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
Hush.... It’s time! Time to finish the buying and wrapping, time to set our troubles aside. Our cares will still be there next week, after all, and we don’t want to miss the peace that’s promised by the season. One Christmas hymn keeps floating through my mind, helping me focus. A friend sent me this instrumental version on video (it’s ...
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Twice a year, on Gaudete and Laetare Sundays[1], the priest dons rose-colored vestments for mass. In spite of what he might think about wearing that color (and there’s always someone cracking a joke about it) — I love seeing it. I love its rosy warmth and the way it breaks into the somber violet of the rest of the season ...
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Christmas preparations are looking very different for me this year. Normally, I’d be baking and planning parties and strolling with friends through winter-lit gardens. But I find myself staying home to avoid unsafe contact and searching out COVID test sites, investigating state travel restrictions and counting isolation days. Because what kind of Christmas will it be, if our boys can’t ...
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“You be the lookout,” I told my little brother. “Yell the second you see the car!” My parents had gone for the day, leaving me in charge. And now we were scrambling to finish our chores and get the house in order before they returned, bringing our cousins with them. Only when the last thing was in its place and ...
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The signs are everywhere right now: “Grateful”, the word spelled out in fancy type, embellished with flowers, sparkles, or even gold leaf. I almost hit one with my grocery cart this morning, rounding the corner past a woman who, like me, had left her Thanksgiving shopping to the last minute. “Grateful … hmmpf!” she said, nodding at the sign. “What ...
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[An Advent Bible Reading plan] Toward the end of Luke’s gospel, Jesus drives the merchants out of the temple and then goes there, every day, to teach. And all the while, the Jewish leaders look for a way to kill him — but they never get the chance. Why? “Because all the people were hanging on his words.” “Hanging on ...
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I’ve heard it said that the shofar (ram’s horn trumpet), with its curving shape, represents the way a repentant heart “bends” before the Lord in supplication. When it’s blown, it has a unique sound that can trumpet victory or a mournful wail. In the liturgy of Rosh Hashanah, today’s Jewish “Feast of Trumpets,” three types of blasts make up the ...
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There’s always such a push to Easter, and then … what? I’m grateful to the ongoing pulse of the season, that reminds me there is more. In the liturgical cycle, Easter is a day and also an “octave.” Eight days of celebration, eight days of re-absorbing the message of the Resurrection: that because Jesus is alive, my life — all ...
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I woke up this morning troubled by many things: some are just wisps of bad dreams in the night, but others I must face. I turned, as is my habit, to the Scriptures of Morning Prayer[1] “Jesus was deeply troubled” jumped out at me. What does it mean to be troubled? The word is tarássō in Greek. "To trouble" means ...
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