A letter to a parish priest

Dear Father,


I respect the priesthood.. I respect Holy Mass. I respect freedom of speech. I like jokes, even off colour jokes, as much as the next person.

Just not in Mass.


No, not even at the end before the final blessing.


And as if jokes aren't bad enough, distracting us from the liturgy, off colour jokes about nuns and the human body are really distracting.


It does not lift our minds and hearts towards God to hear a joke in mass about a nun lifting a fig leaf to look at you-know-what.


It is inappropriate. It demeans religious. It demeans Holy Mass. It makes a mockery of the term custody of the eyes. It may even make the expression of curiousity seem justified to that thirteen year old boy searching the internet and finding a porn site. 


Please.


Just stick to the final blessing. A smile and a thank you.


Leave the off colour jokes to a different setting.


In charity, I thank you.

They don't wear rose vestments any more?

In a parish I attended on Laetare Sunday ( mid Lent, rejoice!) the commentator read at the start of Holy Mass.."Today is what used to be called Laetare Sunday. In days gone past, priests would wear rose coloured vestments ." 


Really? In days gone past?

Then someone better explain that to our Cardinal, Cardinal Pell, celebrating Holy Mass  last week on Laetare Sunday, at the installation of a new parish priest. 

They don't wear rose vestments anymore?

O Good and Faithful Servant

We read in Scripture of the blessing of the good and faithful servant.

So why don't we reward or bless the good and faithful servant in practice, in our lives or communities and yes, even in our parishes and dioceses?

A lot of coverage is given to those amazing conversion stories, to those fantastic testimonies, the Johnny Come Lately who allegedly rose from the ashes.

Very little coverage is given to those faithful, tireless workers, lay people and priests, who serve well, day in and day out, who are fulfilling their vocations with patience and diligence and prayer. Who may not have stories of riches from adversity but who do have stories of faithfulness.

In a society where faithfulness is often decried, where the spectacular is raised on a pedestal and the ordinary is ignored, where wives are encouraged to leave loveless marriages, where people are encouraged to live for the now, who knows what tomorrow may bring, to have fun, to put themselves first, in this society we need examples of faithfulness put before us.

We need the stories of the faithful parish priest, celebrating mass, hearing confession, listening to parishioners, praying, teaching catechism...so that wife in despair can see why faithfulness to her vocation is important, too. So that the parent tied down to a mortgage and a job sees the value of faithfulness to their vocation.

Ordinary people living ordinary lives need to see how faithfulness is a blessing, a reward, a virtue.

They need to see not only the story of the poor boy turned priest or bad boy turned priest, but also the story of the good and faithful shepherd, leading an ordinary life in an extraordinary fashion, with faith and with faithfulness.

Strewing their paths...late February

To strew. To lay interesting thing in the paths of our children, our families, our unschooling sons and daughters. Well, sons in my case. Or son. The lone unschooler.

Sandra Dodd coined this term "strewing" within an unschooling context.

And it works. It sparks an interest, it allows for exposure, it provides another knot to that mental hammock of information. 

Even when a parent is in absentia. As I have been in February, due to work commitments.

You know Arnie Schwarznegger in the movie Jingle All the Way, that almost always absent dad? That's been me. But at least everyone knows its only temporary (roll on March!).

And I have been strewing.  So sparks are sown without me.

Making a salt dough crown of thorns with some sons. And me varnishing it late at night and decorating the table for Lent so that is the first thing everyone sees as they come downstairs in the morning. When I am already at work. 

Asking Anthony to find an icon of Sts Cyril and Methodius while I hang streamers for St Valentine. While a very late, very easy dinner is cooking. 

Taking a Saturday afternoon to clean the garage and find interesting new-to-some books to share....Dorothy Sayers' Creed or Chaos?, Kim Philby's account of the Philby spy scandal that rocked Britain and that on which the film and book Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is based, Joyce Vedrals' book The 12 Minute Workout for those sons bemoaning their lack of workout time once Uni starts, Party Shoes by Noel Streatfield ( for me! But lead to discussion and a maybe we should watch Ballet Shoes again?), an Italian Reader for Thomas who is saving to go to Rome for a Latin school in July....

Other strewing? Reading about St Wahlburga after mass and Anthony looking up Saxon inspired desserts for Sunday.

A trip to Kikki K....just walking in the door makes one feel more organized already!

Setting up games days and times to hang with friends  and lifts to and from drama and New Testament Greek class and buses to youth group for Anthony, the lone but not alone unschooler.

Making lists.....can someone make pancakes for Shrove Tuesday (Shrove Monday in this house this year!), can someone find a Gregorian chant CD, can someone vacuum or hang out laundry or post this letter and the myriad of other chores that make up Life Skills and Personal Development.

On the rare but treasured hang out with family nights...watching some of the Numbers series and discussing religion and faith and Maths and family and crime, watching Music and Lyrics and loving the dialogue, a mini  Harry Potter marathon... Deathly Hallows Part One and Two and reminiscing about the books and characters and choices.

And my kids helping me with so much Kumon work and my thank you to my kids and to my other assistants...our nearly end of Kumon dinner at a local Chinese restaurant.

This is what unschooling looks like.

This is what unschooling strewing looks like.

It looks a lot like life, doesn't it?

But life strewed with and lived with purpose and intent. 

An observer  may see no visible signs of learning (You wrote down a sneeze as Health! That tongue in cheek comment!). And yet  the observer can know that there is learning and intent. Time is structured, by interest and by strewing, not necessarily by school. And education happens. With the spark or interest in learning retained.

That's unschooling. That's unschooling strewing. 

Catechesis

Absolute quiet.


Peace.


Everyone facing one way.


Priest.
Deacon.

Servers.
The faithful.


We all prayed in sacred silence at the consecration and elevation during Holy Mass.


In adoration.


It was all about Our Lord.


And so I prayed at Mass  on Candlemas.


In direct contrast to a conversation awhile back. wherein a friend mentioned that we needed the children to perform liturgical dance in a mass that was being planned, so the "children would feel special and that it's all about them."


But it's not. I'ts not all about them. Or us. 


It's about God.


And in our busy, entertainment oriented world, how nice it is for children to be given a sacred space, a quiet place, a place to learn that they are special, with God, in adoration of God. . 


How important, too, for catechesis. 


The  sacred liturgy, the formal worship of God the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit, is indeed "the privileged place for catechizing the people of God." (CCC 1074)

Strewing their paths...February

I strew many different things in the paths of my sons.. Outings, cooking, museums, libraries, puzzles, music, blogs, links, masses, prayers, statues, candles, quotes, games..

The biggest thing that I strew, though, are books.

I strew books because I love books. I love reading. Books have enriched my mind, my experience, my life.

As we start February, I have been strewing books on our dining table, near the candles and liturgical year strewing.

What books?

Saints and Art... For St John Bosco

Catholic Bioethics by the Bishop of our Diocese, Bishop Anthony Fisher OP.

Kitchen by Nigella Lawson... A great read, attractive turn of phrase, clever use of imagery, a cookbook that is a example of good writing.

The Women's Weekly Retro Cookbook (yes, I have sons who like cooking and who get into retro).

The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton .. I have raved about this so much that I might as well leave it around.. Who knows who will pick it up?

And that's what happens with books in our house. Someone leaves one lying around and someone else picks it up, peruses, gets into it.

Strewing paths with books.

To ad lib....

To ad lib.

To add our own words, our own thoughts, to an occasion.


The ability to ad lib can be considered good, when one is a situation that requires us to wing it.. When a mishap occurs during a presentation, when I have to explain a little further in one of my public talks or presentations.


But even then I have to be careful that my ad libbing stays on topic, is relevant even if amusing, is not self indulgent patter but has a purpose. I am not there to deviate from the set topic.


And so, just as there are limitations to ad lib commentary in my public speaking, how much more are there limitations to ad lib commentary in Holy Mass?


You know where I am going with this.


The new translation of the missal is very clear... The priest says this. The priest says that. The rubrics do not say that one can say words of similar meaning or what one thinks is of similar effect .


It is annoying to have a priest ad lib throughout mass. To add his own words prior to and post the consecration. Even well meaning words.


No, it is more than annoying. It leads to liturgical problems, to pave the way for other priests to administer what constitutes liturgical abuse, to misguided words that can be misinterpreted and that can thus lead to misunderstandings of the faith on the part of the faithful. It can lead to something akin to heresy.


And it's downright banal and trivial and to be honest, a pain to sit through ad lib comments ad infinitum in mass, when you are trying to pray and to worship, as an individual and as part of a community.


"Liturgy is never anyone's private property, be it of the celebrant or of the community in which the mysteries are celebrated.... Priests who faithfully celebrate Mass according to the liturgical norms, and communities which conform to those norms, quietly but eloquently demonstrate their love for the Church". ( Ecclesia Eucharistia (52), Pope John Paul II )

Learning from St Agnes

"Today is the birthday of a virgin, let is imitate her purity." (St Ambrose on St Agnes)

I read the Office of Readings on my bus trip last Saturday.

And I wondered what it is that I, a married woman, a wife, teacher and mother, can learn from St Agnes.

I think the Church venerates the saints for us, not that we become discouraged by the distance we see between their virtuous lives and our own life of mundane struggles.

But that we are uplifted by the lives of sanctity,  of hope, of faith. 

Even in times of turmoil, of fear, of temptation.

St Ambrose wrote of the trembling and hesitation and yes, even awe on the part of the executioner, he who was given the task of executing  St Agnes, aged twelve or so. 

This is the trembling and hesitation and awe we can feel when we read of the saints.. Trembling at the thought of living an extraordinary life, hesitation at the thought of living our ordinary lives extraordinarily, awe and wonder in our faith and worship.

What can we learn from St Agnes? This faith, this awe, this trembling.

And this is why the Church reminds us of the saints 

To give us mentors and encouragement. To inspire awe and virtue.

Strewing their paths...

Its that time of the week again. When we share our strewing.

My strewing this week had been both intentional and unintentional. 

Intentional strewing...strewing with a purpose or with forethought . 

This week it is a novel by Madeleine L'engle. A Wrinkle in Time. 

I first read this at age twelve. I have read it aloud to classes I have taught. I have read it aloud to some of my kids and others  have read it themselves.

Except Anthony. Who is sporadically studying physics, with occasional use of a Saxon Physics text and occasional reading of Six Easy Pieces by Dr Richard Feynman. 

His interest is not high. Hence sporadic study. So I thought A Wrinkle in Time would be a good complement. Physics related literature and a darn good story. L'engle is a talented storyteller. And it just happens to be the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of A Wrinkle in Time this year!

Unintentional strewing? Strewing and sparks that happen in every day life, almost serendipitously. 

Watching episodes of series one of Fringe, a Christmas gift. The science of the weird, of cloning, of regeneration and a FBI story to boot.

Fits in well with A Wrinkle in Time, doesn't it?

Contemplation

Contemplation

What is the role of contemplation in the life of a layperson?

It is both interior and active.

What do I mean?

There is a point in St  Bonaventure's Itinerarium that describes this contemplative life. And I  think it applies comfortably to the lives of we laity, praying and living in the world, so to speak. 

St Bonaventure discusses a moment when he was praying at the spot where St Francis of Assisi received the stigmata.  St Bonaventure saw the significance of this event in the light of humanity, of the world, of the history of the Church.  At this spot, at the point of receiving the stigmata, says St Bonaventure, "...Saint Francis passed over into God ( in Deum transit) in the ecstasy (excessus) of contemplation and thus he was set up as an example of perfect contemplation just as he had previously been an example of perfection in the active life in order that God, through him, might draw all truly spiritual men to this kind of passing over ( transitus) and  ecstasy, less by word than by example." (Itinerarium)

This is  what Thomas Merton calls  the "only one vocation". 

Wherein we are called to an interior life, to prayer, to prayerand work, to a relationship with our Creator. And then to share, pass on, the fruits of contemplation, His Love, to others. Be they our children, our family, our spouses, our friends, fellow parishioners, our work colleagues, our neighbours.

We may do this  imperfectly.  God knows I do.

We are called, in the words of Merton, " to become fused into one spirit with Christ in the furnace of contemplation and then go forth and cast upon the earth that same fire which Christ wills to see enkindled." ( The Seven Storey Mountain)

Encouraging Readers

Encouraging readers.

I hear of many ways to encourage our children to become readers.

Books on CD, read alouds, share picture books, create reading nooks, watch book related movies, buy books, visit libraries.

We do all these.

But the single biggest helper has been my example.

I read myself. 

I strew books for myself.

I create reading lists for myself.

I talk about my reading,

I share excerpts.

The kids have grown up knowing that I value reading.

Even if they never read themselves (they do!), they know reading is important, a past time, a way of opening up other worlds and other ideas. 

So, what are you strewing for yourself, reading wise, as a homeschooling mother?

Here are some of my Christmas and post Christmas reads...

The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton.....I love this book. I had to read it again. His description of the search within each of us for Truth  wrings my soul. It's me. It'smany others I know.  Talking with the kids today at lunch, about authors with whom we identify, about authors whom we wish to emulate ...for me it's Merton. I want to write like Merton. 

What's Eating You? by Katherine Alleume. Why do we eat what we eat? This question has puzzled the nutritionist author and she asks us to make conscious eating decisions, conscious rationalizations. A similar take to that Intuitive Eating book. But something I am still trying to tackle...I am a stress eater and there is a point where enough is enough.

Contemplative Prayer by Merton.  A deep interior life that reaches out and shares with others.

The YouCat. The "youth inspired version" of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. I want to read it before recommending it to others. And the many side bar quotes have sparked discussion here....why include that? Great definition of religion (relationship with God).  Some good pre and post Vatican II stuff ( yes the Church existed pre Vatican II!). Some great quotes and some what the ? quotes.

Women, Work and the Art of Savoir Faire by Mireille  Giuliano. A Christmas gift. Bringing style and pleasure to life. Balancing life and work. My sort of book. "Quality of life is very important in France. I have many friends who turned down promotions and more money because it would affect their quality of life as a couple or a mother. I was pleased to hear this. This is not a sign of weakness." Very true. It is not.

The 10 Habits of Happy Mothers by Meg Meeker. Subtitled Reclaiming our passion, purpose and sanity....I  have read about this on homeschooling blogs and even though I am on a buying less binge, er, lifestyle, I had to pick it up when I saw it, the very last copy, at Portico Books. Why? I need my passion. I need my sanity. And I have been inspired by the few quotes I have read on other blogs. "If every mother in the United States could wrap her mind around her true value as a woman and mother, her life would never be the same.”

Read. Strew. Share.

Strewsday Thursday

It's Strewsday Tuesday!

Well, officially it's Strewsday Thursday but that doesn't fit now, does it?

What have we strewed this week..for learning...in our unschooling life?

Museums. Again.

We seem to have a penchant for museums, wandering around, looking at those displays and objects that catch our eyes.

On Friday, it was the National Museum in Sydney. We mostly explored dinosaurs and native Australia.

And the National Geographic Wildlife photo competition. 

On Tuesday we explored the Melbourne Museum. In which I was enamoured of the Melbourne Gallery....Photos and artifacts and memorabilia from old Melbourne.

I sat in a 1960s sitting room and watched old TV shows....Homicide, IMT.

I fell in love with kitchen appliances from the 50s and 60s...A cute pink Mixmaster. A cunning Spacemaster refrigerator.

Then today we visited ACMI again...a Melbourne perennial, Australian Centre for Moving Images. And again I was immersed in digital technology. Indi gaming and early Aussie cop dramas. 

Museums are like microcosms of the unschooling life. Bits of information presented here and there, glimpses of possible future interest or passions or rabbit trails, discussion starters, learning via absorption. 

Easy, interesting, family time strewing. 

The word for the year...

On Facebook, my friend Julie, of Bravewriter, has taken up that idea of a word (theme, motto) for the year.

We choose our word for the year, we keep it close, it's a prompt, a reminder, something or someone to which we aspire.

But Julie has taken that idea one step further.

She has decided to, perhaps, post daily updates on her word and this her life. Daily updates on Facebook.

Julie's word is conscientious.

Mine is calm.

In the spirit of calm what did I do today?

Prayed at Mass, a reverent Mass, Benediction, Latin, a homily reminding us that yes, sin exists and yes, choices matter.

Mass and praying the Divine Office helped my inner calm.

As did being on holiday. Hanging out with family and a friend. And keeping my To Do list to a minimum.

Yes, I keep a To Do list on holiday.

I don't know how not to!

Praying the Divine Office

"I did not even reflect how the Breviary, the Canonical Office, was the most powerful and effective prayer I could have possibly chosen , since it is the prayer of the whole Church, and concentrates in itself all the power of the Church's impetration, centered around the infinitely  mighty Sacrifice of the Mass - the jewel of which the rest of the Liturgy is the setting: the soul which is the life of the whole Liturgy and of all the Sacramentals. ....

Yes, and from the secret places of His essence, God began to fill my soul with grace in those days, grace that sprung from deep within me, I could not know how or where. But yet I would be able, after not so many months, to realize what was there, in the peace and the strength that were growing in me through my constant immersion in this tremendous, unending cycle of prayer, ever renewing its vitality, it's inexhaustible, sweet energies, from hour to hour, from season to season in its returning round. And I, drawn into that Atmosphere, into that deep, vast universal movement of vitalizing prayer, which is Christ praying in men to His Father, could not help but being at last to live, and to know that I was alive."

I want to write like Thomas Merton.. Taken from his Seven Storey Mountain, this so vey eloquently describes my experience of praying the Divine Office  these last eighteen months or so.

The seasons change, I move from chilly icy winter mornings before work to warm and  snug summer evenings, from a snatched prayer in my bedroom to quiet prayer in a church, to praying the Office relaxing on the green  sofa. 

And the time passes I feel the daily prayers, joining with the mind of the Church, the prayer if the Church, praying with others praying the Office throughout the world. I feel it. I mentally comprehend it. My soul stirs.  My heart softens . And I let down those little barriers. The ones I build to protect myself, to stop being vulnerable to hurt. As if those barriers are always a good thing. 

These fences come down. Bit by bit, as I pray the Office, the Psalms, as I ponder the Readings.

Of course, my daily life happens. And the little walls start building again, to protect myself and to protect others. 

But I come back each morning, each night, to the Divine Office. And the scales, the walls, the fences, the barriers, are removed once again.

And that's why a mother should pray the Office. Even if prayed imperfectly. 

For the chance to know and adore God and to know and love others and to know  herself. 

For His Grace in her every day, never stopping life. 

A word for 2012

We do not put our faith in empty phrases, we are not carried off by sudden impulses of the heart, we are not seduced by plausible and eloquent speech, - but we do not refuse belief to words spoken by divine power. ( from the Treatisr of St Hipppolytus )

Words. Not empty words. But  words for the year.

Each year I choose a word, a theme, for the year. Something to which I aspire..

I write it in my diary.

I try to live life on purpose.

And many times I fail...

The last two years a group of us have met, between Christmas Day and New Years Eve, to share our year. To share our laughter. Our jokes. Our stresses. Our shallow words in jest...the not so serious fun themes...and our serious words and thoughts for the year.

Mine for 2012?

Calm.

Not boring calm.

Not even serenity .

But an inner calm.

These words are not like resolutions, often far fetched, often with action plans. They are words pure and simple. Little guides or prompts.

What will prompt you this coming year?

But how will they live in the real world?

Wednesday in the last week of Advent.

Faith on our Unschooling Catholics list, asks...what are you strewing?

Strewing orthodontist appointments, lists of things I need help with around the house because of my work commitments, and stress.

Got to stop strewing stress.

And smile.

This is what  I like about unschooling, though.

It's real life. Stress and all. And we strew learning, real life learning, learning in the affective realm, even when we are not intentionally strewing. 

You know that question we all get. "But how will your kids be prepared for the real world?"

This is the real world, dear. They live in my life,  and I live in theirs, and the kids see into almost every nook and cranny of my life. 

And my life is very Real World. 

Sleeping for a week!

"I'm not so far gone that I can't grasp there has to be more to life than forging pastries at midnight. And tiredness. Deep-sea diver tiredness, voyage to the bottom of fatigue tiredness.." ..from "I Don't Know How She Does It" by Allison Pearson.

I think mothers all know this type of tiredness.

And homeschooling mothers perhaps more so.

And working mothers.

And homeschooling working mothers...

What keeps us going?

Vision.

And prayer.

And a prayerful vision of our role and meaning in life.

To know, love and serve God. In our vocations as women...

"The intrinsic value of woman consists essentially in exceptional receptivity for God's work in the soul, and this value comes to unalloyed development if we abandon ourselves confidently and unresistingly to this work." .. From Woman by St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein)

I attended a retreat for women today.

And the result? I felt like I had slept for a week. Refreshed.

Me. She who lives in an almost constant state of tiredness.

The Sisters of Life spoke of living the freedom of the feminine heart.

In the words of Sister Mariae Agnus Dei... Receptivity, sensitivity, generosity.

Freedom for and not freedom from.

"If you are what you should be, then you will set the world on fire." St Catherine of Sienna.

Not striving to meet someone else's standards , not forging pies at midnight, not forging anything, really, but living true to our vocation and our dignity.

This is what keeps us going. We give and we receive. We receive and we give.

We love because we are loved.

And we mother as we were mothered, as we wish we were mothered, as Our Lady mothers us.

"Everywhere the need exists for maternal sympathy and help, and thus we are able to recapitulate in the one word motherliness that which we have developed as the characteristic value of woman. Only, the motherliness must be that which does not remain within the narrow circle of blood relations or of personal friends; but in accordance with the model of the Mother of Mercy, it must have its root in universal divine love for all who are there, belabored and burdened."... Woman by St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross

Ecclesiastical Alzheimer's

Ecclesiastical Alzheimer's.

You know what I'm talking about.

Those people, yes clergy included, who deride the "Church of the past" .

As if there were two Churches..pre and post Vatican II.

As if there was no discussion by the Holy Father on the hermeneutic of continuity...or do these people even read Church documents?

As if everything was bad in the past...priest not facing the people? Gasp! No participation! People left Holy Mass as soon as they could after Holy Communjon as it was all meaningless to them. To quote some comments recently made in my presence. By those who should know better.

Yeah, right.

It seems these people have suffered a memory loss. Or a comprehension loss. They forget about the strong faith of laity in our past, praying with the priest, all facing Our Lord and not each other. They forget about Catholic sodalities and the active participation of the laity in Holy Mass, in the life of the Church, in bringing Catholic, Christian thought to the world.

They look at the Church through self fashioned glasses..fashioned by their own ideas of church, by historicism and not history itself or education or reading with the mind of the Church.

The cure for ecclesiastical Alzheimer's?

Might I suggest reading...reading about liturgy...starting with The Spirit of the Liturgy by our Holy Father, then Cardinal Ratzinger..

The Christian faith can never be separated from the soil of sacred events, from the choice made by God, who wanted to speak to us, to become man, to die and rise again, in a particular place and at a particular time. “Always” can only come from “once for all”. The Church does not pray in some kind of mythical omnitemporality. She cannot forsake her roots. She recognizes the true utterance of God precisely in the concreteness of its history, in time and place: to these God ties us, and by these we are all tied together. The diachronic aspect, praying with the Fathers and the apostles, is part of what we mean by rite, but it also in­cludes a local aspect, extending from Jerusalem to Antioch, Rome, Alexandria, and Constantinople. Rites are not, therefore, just the products of inculturation, how­ever much they may have incorporated elements from different cultures. They are forms of the apostolic Tradition and of its unfolding in the great places of the Tradition.  [The Spirit of the Liturgy, (SF, CA: Ignatius, 2000), p. 164]

Ignite!

After my Jillian (and Jackie!) challenge in November...and my green skirt now looser around my waist...it seemed to me a good idea to continue themed workout challenges for awhile.

This month, I am doing FIRM workouts.

A bit Stepford wife-ish of me.

And this week I am using the FIRM Ignite series...two twenty minute workouts on one DVD. High impact. High intensity. Cardio and weights. And yes I can go heavier than I do on 30 Day Shred in general and Ripped in 30.

They also have more of a fun woo hoo factor...the group feel, the we are in this together no drill sergeant thing.

They are low in ab work..just some standing abs tucked into the very short cool down. So on my less busy days I am adding in abs. Or doing longer FIRMs on those days...

And why not check out Jez's FIRM Challenge blog?

The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas

"Everybody in the Austin family is excited on the first day of December because every day for twenty-four days they will do something special to prepare for the twenty-fifth day, Christmas Day, the most joyful day in the whole year."

And so begins The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas by Madeleine L'engle.

I read an old copy of this book as child ( it was published in 1964) and the memories of Mother and her Advent preparations, her Advent activities, stayed with me.

When I became a mother myself, I had a vision for Advent already in mind. Preparing as a family for Christmas. Making and pulling out an Advent calendar. Making cookies. Assembling a crèche or nativity scene. Crafts. Cooking. Carols. Books. Music.

And prayers and masses and movies,  in a modern Catholic family twist.

There is a danger, however, that Advent can become yet another time of busy-ness. Of being task oriented. Of endless to do lists.

"Advent, John could tell you, is the name for the four weeks of preparation and thought that lead up to Christmas day."

Preparation and thought. Not necessarily frantic activity and compulsion to do everything that Mrs Austin, Mother in the book, does.

"The kitchen is a big wandery room that turns corners and as kinds of unexpected nooks and crannies. In the dining room end a fire is crackling merrily, and the smell of applewood mingles with the smell of pancakes and maple syrup, and hot chocolate with marshmallows."

In our current house, our kitchen opens onto our dining area, it is light and symmetrical. The teens woke this morning to freshly made pikelets, tea in my variety of cute and fanciful teapots and our basket of Advent books. We lit the first candle in the Advent wreath.

So, yes, I do the Mrs Austin-ish Advent things. Well, some of them. Well, my own version.

But ultimately I know that Advent preparation and thought and prayer should be interior as well as exterior...Holy Mass, the Novena for the Immaculate Conception, the sacrament of penance, the rosary.

Being faithful.

Even if we don't do all the Advent activities, the crafts, the cooking, the books...

We prepare and think and pray.

We find that star, the Light of Christ, in our faithfulness . In His Love.

"One star is brighter and more sparkling than any of the others. 'The Christmas star,' Vicky whispers. Its light seems to shine right down into her heart."