Our Reading about Our Lady and the Saints

It is ten thirty on a Saturday morning and I am on a roll.

Did my workout, we all went to mass, I went to Adoration for around, oh, forty minutes, I've done laundry and weeding and asked kids to do some jobs and have printed my grocery list and have laminated the Pope's letter on the Year of the Priest and found a holy card of Our Lady of Perpetual Help and a book about St John Vianney and my Michael Jackson Thriller CD. These last four items form our dining table centrepiece - a truly catholic mix! Part of our unschooling strewing, you know.

I consider my primary function as a homeschooling mom to be Strewing the Path. Coined by Sandra Dodd, "strewing" is a favorite term of homeschoolers, especially unschoolers, which describes the habit of leaving books, puzzles, games, curiosities, and other interesting things lying on tables and counters and in the car where unsuspecting children will find them. Here In The Bonny Glen

And ~ we have read about Our Lady of Perpetual Help and Sts Cyril and Methodius .

The icon depicts the Blessed Virgin Mary wearing a dress of dark red with a blue mantle and veil. On the left is the Archangel Michael, carrying the lance and sponge of the crucifixion of Jesus. On the right is the Archangel Gabriel carrying a 3-bar cross and nails. This type of icon is a later type of Hodegetria composition, where Mary is pointing to her Son, known as a Theotokos of the Passion. The Christ-child has been alarmed by a pre-sentiment of his passion, and has run to his mother for comfort. The facial expression of the Virgin Mary is solemn and is looking directly at the viewer instead of her son. Jesus is portrayed clinging to his mother with a dangling sandal. The Greek initials on top read Mother of God, Michael Archangel, Gabriel Archangel, and Jesus Christ, respectively. The icon is painted with a gold background on a walnut panel, and may have been painted in Crete, then ruled by the Republic of Venice. The Cretan School was the source of the many icons imported into Europe from the late Middle Ages through the Renaissance. The icon was cleaned and restored in 1866 and again in the 1940s.

Saints Cyril and Methodius brothers born in Thessaloniki in the 9th century, who became missionaries of Christianity among the Slavic peoples of Great Moravia and Pannonia. Through their work they influenced the cultural development of all Slavs, for which they received the title "Apostles to the Slavs". They are credited with devising the Glagolitic alphabet, the first alphabet used to transcribe the Old Church Slavonic language.After their death, their pupils continued their missionary work among other Slavs. Both brothers are venerated in the Eastern Orthodox Church as saints with the title of "Equals to the Apostles". In 1880, Pope Leo XIII introduced their feast into the calendar of the Roman Catholic Church. In 1980, Pope John Paul II declared them co-patrons of Europe, together with Saint Benedict of Nursia.