Friday, October 3, 2014

Seven Quick Takes: Angel Week!

Happy Friday, Friends!

This was a busy week in the Liturgical Year with lots of feasts on the Calendar.  My husband and I both converted to Catholicism from Protestant denominations, so celebrating these feasts is new to us* and we are in the process of figuring out what works for our little family.  I'm enjoying discovering the histories of these feasts, and also how they are celebrated differently in different cultures and countries.

*we did celebrate St. Lucia Day on occasion, since my family is Swedish!

Here's what we did this week:

1.
Feast of the Archangels!  Also known as Michaelmas, of course.  This one is special to us for lots of reasons, including that we were married in a little church named for Saint Michael.  Saint Michael is also the patron saint of the military, and my hubs did a few years serving our beautiful America, and my brother and brother-in-law continue to serve.


I intended to make devil's food cupcakes with M and use those little cocktail swords so we could stab the devil, but I couldn't find the cocktail swords.  Lesson learned to look early next year, or stock up!  This was definitely not an original idea by me, but something I've seen on other websites/blogs.  We had the best time making the cupcakes, M even cracked 1 of the eggs for me.  He loved it, and I loved doing it with him.  The kitchen was a disaster mess, but we had so much fun!

We prayed St. Michael's Prayer at dinner, and I tried to talk with M about the Archangels, but it was mostly over his head. =)  He did like the cupcakes though!

2.
The lawyer in me also thought it was interesting to learn that Michaelmas marks the beginning of a legal term in the UK, and the Idahoan in me was surprised to learn that it is considered the beginning of hunting season and is a harvest feast day. (source)

3.
The Feast of St. Therese of Liseaux was celebrated on Wednesday.  We continued to feast on our frosted cupcakes.  I watched this interesting video.  This part stood out to me the most: "In every moment, what is the demand of love?"  The answer to that question, then, guides how we should act.  I'm encouraged to reflect on this daily, and throughout my day.

4.
A is for Angel.  We are very, very slowly working on letter recognition with M.  We are reading The Gift of an Angel and coloring pictures of angels.
Probably time to get some more printer ink?

5.
The Feast of the Guardian Angels.  Last spring, my prayer group spent one session talking about guardian angels.  It was fascinating.  I honestly hadn't ever really thought about them before, other than just in passing, so it was pretty interesting to hear other perspectives.  One point that someone raised and was very memorable to me was that our guardian angels love to be close to God, and so we are encouraged to attend Adoration as frequently as we can.  I never thought of it that way, because I was never really thinking about having a personal guardian angel.

6.
We baked an Angel Food Cake for dessert on Thursday.  After our baking chaos earlier in the week, I didn't get too carried away, it was the "just add water" kind.  Turns out, I don't love Angel Food Cake.  And D pointed out that we enunciate it completely differently.  Who knew?!  #southerner 

7.
An interesting read about Angels here.  H/T to the ladies hereThis was also very helpful to read!  Same group of ladies, fun fact - some of them were my suite-mates in college. =)

Whew!  That was a lot of dessert for one week for us.  Good thing I had some good workouts too - 2 stroller runs and a killer strength class.  My glutes are still crying from the squats.  Hoping to also get a swim in and some weekend runs.

Tomorrow is the Feast of Saint Francis of Assisi.  Any good ideas for celebrating with a two year old?  Please share!

Check out www.conversiondiary.com for more quick takes!  Have a wonderful weekend!

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