St. Maximilan Kolbe Feast Day- August 14th

I just love our faith.

Well, if you frequent the same sort of blogs I do, this will not be a strange statement to hear!

One reason I love it is that it is just ever unfolding... so much to explore, so many charisms, learning about our traditions and Traditions, saints, catechism. So rich and never-ending, because Christ is the Alpha and Omega.

In reviewing what my boys have been doing for faith formation the past few years (I have to submit to our RE director in preparation for their Confirmation registration) I am reminded of so many resources we have found over the years. Also as I am watching the The Teen Timeline with Mark Hart (aka The Bible Geek) I see how beautiful and timely our faith is, too. I am looking forward to learning more about the faith as my boys go through prep.

I looked at the 50 Confirmation questions given to us by the parish... I have a lot to learn, too!

But, another aspect that has come to us is learning about saints. I never really took saints very seriously and they were a stumbling block to me before I converted and even after. Once I got over the myth that Catholics worshipped them ( you know, the statue thing- us Protestants don't like that a bit!)--- then I relaxed a little. Now I love statues.

But then when I would read bios of saints, they were always dry. And sometimes, often, morbid. I could not relate. Two people in particular helped me get past this.

First was Mother Angelica. I just love her. She took to task the authors of these dry biographies and shamed them for pushing people away from our beloved saints with such cardboard representations. And you know how she can take someone to task!

Second was a priest (I have forgotton his name) who did a lecture series on family relations, dyfunctionality, etc. He said he never really began to know his faith in a deep way until he 'took the saints seriously.'

So on and off over the years I have dabbled, and read aloud some vignettes to the boys during feast days and they read some select saint biographies. Our favorites have become St. Francis of Assisi, St. Augustine and saints to be :)--- JPII and Blessed Mother Teresa.

My friend Leonie has inspired me with how she and a couple of friend all get together once a month to celebrate a saint's feast day.

So our plan for St. Maximilian Kolbe's feast day:

I found a couple of friends here who have this interest, too and we are off!
I wanted to share our plans so far in case it might inspire you.

We all three decided this is not something to stress over, but just do what we are inspired at the moment to do.

We have 11 participating kids from the ages of 1 to 17. So here is our plan for St. Max so far:

- Polish food. I am going to reserach a recipe as is the dd of my friend who loves to cook. Maybe Polish sausage? Gotta have a dessert! We are meeting over lunch, so I plan to set a table for 14 and we can all eat and celebrate St. Maximillian's day!

- Research. I enjoy researching so will Google and find some good articles on the life of St. Max. Four of our dc are 12 and up so will forward this to the others ahead of time so the older kids can read about St. Max. Also send some articles that youngers might like so my friends can read aloud to the littler ones if they want.

- My friends with youngers can read some picture or other books on St. Max. Also since we have a week in advance until the feast day, anyone can do whatever prep work they want, or no, such as looking into where he is from, his story, etc.

- We decided no mandantory craft for the younger/middle kids, but if one time one of us gets inspired we can do something for them. Instead we will have crossword puzzles and wordsearchs from this sitePuzzlemaker. I have LOVED this site over the years! Great for classes I taught and just fun to make up puzzles for any subject. I may ask my boys to make them up, as you have to learn about the subject to find the words for the puzzle.

-Then we will just eat and talk, maybe bring out a timeline and stick a marker with St. Max on it for his place in time. I have a large board with a map of the world so we can pinpoint Poland and where he went in his travels.

Oh and Maria posted this Novena to St. Maximilan which starts today. Thanks Maria!

So that is our plan for the day! We will see what actually happens, but I wanted to post ahead of time incase anyone else wanted to celebrate St. Maximlian Kolbe's feast day with us.

God Bless all our wonderful saints.

Happy Birthday Cake!

Had to get a shot of the birthday cake for Stephen's 17th before it was all gone. (This was taken with my new digital camera last week).

Can't you just imagine someone coming at it with a knife for the next slice...?

I always make a chocolate cake (boxed) with a double batch of homemade butter cream frosting for the boys' birthdays. This rich concoction is plenty for twice a year. Youza it is sweet! Boys said it was the best cake ever this year. :)

And, I am on a 'training' program (trying to train my body to lose some fat.. lol lol) so I didn't serve myself up tastes of batter and frosting while I made it. It was so weird to cook and not eat while I was doing it.. but that is a habit I am trying to change.

So, when I did have a taste of the finished cake, it was better than ever.

As one of my favorite quotes says:

Enough is a good as a feast!

Prayer of St. Ignatius of Loyola

Every year, around the end of July I again shake my head that it is here again: the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola. A year has passed already?

This is the partron saint of our parish and having been in it for 8 years, I have learned a lot about St. Ignatius, from many homilies of the resident priests over the years.

One of my favorites is this prayer, written by the saint. It says it all.

Dedication to Jesus
Lord Jesus Christ, take all my freedom, my memory, my understanding, and my will. All that I have and cherish you have given me. I surrender it all to be guided by your will.

Your grace and your love and wealth are enough for me. Give me these, Lord Jesus, and I ask for nothing more. Amen.

St. Benedict of Nursia

Today is the feast day of St. Benedict!

Taking a cue from my friend Leonie a friend and I are going to get our kids together and celebrate today.

Actually Leonie gave me more than a cue, she gave me a how to, as I always try to overplan everything!

KISS! (keep it simple, sillygoose!) lol

Ok, so here are our plans:

I found some info on the internet (excuse me while I give my dear computer a big juicy hug!) about St. Benedict. I learned so much. I mean, I really had no clue about this saint. One reason this idea appealed to me was to learn more about the liturgical year and saints.

Some things I learned-
-He was Italian and died in 537 AD

-He was a monk.

-He wrote the Rule of Life. Until that time monks had no formation or set of guidelines and from what I learned there were some pretty wild monks out there! And some not so wild.

-He also spent time discerning HOW to live like Christ, but also relate to ourselves and people. So as not to get so strict and autocratic with rules that we don't see our humaness, in ourselves and others. Something I think all faithful people struggle with at some point.

There is much more to this saint... go google him! If I can do this, anyone can. :)

I found the following websites and suggested the teens and olders read yesterday in preparation for today:
Biography of St. Benedict

Rule of St. Benedict
This is very long and involved. I just printed out the table of contents for the kids to read- that in itself is very enlightening. If you want to read the actual rule, it is all hyperlinked in this text. Very interesting reading!
How to Write your Own Rule of Life This site is interesting as it is one person's suggestion of how to apply the rule to your own life and write a personal Rule of Life

For the little kids (my friend has several youngers) I printed out this coloring sheet:
Coloring saints

And did a word search puzzle for them on Puzzlemaker
(this is one of my all time favorite sites.. used it a lot when kids where younger- took 3 min to make the puzzle..easy!)

So today we are meeting at Fazoli's, a fast food Italian place to celebrate St. Bendict's day with an Italian feast! We will talk with the olders a bit about his life and where he lived and how he lived, and encourage them to think about their own Rule of Life. Littlies will color and search for words.

Also, for futher reading, here are a couple of interesting sites...
Father's Rule of Life and this one...Online Guide to St. Benedict

Thanks again to my friend Leonie who patiently helped me get going on this! Hugs!!

***REAL LIFE UPDATE***

The resturant was closed down, so we ate pizza (Italian food..) at Costco. The teens talked and olders talked while babies and toddler and my friend and I did some shopping. We ate in the food court and I talked with the three teen boys about St. B.. though they already knew it all... lol

Youngers did fine... next time no project for teens... more fun crafts for youngers and I will get to have fun with the littlies which I miss!

But, we knew St. Benedict was smiling down on us as we walked out into the Costco parking lot and we went to Mass tonight, which of course was all about St. Benedict. And now the olders have a benchmark.

Nice day, though not as planned. Ah... homeschooling! Ah... life!

Our Thanksgiving Menu

This year we get to make Thanksgiving dinner at home.

We have always enjoyed the traditional dinner at my mom's house in years past. She is basic midwestern, or should I say Oklahoma cookin'. Let's see, from my memory, this is what she had last year:

Turkey (smoked from local smoker-excellent!)
Stuffing
Mashed potatos
Gravy
Brocolli cassarole (from my sil)
Relish dish
Corn cassarole
Cranberry sauce (made by moi)
Rolls
Green Bean cassarole

Desserts:
Pecan pie (made my my dh)
Pumpkin pie (make by me.. last year Boomer knocked it off the table and ate half of it)
Banana pudding
Chocolate torte

Wine
Tea
Water

That is a lot of food.. and my mother (in her 70s) would start cooking a couple of days before we all arrived!

This year, it will be small.. just my family (4) and my mil. Though we are going to invite our preist, Fr. John. That should be very interesting, as he is from India. My mil talks a lot but can't hear, and Fr. John doesn't talk a lot but is hard to understand. Whew! Should be fun!

My dh never liked turkey (he is my gourmet, so I don't argue)--- but after the past few years of this smoked turkey at my parents' he is a convert. So this year he is going to smoke on on his
Big Green Egg. I usually just do the basic sides.. stuffing, cranberries and green beans (fresh, not cassarole) but my boys have talked about how they LOVE Grandma's dinner so much.. all the choices and the cassaroles.. that I think I will take my mom's cue and cook a couple of days before hand.

So, as the menu gels (no jello intended) I will post!

More later....