Sunday, September 24, 2017

St. Padre Pio Feast Day: September 23


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September 23rd is the feast day of Saint Padre Pio.  He is another Saint that the more I learn about, the more I fall in love with his story and the miracles that abound in his life on earth and now in Heaven.


Our family has never done anything special for his feast day before this year, but when I came across Molly's blog post, Pray, Hope, Donut Worry - A Post-Mass Donut Guide, I thought this would be an easy and fun way to celebrate such a special Saint!

Saint Padre Pio is well-known for his quote...

“Pray, hope, and don't worry. Worry is useless. God is merciful and will hear your prayer.” -Padre Pio
 
In the morning I displayed the book, The Way of the Cross: A Story of Padre Pio, and a plate of donuts to remember that he said, "Pray, Hope and 'Donut' Worry" :)  We read a few chapters of the book and will continue to do so.  His story is fascinating! 

And before you have some sweet donut dessert, you many want to Celebrate the Feast of St. Padre Pio with Farfalle a la Pio.  Check out the recipe and delicious photos at Peanut Butter & Grace!  Yum! 

To conclude this post, I encourage you to read Never Say Never, A Padre Pio Miracle by Susan Brinkmann.  It's a powerful story and one of many miracles attributed to this great Saint!

Saint Padre Pio, pray for us!


 






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Thursday, September 21, 2017

Memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows: September 15



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September 15th is the memorial of Our Lady of Sorrows



What is the devotion to the Seven Sorrows of Our Lady?  I'll let CatholicCulture.org explain about this memorial:

"This feast is dedicated to the spiritual martyrdom of Mary, Mother of God, and her compassion with the sufferings of her Divine Son, Jesus. In her suffering as co-redeemer, she reminds us of the tremendous evil of sin and shows us the way of true repentance. May the numerous tears of the Mother of God be conducive to our salvation; with which tears Thou, O God, art able to wash away the sins of the whole world.
As Mary stood at the foot of the Cross on which Jesus hung, the sword of sorrow Simeon had foretold pierced her soul. Below are the seven sorrows of Mary:"

  1. The prophecy of Simeon (Luke 2:25-35)
  2. The flight into Egypt (Matthew 2:13-15)
  3. Loss of the Child Jesus for three days (Luke 2:41-50)
  4. Mary meets Jesus on his way to Calvary (Luke 23:27-31; John 19:17)
  5. Crucifixion and Death of Jesus (John 19:25-30)
  6. The body of Jesus being taken from the Cross (Psalm 130; Luke 23:50-54; John 19:31-37)
  7. The burial of Jesus (Isaiah 53:8; Luke 23:50-56; John 19:38-42; Mark 15:40-47)
There is so much to ponder when thinking about the grief and sorrow our Blessed Mother endured while being a mother to Jesus. We can look to Mary to show us how to endure suffering with great faith, hope and love.

For the first time a few years ago, we did the Seven Sorrows of Mary Activity for Children from Catholic All Year.

We did the same activity, but with lemons this year, and it was a blessing to spend time with my family reading about the Seven Sorrows of Mary.  We first read from the book, Mary: The Mother of Jesus, (that is opened in photo).  There was a page about Mary's sorrow.  Then using the Catholic All Year printable (that I laminated a few years ago), we read each of the Seven Sorrows and the scripture that went with each one. After each one, my children ate some slices of lemon (instead of Lemonhead candy or sour Skittles.)


Some of my kids' reactions to the sour lemon slices were photo worthy. :)


We didn't get a chance to color this coloring page from Vicki Shuck, one of the artists behind the Be Yourself! Journal for Catholic Girls, but I'll share it for future reference for myself and others.  


 
 Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us! 








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Sunday, September 17, 2017

Celebrate Mary’s Birthday with Doughnuts, Cake, and Candles! (My Post at Peanut Butter & Grace)


The day before my parents' big 50th wedding anniversary party on September 9, 2017, (blog post on the big celebration coming soon!)  we had a small celebration with our family and my sister and her family for our Blessed Mother's birthday on the morning of September 8th.


In year's past we have celebrated this special day with other families in our homeschool group, but this year with so much going on with my family's festivities, we decided to celebrate with just our family.

In the morning, I laid out our traditional doughnut rosary (that we have done for several years now) with a vase of roses and our Marian statue holding a rosary.  We prayed a decade of the rosary and then everyone had doughnuts for breakfast.  I bought 60 munchkins and a dozen doughnuts to make the rosary. (actually we used 53 munchkins and 6 glazed doughnuts total for the rosary)

Here is what our rosary looked like this year:

I wrote a post at Peanut Butter & Grace titled Celebrate Mary's Birthday with Doughnuts, Cake, and Candles!



In the post, I include photos of all the yummy, edible rosaries we have made in the past with our homeschool group for our Blessed Mother's birthday.

Did you celebrate Mary's birthday this year?  If so, how did you celebrate? With doughnuts, cake and candles? Or maybe you had cupcakes?

Happy Birthday Mother Mary!







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8 Simple Ways to Celebrate St. Teresa of Calcutta’s Feast Day: September 5 (My Post at Peanut Butter & Grace)



It's been awhile since I last posted with my St. Rose of Lima Simple Celebration post on August 23.

Life for the Smith family has been a blessed whirlwind as we prepared and celebrated my parents' 50th wedding anniversary on Saturday, September 9, 2017.  It took many, many hours of planning, preparing and lots of team work with my mom, sister and friends for the big party with about 150 family and friends gathered to celebrate and honor my parents beautiful accomplishment. Then my sister and her husband baptized their second baby the Sunday after the anniversary party.  Then last week my parents, siblings and their families spent a week together for a beach vacation as a way to continue the anniversary celebration and make more memories with cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents. 19 family members in a big enough beach house for all of us creates some fun memories! :)  I am so grateful everything worked out beautifully and Hurricane Irma stayed away, although we felt how powerful the storm was for a few days at the beach with high winds and waves crashing on what little beach was left.   Then the skies cleared and the fierce waves settled down for much of the week.

I hope to post photos of the anniversary party and our family's beach vacation soon.  I'm still trying to catch my breath and catch up with laundry and life. :)

In other news, I've been a contributor for the blog Peanut Butter & Grace for a few months now and I have written several posts so far for them.  I love their Misson statement and vision....

"The mission of Peanut Butter & Grace is to help Catholic parents raise children to be saints—that is, people who love Christ and his Church and take action to continue Christ’s mission in the world today.
We do this by providing digital and print resources that assist parents in forming their children in the faith within the daily life of their family. All of our products are made for Catholic parents—either to use themselves (think of 77 Ways to Pray with Your Kids), or to hand to their kids (think of the Illuminated Rosary prayer books)."



For St. Teresa of Calcutta's feast day on September 5, I wrote 8 Simple Ways to Celebrate St. Teresa of Calcutta's Feast Day on Peanut Butter & Grace. I know her feast day has passed, but perhaps you can pin it and save it for next year's celebration?  

If you haven't "Liked" Peanut Butter & Grace's Facebook page yet, please do and share our posts with friends/family who many enjoy our content.  Once you like the page, invite your friends/family to "Like" the page too. :)

Also, be sure to subscribe to Peanut Butter & Grace's email subscription since we send out weekly newsletters filled with informative posts and links about upcoming feast days and the upcoming Sunday Mass readings and reflections.  You can find the email subscription fill-in box on the home page at top right. 

St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!







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