Pondered In My Heart

On Keeping Advent: Rorate Mass

Rorate, cœli, désuper, et nubes pluant justum, aperiátur terra, et gérminet Salvatórem. Benedixísti, Dómine, terram tuam: avertísti captivitátem Jacob.- Isaiah 12:8, Psalm 84:2, Introit, Mass: Rorate Cœli of the Blessed Virgin

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened and bud forth a Saviour. Lord, Thou hast blessed Thy land: Thou hast turned away the captivity of Jacob.

Thus the beautiful words of Isaiah begin the Mass: Rorate Cœli. This is a votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary celebrated on a Saturday during Advent, and traditionally taking place before dawn. The Mass begins while it is still dark outside and the church is lit exclusively by candlelight. The darkness represents the world in the darkness of sin awaiting the birth of Our Savior, the Light of the world. It also calls to mind that cold, dark, bleak midwinter night in Bethlehem when Our Lady brought forth her Newborn Son.

O God, who wast pleased that at the message of an Angel, Thy Word should take flesh in the womb of the blessed Virgin Mary, grant to us Thy suppliants, that we, who believe her to be truly the Mother of God, may be helped by her intercession with Thee, through the same Jesus Christ... - Collect, Mass: Rorate Cœli of the Blessed Virgin

We had the great joy of assisting at the Rorate Mass at our church this past Saturday. We excitedly arrived at the chapel in the dark, and the beauty of the candlelight as we entered the darkened church was stunning. The altar was lit with a multitude of candles, and more lights burned at the feet of Our Blessed Lady and St. Joseph. Even the schola sang by candlelight, gathered around the silent organ.

Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. - Luke 1:28, 42, Offertory, Mass: Rorate Cœli of the Blessed Virgin

The penitential purple of Advent was set aside for festal white vestments, while white flowers adorned the usually bare altar. As the sun began to rise during the course of the Mass the faint blue light shone through the windows, fittingly first becoming noticeable right at the time of the Consecration.

Behold a Virgin shall conceive, and bear a Son, and His name shall be called Emmanuel. - Isaiah 7: 14, Communion, Mass: Rorate Cœli of the Blessed Virgin

The prayers of the Mass recall the prophecies concerning Our Lady and her role in our salvation, and honoring her brings us hope and joy as we continue to await the celebration of the Nativity of Our Lord.

Pour forth, we beseech Thee, O Lord, Thy grace into our hearts: that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ Thy Son was made known by the message of an Angel, may by His Passion and Cross be brought to the glory of the Resurrection, through the same Jesus Christ... - Postcommunion, Mass: Rorate Cœli of the Blessed Virgin

Praying for All Souls During November

Praying for the dead is a spiritual work of mercy.

As my missal explains it: The practice of recommending to God the souls of the departed in that we may mitigate the great pains which they suffer, and that He may soon bring them to His glory, is most pleasing to God and most profitable to us. For those blessed souls are His eternal spouses, and they are most grateful to those who obtain their deliverance from prison, or even a mitigation of their torments. Hence, when they shall enter into heaven, they will certainly not forget those who prayed for them. It is a pious belief that God manifests to them our prayers for them, that they also may pray for us. Let us recommend to Jesus Christ, and to His holy Mother, all the souls in Purgatory, but especially those of our relatives, benefactors, friends, and enemies, and, still more particularly, the souls of those for whom we are bound to pray; and let us consider the great pains which these holy spouses of Jesus Christ endure, and offer to God for their relief the Masses of this day.

November is dedicated to the Souls in Purgatory and we remember and pray for them in a special way throughout the month. All Souls Day is celebrated on November 2nd with Masses for the Dead; a plenary indulgence applicable only to the Souls in Purgatory can be obtained each day from November 1st through 8th by visiting a cemetery and praying for the souls of the faithful departed (provided the usual conditions for obtaining indulgences have been met). You can read an explanation of what indulgences are and how to obtain them in this Catholic Culture article.

Our priests always lead the faithful in prayer at a local Catholic cemetery on the Saturday morning during this octave. In addition, for the past few years our family has followed this custom by visiting a cemetery every day during the first eight days of November. We usually go out after dinner, driving to a different cemetery each night, and then walk through the cemetery while praying our family rosary and concluding with the Eternal Rest prayer:  Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen. This has become a treasured tradition for our family - peacefully walking through the quiet cemetery at night, listening to our footsteps and the crunch of the fragrant leaves, enjoying the stars and the brisk night air, each lost in his own thoughts as we pray for the dead and contemplate their souls and our own. If it's raining we stay in the car and drive around slowly. We try to visit all of the nearby Catholic cemeteries, but also visit others (where it is likely that the dead are not prayed for).

Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen. - See more at: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/activities/view.cfm?id=1178#sthash.9BfOCXqu.dpuf

Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen. - See more at: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/activities/view.cfm?id=1178#sthash.9BfOCXqu.dpuf

Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen. - See more at: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/activities/view.cfm?id=1178#sthash.9BfOCXqu.dpuf

Eternal rest grant to them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen. - See more at: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/activities/view.cfm?id=1178#sthash.9BfOCXqu.dpuf

We also display our collection of memorial cards on our home altar throughout November as a reminder to pray for the souls of our beloved departed family members and friends:

An easy way to pray for the Poor Souls in November and throughout the year is to remember them at the end of our regular daily prayers. After the Angelus and Grace Before Meals we conclude with the Eternal Rest prayer or simply: May the Divine Assistance remain always with us, and may the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. In this way we remember the departed in prayer at least three times a day, as well as reminding ourselves of our own mortality and the need to pray for a good and holy death.

It is therefore a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from sins. (II Maccabees 12:46)

All Saints Day!

Holy Mother Church, always solicitous and anxious for our salvation, exults today with exceeding joy as she contemplates the glory of her children who, having reached their heavenly fatherland, are safe for all eternity, forever delivered from the snares of the evil one, and now numbered everlastingly among the elect, the people of God. Like a mother, proud of the triumph of her children, she presents them to the whole Christian world, inviting all the faithful to share her maternal joy: "Let us all rejoice in the Lord, celebrating a feast in honor of all the saints, at whose solemnity the angels rejoice and give praise to the Son of God: (Introit). ...

Who are these glorious saints? Men who have lived upon earth as we have, who have known our miseries, our difficulties, our struggles. Some of them we recognize easily, for the Church has raised them to the honors of the Altar, but the great majority are entirely unknown to us. They are humble people who lived obscurely in the accomplishment of duty, without display, without renown, whom no one here below remembers, but whom the heavenly Father looked upon, knew in secret, and, having proved their fidelity, called to His glory. The honorable positions occupied by some in this vast gathering, or the mighty deeds accomplished by others, no longer possess any value of themselves: eternal  beatitude is not determined by the great things achieved here below. One thing only endures, for the humble and the great, the poor and the wealthy: the degree of love they had attained, to which corresponds the degree of glory which now renders them eternally happy.                - Divine Intimacy, Feast of All Saints

Happy All Saints Day!

Our church always has a big picnic with costumes and games to celebrate All Saints Day. In honor of the Holy Mother Church's newly canonized saints, and seeing as how we have five daughters, we suddenly realized who we just had to dress as!

Saint Louis and Saint Zélie Martin, the Church's first married couple to be canonized together, and just canonized on October 18, 2015! They had both wanted to enter religious life, however Louis was rejected because of his lack of knowledge of Latin while Zélie was turned down for health reasons. Louis became a watchmaker and Zélie a talented lace maker; when they met in 1858 they soon fell in love and were married - a match truly made in heaven.

The Martins had nine children, but four did not survive past childhood. Their five daughters all became nuns, from left to right, and oldest to youngest, we have Marie (Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart), Pauline (Mother Agnès of Jesus), Léonie (Sister Françoise-Thérèse), Céline (Sister Geneviève of the Holy Face) and Thérèse, better known as Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus. Four of the sisters entered Carmel while one was a sister of the Visitation. 

You can read more about their lives in The Story of a Family or in Saint Thérèse's autobiography The Story of a Soul.

And here's a couple more pictures for the San Diego folks ;-)

Father told them all to look serious. :-)

Happy Feast of All Saints!

Does this count?

A Woman Clothed with the Sun

Signum magnum apparuit in caelo: mulier amicta sole, et luna sub pedibus ejus, et in capite ejus corona stellarum duodecim. Ps. Cantate Domino canticum novum: quia mirabília fecit. Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. Ps. Sing ye to the Lord a new canticle: because He hath done wonderful things. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

- Revelation 12:1, Psalm 97:1, Introit, Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Signum magnum

This is a recording of the Introit from today's Mass, as composed by Jonathan when he was a freshman in college. We still listen to it every year on today's feast. (Notes from Jonathan here)

Art for Our Lady: Marian ATC Swap 2015

Our Lady of Perpetual Help, ink by Mary Rose at age 13

When Jesus saw His mother, and the disciple whom He loved standing near, He said to His mother, "Woman, behold, your son!" Then He said to the disciple, "Behold, your mother!" -John 19:26,27

On Mother's Day we are pleased to once again announce that we will be hosting an Artist Trading Card Swap of Marian artwork in honor of Our Lady!  This will be our sixth Marian ATC swap!

Causa Nostrae Laetitiae, ink and colored pencil by Lydia at age 19

For those of you not familiar with ATC's, artist trading cards are miniature pieces of artwork created for the purpose of trading with others. An artist trading card is 2.5 x 3.5 inches in size, making them fun to create and collect and trade.

Artist Trading Cards can be made using any art medium you like such as colored pencils, graphite, watercolor, acrylic, marker, pen and ink - whatever you like!

All interested artists are welcome to participate, from young children to great grandmas and everyone in between!

Our Lady of Guadalupe by Kateri at age 8

Some possibilities for Marian artwork inspiration: titles of Our Lady (see Litany of Loreto), mysteries of the rosary, devotions and (approved) apparitions, hymns, prayers, antiphons, symbols, traditional images or classic paintings.You can see some of the cards from our previous Marian ATC Swaps here: Our Marian ATC's.

The swap will work the same as the previous ones. Here are the details:

• Each participant will create five ATC's to mail out and will receive five different cards in return, usually from five different artists.
• Everyone will send their cards to me. We sort them out roughly by age group/ability of the creator and then mail the cards back out to their new recipients. When you mail your cards to me, please include a self-addressed stamped envelope that I can use to send your new cards to you.
• International swappers are most welcome! It's always extra fun to receive cards from a faraway place. 
• The swap is open to all ages. Mothers are encouraged to make art along with the children. :-)
• Each card should be labeled on the back with the creator's name and however much info you'd like to share.
• If you are interested in participating please leave a comment or send me an email at kimberlee (at) beadsofmercy (dot) com with ATC swap in the subject, and I will send you further information. Anyone can join in and definitely the more the merrier.
• Please mail your cards to me postmarked by Monday June 1st.
• If you have a blog (or use other social media), please feel free post about the swap to spread the word.

Enjoy creating lovely artwork to honor Our Lady! We look forward to hearing from you.

And Happy Mother's Day to all of the mothers out there!

Ite Ad Joseph

Today is the day to start a novena to St. Joseph in anticipation of his feast day on March 19th. St. Joseph is the universal patron and protector of all families, just as he was entrusted with the care and protection of the Holy Family. We should also pray to him daily as he is the patron of a happy and holy death. Jonathan has typeset a novena prayer from Fr. Lasance and has posted it on his blog. It is in a small format with three prayer cards on a page so you can print a copy for each family member. (Note, I found it works best to download the pdf to your own computer and then print it from there, otherwise the font may not print correctly.)

St. Joseph, ora pro nobis!

"I Don't Like Lent"

"You must remember, professor," Father Hall continued, "that one of the sweetest ways in which we can show our love for a person is with gifts. We always say, 'It isn't the value of the gift; it's the spirit of the giver that matters.' That's why trifles wrapped round with love are much more precious than tiaras or mink coats given lovelessly.

"The giving of a gift to God is all we mean by sacrifice. In the Old Law the Jews gave Him cattle and bread and wine. We Catholics give Him His divine Son in the Mass. But we want to give Him something that we would personally like for ourselves. So we sacrifice cigars or wine or candy or the movies. We say, '0 God, I'll give them up just to show that I do love You.'  And the harder we find it to give them up, the more precious they will be to our Father.

''It's perfectly true that God is made no happier by our giving Him a chocolate malted milk or a stick of chewing gum or a highball. God isn't likely to find use for any of those things. But it means a lot that we, His children, want to give Him the things we fain would hug to our own selfish hearts. We give Him what we somehow very much want."

And

"Tell her, Father," said Bradley, taking a penultimate sip of his brandy.

"Only this, Mrs. Harrison: that during Lent we imitate the saints just a little. We train ourselves to give up the good things of the world just to prove that we can. Good things have a way of mastering us. Good living and good food and good drink, riches and comfort and amusements, have a way of making men slaves. God meant us to enjoy them. He never meant them to be a substitute for Himself. Nor did He mean them to make us so weakly greedy that we would do anything, even commit sin, rather than be without them.

"Lent comes, and we give up some of our good food, some of our good times, some of our leisure and recreation, just to prove that we can be trusted. We master them for a few brief weeks so that they may not master us for life. We give up voluntarily so that we may not be held slaves. We lay aside deliberately so that we may resume those lovely gifts of God, not as slaves of habit, but of our own free will. We give up our glass of brandy so that drink may never hold us captive. We give up the theatre so that we may not be slaves of a good time. We abstain from food, not merely because we want to prove that we are masters even of what we eat and drink, but because we want to test our wills.

"If we can't give up a beefsteak, are we sure we could give up some powerful temptation? If we can't conquer our appetite for a big luncheon, could we be trusted to conquer our appetite for some forbidden person? If we can't get along without an egg for breakfast, are we sure we could hold back our hand from a jewel which we could take with no one's be the wiser? Lent is a time when we prove ourselves trustworthy. More than that: if Lent is well carried through, it is a time when we make ourselves trustworthy."

-from "I Don't Like Lent" by Fr. Daniel A. Lord, S.J. Imprimatur 1937 (A small pamphlet in story form telling of a group of people gathered around a fireplace discussing Lent with a priest. Very entertaining in a charmingly vintage way, informative and explanatory in a timeless solidly Catholic way.)

Scenes from a Merry Christmas 2014 (finally!)

In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen.
Introibo ad altare Dei. Ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam...

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

I will go in to the altar of God. To God who giveth joy to my youth...

And so began the First Mass at Midnight of The Nativity of Our Lord. The joy, if possible, seemed even more magnified by the fact it was the very first Christmas Mass ever celebrated by our new priest. The wonder of it all, God made Man, is so Much to contemplate, to try to behold. We mere mortals do our best, and rejoice.

Kisses for the newborn Babe, freshly placed in the stable by that new priest.

And the joy, it overflows. Back to church again in the morning for Christmas Mass During the Daytime.

After morning Mass we have tea and enjoy Christmas cookies (having sampled our first ones after the Midnight Mass). Our new tradition is to take this time to try and guess and finally reveal who our Christkindls are -we exchange anecdotes about our stealthy endeavors and laugh at each other's tricks and the near escapes at getting found out. We drink more tea and eat more cookies.

We play and sing Christmas carols.

And we add the final trimmings to the tree. Lights go up on the Fourth Sunday of Advent, but we save the tinsel and ornaments for Christmas day.

And we have some more music...

and more tinsel. We go all George Bailey and put tinsel on each other's heads.

We don't listen to Christmas music until, well, Christmas. So naturally folks keep stopping whatever they're doing to play a little more...

Then it's time for the obligatory family photos. Somehow Timothy Stedding, Esq (the pigeon) got let in this year.

After resting and more feasting and more music we finally proceed to opening our stockings late in the evening before bed. It rather takes us days before we get around to exchanging all of our gifts, but this is fine with us. We like to take our time and spread out our celebrating. Everyone gives each other such thoughtful gifts; we go slowly and savor it all.

Jonathan found this perfect calendar for his patriotic sister. It was just a freebie given out by a local business, but when he saw it he knew he had to get one for Eliza. And then he proceeded to write in all the liturgical feast days for the entire year for her! She is always faithful in adding the Saint of the day and 'pray for us' after every mealtime prayer, so she likes to have a feast day calendar handy for reference. The perfect gift!

Jonathan also got Mary Rose a most perfect gift- you can tell by her face she knew just what it was when he handed her the brown papered package tied up in string....

Isn't he an awesome brother? :-)

And awesome how everyone shares in everyone else's excitement over their gifts.

Eliza got new puzzles, this one of cats.

Kateri got a lovely shawl,

while her sisters got new babushka scarves.

The recent publishing of Roses in the Snow made this the perfect year to gift the girls with beautiful embroidered Hungarian blouses. We had a small child-sized one that Lydia used for reference in her illustrations - she had called it 'too valuable to wear' so I knew she would be delighted with one of her own, and how could I leave out her sisters? They were so surprised!

We got a little carried away with the cookies this year. It's our family tradition to bake cookies all together for two whole days, and we somehow made even more than we usually do.

Are we really going to share this thing?

The girls were thrilled to get one of their favorite movies. And of course we watched that other favorite Jimmy Stewart one evening as we do every year.

And once again we celebrated with friends at our Epiphany party, and our priest blessed our house for us at the end of the evening:
 

It is traditional to bless the house on Epiphany and blessed Epiphany holy water is used for the sprinkling. Blessed chalk is used to write the year and the initials CMB over the doorway; these handily stand for the names of the three kings, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar and also Christus Mansionem Benedicat, Latin for Christ bless this home.

And during this rich, joyous season of Christmastide we feel very blessed indeed. Deo Gratias!

A Calendar for You

 

I would like to share this calendar that you can use to keep track of your personal devotions, specifically the Nine First Fridays devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Five First Saturdays to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The First Friday devotion arises from Our Lord's words to St. Margaret Mary requesting devotion to His Sacred Heart in reparation for sins. You can read more about this devotion here and the twelve promises here.  The Five First Saturdays devotion was requested by Our Lady in her apparitions at Fatima in 1917 . You can read more about this devotion here.

This calendar is unique in that the first Fridays of each month are marked in red for the Sacred Heart, while the first Saturdays of each month are marked in blue for Our Lady. To use the calendar, you can simply put a check mark on the days you complete the devotion. On the back of the calendar there is a simple reminder of how to complete the devotions along with spaces to list the months in which you do so.

It would also be handy to use the calendar to keep track of one's Confessions, simply putting a circle around the date every time. Sometimes I lose track of the days and keeping a specific calendar is sure to help me. ;-)

The calendar is formatted to be small enough to easily tuck into a missal, prayer book or planner so it is always close at hand.

You can download the pdf for the calendar here: Download 2015-01-04 First Fridays and Saturdays Calendar 3x printout

It is sized to fit three on a page so you can make numerous copies for your family members. Use double sided printing to print the document - use the option to flip the paper on the short edge.

Many thanks to Jonathan who did the lovely typesetting of the calendar in TeX for me. As is often the case, I had the Good Idea to make the calendar but needed the talents of my family members to actually bring it to fruition. My husband also provided technical assistance. Thanks also to Mary Rose for drawing the Two Hearts graphics.

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, have mercy on us!

Immaculate Heart of Mary, pray for us!