Holidays and Holy Days
Here you will find musings related to Advent and Lent, Christmas and Easter along with reflections prompted by holidays like Thanksgiving, Mother’s Day, and the onset of summer. It’s also a place for thoughts on Holy Days and related topics like the communion of Saints and the Sacraments. Posts are pictured with the most recent first. Look for season-related series or start with one of these popular reflections:
- 5 Thanksgiving Psalms to Pray This Week
- 40 Days in the Word: 3 Ways to Add Scripture to Your Lenten “Diet”
- Praying with the Penitential Psalms
- Find Peace This Advent
- The Jesse Tree: An Advent Tradition for the Whole Family
"Even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart…” (Joel 2:12) “Return.” The whole idea behind “returning” somewhere is that you go back to where you were before. And in the case of returning to God, even if you have never loved or followed him, he has always loved you. Before you were even born, he had ...
It’s always bittersweet, taking down the Christmas decorations. The living room looks cold and bare without the twinkling tree and I miss the crèche above the mantel. “God is with us”! it seemed to say whenever I passed by. Today I hear a different voice: “Come.” As in, Come on back. Now that I’m here: where have you gone? It’s ...
This New Year's morning, my attention is caught by the scene over the fireplace. Candles, stars, and angels surrounded the Holy Family: the baby in his mother's arms, Joseph standing by and looking on with love, Mary "keeping" the message of the shepherds in her heart. "When the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a ...
"Christmas is really for the children," wrote our friend Steve Turner in a poem that's meant to get you thinking about how we celebrate our Christian holidays: Christmas is really for the children. Especially for children who like animals, stables, stars and babies wrapped in swaddling clothes. Then there are wise men, kings in fine robes, humble shepherds and a ...
Christmas wouldn't be the same at our house without a Bûche de Noël -- that luscious chocolate sponge cake rolled with cream and decorated with chocolate icing to look like a log. Half the fun is making the garnish: tiny, realistic mushrooms piped from meringue and dusted with cinnamon. For me, it's a nod to the French and Belgian heritage of ...
Here He Comes! Advent anticipation moved up a notch this week with the start of the “Golden Nights of Advent,” the octave leading up to Christmas Eve. Beginning the evening of December 17, religious communities in monasteries and convents all over the world sing one of the beautiful “O Antiphons” before and after the Magnificat during Vespers each night as ...
From where I lay on the third floor under the eaves, I could hear the piano. "Joy to the world, the Lord is come!" My aunt was visiting, and she thundered away without thinking of the children above, who were meant to be sleeping. Dum - dum - dah-dum ... dah-dum - dum - dum! I marched to the beat ...
O, the thrill a new baby brings! When our oldest was pregnant with her first child, we were beyond excited. By Advent, Abby was into her eighth month and was all baby and promise – down to the glow that never seems to leave her. I’ll never forget the day she pulled my hand to her stomach just in time ...
As we head into Advent in an increasingly contentious world … might the answer be a simple song? A decade ago, a Saturday Night Live skit featured a family falling out over political and social differences at a Thanksgiving dinner — only to be saved when a little girl plays Adele’s then-new breakaway song, “Hello:” Hello from the other side ...
