dispersed among the tombs, each family kneeling at the grave of relatives. The celebrant sprinkled holy water over the graveyard, the procession formed again and entered the church.

In France and England the custom of decorating graves and visiting the cemeteries on Palm Sunday is still retained.

Today the blessing of palms and the procession are usually performed within the churches. The new liturgical arrangements made by Pope Pius XII have restored the original solemnity of the procession, and the members of the congregation now take active part again in the sacred ceremonies of Palm Sunday.

The blessing of palms, however, is now very short and simple compared to the former elaborate ritual.

NAMES

The various names for the Sunday before Easter come from the plants used—palms (Palm Sunday) or branches in general (Branch Sunday, Domingo de Ramos, Dimanche des Rameaux).

In most countries of Europe real palms are unobtainable, so in their place people use many other plants: olive branches (in Italy), box, yew, spruce, willows, and pussy willows.

In fact, some plants have come to be called “palms” because of this usage, such as the yew in Ireland and the willow in England (palm willow) and in Germany (Palmkatzchen).

From the use of willow branches Palm Sunday was called “Willow Sunday” in parts of England and Poland, and in Lithuania Verbu Sekmadienis (Willow Twig Sunday).

The Greek Church uses the names “Sunday of the Palm-carrying” and “Hosanna Sunday.”

Centuries ago it was customary to bless not only branches but also various flowers of the season (the flowers are still mentioned in the first antiphon of the procession). Hence the name “Flower Sunday,” which the day bore in many countries—”Flowering Sun-day” or “Blossom Sunday” in England, Blumensonntag in Germany, Pdsques Fleuris in France, Pascua Florida in Spain, Virdgvasdrnap in Hungary, Cvetna among the Slavic nations, Zaghkasart in Armenia.”

The term Pascua Florida, which in Spain originally meant just Palm Sunday, was later also applied to the whole festive season of Easter Week. Thus the State of Florida received its name when, on March 27, 1513 (Easter Sunday), Ponce de Leon first sighted the land and named it in honor of the great feast.

In the new liturgical order of Holy Week, Palm Sunday bears the official title “Second Sunday of the Passion, or Palm Sunday.” Thus the Church enhances the significance of this Sunday as a memorial of Christ’s sufferings, which are commemorated by the reading of the Passion.

The word Passion in this connection means those passages of the Gospels which report the events of Christ’s suffering and death. The Passions of all four Gospels are read or chanted in all Catholic churches during the liturgical services on certain days of Holy Week and observed in varying degrees in many Protestant churches.

On Palm Sunday, the Passion of Saint Matthew (26, 36-27, 54) is solemnly sung during Mass, in place of the usual Gospel. The ancient liturgical rules prescribe that three clergymen of deacon’s rank, vested in alb and stole, chant the sacred text.

They are to alternate in contrasting voices. One (tenor) represents the Evangelist narrator; the second (high tenor) chants the voices of individuals and crowds; the third (bass) sings only the words of Christ.

The melodies prescribed for the liturgical chanting of the Passion are among the most impressive examples of Gregorian chant, and for many centuries remained the only Passion music, until the nonliturgical works on the Passion were written.

THE PALMS

In central Europe, large clusters of plants, interwoven with flowers and adorned with ribbons, are fastened to the top of a wooden stick. All sizes of such palm bouquets may be seen, from the small children’s bush to rods of ten feet and more.

The regular “palm,” however, consists in most European countries of pussy willows bearing their catkin blossoms.

In the Latin countries and in the United States, palm leaves are often shaped and woven into little crosses and other symbolic designs. This custom was originated by a suggestion in the ceremonial book for bishops that “little crosses of palm” be attached to the boughs wherever true palms are not available in sufficient quantity.

In the spirit of this blessing, the faithful reverently keep the palms in their homes throughout the year, usually attached to a crucifix or holy picture, or fastened on the wall.

In South America they put the large palm bouquets behind the door. In Italy people offer blessed palms as a token of reconciliation and peace to those with whom they have quarreled or lived on unfriendly terms.

The Ukrainians and Poles strike each other gently with the pussy-willow palms on Palm Sunday; this custom, called Boze Rany (God’s Wounds) they interpret as an imitation of the scourging of our Lord.

In Austria, Bavaria, and in the Slavic countries, farmers, accompanied by their families, walk through their fields and buildings on the afternoon of Palm Sunday. Praying and singing their ancient hymns, they place a sprig of blessed palms in each lot of pasture or plowland, in every barn and stable, to avert the punishment of weather tragedies or diseases, and to draw God’s blessing on the year’s harvest and all their possessions.

“Think of the Queen of Heaven and Lady of the World as humble housewife at the same time that she is mother and caretaker of God’s Son. It makes me sigh of tenderness, fills me with goodwill and love for the small and great chores of the home. How fragrant would be the robes that this pure lily washed. How tasty would be the food her delicate hands prepared. From her holy lips, not a whisper, no complaint or claim, only praise and sweet words. A life of worship and continuous obedience, in the freedom of those who choose to love – were she to kneel in prayer or clean the floor.” -Veronica Mendes, A Mulher Forte

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As we travel along the road of married life, our hearts become stripped of the the things that we once thought important. We become more aware of reality and appreciate the deeper things of life….the things that point us in the direction of our final home…

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Jesus Falls the Second Time ~ The Family and the Cross

03 Sunday Apr 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Lent

≈ 1 Comment

This passage is very moving. The utter agony and humiliation that Our Lord endures, never giving in to discouragement, one foot in front of each other as He makes His way to Golgotha!

Let us keep our eyes on the goal…this life is very short! And when things get bleak, as they do sometimes in life, let us contemplate the agonizing steps of Our Lord….

Article from The Family and the Cross by Joseph Breig

The second fall is the fall that brings the temptation of discouragement. But giving up is the one thing above all things that nobody must ever consider doing.

You might almost call a Christian the man who never gives up. You might almost say that Christianity is the religion of not giving up, the faith which emboldens one to go on. Christians can do all kinds of things that they shouldn’t, but the sin from which they flee as from the mouth of hell itself is the sin of throwing in the sponge.

You can’t very well lie down and quit when the One you are following is Christ. He fell, but He got up. And never was any body wearier and more tormented than His.

He had sweat blood in the garden because His soul was so wracked by horror of sin that He was sorrowful even unto death. He had not slept, not even for the hour that His followers slumbered.

He had been set upon by a band armed with clubs and weapons as if they came for a robber. He had been bound and dragged before the High Priest. He had been buffeted by the servant. He had stood his ‘trial before the Sanhedrin.

It was much the same kind of ‘trial which we were to see undergone twenty centuries later, by followers of Christ like Joseph Cardinal Mindszenty and Aloysius Cardinal Stepinac.

There were false witnesses. There was a brushing aside of the rights of the prisoner. There was Christ’s calm attempt to make these men see that they were doing wrong-if He had done evil, then let evidence of the evil be brought; if not, why did they strike Him?

He stood there bound while the interminable farce went on, with everybody against Him, and nobody showing the slightest disposition to be fair. And finally the High Priest cut through the double-talk and got right to the point: ‘I adjure thee by the living God that thou tell us whether thou art the Christ, the Son of God.

Now Christ in all his intolerable exhaustion lifted His head and looked the High Priest in the eye, and answered yes. But in order that there be no possibility of doubt about His meaning, He uttered His solemn warning that He would come later in the clouds of heaven, with great power and majesty, to judge all men-including those who were condemning Him.

This is the Christ Whom we follow; how can a follower of His yield to discouragement; how can anyone despair in whom Christ has come to take up His abode?

Yes, His body was weary unto death, and His soul, sorrowful; but God does not give up, God is all-powerful; God goes on. And the blessed God lives in us by baptism and confirmation and Communion; we are not our own, but Christ’s; we do not live alone, but Christ lives in us. And Christ cannot quit, Christ cannot, will not yield to discouragement.

From the presence of the High Priest He was taken to Pilate while the mob yelled for His blood. Then to Herod, and back to Pilate. And now He was handed over to the torturers to do their fiendish best to break His strength, to break His mind, to break His will.

Hunger and thirst bore down upon Him. Scourging rent His flesh and shed His blood in streams. Thorns pierced His head until it is a wonder that He was not driven mad. And the cross was put upon His back and He was led forth between the howling multitudes.

He fell and fell again, but He got up. And the Christian never stops getting up. The Christian tries and tries and will not stop trying, no matter what burdens weigh upon him, no matter what obstacles are piled in his path, no matter what suffering tears at his vitals.

The Christian in the laboratory fails and fails again, but in the end he discovers the vaccine or the serum that will heal his fellowmen. The Christian in government is back-bitten and slandered; but he goes on for the good of his country.

The Christian father or mother, when the children are ill, is so worn for want of sleep that the head swims; but the Christian parent gets out of bed once more, and another time, and another time, and will not give up.

The Christian caught in the habit of sin struggles loose and is caught again; strives upward and is dragged down; confesses and straightway falls into the same evil; but the one thing that the Christian will not do is to throw up his hands. He will not surrender to the devil or to his human weakness; he will fight on to victory if it takes him every hour of his life and into his deathbed.

If we have faith, said Christ, we can say to this mountain, remove from here, and it will remove. And in the centuries since He walked among us, we have moved so many mountains that we have forgotten nine-tenths of them.

We overthrew the Roman rottenness and persecution; we took the shock of the barbarian invasions and converted the invaders; we turned back the hordes of Mohammedans and the dreadful armies of Atilla the Hun. We broke the power of tyrant after tyrant who tried to chain the Church to his chariot.

We moved the mountain of slavery and overthrew it. We overcame a thousand powerful heresies. We broke the despotic power of men over women, and restored womanhood to the high estate in which it belonged.

The earth, when Christ came into it, was one mountain range after another of disease and despotism and injustice and cruelty and lust. And the mountains fell one after another because Christian men and women, whatever their other faults, refused to do the one thing that means defeat-to give up. Time after time, the Christians, like Christ, were crushed to earth, but always, like Christ, they got up again and struggled on.

They spread through the world enlightening the ignorant, feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, healing the sick, comforting the afflicted, bringing hope to the hopeless; and everywhere their touch, slowly but with indomitable sureness, transformed the world.

How could it be otherwise, when they could say, these Christians, with St. Paul, ‘Now not I live, but Christ lives in me, and with St. Patrick, ‘Christ before me, Christ above me, Christ beside me, Christ in me?

It could not be otherwise, the follower of Christ cannot quit The follower of Christ cannot quit though his soul be sick, though his mind be burdened beyond endurance, though his body be tormented by illness or injury, though his family be scattered, though his business be ruined, though his friends play him false, though the devil himself seems to conspire against him.

Who can give up, who can yield to discouragement or despair, when he sees Christ struggling that last hundred yards, that last yard, in order that He might hang upon the cross for our salvation?

No; the Christian can fall, but the Christian just won’t lie there and surrender. Not the Christian!

The family should wield its influence and give a good example as a unit, particularly within its parish. This will be possible only if all the members have practiced the humbler virtues within the sanctuary of the home. – Fr. Lovasik, The Catholic Family Handbook http://amzn.to/2vDp3jp (afflink)

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Angelo reading…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Laetare Sunday to Palm Sunday – Maria Von Trapp

27 Sunday Mar 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in by Maria Von Trapp, Lent

≈ 2 Comments

In this article, Maria von Trapp brings to us the lovely customs of the mid to latter part of Lent that enrich a Catholic home and make the Faith fully alive to all….

From Around the Year With the Trapp Family, 1955, Sophia Institute Press

In the middle of Lent comes the Sunday Laetare, also called “Rose Sunday.” It is as if Holy Mother Church wants to give us a break by interrupting the solemn chant of mourning, the unaccompanied cadences and the use of the violet vestments, bursting out suddenly in the word “Laetare” (“Rejoice”), allowing her priests to vest in rose-colored garments, to have flowers on the altar and an organ accompaniment for chant.

It is also called “Rose Sunday” because on that day the Pope in Rome blesses a golden rose, an ornament made of gold and precious stones.

The Holy Father prays that the Church may bring forth the fruit of good works and “the perfume of the ointment of the flowers from the root of Jesse.” Then he sends the golden rose to some church or city in the world or to a person who has been of great service to the Church.

Only recently I discovered that this Sunday used to be known as “Mothering Sunday.” This seems to go back to an ancient custom. People in every city would visit the cathedral, or mother church, inspired by a reference in the Epistle read on the Fourth Sunday of Lent: “That Jerusalem which is above, is free, which is our Mother.”

And there grew up, first in England, from where it spread over the continent, the idea that children who did not live at home visited their mothers that day and brought them a gift.

This is, in fact, the precursor of our Mother’s Day. Expecting their visiting children, the mothers are said to have baked a special cake in which they used equal amounts of sugar and flour (two cups of each); from this came the name “Simmel Cake,” derived from the Latin word “similis”, meaning “like” or “same.”

Here is the recipe:

Simmel Cake

3/4 cup butter                1/3 cup shredded lemon &

2 cups sugar                       orange peel

2 cups flour                  1 cup currants

4 eggs                        almond paste

1/2 tsp. salt.

Cream the butter and sugar until smooth. Add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. Sift the flour and salt and add to the first mixture. Dust the peel and currants with a little flour and add to the batter. Line cake tin with waxed paper and pour in half the dough. Add a layer of almond paste and remaining dough. Bake at 300 degrees F. for one hour. Ice with a thin white icing, flavored with a few drops of almond extract.

PASSIONTIDE

Passion Sunday To Holy Saturday

The liturgy follows Christ’s early life step by step. At Christmas season we learn of the birth in the stable, the adoration of the shepherds, the slaughter of the innocents, the flight into Egypt, the adoration of the Magi, and finally the return from Egypt.

Then we meet Our Lord again at His baptism, we accompany Him into the desert on his fast, and we go with Him for the first and second years of His public life, we listen to His parables, we admire His miracles, and we unite our hearts with Him in His life of toil and missionary love for us.

Now four weeks of instruction have passed. We have followed Our Lord in His apostolic ministry and we have reached the moment when, together with Holy Mother Church, we shall contemplate the sorrowful happenings of the last year (during Passion Week) and the last week (during Holy Week) of His life on earth.

We can feel the hatred of Christ’s enemies growing day by day. On Good Friday we shall witness once more the most frightening of all happenings, foretold by the prophets and even by Our Lord Himself, the bloody drama of Calvary.

The purpose of Passiontide is to call to our memory the persecutions of which Our Lord was the object during His public life and especially toward the end. If Septuagesima season acts as a remote preparation for Easter, and Lent the proximate one, the last two weeks of Passiontide are the immediate preparation.

PASSION SUNDAY

When the children were still very small, I said to them on the way to church on a Passion Sunday morning, “Now watch and tell me what is different today in church!” On the way home they said eagerly that the statues and crosses on the altars were covered with violet cloth.

“And why don’t we do it at home, Mother? Shouldn’t we cover the crucifix and statues in the living room and in our bedrooms, too?”

As I had no good reason to offer against it, we bought a few yards of violet cloth the next day and did at home what we had seen in church. In the following years we were ready for the covering ceremony on Saturday before Passion Sunday.

The older ones among the children also had noticed that the prayers at the foot of the altar were much shorter and that there was no “Gloria Patri” after the Introit and the Lavabo.

To let the children watch for such changes in the liturgy makes them much more eager than if they are told everything in advance.

Promptly, when we came in our evening prayers to the “Gloria Patri,” a warning, hissing “Sssh” from the children’s side made us aware that “Gloria Patri,” even if only in family prayers, should be omitted for these holy days of mourning.

I am sure it would be the case in every family, as it was in ours, that the children are the ones who most eagerly want to carry into the home as much of holy liturgy as they possibly can.

For instance, when I answered their question as to how the ashes are obtained which are to be blessed on Ash Wednesday, telling them that the blessed palms from the previous Palm Sunday are burned, they asked a most logical question “But, Mother, if you burn a blessed object, aren’t the ashes already blessed? And if so, shouldn’t we burn all the blessed palms around the place too and sprinkle the ashes over the garden?” And so we did!

After we had established this as a firm family custom, I read that this is done in many places in the Austrian Alps, only there the people strew the ashes not over the garden but over the fields.

PALM SUNDAY

Then comes the week which is called in the missal “Hebdomada Major”–our “Holy Week” in which we accompany Our Lord day by day through the last week of His life, as it is told in the Gospels. First we join Him in His triumphant entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.

As soon as the Church had been freed by the Emperor Constantine in the fourth century, the Christians began to celebrate Palm Sunday in a very dramatic way in Jerusalem.

On the very spot where it had happened, the holy texts were read: “Rejoice, daughter of Sion, behold Thy King will come to thee….”

The crowd spread their garments on the ground, crying aloud, “Blessed be the King Who cometh in the Name of the Lord.” The bishop, mounted on an ass, would ride up to the church on the Mount of Olives, surrounded by a multitude carrying palms and singing hymns and joyful anthems.

From Jerusalem this re-enactment of Christ’s solemn entry into His holy city came to Rome, where the Church soon adopted the same practice. The ceremony, however, was preceded by the solemn reading of the passage from Holy Scriptures relating the flight from Egypt, thus reminding Christ’s people that Christ, the new Moses, in giving them the real manna, is delivering them out of the Egypt of sin and nourishing them in the Eucharist.

Around the ninth century the Church added a new rite. The palms, which the people would hold in their hands when they accompanied their bishop, were solemnly blessed.

We have already witnessed several of these specially solemn blessings, on Epiphany, on Candlemas Day, on Ash Wednesday. Again these texts are so rich in beautiful thoughts for meditation that families should read them together–not only read them, but read them prayerfully.

From Rome the idea to re-enact Our Lord’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem spread all over the Christian world. In medieval times the faithful and the clergy met at a chapel or a wayside shrine outside of town where the palms were blessed, and from there moved in a solemn procession to the cathedral.

Our Lord was represented either by the bishop riding on an ass or, in some places, by the Blessed Sacrament carried by the king or, in other places, by a crucifix carried ahead. In some Austrian villages the figure of Christ sitting on an ass, carved in wood, is carried.

The Christian people had an unerring instinct for the efficacy of those solemnly blessed sacramentals, and just as they carried home Epiphany water and holy candles, they also would bring home with them blessed palms.

In the old country this was quite an elaborate function of “the liturgy in the home.” As we did not have real palms growing in Austria, we used evergreens and pussy willows, which at that time were the first children of spring.

Like all other Austrian families living in the country, we made as many little bouquets as there were divisions on our grounds–one for the vegetable garden, one for the orchard, one for the flower garden, one for each pasture, and one for each field. Each of these little bouquets was fastened to a stick about three feet high.

Besides, there were many single twigs of pussy willow which would be placed behind pictures all around the house. These bouquets were gaily adorned with colored ribbons or dyed shavings from the carpenter shop.

The children carried them into the church and vied with each other, during the blessing, as to who held his stick highest to get most of the holy water sprinkled on it. Then bouquets were carried in a liturgical procession and afterwards were brought home.

In the afternoon the whole family would follow the father throughout the house and all over the grounds and he would place in the middle of every lot one of those sticks carrying the blessed bouquets as a means of protecting his property against the influence of evil spirits, against the damage of hail storms and floods.

While the family would proceed from lot to lot, they would say the rosary. We would alternate between decades of the rosary and the chants of the day, “Pueri Hebraeorum” and “Gloria, laus et honor.” On

Easter Sunday the family would revisit these sticks, bringing along little bottles filled with Easter water (holy water blessed solemnly on Easter morning). These little bottles would be tied to sticks, thus adding another sacramental.

Quote from The Year and Our Children by Mary Reed Newland

“Your joy in your children should outweigh by far any disadvantages they may cause. In them you will find your own happiness.” – Rev. George A. Kelly, http://amzn.to/2neRNrZ The Catholic Family Handbook. (afflink)

 

Coloring pages for your children….



The Mirror of True Womanhood

A very beautiful book, worthy of our attention. In it, you will find many pearls of wisdom for a woman striving to be the heart of the home, an inspiration to all who cross her path. You will be inspired to reconsider the importance of your role of wife and mother! Written by Rev. Bernard O’Reilly in 1894, the treasures found within its pages ring true and remain timeless…

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Are You Critical? – Jesus Falls the First Time

13 Sunday Mar 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Attitude, Lent

≈ 4 Comments

Painting by Adolf Lachman

Article by Jospeh Breig, 1950’s

The Father who has never reached the heights in business, industry or a profession is often the loudest in condemning his son for not making a brilliant record in school. The mother who bores all her friends stiff is not infrequently the first to criticize her daughter for not excelling in social graces.

To put the same thought into other words, you can usually depend on the man who never played football to denounce the mistakes of the team he is watching; and the chap who couldn’t throw a k ball to save his soul will tell everybody in ten thousand words what is wrong with the pitching in the big leagues.

The fellow who isn’t trying – who isn’t even playing – is often the first to criticize the fellow who is. And this small and mean and annoying human practice extends into the field of our relations with our Creator.

The irreligious man – the chap who never goes to church – delights in reciting the faults and sins of religious people. This is a peculiarly simpleminded form of hypocrisy, because it ignores all the complexities of human nature, and the almost endless complications of the struggle for sanctity.

It is also almost a dead giveaway. We cannot ever really judge anybody, but we may be sure that there is something wrong with the spiritual life of the man or woman who is quick to find fault and slow to praise.

Often there is something very wrong with that person’s psychological life, too. He is trying to build himself up by tearing the other fellow down. He may not realize this, but more often than not it is a deep-seated cause of his critical attitude.

Another profound cause is lack of charity – that is, of love of God and fellowmen. Whoever really loves the other chap will be instant in recognizing and mentioning his virtues and achievements, and slow to speak of his sins and failures.

When the other fails, he will either help him to his feet, or look the other way. He will not point a finger and shout at the crowd to draw attention to the fallen figure. If he does, he is not at all like God; and to be like God is our business.

We would all be in a frightful position if we were to be treated by God as most of us treat one another. Christ was asked point-blank by St. Therese, the Little Flower, whether her faults displeased Him. His answer was no. What other answer was possible?

Sin alone displeases God; and faults are not sins. Faults are simply failures due to the fact that we are human beings and not angels. A dish may slip from our fingers and shatter, simply because we are human. Nothing of the sort could happen to an angel.

But men are not angels. It is of paramount importance that we realize this fact, and behave accordingly. I have heard of parents whipping children because they accidentally smashed something around the house. To the Christian soul, that sort of thing is sickening. And why is it sickening? Because the Christian soul is moved by love of God and neighbor; and love does not indulge in ill-tempered injustice.

But what of those who exaggerate and over-punish not merely the mistakes and faults, but the sins  -the real sins – of others? The damage that they can do to the spiritual life is incalculable. They can discourage people who are striving for holiness. They can even cause people to stop trying altogether. In that case, they run the frightful risk of being responsible, in large part, for the loss of an immortal soul.

Let the irreligious and the carping man scoff and scorn all he pleases; the fact remains that most of us achieve holiness not by soaring in a jet-like flight, but by falling and rising, falling and rising, stumbling and getting up and going on.

Only a foolish person is shocked by the sins of others. The wise man knows that wounded human nature will fall. He expects it to fall. He is never surprised by its falls. He is not specially concerned over its falls; what he cares about, chiefly, is spurring others to keep on trying.

Christ carrying the cross to Calvary is a picture of the ordinary spiritual life. Spiritually, Christ could not fall; being God as well as man, He could not be like us in that. But in all else He was like us.

His body, like ours, could grow weary, could collapse under a burden. But when Christ fell under His cross, He did not stay down; He struggled to His feet and went on.

The true Christian is like that in his spiritual progress. He does not run to the heights; he staggers, he weaves, he falls, he rises, he struggles, he fails, but he never gives up. Those who stand scoffing at him are like those who stood hooting at Christ walking the way of the cross.

But no decent man wants to be like the hooters. The decent man wants to be like Simon of Cyrene; he wants to lift part of the burden, and encourage the burdened one to go on, and to go on going on until at last he achieves success.

Where else than in the family do we have a better right to demand that everybody be like Simon of Cyrene? If a husband and wife cannot be helpful to each other, and to their children, to whom can they be of service?

If they carp and nag, if they scoff and find fault, if they exaggerate every fault and sin to the proportions of final failure, will not they destroy the spiritual life in that home, and with it the happiness that ought to be present?

It is the duty of parents to be Simons of Cyrene. Simon did not ask whether Christ was guilty or innocent. That was not his concern. His task was to help somebody who needed help.

And it is likewise the task of fathers and mothers to take up the burdens of their children, to lead the way forward and upward, and always to encourage and never to discourage. Children will sometimes be guilty; but guilty or innocent, they have the right to be able to turn with confidence to their parents.

This confidence is something that parents must earn. They must earn it day in and day out, beginning with the moment when their little ones are taking their first faltering steps.

Children are entitled to know from long experience that no matter how far they may fall, in no matter what depths they may become mired, they can be sure that when they turn to their parents, they will be received with understanding and sympathy, and will be helped.

The parent who thus rears his children will reap a hundred rewards, heaped up, pressed down and running over, because his children will love him, will respect him, and will almost certainly, immediately or later, try to measure up to the measure of his love for them.

But the youngster who is nagged and accused and berated, whose every fault and failure is magnified from a mole hill into a mountain-or from a mountain into a mountain range-can hardly be expected to rise up and call his parents blessed. In fact, he can hardly be expected to rise at all, once he has fallen, because he has received little but hooting from those who ought to have cheered him on.

As a family, try to lead a hidden life with Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. Through holy Mass, offer yourselves through Mary’s hands as a sacrifice with Jesus; at Holy Communion, you will be changed into Jesus by divine grace so that you may live His life; by your visits to the tabernacle, you will enjoy His friendship in the midst of the many problems of life. -Photo of my daughter and son-in-law at St. Joseph’s Church, Topeka, KS Quote by Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik. The Catholic Family Handbook http://amzn.to/2oUJDFv (afflink)

 

 

Coloring pages for your children….




Penal Rosaries! (A good sacramental to have for an uncertain future)

Penal rosaries and crucifixes have a wonderful story behind them. They were used during the times when religious objects were forbidden and it was illegal to be Catholic. Being caught with a rosary could mean imprisonment or worse. A penal rosary is a single decade with the crucifix on one end and, oftentimes, a ring on the other. When praying the penal rosary you would start with the ring on your thumb and the beads and crucifix of the rosary in your sleeve, as you moved on to the next decade you moved the ring to your next finger and so on and so forth. This allowed people to pray the rosary without the fear of being detected. Available here.




 We must do everything we can, to not only return to modesty and purity in dress and behavior, but also to help others return to it through good example and knowledge. This is a guide, designed for girls who would like to please Our Lord more and make reparation for those who do not honor Him.

Sa
This is designed for the young child through kindergarten age to learn a little of their Faith through the alphabet. Its an ABC book that includes Catholic holy images to learn the alphabet, along with the short and long sound for the five vowels.

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New Podcast! Jesus is Condemned to Death ~ The Family and the Cross

08 Tuesday Mar 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Lent, Podcasts - Finer Femininity, Prayers

≈ 1 Comment

Now if you will face honestly the facts about your own destiny, then almost automatically you will rear your children to face honestly and bravely the facts about theirs. And if you do that, you will have prepared your children properly for life – for this life and life everlasting…. An article from The Family and the Cross by Joseph Breig, 1959

St. Francis de Sales on the company we keep: “Be very careful, therefore, dear reader, not to have any evil love, because you will in turn quickly become evil yourself.
Friendship is the most dangerous of all love. Why? Because other loves can exist without communication, exchange, closeness. But friendship is completely founded upon communication and exchange and cannot exist in practice without sharing in the qualities and defects of the friend loved.”

by Cardinal Mercier:

I am going to show you a secret to holiness and happiness.
For five minutes every day let your imagination be quiet, close your eyes to everything they see, and shut your ears to of all the world’s noise so that you can withdraw into the sanctuary of your baptized soul, the temple of the Holy Ghost.

And speak to that Holy Spirit and say to Him:

“Holy Spirit, soul of my soul, I adore Thee.
Enlighten me, guide me,
strengthen and comfort me.
Tell me what I ought to do and order me to do it.
I promise to submit to anything that Thou requirest from me,
and to accept everything that Thou allowest to happen to me.
Just show me what Thy will is.”

If you do this your life will be quiet and peaceful,
and comfort will abound even in the middle of troubles.
For grace will be given to match any stress together with strength to bear it, grace that will take you to the gates of Paradise, full of merit. Such submission to the Holy Spirit is the secret of holiness.

This is a unique book of Catholic devotions for young children. There is nothing routine and formal about these stories. They are interesting, full of warmth and dipped right out of life. These anecdotes will help children know about God, as each one unfolds a truth about the saints, the Church, the virtues, etc. These are short faith-filled stories, with a few questions and a prayer following each one, enabling the moral of each story to sink into the minds of your little ones. The stories are only a page long so tired mothers, who still want to give that “tucking in” time a special touch, or pause a brief moment during their busy day to gather her children around her, can feel good about bringing the realities of our faith to the minds of her children in a childlike, (though not childish), way. There is a small poem and a picture at the end of each story. Your children will be straining their necks to see the sweet pictures! Through these small stories, parents will sow seeds of our Holy Catholic Faith that will enrich their families all the years to come!

This revised 1922 classic offers gentle guidance for preteen and teenage girls on how to become a godly woman. Full of charm and sentiment, it will help mother and daughter establish a comfortable rapport for discussions about building character, friendships, obedience, high ideals, a cheerful spirit, modest dress, a pure heart, and a consecrated life.

This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support.

Lenten Way of the Cross – An Activity for Lent… With Printables!

03 Thursday Mar 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Lent, Seasons, Seasons, Feast Days, etc.

≈ 1 Comment

I’m a little late posting this….a lovely Lenten Activity!

I am very grateful to Mary Ann Scheeler for sharing with us this wonderful activity for our children that she has created! Thank you, Mary!

Remember The Spiritual Christmas Crib for Advent? Well, this is the Lenten version!

From Mary:

The first three on the list have to be drawn on a large sheet of paper, similar to the crib and its roof, namely the mountain, the paths and pitfalls.  Its not meant to be the Stations of the Cross, but a Spiritual Lenten Way of the Cross for children.  The prayers are adapted from the Advent Spiritual Crib, and from a book called Lent for Children – A Thought a Day, and some I made.
—–

So…get yourself a poster board….or more than one, depending on the size you are going to make the Way of the Cross. Some sharpie markers and crayons can be helpful…..and then draw the part that is applicable to the day as each day of Lent passes! OR use the clipart that Mary has provided here:

Spiritual Lenten Children 40 Day Journey Printables

Get your children to color them on the corresponding day, and voila! you can add them to your Lenten scene!

You can also print out (or write out) the special prayer for the day and put the assigned one up so everyone can say it throughout the day.

This activity is a wonderful opportunity to make Lent more meaningful for all!

You can print out the instructions here:

Spiritual Lenten Way of the Cross

A note from Mary Ann as you begin the activity:

This would be our first year, and everyone will draw/create theirs a little differently. The printables have almost three of everything, because I have three older kids who will be getting to have fun with it. If you have one child, you will only need one of everything and if you have more children you might need to print out more.

Some of the images like Jesus, or Mary, or Veronica, etc there is only one, because they are extra special.

The layout is something of the large mountain of Calvary, then there will be the long path, depending on how you draw it, could be steep, could be winding, or a little of both. The rest of the days are draw along the path wherever you want them.

You might start low and each day ascend a little higher, or you might just draw them wherever you think they fit. Some things like the crosses will probably be at the top. The very last day, the tomb, is separate, if you do the printables, and would be off to the side of mount Calvary. Hope this helps. 🙂

Here is the devotion:

1 – Ash Weds.                                    The Mountain of Calvary

2 – Thurs. after Ash Weds.               Path

3 – Fri. after Ash Weds.                   Pitfalls

4 – Sat. after Ash Weds.                  Bugs

 

1st Week of Lent:

5 – Mon.              Dust and Ashes

6 – Tues.              Bushes

7 – Weds.             Boulders

8 – Thurs.            Trees

9 – Fri.                 Pharisees/Crowd

10 – Sat.              Water and Basin

 

2nd Week of Lent:

11 – Mon.          3 Crosses

12 – Tues.         Skull and Bones

13 – Weds.        Dark Clouds

14 – Thurs.        Incense (myrrh)

15 – Fri.           Simon of Cyrene

16 – Sat.           Goats

 

3rd Week of Lent:

17 – Mon.            St. Veronica and Veil

18 – Tues.            Lambs

19 – Weds.           Palms

20 – Thurs.            Donkey

21 – Fri.               Purple Robe

22 – Sat.               Weeping Women of Jerusalem

 

4th Week of Lent:

23 – Mon.            Rope

24 – Tues.            Pillar

25 – Weds.           Scourges

26 – Thurs.             Thorns

27 – Fri.               Board with Inscription (INRI)

28 – Sat.               People passing by

 

5th Week of Lent:

29 – Mon.  Sponge of Vinegar

30 – Tues.            Nails

31 – Weds.           Lance

32 – Thurs.           Soldiers

33 – Fri.               Sorrowful Mother

34 – Sat.               Mary Magdalene

 

6th Week of Lent:

35 – Mon.            St. John

36 – Tues.           Two Thieves

37 – Weds.          Silver Coins

38 – Thurs.           Bread and Wine

39 – Fri.              Jesus 

40 – Sat.              Tomb

Beginning of Lent:

1 – Ash Weds.          

The Mount of Calvary

Our Dear Lord spends 40 days in the wilderness and even though the mountain is steep, we prepare our souls spiritually and bravely start on the path with Him.

  Offer Him your sinful heart as the mountain you will overcome this Lent. Now is the time my love to show. O Jesus dear, thy grace bestow.

2 – Thurs. after Ash Weds.      

Path

What path have I walked during my life?  If I haven’t gone in the right direction,  I will now follow you, dear Jesus, wherever You will go. Help me walk on the path to my true vocation.

          May I so live that I will be ready, dear Lord, when you call for me.

3 – Fri. after Ash Weds.

Pitfalls

Carefully walk around the pitfalls of temptation.  I will be generous with my brothers and sisters and avoid yelling or fighting over a silly excuse or toy.

          Jesus, help me to keep temptations out of my heart.

4 – Sat. after Ash Weds.

Bugs

Watch out for the pesky bugs of distraction as we start the climb up the mountain.  I will pay attention during prayers and during spiritual reading, but most especially at the Holy Mass.

Begone! I’ll say, when Satan bids me be lazy or sin. And since I fight for Heaven I shall win!

First Week of Lent:

5 – Mon.    Dust and Ashes

I will shake off the dust of perceived injury and not listen to foolish feelings of pride and envy when I realize my life is so short, but Heaven is forever.

          Angels, round me everywhere, please keep me in your loving care!

6 – Tues.     Bushes

See the bushes growing as weeds?   I will keep the garden of my heart clean by performing little acts of mortification,  by bearing the cold or sitting and standing erect.

          Dear Jesus, Who suffered so much for me, let me suffer for love of You.

7 – Weds.      Boulders

When anger seizes my heart like giant boulders, I will remember how meek my Jesus was when He suffered for me.  I will avoid harsh and mean words and be kind and gentle to all.

          Jesus, help me to be meek and humble like You.

8 – Thurs.      Trees

The trees stand so tall and yet one immediately obeyed and bowed its bark to become a humble cross for the King of Kings.  I will give up my own will and obey my superiors cheerfully and promptly.

Jesus, I wish to be useful to you;  like a steadfast tree, though small, but oh so true!

9 – Fri.       Pharisees/Crowd

I will diligently remove from my heart every inordinate desire to be praised.  I will help those in distress even if it means I will be laughed at or scorned; I will not join the mocking crowd.

          Jesus, I was made for Thee; never let us parted be!

10 – Sat.   Water and Basin

Have I gone to confession lately or do I pretend I am good?  Dear Jesus, I will wash my sins in the water of my tears and happily do the penance the priest gives me.

          Jesus, teach me to know and correct my greatest sins.

2nd Week of Lent

11 – Mon.     3 Crosses

I will renew my Lenten offerings to Our Lord and accept the small crosses He sends me through the day to comfort Him in His sorrowful Passion.

“Thy Will be Done,” I’ll quickly say, as soon as sorrow comes my way!

12 – Tues.         Skull and Bones

One day we shall die, shall I be remembered for good deeds or bad?   While I still have time, I will cheerfully obey the inspirations of my Guardian Angel and the guidance of my parents.

Jesus, immensely good to me, I want to live and die for Thee!

13 – Weds.        Dark Clouds

When bad health and sickness makes me feel so ill and the days are dark and long, I will cling to Our Lady and ask her to bring my misery to Our Lord as a gift to ease the coldness of men’s hearts.

“Remember Me,” dear Jesus. I hope to be in Paradise some day with You.

14 – Thurs.       Incense (myrrh)

Incense is a prayer before Your altar, Oh Lord, on the Cross. I will offer extra prayers, as incense, through the day for all those who are not in the state of grace but will die today.

May the souls of the faithful departed rest in peace. Amen.

15 – Fri.   Simon of Cyrene

I offer my strength to Your service as Simon of Cyrene; help me to use it in the service of others, especially those closest to me.

Jesus accept my service of love; I offer it for those who do not love You.

16 – Sat.  Goats

Am I like the goats that kick and butt as I do not finish tasks, but whine and complain and waste my time?  I will do the things I do not like without complaining, especially my homework or my chores, and make better use of my time.

Jesus, I need Thy holy grace; to help me every day and place.

3rd Week of Lent:

17 – Mon.       St Veronica and Veil

Does my mother need help with the baby or does my sister need help with her homework or does my brother need help to put on his shoes? May I see in my family Your image, Dear Lord, and help them in whatever they need.

As older I grow, my heart must remain; Childlike and humble, if Heaven I’ll gain.

18 – Tues.         Lambs

I will strive to be like a lamb, meek and patient. I will not murmur or talk behind my parents’ back when they give me a command.

Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like Yours.

19 – Weds.       Palms

I will be a peacemaker in my home and not start or join petty fights with my brothers and sisters.

O Jesus, give me for my part, a tender and forgiving heart!

20 – Thurs.       Donkey

Do I stubbornly cling to a fault and try to excuse it? I will be grateful to God for the love He has shown me by dying for me and remember that my faults put Him on that cross.

Jesus, I need Thy grace all days, to free me from all my evil ways.

21 – Fri.        Purple Robe

Many times, my things are scattered here and there and not put away, even when my parents asked me to do so.  I will keep better care of my things, like my clothes, books or toys, and make sure to put them away when they should be.  I will thank God for what I have and remember others may not have the nice things I do and not take it for granted.

Oh Jesus, I wish my life could be, a hymn of gratitude to thee!

22 – Sat.       Weeping Women of Jerusalem

Today I will pray for all the children who have no parents to love them, and especially those children who died before they were born.

Little Innocents, pray to Jesus for me and my country!

4th Week of Lent:

23 – Mon.          Rope

Are my companions  good friends, who help me to love God more and obey His laws?  Or do they tell me I should do things that are not good, like a little rope pulling me away from the Ten Commandments?  I will take care to listen to good companions and be a good friend to them.

Jesus, teach me to love you above all things!

24 – Tues.         Pillar

I will study my Catechism well so that I can explain my Faith to my brothers and sisters and to anyone who might ask about Our Lord and His Church.

O Thou art mine and I am Thine; Thy cross is both my proof and sign.

25 – Weds.        Scourges

Do I forgive quickly and readily, or do I hold a grudge for a long time?  I will learn from Jesus to forget and forgive all who hurt and injured me.

O Jesus, give me true contrition; This, today, is my one petition!

26 – Thurs.      Thorns

Our Dear Lord is hurt daily by impure actions that drive the thorns deeper into His Head.  I can practice modesty in my words, deeds, dress and actions to amend for my past bad actions and those of the world.

Dear Jesus, close my heart to all that hurts You!

27 – Fri.      Board with Inscription (INRI)

When I hear Our Lord’s Holy name used in vain, do I join in or keep silent?  If I hear His name used badly, I will immediately say a silent prayer in reparation for the insult after all He has done for me.

Dearest Mary, help me praise His name, forever and ever. Amen!

28 – Sat.       People Passing By

So many people ignore Our Lord and reject His laws.  Do I disregard Him, too, and disobey my parents, whom He put in charge of me?  When my father or mother ask me to help, I will immediately do as they ask for love of God.

Jesus, obedient all Your life through, Oh, give me the grace to grow like You!

5th Week of Lent:

29 – Mon.         Sponge of Vinegar

Lots of children have nothing to eat today, but I often waste my food or refuse to eat what my mother has prepared for me.  At meal time, I will gratefully eat whatever is given me and even if it isn’t my favorite,  I will offer it for those who have nothing.

O Jesus, loving from the first, for Thee my longing soul doth thirst!

30 – Tues.         Nails

In my thoughts have I been jealous of another or thought something bad about them?  I will not give into rash judgments about my family or my friends.  Instead, I will think kindly of them and be happy for their good fortune.

My Jesus, I want to please You in all I do today.

31 – Weds.        Lance

I will not pierce Our Lord with ingratitude; instead I will thank Him for all the gifts He has given me in my home and family and my Faith.

Oh, I wish my life to be a thanksgiving song, Singing to Jesus the whole day long!

32 – Thurs.      Soldiers

I will be a soldier of Christ and learn from Him to silently and patiently bear refusals and disappointments.

Little self-denials win God’s grace and make my soul the leader of the race.

33 – Fri.      Sorrowful Mother

It is the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows and we see Our Mother sharing the torments of Jesus, embracing Him, kissing Him, and adoring Him.  Let us hasten to her with pure and loving hearts and under her lovely blue mantle let us hide for a moment of prayer.

O Mother of Sorrows, I grieve with thee, and beg forever thy child to be!

34 – Sat.      Mary Magdalene

She was forgiven all her sins by Our Lord because she loved Him so much! I shall be like Mary Magdalene and offer my love to Jesus throughout the day.

Jesus you’ve done so much for me, I’m in your debt eternally.

6th Week of Lent:

35 – Mon.        St. John

St. John comforted Our Lady in her great distress.  Do I comfort others when they are sad or hurting?  If I see someone hurting or sad, I will try to help them and comfort them when they are grieving.

O Jesus, make me very kind, so as to always fill my heart and mind!

36 – Tues.         Two Thieves

Every day I choose between two destinies: heaven or hell.  Are my habits good habits that help me choose Heaven? I will cultivate habits of being prompt and ready to go in the morning, doing my homework well, helping around the house and listening to my parents right away.

Oh, Jesus make me quick to see, that service which is dear to Thee!

37 – Weds.        Silver Coins

For 30 pieces of silver Judas betrayed Jesus.  Do I betray Jesus when I do not tell the truth or cause my brother or sister to get in trouble? I will not believe the devil any longer when he tempts me to lie because he will not bring me happiness.

Jesus, give me a loyal heart, where sin will not even have a small part.

38 – Thurs.       Bread and Wine

I will offer Our Lord acts and prayers of perfect love for these precious anniversaries: The First Mass and for giving Himself in Holy Communion.  Jesus, I thank you with all my heart for this gift of the Blessed Sacrament.

You knew I’d hunger, Lord, for Thee, So you found a way my Food to be.

39 – Fri.       Jesus      

What can I do today but kneel and watch You and to love You for giving Your very life for me – the price You paid to open heaven for me! I will kiss Your Sacred Feet, nailed to the Crucifix, as a sign that I will cling to You, and hold You, and never let You go.

I love You, Jesus, on that Tree; where you lovingly died for me.

40 – Sat.       Tomb

We prepare with Our Lady for the happy moment when Our Lord shall return by going to confession.  We have cast the “old man” of sin out and the “new man” will rise with Christ. We ask our angel to guard our soul as they guarded the tomb of Our Lord and we get ready to greet Him tomorrow.

Dear Jesus and Mary, I love you so!  Oh be there to greet me when home, one day, I will go!

A couple of pictures of the Lenten Way of the Cross in progress from last year:

img_2222img_2263

The Devil exults most when he can steal a man’s joy of spirit from him. He carries a powder with him to throw into any smallest possible chinks of our conscience, to soil the spotlessness of our mind and the purity of our life. But when spiritual joy fills our hearts, the Serpent pours out his deadly poison in vain. – St. Francis of Assisi

 

Thank you, Caroline! God bless you!

SOO gorgeous in person!! 😍 Love the feel of it in my hand… It helped so much during Advent to keep track with the children. As always, she is so generously kind, & I was surprised how quickly it arrived on time, since I ordered it late… Thank you for your sweet understanding!
✨❤️

Always a delight to come back to!! Beautifully made ❤️❤️ Another add on to my little one’s collection 😉

Lenten Way of the Cross Family Activity available here.

Lenten Bundle available here.

Lenten Journal Available here.

Printable for The Catholic Mother’s Traditional Lenten Journal! Get started right away! Available here.



NEW!

Graceful loveliness….Wear your devotion! Each link is handmade on these religious necklaces. Get them blessed and you can wear them as sacramentals. A special gift for someone. Available here.

Available here.

St. Bridget of Sweden

St. Rita

St. Anne

 

Author Mary Reed Newland here draws on her own experiences as the mother of seven to show how the classic Christian principles of sanctity can be translated into terms easily applied to children even to the very young.

Because it’s rooted in experience, not in theory, nothing that Mrs. Newland suggests is impossible or extraordinary. In fact, as you reflect on your experiences with your own children, you’ll quickly agree that hers is an excellent commonsense approach to raising good Catholic children.

Fr. Lawrence Lovasik, the renowned author of The Hidden Power of Kindness, gives faithful Catholics all the essential ingredients of a stable and loving Catholic marriage and family — ingredients that are in danger of being lost in our turbulent age.

Using Scripture and Church teachings in an easy-to-follow, step-by-step format, Fr. Lovasik helps you understand the proper role of the Catholic father and mother and the blessings of family. He shows you how you can secure happiness in marriage, develop the virtues necessary for a successful marriage, raise children in a truly Catholic way, and much more.

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Ash Wednesday – Divine Intimacy

02 Wednesday Mar 2022

Posted by Leanevdp in Lent, Seasons, Seasons, Feast Days, etc.

≈ 1 Comment

Santa Teresa de Jesús, by Adolfo Lozano Sidro

From the wonderful Meditation book, Divine Intimacy by Father Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen, O.C.D.

MEDITATION

“Dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return” (Genesis 3:19).

These words, spoken for the first time by God to Adam after he had committed sin, are repeated today by the Church to every Christian, in order to remind him of two fundamental truths–his nothingness and the reality of death.

Dust, the ashes which the priest puts on our foreheads today, has no substance; the lightest breath will disperse it. It is a good representation of man’s nothingness: “O Lord, my substance is as nothing before Thee” (Psalm 38:6), exclaims the Psalmist.

Our pride, our arrogance, needs to grasp this truth, to realize that everything in us is nothing. Drawn from nothing by the creative power of God, by His infinite love which willed to communicate His being and His life to us, we cannot–because of sin–be reunited with Him for eternity without passing through the dark reality of death.

The consequence and punishment of sin, death is, in itself, bitter and painful; but Jesus, who wanted to be like to us in all things, in submitting to death has given all Christians the strength to accept it out of love.

Nevertheless, death exists, and we should reflect on it, not in order to distress ourselves, but to arouse ourselves to do good. “In all thy works, remember thy last end, and thou shalt never sin” (Sirach 7:40).

The thought of death places before our eyes the vanity of earthly things, the brevity of life–“All things are passing; God alone remains”–and therefore it urges us to detach ourselves from everything, to scorn every earthly satisfaction, and to seek God alone. The thought of death makes us understand that “all is vanity, except to love God and serve Him alone” (Imitation of Christ I, 1,4).

“Remember that you have only one soul; that you have only one death to die … then there will be many things about which you care nothing” (St. Teresa of Jesus, Maxims for Her Nuns, 68), that is, you will give up everything that has no eternal value. Only love and fidelity to God are of value for eternity. “In the evening of life, you will be judged on love” (St. John of the Cross, Spiritual Maxims: Words of Light, 57).

COLLOQUY:

“O Jesus, how long is man’s life, although we say that it is short! It is short, O my God, since, by it, we are to gain a life without end; but it seems very long to the soul who aspires to be with You quickly….

O my soul, you will enter into rest when you are absorbed into the sovereign Good, when you know what He knows, love what He loves, and enjoy what He enjoys. Then your will will no longer be inconstant nor subject to change … and you will forever enjoy Him and His love.

Blessed are they whose names are written in the Book of Life! If yours is there, why are you sad, O my soul, and why are you troubled? Trust in God, to whom I shall still confess my sins and whose mercies I shall proclaim. I shall compose a canticle of praise for Him and shall not cease to send up my sighs toward my Savior and my God.

A day will come, perhaps, when my glory will praise Him, and my conscience will not feel the bitterness of compunction, in the place where tears and fears have ceased forever….

O Lord, I would rather live and die in hope, and in the effort to gain eternal life, than to possess all creatures and their perishable goods. Do not abandon me, O Lord! I hope in You, and my hope will not be confounded. Give me the grace to serve You always and dispose of me as You wish” (St. Teresa of Jesus, Exclamations of the Soul to God 15 – 17).

If the remembrance of my infidelities torments me, I shall remember, O Lord, that “as soon as we are sorry for having offended You, You forget all our sins and malice. O truly infinite goodness! What more could one desire? Who would not blush with shame to ask so much of You?

But now is the favorable time to profit from it, my merciful Savior, by accepting what You offer. You desire our friendship. Who can refuse to give it to You, who did not refuse to shed all Your Blood for us by sacrificing Your life? What You ask is nothing! It will be to our supreme advantage to grant it to You” (St. Teresa of Jesus, Exclamations of the Soul to God 14).

“The Holy Family lived in a plain cottage among other working people, in a village perched on a hillside. Although they did not enjoy modern conveniences, the three persons who lived there made it the happiest home that ever was. You cannot imagine any of them at any time thinking first of himself. This is the kind of home a husband likes to return to and to remain in. Mary saw to it that such was their home. She took it as her career to be a successful homemaker and mother.”
-Fr. Lawrence G. Lovasik. The Catholic Family Handbook

A quick homily on needing a sense of humor during this time along with not just doing the minimum requirements…

I want to thank you all so much for any reviews you have given me on my etsy shop and also on Amazon. I know it takes time to leave a review and so I very much appreciate it! I will post some of the reviews now and again here on the site. We especially enjoy the pictures!

From Miriam, Thank You!

I just received my Lenten Way of the Cross ✝️ today, the day before Ash Wednesday! incredible. I ordered late, but you mailed it immediately. Thank you!! It is wonderful and already displayed on my kitchen table ready to begin with the family tomorrow! As with everything I have ordered from you, it’s perfect, and it was so beautifully wrapped too! So much ❤️ went into it. Thank you and also, thanks for all your inspiration!

Jeanette is ready for Lent with her Way of the Cross…

And Theresa is ready, too!

See below for links if you would like to purchase one….

Mother and Son Aprons! Feminine and Beautiful!

Available here.

 

Lenten Way of the Cross Family Activity available here.

Lenten Bundle available here.

Lenten Journal Available here.

Printable for The Catholic Mother’s Traditional Lenten Journal! Get started right away! Available here.


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