All Souls’ Day – Maria von Trapp

Toward the end of the year, on November 2nd, the Church sets a day aside which is devoted to the suffering souls in Purgatory.

Just as we turn to our big sisters and brothers, the saints, to intercede for us at the throne of God, the poor souls are also turning toward us “Have pity on me, have pity on me, at least you, my friends, because the hand of the Lord has touched me” (Job 19:21; Office of the Dead).

Helpless in themselves, since the purification they are undergoing is passive suffering, they can be helped by us. We can pray for them. We can offer up sacrifices and good works with the desire that God may accept them and, seeing in them the prayer and suffering rise from the Mystical Body of His only Son, hasten the delivery of those souls whom He deems worthy and ready for such help.

On the day of “all the faithful departed” the Church reminds her children to listen to the message of the Scriptures in her liturgy and to do some thinking and meditating on Purgatory and the holy souls there.

We know Purgatory is a realm of twilight, so to speak–an in-between darkness and light, a place of regret and longing. Of the suffering which is undergone there, we are told that it is bitter and great, that it surpasses all imaginable suffering here on earth as an ocean surpasses a little puddle.

A knowledge of Purgatory we find already in the Old Testament.

Two hundred years before Christ Judas Machabeus “making a gathering…sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem for sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and religiously concerning the resurrection, (for if he had not hoped that they that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous and vain to pray for the dead); and because he considered that they who had fallen asleep with godliness, had great grace laid up for them.

It is, therefore, a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins” (II Macc. 12:43-46).

All Souls’ Day is a solemn day for families. We mothers must tell our children again about the Communion of Saints, which functions in the same way as life in a large family, where each member depends on the others.

In this case, the poor souls depend on us. They depend on our love, but love does not consist in words only, it consists in deeds. The sooner the little ones learn to understand this, the better it is for their whole life.

On All Souls’ Day they will be encouraged to bring little sacrifices, to say special prayers. They will be told about the “thesaurus ecclesiae,” the golden treasure chest of Holy Church filled with the atoning sacrifice of Christ, the merits of the Blessed Virgin, of the saints–canonized and uncanonized–into which we may delve.

It was given to Peter to bind and loosen, and his successor, making use of that very power, sets the conditions under which this can be done. One such disposition is the “toties quoties” indulgence each time we visit a parish church on the second of November and say six “Our Fathers,” six “Hail Marys,” and six “Glorys,” we may gain a plenary indulgence applicable to the poor souls.

All Souls’ Day is also the date when we remind our children that on the solemn day of their baptism the Church lit the baptismal candle and said: “Receive this burning light and see thou guard the grace of thy baptism without blame. Keep the Commandments of God so that when the Lord shall come to call thee to the nuptials, thou mayst meet Him with all the Saints in the heavenly court, there to live forever and ever.”

This baptismal candle of our children we should wrap reverently and keep in a special place together with our own. If, as happened to us, these candles are no longer in the family (we could not take along such things from the old country), one can take candles blessed on Candlemas Day, tie the names of each child to a candle, and keep them in a special place. This is what we did.

Only Johannes, being born in this country, has his own original baptismal candle.

On All Souls’ Day we take the candles out and look at them and remind each other to light our candle for any of us in case of sudden death, as a symbol that we want to die in our baptismal innocence, that the light which was kindled at that solemn moment has not been extinguished voluntarily by us. It is always a solemn moment when the children are called to think of their parents’ death.

In the old country the great event of the day used to be the visit to the cemetery.

First I have to describe an Austrian cemetery. Out in the country every village has its cemetery around the church; bigger towns have them on the outskirts.

Every grave is a flower bed at the head of which is a crucifix, sometimes of wrought iron, sometimes carved in wood. Occasionally there are also tombstones.

Families take care of their graves individually. People who have moved elsewhere will pay the cemetery keeper to do it for them.

The German word for cemetery is “Gottesacker,” meaning “God’s acre.” In the summer it looks like a big flower garden.

People are constantly coming and going, working on their graves, or just praying for their loved ones.

On anniversaries you will see vigil lights burning and on All Souls’ Day every grave will have its little vigil light as a token that we do remember.

People will flock out to the cemeteries in the early evening because it is such a sight–those many, many flames and all the mounds covered with flowers. Slowly one walks up and down the aisles, stopping at the graves of relatives and friends to say a short prayer and sprinkle them with holy water.

When the father of our family died several years ago, we started our own old-world cemetery. Soon one of his children followed him and now there are two flower-covered mounds under the large carved-wood crucifix.

The lanterns are lit not only on the anniversaries and on All Souls’ Day, but every Saturday night. A hedge of “rosa multiflora” encircles this holy spot. Inside the hedge there is a bench and we often sit there in the peace and quiet of our little acre of God.

 

A very valuable sermon for this All Souls’ Day. Learn about Purgatory… Why is it needed? How long will one be there? What is it all about? Can we avoid it? Learn about the Sabbatine Privilege!

“A woman’s role is supportive, and she is to be her husband’s helper, confidant, counselor if need be, friend and one of his greatest allies. You should be more than willing to make your man feel important, appreciated and admired.” -Fascinating Womanhood http://amzn.to/2qjprOY (afflink)

Don’t forget (Nov. 1 –8) ! Go to a cemetery, say a prayer for the Holy Souls in Purgatory, an Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be for the Pope, receive Holy Communion, go to confession within 20 days, and you will gain a Plenary Indulgence for one soul each day…. (Assuming no attachment to venial sin; thus a partial indulgence)…which means they will be released from Purgatory and will enter the Gates of Heaven! Those Souls will not forget about you…it comes back full circle! Get your children out there!

Requirements for obtaining a plenary indulgence:

*Do the work while in a state of grace

*Receive sacramental confession within 20 days of the work (several plenary indulgences may be earned per reception)

*Receive Eucharistic communion (one plenary indulgence may be earned per reception of Eucharist)

*Pray for the pope’s intentions (Just state that you are “praying for pope’s intentions,” followed by an Our Father and Hail Mary)

*Have no attachment to sin (even venial) — i.e., the Christian makes an act of the will to love God and despise sin. This simply means “true resolve” to avoid this sin from now on.

Advent Calendars…

This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support.

 

The Saints – Maria Von Trapp

What a blessed feast is All Saints’ Day! And it is just around the corner….

This is so inspiring! Who needs Hollywood or Fairy Tales (not that we don’t like fairy tales….we do!) But we MUST pass this information down to our kids. We must make the saints come alive in their hearts! This is for real! This is the ammunition your kids will take with them when they are facing the world, the flesh and the devil!

Not only that, this is what Catholicism is about. It is a treasure of beauty and Tradition… stories held out to us that are not just stories, but that are the thread that ties us to our Catholic Heritage….the Golden Thread. Let’s not be the ones to sever it! Let’s make it ever stronger! Our poor world needs us and it is these little things we implant in our children’s hearts that will bring Catholicism back to our families, to our society, to our Beloved Church and to the world!

by Maria Von Trapp

I don’t know what I would have done without the saints in bringing up our large family.

Long before our children could memorize the Apostle’s Creed and pronounce, “I believe in the Communion of Saints,” they were already participating in it.

Very early they had learned that the Communion of Saints is one large, happy family whose members have one thing in common: they want to go to heaven.

Some of them, like ourselves, are still living here on earth, working hard to reach the goal. Very many, however, have already reached it. These are our big sisters and brothers, the saints.

And there is still another group. As Our Lord has said once that nothing unclean can enter the Kingdom of Heaven, most of the souls, after they leave the body in death, are not found ready and have to be purified in Purgatory from the last stain of sin.

Even while suffering, these souls are happy because they know that, for them, time with its great dangers is over and soon they will be forever united with their Lord and God.

“Be ye perfect even as your Heavenly Father is perfect,” says Our Lord, and “This is the will of God–your sanctification,” explains St. Paul. We mothers cannot begin early enough to make it seem quite natural to our little ones that we all–they and we–must strive to become saints just like….And this is where our big sisters and brothers enter in. The most precious thing about the saints is that they were not born that way.

They had their faults just as all of us do, and they had to work hard to overcome them. Some of them were quick-tempered like St. Peter or St. Francis de Sales; some even lied and stole and cheated their mother, as St. Augustine tells us about himself; some were quite wicked, like St. Paul or Mary Magdalene; others were meek and mild from the beginning, like little St. Therese and Dominico Savio.

We parents could learn from the great eagerness with which the children take to certain TV programs or movies with Hopalong Cassidy or other popular performers that every young soul is a hero-worshipper.

Children simply need someone to look up to, to imitate. Well, there is no Hollywood hero who could not be easily outdone by one of the saints. Among that very large number of our big sisters and brothers who “made it” there is one for every kind of child.

There are the Old Testament saints. Some of their stories are more exciting than all of Grimm’s fairy tales. Think of the stories of Abraham when he goes up the mountain to sacrifice his only son; of King David and King Solomon; the prophet Jeremiah; Daniel in the lion’s den; and Tobias with his friend, Raphael; not to forget our saintly first parents, Adam and Eve, whose feast the Church celebrates on the vigil of the birth of Our Lord, December 24th.

There are the stories of the holy women–Judith, Ruth, and Esther; that exciting adventure story of Joseph in Egypt; and the harrowing tale of Job on the dunghill.

Then there are the New Testament saints–all the Apostles and the holy women. There are the many heroes from the time when Christianity was an underground movement the martyrs of the first centuries, especially the young ones–the boy Tarcisius, who was killed as he was carrying the

Blessed Sacrament secretly to the prisoners in Rome, the girls Agnes and Philomene and Cecilia.

There are rich saints like King Louis of France and Queen Elizabeth of Hungary and Queen Margaret of Scotland.

There are poor saints like Francis of Assisi and Benedict Joseph Labre. There are saints who were sick most of their lives, like Lydwina. There are saints who were famous for their jokes and laughter, like Philip Neri and Don Bosco.

When we turn the pages of one of the books with a daily story about one of the saints, we find that there were holy boys and girls, holy mothers and fathers, holy lawyers, doctors, slaves, popes and priests, farmers and swineherds, tailors and bakers–just “holy everybody,” as one of our children once said.

My husband had once taken great pains to tell a beautiful fairy tale to the children. When he had finished, the oldest asked, “Is all of that true, Father?” Slightly embarrassed, he had to admit that it was not, whereupon the child said, “Why did you tell us, then?”

Often afterwards, when we came across tales of saints who had spent their lives sitting on a column, such as Simon the Stilite, or who flew through the air like Joseph of Cupertino, we would say that as a story this equaled any fairy tale but had the added advantage of standing the crucial test, “Father, was that true?”

 

First of all a child must be acquainted with his own patron saints, whose names were given to him at his baptism. Later on he will also learn about the patron saints in his immediate family, and in a large family like ours this will amount to a great number of stories.

Then, by and by, as the child grows up and hears more about these big sisters and brothers, he will add some of his own liking.

I told my children always to look for saints who had the same troubles and the same faults as they did and then to ask his or her intercession. He must know how it is.

Whereupon one day one of the little ones said to me, “Mother, I know now why you choose St. Peter as your favorite saint. He could get so mad that he once even cut somebody’s ear off!”

Throughout the centuries Christian people have adopted this same policy.

They have searched in the lives of the saints and have chosen certain ones as patrons for certain ailments.

There is, for instance, a group of fourteen saints particularly famous for their prompt intercession in special cases, known as the Fourteen Holy Helpers (Fourteen Auxiliary Saints). Here is the list, together with the attributes by which they are characterized in painting and sculpture.

(1) St. George (April 23rd), soldier-martyr. Always represented with the dragon he strikes down. He is invoked against the devil, and together with St. Sebastian and St. Maurice he is the patron of soldiers.

(2) St. Blaise (February 3rd), bishop, carries two candles crossed; he is invoked against diseases of the throat.

(3) St. Erasmus (June 2nd), martyr. His entrails are wound around a windlass. He is invoked against diseases of the stomach. Patron of seafarers.

(4) St. Pantaleon (July 27th), bishop. He is recognized by his nailed hands. Invoked against consumption. Together with St. Luke and Saints Cosmas and Damien, patron of doctors.

(5) St. Vitus (June 15th), martyr. He is recognized by his cross. Invoked against St. Vitus’ dance and the bite of poisonous or mad animals.

(6) St. Christopher (July 25th), bears the Infant Jesus on his shoulder. Invoked in storms and against accidents in travel.

(7) St. Denis (October 9th), bishop, holds his head in his hands.Invoked for people who are possessed by a devil.

(8) St. Cyriacus (August 8th), martyr, wears deacon’s vestments.Invoked against diseases of the eye.

(9) St. Acathius (May 8th), martyr, wears a crown of thorns. Invoked against headache.

(10) St. Eustace (September 20th), martyr, wears hunting clothes and is shown with a stag. Invoked against fire–temporal and eternal. Patron of hunters.

(11) St. Giles (September 1st), hermit, is recognized by his Benedictine habit and his hind. Invoked against panic, epilepsy, madness, and nightmares.

(12) St. Margaret (July 20th), martyr, keeps a dragon in chains. Invoked against pains in the loins. Patron for women in childbirth.

(13) St. Barbara (December 4th), martyr, is recognized by her tower and the ciborium. Invoked against sudden death. Patron of artillery men and miners.

(14) St. Catherine (November 25th), martyr, is shown with a broken wheel. Invoked by students, philosophers, orators, and barristers as “the wise counselor.”

In the old country, a picture of the Fourteen Holy Helpers is to be found in many a little wayside shrine or impressive pilgrimage church, such as Vierzehn-Heiligen in Bavaria.

It cannot be stressed enough that perhaps the most important books in the home, after Holy Scriptures, are those dealing with the lives of the saints.

Besides the classic Butler, there are other collections. We always liked Omer Englebert’s “The Lives of the Saints,” (New York, David McKay Co.) which gives the story of several saints for every day, thus providing one with many “true stories.”

Looking through those “Lives” becomes more and more fascinating as we realize the many links uniting these people of long ago with us in the twentieth century.

To my amazement I discovered that there is a patron saint for practically every profession–though we have to distinguish between saints appointed by the people themselves and others appointed by Rome. Thus the Holy Father, Pius XII, named St. Michael the patron of policemen, St. Albert the Great as patron for scientists, St. Alphonse Liguori as patron of Confessors, and St. Catherine of Siena as patron of nurses.

He appointed Our Lady under her title of the Immaculate Conception as patroness of the soldiers of the United States, while his predecessor, Pius XI, made St. Therese of Lisieux patron of all missionaries, St. Aloysius patron of all young people, the famous Cure of Ars, St. Jean-Baptiste-Marie Vianney, the patron of parish priests.

What I myself like best of all is that Rome appointed Our Lady of Loreto the patroness of aviators (obviously because she steered successfully the holy house of Nazareth through the air and had it land in Loreto, Italy, where it has been venerated since the Middle Ages).

Besides these “appointments” of patron saints, there are many chosen by the people.

I never could find out why St. Anthony of Padua (June 13th) has to find lost objects for everybody around the globe or why St. Matthew (February 24th) is the patron of repentant drunkards.

With other saints it is easy to see why some incident of their life or death was taken up by the people as indications that they should be invoked in special cases.

Good St. Anne is the patron saint for mothers-in-law and domestic troubles; St. Florian (May 4th), who was a Roman soldier condemned to death as a Christian and drowned in the River Enns in Austria, is universally invoked to extinguish fires, obviously with the help of the water hallowed by his death; St. Bartholomew (August 24th), who was skinned alive, was made patron for all tanners and butchers.

It is easy to see why the Holy Innocents (December 28th) are the patrons of choir boys and foundlings but rather hard to fathom why St. Margaret (July 20th) cures kidney diseases.

One of our children made a list once, “in case we need it,” of saints to be invoked for special illnesses. Here it is:

Against fever–St. Hugh (April 29th)

Against epilepsy–St. John Chrysostom (January 27th)

Against burns and poisons–St. John the Evangelist (December 27th)

Against inflammations–St. Benedict (March 21st)

Against cough and whooping cough–St. Blaise (February 3rd) Against consumption–St. Pantaleon (July 27th)

Against cold–St. Sebaldus (August 19th)

Patron of all the sick and dying–St. John of God (March 8th)

One of our boys got interested in patron saints for special professions.

Here is his little list:

St. Jerome–patron of students (September 30th)

St. Isidore–patron of laborers (May 10th)

St. Ives–patron of lawyers, jurists, advocates, notaries, and orphans

(May 19th)

The “Four Crowned Martyrs”–patrons of masons and sculptors (November

8th)

St. Francis de Sales–patron of writers (January 29th)

St. Gomer–patron of the unhappily married (October 11th)

St. Gregory the Great–patron of singers (March 12th)

St. Cecilia–patroness of musicians (November 22nd)

St. John the Baptist–patron of tailors (June 24th)

St. Paul–patron of rope-makers (June 30th)

If there are girls and boys in a family and one of the boys has made a list of various saints for different professions, the girls simply have to make a list of patron saints, too. Ours found patron saint for animals:

Bees–St. Ambrose (December 7th)

Pigs–St. Anthony the hermit (January 17th)

Dogs–St. Rochus (August 16th)

Horses–St. Leonard (November 6th)

Asses–St. Anthony of Padua (June 13th)

Birds–St. Francis of Assisi (October 4th)

Fish–St. Anthony (June 13th)

And once in a while somebody would come running with a special discovery.

“Mother,look! We have enough girls in our family. I found a patron saint to obtain male children: St. Felicitas (July 10th)!”

“Mother, do you think Aunt Susan knows there is a saint of old maids–St. Catherine of Alexandria (November 25th)?”

They also found that St. Gaston is the patron of children who learned to walk very late, and they discovered a few very valuable saints for weather.

If you want rain, pray to St. Odo; if you want sunshine, pray to St. Claire. But the head of the heavenly weather department is of course St. Peter.

And so it goes. If the children in a family become sufficiently interested in their big brothers and sisters, the saints, to start making such lists and finding out about the respective feast days, it is just as if one of their grown-up sisters were getting married and the new in-laws taken into the family.

Their birthdays and feast days are noted down, the enlargement of the family circle is celebrated, and this, each time, is a happy occasion.

While close relations are kept up with a great many of the saints, some of them are singled out by the Church to be celebrated in a special way.

There is, for instance, St. John the Baptist, whose feast is celebrated on the twenty-fourth of June. We learn that as far back as the eighth century bonfires were being lit in honor of the precursor of Christ–the “Johannesfeuer”–as a special solemnity.

In the old world, the young people of the villages and towns take kindling wood up the mountains or outside of town to some beautiful spot on a river bank. Before it is lit a few words point out the significance of this fire at the height of the year, at the beginning of summer when the nights are shortest; and the symbolism of fire and light in relation to that radiant figure, the Baptist. “He was a burning and a shining light: and you were willing for a time to rejoice in his light” (John 5:35).

When the flames are leaping up, everybody present joins in singing one of the old songs of the occasion.

When the fire is burning low, everyone leaps over it–boys and girls holding hands and leaping by twos. Then they settle down around the fire for the fire-watch until the last spark has died out.

Soon afterwards, on June 29th, we celebrate the feast of St. Peter and St. Paul.

The badge of St. Peter is the cock, in memory of the “thrice-crowing” of that animal.

As St. Peter is the “Great Fisherman,” his feast day is celebrated in many seacoast towns with great festivity.

Boats are decorated with garlands and ribbons. There are races, and the chief dish is fish, of course.

In our extensive traveling throughout many countries over three continents we have come across many a saint who is very famous locally but of whom we otherwise might never have heard. One day in the year is set aside to remember them all–the ones whose names are mentioned in the calendar and the multitudes who stand around the throne of God. This is All Saints’ Day, on November 1st.

In the Epistle, St. John tells us about the vision he had of the “great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and in sight of the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands,” singing praise to God.

The teaching of Our Lord in the Gospels tells us what makes a saint a saint “Blessed are the meek…Blessed are they that mourn…Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after justice…Blessed are the merciful…Blessed are the clean of heart…Blessed are the peacemakers…Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice’ sake….” Nothing is so encouraging as to consider, on All Saints’ Day, those millions and millions around the throne of God who followed this teaching.

Like St. Augustine before her, our Martina, when she was still quite little, said once on All Saints’ Day, “As I think of it, Mother, if all those people could do it, why not we!”

“God has so constituted us, that in loving and caring for our own children—the richest and best things in our natures are drawn out. Many of the deepest and most valuable lessons ever learned, are read from the pages of a child’s unfolding life. The thought of our responsibility for them, exalts every faculty of our souls. In the very care which they exact, they bring blessing to us.” J.R. Miller

Sign up for the Giveaway here!

Need a little help this Advent? The Catholic Mother’s Traditional Advent Journal will help you stay focused and on track as you guide your family through this wonderful season by making the Liturgy come alive in your home! Available here.  Advent Package available here.

This is a unique book of Catholic devotions for young children. There is nothing routine and formal about these stories. They are interesting, full of warmth and dipped right out of life. These anecdotes will help children know about God, as each one unfolds a truth about the saints, the Church, the virtues, etc. These are short faith-filled stories, with a few questions and a prayer following each one, enabling the moral of each story to sink into the minds of your little ones. The stories are only a page long so tired mothers, who still want to give that “tucking in” time a special touch, or pause a brief moment during their busy day to gather her children around her, can feel good about bringing the realities of our faith to the minds of her children in a childlike, (though not childish), way. There is a small poem and a picture at the end of each story. Your children will be straining their necks to see the sweet pictures! Through these small stories, parents will sow seeds of our Holy Catholic Faith that will enrich their families all the years to come!

This revised 1922 classic offers gentle guidance for preteen and teenage girls on how to become a godly woman. Full of charm and sentiment, it will help mother and daughter establish a comfortable rapport for discussions about building character, friendships, obedience, high ideals, a cheerful spirit, modest dress, a pure heart, and a consecrated life.

This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support.

 

The Land Without a Sunday – Maria Von Trapp

Newbury, Kansas

From Around the Year With the Trapp Family by Maria von Trapp

Our neighbors in Austria were a young couple, Baron and Baroness K. They were getting increasingly curious about Russia and what life there was really like. One day they decided to take a six-week trip all over Russia in their car. This was in the time when it was still possible to get a visa.

Of course, at the border they were received by a special guide who watched their every step and did not leave them for a moment until he deposited them safely again at the border, but they still managed to get a good first-hand impression.

Upon their return they wrote a book about their experiences, and when it was finished, they invited their neighbors and friends to their home in order to read some of their work to them.

I shall always recall how slowly and solemnly Baron K. read us the title “The Land Without a Sunday.”

Of all the things they had seen and observed, one experience had most deeply impressed them: that Russia had done away with Sunday. This had shocked them even more than what they saw of Siberian concentration camps or of the misery and hardship in cities and country. The absence of Sunday seemed to be the root of all the evil.

“Instead of a Sunday,” Baron K. told us, “the Russians have a day off.

This happens at certain intervals which vary in different parts of the country. First they had a five-day week, with the sixth day off, then they had a nine-day work period, with the tenth day off; then again it was an eight-day week. What a difference between a day off and a Sunday!

The people work in shifts. While one group enjoys its day off, the others continue to work in the factories or on the farms or in the stores, which are always open.

As a result the over-all impression throughout the country was that of incessant work, work, work. The atmosphere was one of constant rush and drive; finally, we confessed to each other that what we were missing most was not a well-cooked meal, or a hot bath, but a quiet, peaceful Sunday with church bells ringing and people resting after prayer.”

Here I must first tell what a typical Sunday in Austria was like in the old days up to the year before the Second World War. As I have spent most of my life in rural areas, it is Sunday in the country that I shall describe.

First of all, it begins on Saturday afternoon. In some parts of the country the church bell rings at three o’clock, in others at five o’clock, and the people call it “ringing in the Feierabend.”

Just as some of the big feasts begin the night before–on Christmas Eve, New Year’s Eve, Easter Eve–so every Sunday throughout the year also starts on its eve. That gives Saturday night its hallowed character.

When the church bell rings, the people cease working in the fields. They return with the horses and farm machinery, everything is stored away into the barns and sheds, and the barnyard is swept by the youngest farm-hand.

Then everyone takes “the” bath and the men shave. There is much activity in the kitchen as the mother prepares part of the Sunday dinner, perhaps a special dessert; the children get a good scrub; everyone gets ready his or her Sunday clothes, and it is usually the custom to put one’s room in order–all drawers, cupboards and closets.

Throughout the week the meals are usually short and hurried on a farm, but Saturday night everyone takes his time. Leisurely they come strolling to the table, standing around talking and gossiping. After the evening meal the rosary is said.

In front of the statue or picture of the Blessed Mother burns a vigil light. After the rosary the father will take a big book containing all the Epistles and Gospels of the Sundays and feast days of the year, and he will read the pertinent ones now to his family.

The village people usually go to Confession Saturday night, while the folks from the farms at a distance go on Sunday morning before Mass. Saturday night is a quiet night. There are no parties. People stay at home, getting attuned to Sunday. They go to bed rather early.

On Sunday everyone puts on his finery. The Sunday dress is exactly what its name implies–clothing reserved to be worn only on Sunday. We may have one or the other “better dress” besides. We may have evening gowns, party dresses–but this one is our Sunday best, set aside for the day of the Lord.

When we put it on, we invariably feel some of the Sunday spirit come over us. In those days everybody used to walk to church even though it might amount to a one or two hours’ hike down and up a mountain in rain or shine. Families usually went to the High Mass; only those who took care of the little children and the cooking had to go to the early Mass.

I feel sorry for everyone who has never experienced such a long, peaceful walk home from Sunday Mass, in the same way as I feel sorry for everyone who has never experienced the moments of twilight right after sunset before one would light the kerosene lamps. I know that automobiles and electric bulbs are more efficient, but still they are not complete substitutes for those other, more leisurely ways of living.

Throughout the country, all the smaller towns and villages have their cemeteries around the church; on Sunday, when the High Mass was over, the people would go and look for the graves of their dear ones, say a prayer, sprinkle holy water–a friendly Sunday visit with the family beyond the grave.

In most homes the Sunday dinner was at noon. The afternoon was often spent in visiting from house to house, especially visiting the sick.

The young people would meet on the village green on Sunday afternoons for hours of folk dancing; the children would play games; the grownups would very often sit together and make music. Sunday afternoon was a time for rejoicing, for being happy, each in his own way.

Until that night at Baron K.’s house we had done pretty much the same as everybody else. Saturday we had always kept as “Feierabend” for Sunday.

There was cleaning on Saturday morning throughout the house, there was cleaning in all the children’s quarters–desks and drawers and toys were put in order. There was the laying out of the Sunday clothes. There was the Saturday rosary, and then–early to bed.

On Sunday we often walked to the village church for High Mass, especially after we had started to sing. Later we used to go into the mountains with the children, taking along even the quite little ones, or we used to play an Austrian equivalent of baseball or volleyball, or we sat together and sang some of the songs we had collected ourselves on our hikes through the mountains.

We also did a good deal of folk dancing, we had company come or we went visiting ourselves–just as everybody else used to do.

And if anybody had asked us why we began our Sunday on Saturday in the late afternoon, why we celebrated our Sunday this way, we would have raised our eyebrows slightly and said, “Well, because that’s the way it’s always been done.”

But when my husband and I were walking home that night from Baron K.’s house, we realized that our complacency–so prevalent among people in pre-war days–had received a rude shock.

It dawned on us that we had taken something for granted that was, in reality, a privilege: namely, that we lived in a country where Sunday was not so much observed as it was celebrated as the day of the Lord.

This was a new way of looking at things, and the light was still rather dim, but I can see now in retrospect that a new chapter in our life as a Christian family began that very night.

Treat your boys as young men. You want them to grow up to be hardworking and confident. Is it not true, that the more productive we are, the better we feel? Then structure your children’s day to be active and busy—they will thrive under these conditions. -Finer Femininity

Painting by Mark Keathley, 1963

Blessed Mother Lava Bead Wire Wrapped Rosary! Lovely, Durable… Each link is handmade and wrapped around itself to ensure quality. Available here.

Here, Baroness Maria Augusta Trapp tells in her own beautiful, simple words the extraordinary story of her romance with the baron, their escape from Nazi-occupied Austria, and their life in America.

Now with photographs from the original edition.

Most people only know the young Maria from The Sound of Music; few realize that in subsequent years, as a pious wife and a seasoned Catholic mother, Maria gave herself unreservedly to keeping her family Catholic by observing in her home the many feasts of the Church’s liturgical year, with poems and prayers, food and fun, and so much more!

With the help of Maria Von Trapp, you, too, can provide Christian structure and vibrancy to your home. Soon your home will be a warm and loving place, an earthly reflection of our eternal home.

• Warm up with this delicious assortment of autumn inspired teas
• Perfect gift for the tea lover in your life
• Made with 100% natural ingredients
• Blended in the USA with natural ingredients from around the world.

• Part of Harney and Sons Historic Royal Palace line
• Each tin contains 30 sachets
• A sweet and spicy black tea

This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support.

Our Best Friends, The Angels – Maria Von Trapp, Fr. Paul O’Sullivan

 The spiritual world is very alive, very real!! Let’s not forget these angels and the role they have in our lives!

From Around the Year With the Trapp Family by Maria Von Trapp

THE ANGELS

Long before our little children learn to know Peter Rabbit, Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, and Winnie the Pooh, they must be made familiar with their most faithful companion–their best friend, their guardian angel.

The beauty of telling stories to little ones lies in their ready acceptance.

They believe that their guardian angel is around all the time, day and night, and they will talk to him, greeting him in the morning, discussing things with him during the day, thanking him in the evening.

When children grow up with a strong sense of a spiritual power at their service, instituted by God for the very special and sole purpose of being their very own helper and protector, such children need never be afraid, need never suffer from the modern ailment of insecurity.

It is up to us mothers to bring about this early and very personal friendship with their guardian angel. The feast of the Holy Guardian Angel on October 2nd should be a big event in our nurseries.

Once children are familiar with the world of the angels they will eagerly listen to other “angel stories” such as the one about the great hero Michael (whose feast day is September 29th) and his battle with his brother-angel Lucifer, who refused to serve God and had to be thrown out of heaven into the abyss where there is “weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth.”

A beautiful story is the one about the Archangel Raphael (feast day, October 24th), who was the friend and companion of young Tobias. Johannes Brahms set a lovely song about St. Raphael to music; we always sing it on that day.

And as we tell the children about the good angels, we shall also have to mention the bad ones who turned into devils. If the highest of them,

Satan himself, dared to tempt Our Lord, who are we to think that it “can’t happen to us” or that such stories belong to the Middle Ages and do not apply to modern times?

What St. Peter says to all of us we must tell to the little ones as well “Watch and pray, for the devil goes about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.”

From An Easy Way to Become a Saint, Fr. Paul O’Sullivan

OUR ANGEL GUARDIAN

One of the most marvelous dispensations of God’s Providence is the fact that He has given to each one of us a special Angel to watch over us.

At the moment of our birth God calls one of His glorious Princes, one of His mighty Angels, and bids this Angel guard and guide, defend and protect us. From that moment, this mighty Angel gives us all his loving care. He never leaves us, night or day. His duty after loving God is to love us. He devotes all his intelligence, all his strength, all his care to shield us from hurt and harm.

We can form no idea of the evils and dangers he saves us from, the countless great favors he has done us and is doing us every day. Not content to use all his own power to help us, he is constantly praying for us to God.

Reading the story of St. Raphael in the Sacred Scriptures, we marvel at the infinite goodness of God in sending this great Angel to accompany the young Tobias on his long journey. The Angel proved to be a trusty friend.

He not only accompanied him on his journey, protecting him from every danger, but he also obtained for him a most happy marriage and abundant wealth. He brought him home safely, to the delight of his parents, who were anxiously awaiting his return.

As a final gift, he cured Tobias’s old father, who had been blind. Before leaving the now happy family, he revealed himself to them as one of the seven great Angels who stand before the throne of God and bade them bless and thank the Good God who had sent him to them.

This is certainly one of the most consoling and wonderful stories in the Bible, revealing to us the infinite sweetness and goodness of God. Yet each one of us has a glorious Prince of Heaven with us, not for weeks or months but for all the long years of our lives, loving us most affectionately, defending us from countless evils and snatching us from dangers that we do not even see.

This dear Angel came to us at the moment of our birth and has been with us ever since. He will console us in Purgatory if we go there and will then accompany us to Heaven, where he will be with us forever and forever.

We marvel when reading this story of Raphael, but it is a much greater marvel that we have a glorious Angel ever at our sides and yet know and love him so little. Have we ever even thanked God for this astounding proof of His goodness?

The culpable neglect of our dear Angel is one of the most lamentable and shameful faults of our life.

From All About the Angels by Fr. Paul O’Sullivan

WHY IGNORE OUR BEST FRIENDS?

“Make friends with the Angels” is the advice which the great Pope, St. Leo, gives every Christian and it is advice that everyone should follow.

If we make friends with the Angels —and nothing is easier— we shall receive innumerable and great favors which otherwise we shall never obtain.

Our Angel friends, too, will shield and protect us from countless dangers, evils, sickness and accidents which, without their help, we could not possibly avoid.

In a word, these all-powerful and loving protectors will secure for us a degree of happiness that, without their assistance, we could not hope for in this vale of tears! Another reason we should make friends with the Angels is that they are our dearest and best friends. A good friend, a friend who is able and always ready to help us, a friend to whom we can have recourse in all our troubles and sorrows, is one of the greatest blessings God can give us.

Our human hearts thirst for love and sympathy. Among men we rarely or never find such a friend, but this is not so with the Angels. They are most desirous to be our friends and they love us with all the intensity of their angelic natures.

Since they are all-powerful and generous, we can have the fullest confidence in their help and friendship.

The one friendship on this Earth that gives us any idea of the love of the Angels is the affection of a mother. This is the purest, the most generous, the strongest of all human loves.

The mother loves her children with unbounded affection. God has placed in the mother’s heart an instinct of love so great that it almost borders on the supernatural. She forgets herself and thinks only of her children. She works for them, sacrifices herself for them, and gives them her all.

If one of them should fall sick or be plunged into some great sorrow, to that one she devotes a more special gentleness and a more loving care.

We sometimes see a frail woman watch by the bedside of her sick child— eating little, resting little, consumed with a poignant anxiety —for ten, twenty or even thirty days, never complaining, and never faltering. When these days of anguish and bitterness are past, this almost superhuman effort, these long, weary vigils,’ seem to have cost her nothing. The mother’s love sustained her.

Yet, strong men who lose their sleep for two or three consecutive nights complain that they find it hard to work the following day.

If a poor frail mother— she may be young or old, rich or poor, full of weaknesses and imperfections— can rise to such a height of love and abnegation as this, what may we not expect from God’s Angels, who have no defects, no imperfections and who love us with all the mighty power of their glorious angelic natures?

The teaching of the Church about the Angels is most beautiful and consoling, but unfortunately many Christians have scant knowledge of the great world of the Angels. They know little about these blessed Spirits, love them little and seldom pray to them. Worst of all, they do not realize their presence.

They show no confidence in them, and they do not call on them for help when dangers and difficulties press around.

As a result they forfeit a thousand blessings that they might easily enjoy and fall victim to a thousand accidents that they might easily have avoided.

HOW COMES IT THAT THE ANGELS ARE SO LITTLE KNOWN AND SO LITTLE LOVED?

Simply because many, whose duty it is to teach this most important doctrine are gravely negligent in fulfilling their obligation.

First of all, Christian Mothers should instill deeply into the minds of their children a clear, vivid and abiding sense of the presence of their dear Angels.

It is not sufficient to give them vague, hazy, insufficient notions of these Blessed Spirits, nor is it enough to teach them to say a short prayer at morning and at night to their Angel Guardians.

They should devote much time and much attention to this all-important subject.

Children must be taught constantly from their tenderest years to have a real love and friendship for their Angels, to have boundless confidence in them. They must be accustomed to feel and realize the personal presence of their Angels, to call on them in all their fears and troubles.

How much better this would be than that the children should have their heads filled with foolish fear of ghosts and hobgoblins as so frequently happens.

Mothers who impress on their children this great lesson confer on them inestimable blessings during all the long years of their lives.

On the other hand, if they neglect this duty or make light of it, they do a great wrong to their dear ones for they deprive them of the best and most powerful friends.

Catechists, too, and teachers of the young in schools, colleges and convents are frequently remiss in teaching those in their charge all about the blessed Angels. The minds of their pupils are developing, and the teaching of the mothers in the home, no matter how good it might have been, must be perfected and developed.

Professors of older students, boys and girls, are perhaps greater offenders. They rarely mention the subject of the Angels in their classes.

Why? Do not the Angels exist? Are they not our best friends? Is there not much to be said about them?

Priests of course can do much to remedy the neglect of parents and teachers by preaching at times on the Angels, by wise counsels in the confessional and by exhorting the faithful to read books on the Angels. Priests who do so receive most striking graces.

We need to awaken in our hearts a real love and friendship for the Holy Angels, an abiding confidence in them, and above all to realize and feel vividly the presence of these loving Spirits ever by our sides.

 

A coloring page for your children:

The Scourging

Christ shrank from pain, but he did not refuse it. Late morning saw him flung against a praetorium pillar, while the hired man of Rome, giant barbarians with a muscle and moral sense of wild beasts, wore themselves out whipping and lashing Jesus near to death.
Every thump of the iron-weighted cords tore fresh fed rents in his flesh. Jesus, who the night before had turned wine to blood, now shed that blood like wine poured out.

His body is the chalice of his spilt-out blood, the cup He no longer asks his Father to remove.

When we ask God to relieve our sufferings, He sometimes answers our prayers with more wisdom by letting them continue. To accept pain as Jesus did, is to sanctify it – and myself.

“God has thus put into the hand of the parents at their own hearthstone, a power greater than that which kings and queens wield, and which must issue in either the weal or the woe of their children. It would surely seem to be worth while to make any sacrifice of personal comfort or pleasure—to transmit a legacy of holy memories which shall be through all the years, like a host of pure angels hovering over those we love, to guard and guide them.” J.R. Miller

Lovely Religious Pendants!

These graceful Vintaj necklaces can be worn every day as a reminder of your devotion. Get it blessed and you can use it also as a sacramental. Available here.

Now that the weather is cooling, it is a good time to steep some tea, cuddle up to the fire and grab a good book. Visit My Book List for some good reading recommendations….

This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support.

 

“Once Upon a Time” – Story-Telling and Feasts by Maria Von Trapp

by Maria von Trapp, Around the Year With the Trapp Family

“ONCE UPON A TIME”

Among the arts that are dying out rapidly in our machine age, the one most in danger is the art of story-telling. In other generations it was quite natural that every mother would tell her little ones a story at bed-time, or when a child didn’t feel well, or on Sundays and feast days.

Those were the times when mothers were really busy, when they had to light a fire in the kitchen stove, to wash their laundry by hand, to shop every morning and carry their marketing home–sometimes over long distances–when they were sewing the children’s clothes and mending and darning in the evening. But there was always time left to tell a story.

There is no substitute for story-telling. The reading of books, privately or aloud, the listening to radio and watching television–all these devices cannot replace one single, live story told around the fireplace or on the front porch on a summer night, or after the bonfire has died down.

Admittedly, it is not an easy art. Many people have found that out and have given up before trying hard enough.

A lot of story-telling has gone on in our house. My husband was a master of it. When he started to tell about his trip around the world in an old-fashioned frigate as a cadet first class, or of his participation in the Boxer Rebellion in China when he was nineteen, or of his adventures in the first newly invented, poorly constructed submarines, we all would sit spellbound, oblivious of time.

Once we spent a delightful summer with Robert Flaherty and his family. He was another master of this forgotten art. Almost every night, on the lawn in front of his Vermont home, he told about his experiences with the Eskimos, or with the South Sea people–again banishing time.

One is always sure of captivating an audience with ghost stories. There are plenty of true ghost stories–one just has to look for them–true because they might tell of an experience with the world beyond.

It isn’t so much what we tell–as long as we are willing to revive this forgotten art. Our Lord gives us an example. Some of the most beautiful stories ever told come from Him–the story of the Prodigal Son, of Lazarus, of the Good Samaritan.

And now we have reached the most important point of all. When sermons or devotional books tell us that the Christian family should fashion itself on the example of the Holy Family, this usually refers to the spiritual life only.

“If there were more mothers like Mary and more fathers like Joseph, there would be more children like Jesus,” it is said, Mary being thought of as the holy handmaid of the Lord, Joseph as the man nearest to God, and the Infant “subject unto them.”

Nowhere have I seen that thought extended to the whole of our family life, calling us to model our recreations, also, on the example of the Holy Family. It is not at all likely that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph would have gone to some of the shows in our movie theatres or into any one of our night clubs or the average Broadway show.

It is quite probable, however, that there was story-telling, singing, and discussion going on in the evenings in the little house in Nazareth; and why shouldn’t they have played games with the little Boy and His friends, or listened to music played on the quaint ancient instruments by some neighbors?

Joseph may have read to his family, and whenever they accepted an invitation to a wedding of one of their kinfolk, they certainly participated in the solemn dancing which formed part of any oriental wedding ceremony.

A word from the Book of Wisdom is often applied to Our Lord or to His Holy Mother: “My joy it is to be with the children of men.” Should we limit this “togetherness” to one hasty half-hour on Sundays, from eleven to eleven-thirty?

Knowing that it means such joy for them, let us invite the Holy Family to stay with us throughout the days of the week, throughout the years of our life when we work or pray and also when we play.

Our Life–A Feast

Everything from booklets to tomes is being written, in alarmingly increasing numbers, on one topic the deterioration of family life and what to do about it. As one looks over those more or less learned treatises, however, one misses one phrase–family feasts–and yet that makes all the difference.

Why have homes more and more turned into places where a group of people merely happen to live under one roof, each member going his separate way, sharing nothing with the others? The answer is that they lack family feasts.

Holy Mother Church knows that in all families, no matter how seriously they strive for perfection, how honestly they all want to become saints, there are times when parents or children alike may lose their temper, may give way to selfishness or possessiveness, when the mother makes imprudent judgments, children give in to self-pity, and everybody gets fed up. That may, and does, happen to all of us. Why? Because we are all created alike. We have inherited original sin and we suffer from the scars of the old wound.

But the Church has given us the feast and has taught us how to celebrate, and it is the hallmark of a feast that it cannot be celebrated by a solitary individual. There has to be a group. It is the feast that helps to keep the family together.

This is true from the very beginning of family life. From the weekly celebration of the Day of the Lord, and from the yearly cycle of feasts of Christmastide and Paschaltide, the young parents have learned how to celebrate.

As the children are coming along and witness how beautifully the father celebrates the feast days of the mother–her birthday, her baptismal day, the feast of her patron saint, their wedding anniversary–and when they see with how much love the mother prepares the great days of the father–then the children come to experience a feeling of security which they will need so greatly in later life–the warmth of the nest which the young bird needs before he can spread his own wings.

This is how it starts. The father draws the attention of the children to the coming feast days of the mother, and the mother does the same for the father. The older sisters and brothers teach the little ones. There is always a lot of secrecy around our house in the days before a feast, a lot of whispering and preparations behind closed doors. “Before a birthday, there’s a prickle in the air like ginger ale,” said one of my children once.

In order to keep a record of all the various feasts–no mean achievement in as large a family as ours–my daughter Rosemary has devised an “Anniversary Calendar,” one page of which is here reproduced. (Anyone with a knack for drawing can attempt something similar as a homemade gift!)

“Every effort we make to forget self, to leave self behind us, and to devote ourselves to the labor of making every person with whom we are bound to live, happy, is rewarded by interior satisfaction and joy. The supreme effort of goodness is,—not alone to do good to others; that is its first and lower effect,—but to make others good.” Rev. Bernard O’Reilly The Mirror of True Womanhood, 1893 (afflink)

Make a statement with this lovely and graceful “Our Lady of Guadalupe” handcrafted apron….fully lined….made with care.

Aprons tell a beautiful story…..a story of love and sacrifice….of baking bread and mopping floors, of planting seeds and household chores. Sadly, many women have tossed the aprons aside and donned their business attire.

Wear your apron with joy….it is a symbol of Femininity….”Finer” Femininity! 🌺 💗 Available here.

In this joyful and charming book, Maria Von Trapp (from The Sound of Music) unveils for you the year-round Christian traditions she loved traditions that created for her large family a warm and inviting Catholic home and will do the same for yours.

Mary Reed Newland wrote numerous beloved books for Catholic families, but The Year and Our Children is her undisputed masterpiece. Read it, cherish it, share it, put it into practice and give your kids the gift of a fully lived faith, every day and in every season.

This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support.

The Assumption! by Maria Von Trapp

Happy, Happy Feast of the Assumption! Make sure you do something a little special today to remind your children what a special day it is! For inspiration see this post.

From Around the Year with the Trapp Family

The day of the Assumption, August 15th, is the oldest and most important of all the feast days of the Blessed Mother.

In the old country it is also known as “Great Flower Day.” All the women and girls come to church on this day with their arms full of neat bundles of herbs, which they put down in the sanctuary at the Offertory procession.

On this feast day the Church blesses the herbs immediately preceding Mass. The priest, standing before the altar and facing the people, pronounces a long and solemn blessing at the end of which the herbs are sprinkled with holy water and are incensed.

There are special herbs which traditionally have to be included. Days before the feast the people are collecting them in the meadows and woods. Every family sends one such bundle to be blessed.

Afterwards it will be kept in the corner at home near the picture or statue of the Blessed Mother.

In cases of sickness a leaf is dropped into the food of the patient and during heavy thunderstorms one of the herbs is put into the fire on the kitchen stove–it is a sacramental and is meant to protect us in body and soul.

The connection between the feast of the Assumption and the blessing of herbs is told in an old legend.

When Mary the Mother of Jesus felt that her end was drawing near, she sent her guardian angel to summon the Apostles, who had gone out into the world to preach the Gospel of her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ.

When they received the summons, they came in a great hurry and were just in time to witness the happy death of their dear Mother. Everyone had come except Thomas. He was three days late.

When he heard that the Blessed Mother had been resting in the tomb for days, he cried bitterly and pled with the Apostles to open the tomb once more and let him glance at the beloved features.

The other Apostles yielded to his plea, but as they opened the tomb, they found it filled with flowers, which gave out a heavenly scent. On the place where they had laic the body there was only the shroud left–the body had been borne up to heaven by the angels, where it was joined by the holy soul of the Mother of God.

According to the legend, all the flowers and herbs on earth had lost their scent after Adam and Eve committed the first sin in the Garden of Eden. On the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Mother, however, the flowers were given back their scent and the herbs their power to heal.

Looking for a fun craft with the little ones today? Take a look at this post!

 

“Let us run to Mary, and as her little children, cast ourselves into her arms with a perfect confidence.” – St. Francis de Sales
Happy Feast of the Assumption!

 

A sermon for this wonderful feast day!

Your children can celebrate with these coloring pages!

Are you blessed by this site? Consider donating today. Our benefactors are remembered in our daily, family rosaries….

Lovely book, worth the time and money! This book will inspire you with ways to live the Liturgy within your home!

In this joyful and charming book, Maria Von Trapp unveils for you the year-round Christian traditions she loved traditions that created for her large family a warm and inviting Catholic home and will do the same for yours….Mary Reed Newland wrote numerous beloved books for Catholic families, but The Year and Our Children is her undisputed masterpiece. Read it, cherish it, share it, put it into practice and give your kids the gift of a fully lived faith, every day and in every season….

This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support.

Preparing for Pentecost – Maria von Trapp

Happy Ascension Thursday! The following is a lovely excerpt from Maria von Trapp’s Around the Year with the Trapp Family. It is an excellent way to prepare your family’s hearts for the coming of the Holy Ghost!

On Ascension Day begin the nine days of waiting and preparing, together with the Apostles and Mary, the coming of the Holy Ghost.

These are the days when families should discuss the “Gifts of the Holy Ghost” and the “Fruits of the Holy Ghost” evening after evening.

As I look back over the years I marvel at how different these discussions were every year, always full of surprises, partly because there were different people participating–guests of the family or new friends of the children–who do not ordinarily hear the workings of the “Gifts of the Holy Ghost” discussed around the family table.

We devote one whole evening to each one of the gifts. First is the Gift of Knowledge, offered to help us in our dealings with inanimate and animate created nature, with things and people.

It teaches us to make use of them wisely, and to refrain from what is dangerous for us. As we consider a typical day, we discover that this gift is needed from the very moment of awakening, when we have to part from the created thing “bed.”

The younger ones discover that the Gift of Knowledge helps them to remember that they have to make use of such created things as the toothbrush and the shower. In fact, there is hardly a moment of the day in which we do not have to make decisions about using something or dealing with somebody, and when we do not need the immediate help from the Holy Spirit to carry us safely through the day.

The second evening is devoted to the Gift of Understanding, which is extended to us for the understanding, with mind and heart, of revealed truth as we find it in Holy Scripture and the liturgy, and in the breviary.

This gift we need for our hours of prayer and meditation. It fulfills the Lord’s promise: “The Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, He will teach you all things” (John 14:26).

The third evening is devoted to the Gift of Counsel, which helps us to distinguish, in every moment of our life, what is the will of God. This gift we also need when someone turns to us for advice.

It is most necessary to parents and teachers, priests, and all persons in authority. But above all it should help us to make the right choices in everyday life–even in such minor matters as “Should I do my homework now or later? Should I see this movie or not?”

The Gift of Fortitude helps us to overcome our own will. This may start with such seemingly small matters as jumping out of bed the moment we had intended to do so; with giving up smoking or candies and cookies for certain times; with keeping silence when we might have a sharp answer ready; with doing little things for others at the cost of our own comfort; and it may lead to the ultimate test–aiding us in joining the thousands of contemporary martyrs who are called to lay down their life for God. Again, a gift that is needed throughout the day!

The Gift of Piety does not sound particularly attractive, until we realize that it infuses our hearts with a special kind of love, directed toward everything belonging and related to God all persons consecrated to His service–the Holy Father in Rome, bishops and priests, missionaries, nuns, and lay brothers–and all things set aside for God only, such as church and altar, chalice and monstrance, vestments, and the sacramentals in our home–rosaries, holy water, medals.

This precious gift also makes us eager to devote time to the service of God. It helps overcome morning laziness when it is time for Mass. It makes us want to visit our hidden God once in a while in church. In other words, it instills the interest for the supernatural in our souls. How could we do without it!

When we come to the Gift of the Fear of the Lord, there is always someone to raise the argument “This I don’t understand. That is the spirit of the Old Testament, of the chosen people who were trembling before Jehovah so that they said to Moses, `You go up the mountain and talk with Him–we are afraid.’ But the New Testament teaches us to say `Our Father,’ and Our Lord says, `I don’t call you servants any more, I call you friends!’ One isn’t afraid of one’s father or one’s friend! What do I need the Gift of Fear for?”

It is then that something very tender and beautiful comes to light. If a person loves another one very much, you may often hear him say: “I’m afraid to wake him up, he needs his sleep”; or, “I’m afraid to disturb him.” In other words, love is afraid to hurt the beloved one.

The Gift of Fear should lead us to a state of mind which makes us afraid to sin because it would hurt Him.

The Gift of Wisdom, finally, seems to sum up all the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, just as charity sums up all His fruits. If we ask throughout all our days for the other Gifts of the Holy Ghost and cooperate with them, if we examine our conscience every night about the use we made of them–wisdom will grow in our hearts.

This wisdom has nothing to do with ordinary human intelligence, with knowledge learned in schools and from books. One doesn’t even have to be able to read and write in order to become wise.

Once in a while one meets an old lay brother or lay sister, an old farmer in the country, or some bedridden person, who may not be learned in the eyes of the world, but may impress us deeply by a true wisdom expressed in all simplicity.

At the end of the seventh day we have all renewed our conviction that we cannot lead a truly Christian life without the special aid of the Holy Ghost, that we have to ask for it as we start each day, and be faithful to it as we go through the day. Children, with the generosity of young hearts, are remarkably responsive to this suggestion.

The eighth day of the novena is dedicated to the “Fruits of the Holy Ghost” as they are enumerated in St. Paul–especially the first three love, peace, and joy.

On this day we always call to mind the admonition of one of our dearest friends, Reverend Father Abbot, to take the word of Our Lord literally, that “by their fruits thou shalt know them.”

In every individual soul, in every family or community we should watch whether the fruits are the fruits of the Holy Ghost, whether love, peace, and joy prevail.

On the last day of the novena we meditate together on the two great hymns, “Veni, Sancte Spiritus” and “Veni, Creator Spiritus.”

Through our previous discussions, these texts are seen in a new light, and the repeated “Veni, veni” (“Come, Holy Ghost, come”) really rises from longing hearts. And when, during High Mass on Pentecost Sunday, priest and community kneel down at the solemn text of the Gradual, “Veni, Sancte Spiritus,” we feel the miracle of the first Pentecost repeated in our hearts, filled by the Holy Ghost in response to the intensity of our “Veni.”

In the old country, ancient Pentecost customs are still alive. On the

Saturday before Pentecost Sunday the young men go out with long whips, cracking them with special skill to produce a noise called “Pfingstschnalzen.”

This is followed by “Pfingstschiessen,” done with the same ancient guns that are used for shooting on Easter and other festivities.

In some valleys people walk barefoot up into the mountains through the dew, calling for the Holy Ghost. In the Alps, cattle decorated with wreaths and garlands are sent up to the high pastures, accompanied for a little way by most of the villagers.

Many of the old churches throughout the Alps have a hole in the ceiling above the altar through which, on Pentecost Sunday, during High Mass the “Holy Ghost dove” is let down into the church.

On Ascension Day, the statue of the Risen Lord is lifted on wires after the Gospel to disappear in the same opening, which brings the mystery of the day very close to all children, big and small. In some parishes the Risen Lord, at the end of the Mass, sends gifts down from heaven–apples and cookies and candies for the children, and flowers and green branches for the grownups, and everybody tries to take at least a leaf or a petal home.

This brings us to the end of the holy Paschal season. The octave day of Pentecost, known as Trinity Sunday, is dedicated to the Blessed Trinity. While in the first centuries the Easter Communion had to be received on Easter Sunday, the Church later extended “Easter Time,” which now begins on Ash Wednesday and ends on Trinity Sunday.

Once a family has celebrated the year of the Church faithfully from the First Sunday in Advent, feasting and fasting together, until the fullness of the Holy Ghost crowns their efforts throughout the days of Pentecost, it will be a very happy family indeed.

He has ascended…yes, He is gone. And yet He is ever nearer. We need not run hither and dither to find happiness. “The Kingdom of God is within us”. Let us listen for His Voice. 🌸🌺

Happy Ascension Thursday!

“Why do you stand there looking up toward heaven?” He hasn’t left us. Sermon on the feast of the Ascension with quotes by St Augustine.

To the modern mind, the concept of poverty is often confused with destitution. But destitution emphatically is not the Gospel ideal. A love-filled sharing frugality is the message, and Happy Are You Poor explains the meaning of this beatitude lived and taught by Jesus himself. But isn’t simplicity in lifestyle meant only for nuns and priests? Are not all of us to enjoy the goodness and beauties of our magnificent creation? Are parents to be frugal with the children they love so much?

The renowned spiritual writer Dubay gives surprising replies to these questions. He explains how material things are like extensions of our persons and thus of our love. If everyone lived this love there would be no destitution.

After presenting the richness of the Gospel message, more beautiful than any other world view, he explains how Gospel frugality is lived in each state of life.

“This book calls on Christian men to man up and fight for our faith, it is an excellent read. Should be required reading in every Christian school in the nation, the book is written for young men, usually the teenage years and is refreshingly unapologetic in its exhortation for young men to stand up for what they believe.” -Chris M. https://amzn.to/30SZbh9

This post contains affiliate links. Thank you for your support.

Easter! Maria Von Trapp

We cannot be grateful enough that the Holy Father, Pius XII, has given back to us the ancient Easter Night! Even as children we felt that something was not quite as it should be when the Church broke out early in the morning of Holy Saturday in the threefold Alleluia, while the Gospel told us that Our Lord was resting in the grave to rise on Easter Sunday morning.

Now the word of the Holy Father has put things straight and Holy Saturday has regained its ancient character. Apart from the one choir rehearsal for Easter, it is quiet around our house, everybody busying himself with preparations for Easter inside and outside.

Some are getting flowers and candles ready to be put into the chapel upon our return from the parish church after midnight. Others are working out a new scheme of decorating the dining room for the greatest family meal of the year–the Easter breakfast. Practically everybody is preparing some special Easter eggs for someone else.

In the late afternoon it is time for Confession, and after supper we sit together with the booklets containing the rites of Easter Night, reading and discussing the beautiful texts of this most holy liturgy. An air of expectancy is descending over the house and family which can only compare to Christmas Eve.

With the exception of one person who has to stay behind to guard the house, everybody piles into the cars to be down in Stowe a little before eleven. Invariably a voice out of the group will remind us: “Don’t let’s forget the lantern and the bottle for the Easter water.”

Many of the traditions and customs, as I have related them so far, are centuries old, handed down from father to son. In the celebration of the Easter Night, however, we are experiencing the making of a tradition, and that is something precious, too.

As we come down to the little parish church in Stowe, we see people arriving from all sides. We are all silently waiting outside around a little pile of wood logs in front of the church door.

Now comes the altar boy and, with a lighter–it is prescribed that the new flame should be made with flint–he sets fire to the wood. Meanwhile the whole community is congregated, a few hundred people waiting in the crisp air of the early spring, under the starry sky, for the “Feast of Light” to begin.

Now a solemn little procession approaches from the dark church–the altar boy, our pastor, and our Father Wasner as deacon carrying the Paschal candle. First the new fire is blessed by the pastor. Then he turns solemnly to the Paschal candle around which this “Feast of Light” centers.

With a knife the priest cuts a cross on the candle. Then the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, the Alpha and Omega, and finally the numbers of the year, in this form, while he says:

Christ yesterday and today

the Beginning and the End

Alpha and Omega

His are the times

and ages

To Him be glory and dominion

Through all ages of eternity

Amen.

Then he fixes five blessed grains of incense in the cross on the Paschal candle, saying:

By His holy

and glorious wounds

may He guard

and preserve us

Christ the Lord.

Amen.

The deacon lights a small candle from the new fire and presents it to the pastor, who solemnly lights the Paschal candle, saying:

May the light of Christ

In glory rising again,

Dispel the darkness of

Heart and mind.

All of us are holding unlighted candles, and now the procession forms and enters the church. First comes the altar boy with the cross, then the deacon with the lighted Paschal candle, then the pastor, the rest of the altar boys, and finally the people. At the threshold of the church, the procession stops. The deacon raises the candle and sings “Lumen Christi” (Light of Christ) while all of us, genuflecting toward the candle which represents Christ, the Risen Saviour, answer “Deo gratias” (Thanks be to God).

After the first “Deo gratias” the pastor lights his candle from the Paschal candle. In the middle of the church we are stopped again by the deacon, who repeats, one tone higher, “Lumen Christi.” After the second “Deo gratias” the rest of the clergy present and the altar boys light their candles.

When the deacon reaches the sanctuary, he chants for the third time, again a tone higher, “Lumen Christi,” and at this “Deo gratias” the rest of the people light their candles from the new holy light. The deacon places the candle on a stand and in the warm glow of the many flames he sings in a jubilant tone the most beautiful hymn of praise, the ancient “Exsultet.”

With this, the “Lucernarium” (the Feast of Light), the first of the three major parts of the Easter Night, is completed and all the candles of clergy and people are extinguished.

Now begins the second part, the baptismal service. Once more the priests change their white vestments for violet and read at the altar four lessons. After each lesson the deacon admonishes the people, “Flectamus genua,” whereupon the congregation kneels down in silent prayer until he bids them, “Levate.”

After the four lessons, priests and people start to sing the Litany of All Saints. The Litany is sung as far as “Omnes Sancti et Sanctae Dei, intercedite pro nobis.” Then it is interrupted.

In the middle of the sanctuary, next to the Paschal candle, a large vessel with water is prepared, which the priest now blesses most solemnly–the Easter water.

Every family wants to take a bottle of this most holy water home. Therefore, a large quantity is set aside for the use of the faithful.

Into the rest the holy oils are mingled, turning it into baptismal water. If anyone is waiting to be baptized in this holiest of nights, this is the moment when the baptism would be conferred right there in the sanctuary.

Then the vessel with the baptismal water is carried by the deacon, followed by the rest of the clergy in procession, over to the baptismal font. While the procession returns in silence to the sanctuary, the candles of clergy and people are lit again, the priests change from purple back to white, and the pastor steps over to the Paschal candle, facing the people, and prepares them for the most important moment of the year:

“…Therefore, my dearest Brethren, now that the Lenten observance is over, let us renew the vows of our Holy Baptism, by which we have of old renounced Satan and his works, and also the world, which is the enemy of God, and promised to serve God faithfully in the holy Catholic Church.” And then he asks us gravely:

“Do you renounce Satan?”

And the whole church resounds with the answer: “We do renounce him.”

“And all his works?”

“We do renounce them.”

“Do you believe in God, the Father Almighty….”

“And in Jesus Christ….”

“And in the Holy Ghost….”

After the third thunderous “We do believe,” we may rightly be convinced that our baptismal innocence is restored. When the meaning of all this dawns on one for the first time, one feels shaken to one’s innermost being.

“Let us now with one voice pray God as Our Lord Jesus Christ has taught us to pray,” says the pastor, and a renewed congregation, “born again by water and the Holy Ghost,” says the Lord’s Prayer.

All this happened to us once when we were infants and our godparents gave the answers in our name and held the baptismal candle for us. Now we are privileged once a year to renew these vows while holding the candle ourselves. This is truly a holy night!

Kneeling down, we finish the litany together with the priest, and then comes the third part–the Eucharist service, the midnight Mass.

Every year we repeat that the greatest reward for being a singing family comes when we can sing these jubilant Alleluias at the Easter Mass!

After the official liturgy is fulfilled, there still comes for us the observance of some ancient religious customs that belong to the liturgy of the home. In the lantern we take home some of the new blessed Easter light, with which we shall relight the vigil lamp at home. The bottle we fill with Easter water, and on the way out of church we take some of the blackened logs from the Easter fire and preserve them at the fireplace, where they work as sacramentals in times of danger from storms and lightning.

We try to keep up the customs we learned from the people in the Alps when they say the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary on Good Friday. Toward three o’clock of that day the father of the house goes to the corner where the vigil light burns before the crucifix and gravely blows it out; then he pours water on the fire in the fireplace. No flame is allowed around the house between the hour of Our Lord’s death and His Resurrection, in honor of Him Whom we call the Light of the World.

When we return, therefore, in the Easter Night with the blessed light in the lantern, the vigil light is lit from it and also the fire in the fireplace, and all the holy-water fonts are filled with Easter water.

EASTER DAY

Following a custom going back to the tenth century, all the kinds of food that were forbidden during the weeks of Lent are arranged in baskets and the Church has a special blessing to be pronounced on this food on Easter morning by the priest–the meat and eggs and butter, salt and Easter bread.

We remember how in small country churches these baskets would be placed on the Communion rail, and how in larger communities the people would hold them in their arms while the priest, after pronouncing the blessing, would go down the aisle sprinkling holy water over the food.

This is what singles out the Easter breakfast from among all other meals of the year–that we partake of this solemnly blessed food. Ham and Easter bread and colored eggs and many, many flowers and pussy willows and silken ribbons give the table a festive look.

Artistically painted eggs are usually kept by the owners throughout the year, but the simply colored eggs and many, many flowers and pussy willows and silken ribbons give the table a festive look.

The simpler eggs are now used for “Eierpecken.” Around the table everyone takes an egg in hand, and now, by two’s, they try to “peck” the other one’s egg first. The one who indents the other’s egg, while his own remains uncracked, harvests the cracked egg. The one who finally has the most is hailed as victor.

In the old country all the big feasts, but especially Easter, are accompanied by “Boellerschiessen.” The young men use old fashioned heavy rifles, and particularly in mountainous parts of the country where the echo takes up those cannon-like detonations, they add tremendously to the festive character of the day.

And there’s still another thing–the Easter fire. On all the heights and summits innumerable bonfires are lit in honor of the Risen Lord.

For Easter Monday there is an old custom, still very much alive in the old country, which might well be duplicated here, even though Easter Monday is not generally a holiday, as it is in Europe. In honor of the Gospel of the day, which tells of the two disciples who went to Emmaus and met Our Lord on the way, Easter Monday became a visiting day.

Wherever there are old or sick people, they are visited by young and old.

The Sunday after Easter we still remember as White Sunday, for it was the day when the little children were led in a small procession by the rest of the parish into the church for their First Communion.

In the weeks between Easter and the Ascension there are four days set aside where the Church has her children go out into the fields and pastures chanting the litany of All Saints and asking God’s blessing for a good harvest and as protection against hailstorms, floods, and droughts. One day is the feast of St. Mark, April 25th, and the other three days are called “Rogation Days” and are the Monday, Tuesday, and

Wednesday preceding the Ascension, which always falls on a Thursday. We always make these outdoor processions up on our mountain. The very first hue of green is appearing in the meadows, the birds are singing in the woods again, and the whole atmosphere is one of spring and hope.

 

“Every effort we make to forget self, to leave self behind us, and to devote ourselves to the labor of making every person with whom we are bound to live, happy, is rewarded by interior satisfaction and joy. The supreme effort of goodness is,—not alone to do good to others; that is its first and lower effect,—but to make others good.” Rev. Bernard O’Reilly The Mirror of True Womanhood, 1893  (afflink)

Many beautiful handmade items available at

Meadows of Grace!

 

Lovely book, worth the time and money! This book will inspire you with ways to live the Liturgy within your home!

In this joyful and charming book, Maria Von Trapp unveils for you the year-round Christian traditions she loved traditions that created for her large family a warm and inviting Catholic home and will do the same for yours….Mary Reed Newland wrote numerous beloved books for Catholic families, but The Year and Our Children is her undisputed masterpiece. Read it, cherish it, share it, put it into practice and give your kids the gift of a fully lived faith, every day and in every season….

Customs of Good Friday – Maria von Trapp

From Around the Year With the Trapp Family

On Good Friday Holy Mother Church gives her children a beautiful opportunity for a profession of faith: the adoration of the cross. Behind the priests and altar boys follows the whole congregation.
We remove our shoes when we go to adore the cross. Three times we prostrate ourselves as we come closer, until we finally bend over and kiss the feet of the crucified.
As we, the church choir, follow right behind the priest, we sing during the rest of the adoration. Our songs are the heartrendingly moving “Crux fidelis” by King John of Portugal, and Eberlin’s “Tenebrae factae sunt,” of such haunting beauty.

When the adoration of the cross is finished, the candles on the altar are lighted, the cross is most reverently taken up from the floor and placed on the altar, and a procession forms to get the Blessed Sacrament from the “Altar of Repose.”

During this procession the hymn “Vexilla Regis” is sung. And then follows a ceremony that is not a real Mass, although it is called the “Mass of the Pre-Sanctified.”
The priest consumes the Host that was consecrated the day before. On the anniversary of Our Lord’s death–the bloody sacrifice–the Church does not celebrate the symbol of the unbloody sacrifice.
After the official service is finished, the altar is stripped again. The tabernacle is left open, no vigil light burns in the sanctuary. But in front of the empty tabernacle lies the crucifix on the steps of the altar, and the people come all during the day for adoration.

In Austria another custom was added.

At the end of the official service the priest would carry the Blessed Sacrament in a monstrance, covered with a transparent veil, and expose it on the side altar, where a replica of the Holy Sepulchre had been set up with more or less historical accuracy, with more or less taste, but always with the best of will.

Like the crèche around Christmas time, so the Holy Sepulchre on Good Friday would be an object of pride for every parish, one parish trying to outdo the other.
The people in Salzburg used to go around at Christmas time and in Holy Week to visit the Christ Child’s crib and the Holy Sepulchre in all thirty-five churches of the town, comparing and criticizing.
There would be literally hundreds of vigil lights surrounding the Body of Christ in the tomb of rock, which was almost hidden beneath masses of flowers.

There would be a guard of honor, not only of the soldiers, but also of firemen in uniform and of war veterans with picturesque plumed hats.
I still remember the atmosphere of holy awe stealing over my little heart when as a child I would make the rounds of churches. There in the Holy Sepulchre He would rest now, watched over by His faithful until Holy Saturday afternoon.

Here in America we have found another lovely custom: people going from church to church not on Good Friday but on Holy Thursday.
On that day, the churches are decorated with a profusion of flowers, as a sign of love and gratitude for the Holy Eucharist. The contrast with the bare churches the day after, on Good Friday, is all the more striking and gives a tremendous feeling of desolation.

Good Friday is a very quiet day with us.

There is little to do in the kitchen, since fasting is observed rigorously on this day.
We have no breakfast, and all that is served for lunch, on a bare table without tablecloth, is one pot of thick soup, “Einbrennsuppe,” which everyone eats standing up in silence. There is little noise around the house.

Talking is restricted to the bare essentials, as it would be if a dearly beloved was lying dead in the house.
As we are so privileged as to have a chapel in our house, we use the day when the holy house of God is empty and desolate to clean and polish all the sacred vessels and chalices and the ciborium, the monstrance, candlesticks, and censer.

The vigil light before the picture of the Blessed Mother in the living room is also extinguished, because on Good Friday Christ, the Light of the World, is dead.

From twelve until three, the hours of Our Lord’s agony on the cross, all activity stops. We sit together in the empty chapel before the cross and spend these hours in prayer, meditation, and spiritual reading. From time to time we rise and sing one or the other of the beautiful Lenten hymns and motets.

On Holy Saturday, a new stir of activity starts in the kitchen. Eggs are boiled in different pots containing various dyes–blue, green, purple, yellow, and red.

Every member of the household who wants to participate in this art takes some eggs to his or her room, after they have dried, to work on them in secret.

One takes some muriatic acid with which she etches the most intriguing patterns out of the colored foundation. It is quite popular in our house to etch the first line of Easter songs–staves, notes, and words.

Our cleverest artist sits with paint and brush, and under her fingers appear pictures of an Easter lamb, or of Our Risen Savior Himself, or of the Blessed Mother, or of the different patron saints of the family. Sometimes they turn out to be little gems.

Others fasten dried ferns or little maple leaves or other herbs around the eggs before they are boiled in dye. When these leaves are finally taken off, the shape of the flowers and herbs remains white, while the rest of the egg is colored. This is easily done and looks very pretty.

These eggs first appear on trays and in bowls on Easter Sunday morning at the foot of the altar for the solemn blessing of the food. Afterwards they will be distributed at the solemn Easter breakfast.

“The very presence of a woman who knows how to combine an enlightened piety with mildness, tact, and thoughtful sympathy, is a constant sermon; she speaks by her very silence, she instills convictions without argument, she attracts souls without wounding susceptibilities; and both in her own house and in her dealings with men and things, which must necessarily be often rude and painful, she plays the part of the soft cotton wool we put between precious but fragile vases to prevent their mutually injuring each other.” – Monseigneur Landriot, Archbishop of Rheims, 1872 -Loreto Publications

If you have trouble reading saint books and find the story lines boring, you need to try these!

We love these books and have had them on our book shelves for years! They are very well-written and make the saints come alive!

Louis de Wohl has the amazing capacity to take historic Catholic figures and breathe life into them by creating a novel around what their life might have been like.

They are meant for high school and adult level. Some of the books could have  adult content, for instance, St. Augustine’s life before conversion. Parents may want to read them first.

Louis de Wohl Historical Religious Novels

Beautiful Vintaj Brass Wire-Wrapped First Communion Rosary! Lovely, Durable…

Available here.

Save

Save

Save

Save

Holy Week – Maria Von Trapp

According to an old tradition, the first three days of Holy Week– Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday–are dedicated to spring cleaning. In the days before the invention of the vacuum cleaner, this was a spectacular undertaking: sofas, easy chairs, and all mattresses would be carried out of the house and beaten mercilessly with a “Teppichpracker” (carpet-beater).

Walls were dusted, curtains were changed–a thorough domestic upheaval. There is little time for cooking, and meals are made of leftovers.

By Wednesday night the house looks spick and span. And now the great “Feierabend” begins. “Feierabend” is an untranslatable word. It really means vigil–evening before a feast, the evening before Sunday, when work ceases earlier than on any other weekday in order to allow time to get into the mood to celebrate.

“Feier” means “to celebrate,” “Abend” means “evening.”

From now on until the Tuesday after Easter no unnecessary work will be done on our place. These days are set aside for Our Lord. On Wednesday, with all the satisfaction of having set our house at peace, and after the dishes of a simple early supper are finished, we go down to the village church in Stowe for the first Tenebrae service.

In the sanctuary, a large wrought-iron triangular candlestick is put up, with fifteen dark candles. We take our places in the choir, and the solemn chanting of matins and lauds begins.

This is the first part of the Divine Office, which has been recited daily around the world by all priests and many religious since the early times of the Church.

In the cathedrals and many monasteries it is chanted in common. For the last days of Holy Week, it is performed in public, so to speak–not only in cathedral churches, but in any church, so that the faithful may take part in it.

We always consider this the greatest honor for us, the singing family, the greatest reward for all the trouble that goes along with life in public, that we can sing for all the Divine Offices in church.

Matins has three nocturnes, each one consisting of three psalms with their antiphons and three lessons. The first nocturne is always the most solemn one. We sing all the psalms on their respective “tonus”. We sing the antiphons, some in Gregorian chant, some from the compositions of the old masters such as Palestrina, Lassus, Vittorio.

The lessons were sung last year by Father Wasner, Werner, and Johannes.

In the second and third nocturne we only recite the psalms in “recto tono” in order not to make it too long. Some of the antiphons and all of the lessons, however, are sung.

After each psalm the altar boy extinguishes a candle, reminding us of how one Apostle after the other left Our Lord. Matins is followed by lauds, consisting of five psalms and antiphons which we recite. At the end of lauds there is only one candle left–the symbol of Our Lord all by Himself crying out, “Where are you, O My people!” And we, in the name of all the people, recite now the “Miserere,” the famous penitential psalm, while the altar boy is carrying the last candle behind the altar and the church is now in complete darkness.

At the end of the “Miserere” we all make a banging noise with the breviary books. This custom is quite ancient. It is supposed to indicate the earthquake at the moment of the Resurrection. After this noise, the altar boy emerges from behind the altar with the burning Christ-candle and puts it back on the candlestick. This is a ray of hope anticipating the glorious Easter night. (In Austria the Tenebrae service is called “Pumpernette,” or “noisy matins.”)

The congregation is following closely with booklets in which the whole service, which we sing in Latin, is given in English. This is the most moving evening service of the whole year. When we sing “Tenebrae factae sunt,” an awesome silence falls upon the whole church, and when we sing the famous “Improperia `Popule meus'” by Palestrina we all are moved to the depths.

Is there anything more heartrending than to listen to the outcry of the anxious Redeemer: “My people, what have I done to thee, or in what have I grieved thee, answer Me. What more ought I to do for thee that I have not done?”

On the morning of Holy Thursday, the Church in her service tries most movingly to combine the celebration of the two great events she wants to commemorate “Who lives in memory of Him,” Our Lord had said on the first Holy Thursday when He gave Himself to us in the Holy Eucharist; and, “Father, if it be possible, let this chalice pass from me. Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

This cry He uttered only a few hours later. Therefore, as the Solemn Mass begins, the festive strains of the organ accompany the chant of the Introit and Kyrie, and when the priest intones the Gloria, all the bells on the steeple, as well as in the church, ring together once more for the last time because, right afterwards, Holy Church, as the Bride of Christ, goes into mourning as she accompanies the Bridegroom through His hours of unspeakable suffering. The organ remains silent when she reminds the faithful in the Gradual: “Christ became obedient unto us to death, even unto the death of the Cross….”

The Gospel of this day tells of the lesson Jesus gave us in brotherly love and humility as He first washed the feet of His disciples, afterwards saying: “Know you what I have done to you? You call me Master, and Lord; and you say well, for so I am. If then I being your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; you also ought to wash one another’s feet.

For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also.” Therefore, in all cathedrals and abbey churches the bishops and abbots go down on their knees on this day after Holy Mass and wash the feet of the twelve oldest members of their communities.

It is wonderful that in our days more and more parishes are adopting this beautiful custom, which brings home to us better than the most eloquent sermon that we should remember this word of Our Lord “For I have given you an example, that as I have done to you, so you do also,” which should become increasingly the watchword in our daily life.

This is what the Church wants us to take home with us on that day the attitude of washing one another’s feet; and, because we Catholics have not awakened to this fact, we are rightly to be blamed for all wrong and injustice and wars going on in the world!

As Good Friday has no Mass of its own, but only the “Mass of the Pre-Sanctified,” an extra big host was consecrated by the priest during Mass on Holy Thursday, which is put into a chalice and covered up with a white cloth. This chalice is now incensed immediately after Mass and carried in solemn procession to the “Altar of Repose,” while the “Pange Lingua” is chanted solemnly.

This repository should remind us of the prison in which Our Lord was kept that terrible night from Thursday to Friday. Unlike that first night, where He was all alone after all the Apostles had fled, the faithful now take turns in keeping watch.

There is an old legend circulating in the old country, still fervently believed by the children, that all the bells fly to Rome on Holy Thursday, where the Holy Father blesses them; they return in time for the Gloria on Holy Saturday.

Another custom still alive in the villages throughout Austria is this: As the bell cannot be rung for the Angelus on these three days, the altar boys man their outdoor “Ratschen” (a kind of rattle looking like a toy wheelbarrow, whose one wheel grinds out deafening noise) and race through the streets, stopping at certain previously designated corners, lifting up their “Ratschen” and chanting in chorus:

Wir ratschen, ratschen zum englischen Gruss,

Den jeder katholische Christ beten muss.

(We remind you by this noise of the Angelus,

Of a prayer to be said by every faithful Christian.)

Needless to say, many a little boy’s heart waits eagerly for these three holy days. While he might be too young to understand the great thoughts of Holy Week, he certainly is wide awake to his own responsibility of reminding his fellow-men, “Time to pray!”

My son Werner is living with his family just a little way down the road. When his little boys, Martin and Bernhard, are big enough to shoulder the responsibility, their father will make them such an old-world “Ratschen” and their mother will teach them the rhyme going with it.

In the house also, the bells have to be silent. The bell rung for the meals or for family devotions is replaced by a hand clapper worked by the youngest member of the family, who announces solemnly from door to door that lunch is ready.

Holy Thursday has a menu all its own. For the noon meal we have the traditional spring herb soup (Siebenkraeutersuppe).

Spring Herb Soup

Dandelions

Chervil

Cress

Sorrel

Leaf nettle

The mixture of the above herbs should total about 7 ounces. Whether bought at the market or picked, they should be washed well. Steam in butter with finely chopped onions and parsley. Press through a sieve into a flour soup and let it boil. You may put in one or two egg yolks, one to two tablespoons of cream, or 1/4 cup milk. You also may use sour cream.

Afterwards there is the traditional spinach with fried eggs. In Austria, Holy Thursday is called “Gruendonnerstag” (Green Thursday). Many people think that the word “gruen” stands for the color, but this is not so. It derives from the ancient German word “greinen,” meaning “to cry or moan.” Nevertheless, “Gruendonnerstag” will have its green lunch.

The evening of Holy Thursday finds us in our Sunday best around the dining-room table. Standing, we listen to the Gospel describing the happenings in the Upper Room. On the table is a bowl with “bitter herbs” (parsley, chives, and celery greens), another bowl with a sauce the Orthodox Jews use when celebrating their Pasch, and plates with unleavened bread (matzos can be obtained from any Jewish delicatessen store, but can also be made at home).

Unleavened Bread

1-1/2 cups flour              1 egg, slightly beaten

1/4 tsp. salt                 1/2 cup butter

1/3 cup warm water

Mix salt, flour, and egg (and butter). Add the water, mix dough quickly with a knife, then knead on board, stretching it up and down to make it elastic until it leaves the board clean. Toss on a small, well-floured board. Cover with a hot bowl and keep warm 1/2 hour or longer. Then cut into squares of desired size and bake in 350-degree oven until done.

Then comes the feast-day meal of a yearling lamb roasted, eaten with these bitter herbs and the traditional sauce. Each time we dip the herbs in the sauce, we remember Our Lord answering sadly the question of the Apostles as to who was the traitor: “He that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, he shall betray me.”

Afterwards the table is cleared and in front of Father Wasner’s place is put a tray filled with wine glasses and a silver plate with unleavened bread. While breaking up portions of bread, he blesses the bread and wine individually and hands it to each one around the table and we drink and eat, remembering Our Lord, Who must have celebrated such a “love feast” many times with His Apostles.

This was the custom in His days; just as we in our time will give a party on the occasion of the departure of a member of the family or a good friend, the people in the time of Christ used to clear the table after a good meal and bring some special wine and bread, and in the “breaking of the bread” they would signify their love for the departing one.

The first Christians took over this custom, and after having celebrated the Eucharist together, they would assemble in a home for an “agape,” the Greek word for “love feast.” To share bread and wine together in this fashion therefore, was not in itself startling to the Apostles, but the occasion was memorable on this first Holy Thursday because it was Our Lord’s own great farewell.

As we thus celebrate the breaking of the bread around our table at home, we keep thinking of the words He had said immediately before: “A new commandment I give unto you: That you love one another, as I have loved you….”

Every Holy Thursday night spent like this knits a family closer together, “careful to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, one body and one Spirit…one Lord, one faith…” as St. Paul wrote to the Ephesians.

“Who shall blame a child whose soul turns eagerly to the noise and distraction of worldliness, if his parents have failed to show him that love and peace and beauty are found only in God?” – Mary Reed Newland, http://amzn.to/2mTKR3w (afflink)

What happened to Veronica’s veil was simply an outward expression of what happened in Veronica’s soul. Are we “Veronica’s” in our everyday life? Do we seek to serve, to encourage, to listen….?

Coloring pages for Holy Week….

 

 

Catholic Young Lady’s Maglet (Magazine/Booklet)!! Enjoy articles about friendship, courting, purity, confession, the single life, vocations, etc. Solid, Catholic advice…. A truly lovely book for that young and not-so-young single lady in your life! Available here.

Save

Save

Save

Save

Save