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)

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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

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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….

 

 

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Laetare Sunday to Palm Sunday – Maria Von Trapp

Maria von Trapp brings to us the lovely customs of Lent that enrich a Catholic home and make the Faith fully alive to all….

From Around the Year With the Trapp Family, 1955, Sophia Institute Press

In the middle of Lent comes the Sunday Laetare, also called “Rose Sunday.” It is as if Holy Mother Church wants to give us a break by interrupting the solemn chant of mourning, the unaccompanied cadences and the use of the violet vestments, bursting out suddenly in the word “Laetare” (“Rejoice”), allowing her priests to vest in rose-colored garments, to have flowers on the altar and an organ accompaniment for chant.

It is also called “Rose Sunday” because on that day the Pope in Rome blesses a golden rose, an ornament made of gold and precious stones.

The Holy Father prays that the Church may bring forth the fruit of good works and “the perfume of the ointment of the flowers from the root of Jesse.” Then he sends the golden rose to some church or city in the world or to a person who has been of great service to the Church.

Septuagesima To Ash Wednesday – Maria von Trapp

With Septuagesima Sunday just passed, it is that time of the year once again and Maria von Trapp sets the stage…..

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

With Septuagesima Sunday begins the cycle that has for its center the greatest of all solemnities, the feast of Easter. The Christmas cycle and the Easter cycle are like the water and wine at the Offertory when the priest prays: “Grant that by the mystery of this water and wine we may be made partakers of His Divinity, Who vouchsafed to become partaker of our humanity, Jesus Christ Thy Son, Our Lord.”

For in the Christmas cycle we celebrate God having come down among us, clothing Himself with our humanity. This is the cycle of the Incarnation, corresponding to the cycle of the Redemption where we are shown this same Jesus Who “makes us partakers of His Divinity.”

These two and a half weeks–the Septuagesima, Sexuagesima, and Quinquagesima Sundays, and the Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday following Quinquagesima–serve as a time of transition for the soul, which must pass from Christmas joys (and through the merry time of Carnival) to the stern penance of the sacred forty days of Lent.

As The Evenings Grow Longer (Part Two)-Group Discussion, Singing, Home Concerts – Maria Von Trapp

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

Part One is here.

GROUP DISCUSSION

Once, in one of our camp seasons, a lady said to me just before lunch, “Can’t we have a discussion some day?” I answered quickly, “Oh, certainly–on what?” and was slightly baffled when she answered cheerily, “Never mind on what–just a discussion.”

This led me to announce at the end of lunch: “At three o’clock we shall have a discussion. Everybody who is interested please come to Stephen Foster Hall.”

Everybody was at Stephen Foster Hall at three o’clock, wondering what the discussion would be about. I started out by relating the little incident before lunch and inviting those present to name a few topics which might be of general interest. And we had a most enjoyable hour.

As the Evenings Grow Longer (Part One) – Dancing, Reading Aloud by Maria Von Trapp

Part Two is here.

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

Soon after our first concert tour in this country letters came pouring in, always asking the same question: “What did you do to keep your family together?” or “What did you do to keep your children at home?”

In answering the same question over and over again I developed something almost like a slogan, which I finally stated on the stage at every concert when giving a little introduction to our ancient instruments “If a family plays together, sings together, and prays together–it usually stays together.”

Christkindl and Other Advent-y Things by Maria von Trapp

From Around the Year With the Trapp Family

After our first gathering around the Advent light, and the singing of the first Advent hymn, an air of expectancy spreads over the family group; now comes the moment when the mother goes around with a bowl in which are the little cards with the names of the new saints.

Everybody draws a card and puts it in his missal. This saint will be invoked every morning after Morning Prayer. Everyone is supposed to look up and study the life story of his new friend, and sometime during the coming year he will tell the family all about it.

As there are so many of us, we come to know about different saints every year. Sometimes this calls for considerable research on the part of the unfortunate one who has drawn St. Eustachius, for instance, or St. Bibiana.

But the custom has become very dear to us, and every year it seems as if the family circle were enlarged by all those new brothers and sisters entering in and becoming known and loved by all.

And then comes another exciting moment. Once more the mother appears with the bowl, which she passes around. This time the pieces of paper contain the names of the members of the family and are neatly rolled up, because the drawing has to be done in great secrecy.

The person whose name one has drawn is now in one’s special care. From this day until Christmas, one has to do as many little favors for him or her as one can. One has to provide at least one surprise every single day—but without ever being found out.

This creates a wonderful atmosphere of joyful suspense, kindness, and thoughtfulness.

Perhaps you will find that somebody has made your bed or shined your shoes or has informed you, in a disguised handwriting on a holy card, that “a rosary has been said for you today” or a number of sacrifices have been offered up.

This new relationship is called “Christkindl” (Christ Child) in the old country, where children believe that the Christmas tree and the gifts under it are brought down by the Christ Child himself.

The beautiful thing about this particular custom is that the relationship is a reciprocal one. The person whose name I have drawn and who is under my care becomes for me the helpless little Christ Child in the manger; and as I am performing these many little acts of love and consideration for someone in the family I am really doing them for the Infant of Bethlehem, according to the word, “And he that shall receive one such little child in my name, receiveth me.”

That is why this particular person turns into “my Christkindl.” At the same time I am the “Christkindl” also for the one I am caring for because I want to imitate the Holy Child and render all those little services in the same spirit as He did in that small house of Nazareth, when as a child He served His Mother and His foster father with a similar love and devotion.

Many times throughout these weeks can be heard such exclamations as, “I have a wonderful Christkindl this year!” or, “Goodness, I forgot to do something for my Christkindl and it is already suppertime!”

It is a delightful custom, which creates much of the true Christmas spirit and ought to be spread far and wide.

And there is still one very important thing to do for Advent. According to Austrian custom, every member of the family writes a letter to the Holy Child mentioning his resolutions for the weeks of Advent and listing all his wishes for gifts. This “Christkindl Brief” (letter to the Holy Child) is put on the window sill, from whence the Guardian Angel will take it up to heaven to read it aloud to the Holy Child.

To make small children (and older ones, too) aware of the happy expectancy of Advent, there is a special Advent calendar which clever hands can make at home.

It might be a house with windows for each day of Advent; every morning the child opens another window, behind which appears a star, an angel, or some other picture appropriate to the season.

On the 23rd, all windows are open, but the big entrance door still is closed. That is opened on Christmas Eve, when it reveals the Holy Child in the manger, or a Christmas tree.

All kinds of variations on this theme are possible, such as the Jacob’s Ladder shown on our illustration, which leads step by step to the day of Christ’s birth. All such little aids make Christmas more wonderful and “special” to a child, and preparing them adds to our own Christmas joy.

{Advent Calendar: Take piece of cardboard; cut out clouds, leaving them attached at one point so that they can fold out. Cut spaces in ladder as on insert so that they can fold down. Take transparent paper same size as cardboard. Paint and draw pictures of stars, angels, toys, etc. on spots behind clouds and ladder steps. For top cloud, put Christmas tree or Christ Child in crib. Paste this on back of calendar. Each day another cloud or ladder step should be opened, until Christmas Eve is reached on top of ladder.}

 

 

“Where on earth shall we find Jesus but in the arms of Mary! Was it not she who gave us the Eucharist? It was her consent to the Incarnation of the Word that inaugurated the great mystery of reparation to God and union with us which Jesus accomplished during His mortal life, and that he continues in the Eucharist.” -St. Peter Julian Eymard,

Painting by Nellie Edwards, www.PaintedFaith.net

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Where did Advent Go? – Maria Von Trapp

First Sunday of Advent is tomorrow! Maria von Trapp reminds us what this preparation season is about!

The events that come to mind when we say “Christmas,” “Easter,” “Pentecost,” are so tremendous that their commemoration cannot be celebrated in a single day each. Weeks are needed.

First, weeks of preparation, of becoming attuned in body and soul, and then weeks of celebration.

This goes back to an age when people still had time–time to live, time to enjoy.

In our own day, we face the puzzling fact that the more time-saving gadgets we invent, the more new buttons to push in order to “save hours of work”–the less time we actually have.

We have no more time to read books; we can only afford digests. We have no time to walk a quarter of a mile; we have to hop into a car. We have no time to make things by hand; we buy them ready made in the five-and-ten or in the supermarket.

This atmosphere of “hurry up, let’s go” does not provide the necessary leisure in which to anticipate and celebrate a feast.

But as soon as people stop celebrating they really do not live any more–they are being lived, as it were.

The alarming question arises: what is being done with all the time that is constantly being saved? We invent more machines and more gadgets, which will relieve us more and more from the work formerly done by our hands, our feet, our brain, and which will carry us in feverishly increasing speed–where? Perhaps to the moon and other planets, but more probably to our final destruction.

Only the Church throws light onto the gloomy prospects of modern man–Holy Mother Church–for she belongs, herself, to a realm that has its past and present in Time, but its future in the World Without End.

It was fall when we arrived in the United States. The first weeks passed rapidly, filled with new discoveries every day, and soon we came across a beautiful feast, which we had never celebrated before: Thanksgiving Day, an exclusively American feast. With great enthusiasm we included it in the calendar of our family feasts.

Who can describe our astonishment, however, when a few days after our first Thanksgiving Day we heard from a loudspeaker in a large department store the unmistakable melody of “Silent Night”! Upon our excited inquiry, someone said, rather surprised: “What is the matter? Nothing is the matter. Time for Christmas shopping!”

It took several Christmas seasons before we understood the connection between Christmas shopping and “Silent Night” and the other carols blaring from loudspeakers in these pre-Christmas weeks.

And even now that we do understand, it still disturbs us greatly. These weeks before Christmas, known as the weeks of Advent, are meant to be spent in expectation and waiting.

This is the season for Advent songs–those age-old hymns of longing and waiting; “Silent Night” should be sung for the first time on Christmas Eve. We found that hardly anybody knows any Advent songs. And we were startled by something else soon after Christmas, Christmas trees and decorations vanish from the show windows to be replaced by New Year’s advertisements.

On our concert trips across the country we also saw that the lighted Christmas trees disappear from homes and front yards and no one thinks to sing a carol as late as January 2nd.

This was all very strange to us, for we were used to the old-world Christmas, which was altogether different but which we determined to celebrate now in our new country.

*Please note: If you would like to still get an Advent Journal you can order the e-book here OR please go directly to Amazon to order it. I have sold out and am waiting for my shipment which is taking WAY too long!

Also, if you could leave a review on Amazon, I would appreciate it muchly!

 

 

“Love is the most wonderful educator in the world; it opens up worlds and possibilities undreamed of to those to whom it comes, the gift of God. I am speaking of love which is worthy of the name, not of its many counterfeits. The genuine article only, based upon respect and esteem, can stand the test of time, the wear and tear of life; the love which is the wine of life, more stimulating and more heart-inspiring when the days are dark than at any other time,—the love which rises to the occasion, and which many waters cannot quench.”
-Annie S. Swan, Courtship and Marriage And the Gentle Art of Home-Making, 1894

We got our Advent wreaths out, did you? Tomorrow we light one purple candle and will say the Advent Wreath prayers from the Advent Journal!

These are our unique Advent wreaths…you can see the first one is made to hold tea lights (those are still there from last year) and the other one is our “Advent Block” decorated and ready to go!

Advent Wreath Prayers from the Advent Journal:

I have not listened to this sermon yet but plan on it for the Season of Advent…

“Advent meditation on silence. How the noise of today’s society drowns out God’s voice. You cannot hear Him with all the noise in your life. Food for thought is the great saints of our day did not have mp3 players, cell phones, the internet, etc in their lives.”

 

Do you need some inspiration? For some great book suggestions visit My Book List… https://finerfem.com/my-book-list/

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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!

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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, go to confession within 20 days, and you will gain a Plenary Indulgence for one soul each day….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.

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Advent Calendars

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Advent Calendars

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