And so it begins..1st Sunday in Advent

And so it begins, the lighting of the first Advent candle, focusing on the Prophet Isaiah and Hope. My husband started with blessing the wreath and reading out the prayer, then we read suitable bible passages....do you want to see the candle like we did? (without the flash) Here it is below, shimmering in the darkness with all the children around, looking on with great anticipation.

Such a lovely scene..

The children got to open TWO doors today - the first being St Andrew (his feastday) and the big doors of the first Sunday of Advent. We popped a light inside and the pictures came to life!!

One of my last minute preparations but always a worthwhile one - the Advent Paper Chains. Each chain has a bible passage as we make our way through advent, purple chains for the weeks of penance and preparation and pink for the week of joyful anticipation.

This is very simple but it is one that the children specifically ask for. They like unlinking the one chain per day and reading it's verse...there is great symbolism in it all. The chains make you think of prison, sin and punishment (reminding the children where they have seen someone wearing chains recently...the movie David Copperfield when Uriah Heap is sent to Australia as a convict and in the movie Scrooge, when Marley enters with his eternal chains of woe.) so each day we are unlinking ourselves from the bondage of satan and sin as we draw closer to the birth of the Messiah, who will 'set all captives free'.

If anyone is wanting the sheets with the scripture verses, feel free to email me.

A blessed Advent to you all!

It's simply called "Simplify"

A dear Australian friend of mine, Jenny has just shared some really beautiful thoughts for the beginning of advent, she has called her post, Simplify.

I want to quote something from it, but it is a small part of her whole post, so drop by to read it in full, for a good start to anyone's advent preparation.

"So here I sit, 25 days out from celebrating the greatest GIFT ever given to mankind, and I have finally come to the conclusion that just because you can doesn't mean you should. For me, at least.

As this Advent Season begins today I hope to meditate more on the love for people that can be expressed more simply - a card unexpected to say I'm praying for them, a phone call to ask how they are and is there anything they need, a bag of fresh summer fruits for the family down the road who've lost their father, a hug for that lady with the weary eyes, a freshly baked cake and a coffee for my husband when he returns home weary from doing end of year report cards....In contrast to God's sacrificial gift of Jesus my own gifts have been driven by personal pleasure mostly, and now expecting myself to give more in their making is purely prideful. This is not the attitude I want to be fostering in my soul. When I make something I want it to be for the pure delight of using a talent God has given me, and I think that means to cast off the notion of perfection and embrace the freshness of simplicity in all things." - Jenny at "HE KNOWS MY NAME"

I have been a recepient to Jenny's incredible generosity in the past and I want to share two lovely creations that Jenny and her daughter 'Blossom' have made recently.

The padded, draw-string bag above was made to put my 'travelling' statue of Our Lady in, for when we go walking along the beach (or anywhere outdoors) and we would like to stop and say the rosary.

Just above is beautiful sewing caddy made for me and my patchwork endeavours, the mixing of colours, the lace, everything is so perfect!

Today I thank God for a friend I have yet to met in person but has shown me such love in all ways, particularly in prayer.

Jesse Tree and Advent Wreath preparations.

Every year we have had a totally different Jesse Tree craft - different trees, different ornaments. I had hoped that last year would be the last of contantly changing them when we bought our Daintree Pine, but no matter how lovingly I watered it outside after Christmas, it slowly died...

This year I found a very vibrant and colourful tree, different, unusual are all words that come to mind. But I like it. It has the vibrant primary colours with pink and purple. So I envisoned ornaments hanging from it, wired on.

When I picked up my Jesse Tree layby I look around for suitable ornaments, couldn't be round balls, they wouldn't sit right...then I spied the perfect thing...three dimensional, flat shaped stars in the perfect advent purple and pink.

I have used left over beading wire in gold and gold crimps to attach the ornaments securely to the tree. There are 17 purple ornaments and 7 pink - the pink will be for the Gaudete week, mirroring the candles on the Advent Wreath.

This is how the tree looked when I bought it. I wanted something that I could use over and over again, but that there COULD be a yearly, new craft element to it. So I decided I would buy round, white stickers that will fit in the center of each star. Before they are stuck on, a child will draw the Jesse Tree symbol for that day and colour it.

Next year, I can stick a new lot over the top allowing the children to use their creative art skills anew. I can swivel the ornament so the plain, shiny side is showing, when the day for it to be displayed with an image arrives, it can be swivelled around as the sticker would have been on the back, so I can have the children do their colouring/drawing activities in advance, if need be. (Often it is.)

I will sit this Jesse Tree on our Advent Altar.

This photo doesn't quite do it justice...it is 'busy' with bright colours and glittery textures.

I have just pulled out and given a quick renovation to our Advent Wreath from last year, I had to replace two cones, I bought new ribbon and I still need to buy the Christ Candle.

Here is my extensive posting about the tradition of the Advent Wreath from last year.

Here is how we made the Advent Wreath.

Our new Advent Wreath ribbon close up.....lighting it in two days time, how exciting!!

Weather in my part of the world...

We have had a series of storms hit around my part of the world and we are very grateful that we have gotten through them unscathed. Unfortunately more are predicted.

Though not far from us, some areas were declared a national disaster, with the army needing to come in and assist in the aftermath...The video below is in one such area.

If you are curious to hear the 'local lingo' and local accent in the background, this is very typical!!! (There's a couple of safe, 'holy moly's' and one 'holy hell' but no offensive language!)

Christmas Anticipation Prayer

Image HT: Paul Mooney's Fine Art - A local Catholic artist in QLD, Australia

...or St Andrew's Christmas Novena.

Though not strictly a novena (9 days), this beautiful prayer is recited 15 times per day starting on the feast of St Andresw (30th November) through to the Eve of Christmas.

I cannot begin to emphasize how blessed this prayer can be to a family, to anyone during the Advent period when we prepare our hearts and souls for the Holy Babe, Jesus.

Here is the prayer:

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment

in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary,

at midnight,

in Bethlehem,

in the piercing cold.

In that hour vouchsafe, I beseech Thee, O my God,

to hear my prayer and grant my desires,

[State your intention(s) here...]

through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ

and of His blessed Mother.Amen.

What makes this prayer so special is the constant meditation on the beauty and reality of Christmas:

"Hail and blessed ~ be the hour and moment ~ in which the Son of God ~

~ was born of the most pure Virgin Mary ~

at midnight ~ in Bethlehem ~ in the piercing cold."

They are very beautiful words....you really want to say them over and over again. By the time the anniversary of that midnight, in Bethlehem arrives you have said those words 375 times...

If you are having a bad year and preparation for advent is not going to be all you wish it to be (I've had years like that) if nothing else, you have prepared richly for Christmas by reciting this prayer as a family ~ make this a least, your one, important endeavour. You can post the prayer around the house for everyone or the way we do it, is learn it off by heart before the feast commences.

This will be the third year we have recited this prayer and we have found it to be especially efficacious. I remember in my first year I had a list of special intentions, some of them difficult and ever there...in the New Year, every prayer was answered in God's perfect timing.

We have a lovely Catholic homeschooling group that meets together every Tuesday fortnight for catchesim activities for children and fellowship for mothers, but for advent we are doing it weekly to help each other prepare advent together.

Yesterday we had our first of four advent Tuesdays and this prayer was the focus of our activity for the day. With wire, medals of St Andrew and the Holy Family and a pile of my many unused beads, the children made St Therese's sacrifice beads but with 15 beads, so that the children can recite their Christmas Anticipation Prayer each day and keep track of how many they have said in the day, the beads themselves are a visual reminder to say the prayer.

The beauty of the St Therese sacrifice beads, is that the bead is pushed over to one side and stays there, very helpful for this daily recitation. Here are the instructions to make them.

Today I made a pair of beads for myself using purple beads (liturgical colour for advent) with a vintage medal of the Child Jesus at one end...and now I eagerly await the feast of St Andrew.

Preparing for St Lucy's feast in advance

For the last two years we have developed a new custom for our family on the feast of Saint Lucy. We visit the christmas lights in our city, usually we find the winners for 'best lighted street' where every house in the street has christmas lights, for a maximum effect for the little ones.

St Lucy's name means 'light' and many traditions/customs and symbols are connected to her. Of course her feast day falls right in the middle of advent (13th of December) and so it has been lovely to blend advent with this feast in a special way.

Here is our posting last year for the feast.

This year, Saint Lucy's feast falls on a Saturday, which I am very excited about. It is a perfect opportunity to organize a barbeque in the early evening and then visit the lights with our Catholic families and friends, sharing the feast together!

Maybe there are other St Lucy traditions to encorporate into the evening? I'll certainly been reading more extensively on St Lucy in the days to come, and I am very open to any suggestions/traditions that others know of. Here is a great article from Nissa's blog, an article from her Simple Gifts magazine on St Lucia, definitely worth a read!

I thought I'd post early like this, in case others would like to do something similar and may need time to organize and plan. I hope to have a great posting up for her feast day this year!

Nighttime Advent Ambiance..

I mentioned in my previous advent posting that there was a wall light behind our nativity material that has been hung over our family altar...well this is the lovely feeling in the lounge at night...

It will be even lovelier when our advent wreath is lit and there is a glow coming from inside the Fling Wide the Doors!

Preparing for Advent

Our family has just started our advent preparations and this year I decided to make our family altar the main area. The thing that catches your eye the most is the big material nativity scene, when we turn on the light at night which is directly behind the material, it lights up and creates a lovely ambiance.

It is quite a big, long area, so here is the matching shot on the other side.. I had bought some lovely pieces of christmas material on ebay, to line the wall behind the altar and the altar itself, it all fitted perfectly which was just great!

Under our altar I cleaned an area to put all our advent/christmas books, so they are nicely together.

Fling Wide the Doors: And Advent and Christmastime Calendar from LTP (Liturgy Training Publications) the same company that produces the Liturgical Calendar Wheel. The Fling Wide the Doors is on special at present at LTP, $5US when it usually sells for $15US. It joins together to create a triangle, so a light can be placed in the center, when you open a window the image is on fine paper so the light can shine through, giving a stained glass effect. There is a lovely big booklet that goes with it. We are looking forward to this!

Our family bible is ready, we use it often for the biblical quotes given each day connected to the Jesse Tree book I have.

I few months back I bought this beautiful statue of St Nicholas from St Pauls, this is made by Roman Inc (the statue is on this webpage)

Once again I have our wooden box nativity scene...

Christian Supplies sold this nativity scene and with it comes all the stickers, one goes up each day until the scene is complete.

I am so happy to have this beautiful statue...The Prince of Peace

It is such a beautiful work of art, the halo is magnificent and we all look forward to making our daily sacrifices to make the crib warm for the Child Jesus on Christmas Eve.

Liturgical Calendar Wheel 2008/9

Almost ready to start the liturgical new year at the end of this month and so we finally bought our new calendar. This time we bought a laminated one and we will glue the little saint images on each day - our children LOVE this each morning! Here is my in-depth posting on the calendar and the saints images in the past.

Here is an example of the saint images I have compiled for each day of the year, if you are wanting a free copy of these files please email me and I'll send them through to you.

You just cut and paste the image of the day, they quite small but still clear enough to see all sorts of details.

If you are buying your liturgical wheel in the States, you can buy your laminated or non-laminated copy here.

If you are in Australia you must be quick! There are only 4 copies left when I bought mine a few days ago and they have only the laminated copies left ($24), St Pauls is the place to purchase them.

Good Catholic blogs...

And BOY wasn't this relevant in the US elections just past?

HT catholic mom of 10 revisited

St Thomas Aquinas and an abortionist

HT: Causa Nostrae Laetitiae

Certainly a powerful story and testimony...

This mama is....

definitely multifunctional!!

We spent the last week of our holidays building a new fence but it became a race against time and in the end there was still work to be done when dh went back to work yesterday...but we needed a secure yard for the children so I got out and with the help of ds14 we drilled in the remaining rails and then I preceeded to nail on all the pailings....in the rain.

I lived in fear of those pailings going their own way so checking with the level top and bottom...Finally when I was close to the end I saw two men coming towards me with hammers in hand...neighbours three doors down to help me out! Well, it's now done and I am very happy with our new fence!

Earlier on in the week...

Life's hard when I've got to sit around and watch people work hard in the hot sun!

We have had so much rain in our part of the world lately the digging wasn't too hard.

Here's my Dear Boy (4) who showed himself to be very handy with a hammer.

When he went a bit askew, he self corrected...and continued on.

He was able to knock in a row of nails with relative ease.

Last one....

There! All done! WELL DONE Dear Boy!!!

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound..

In my musings over the US elections, the pro-life movement and more, I’ve mentioned on two occasions now, the movie Amazing Grace. (Natural Bridge and Praying for the elections in a beautiful place) I’ve sort of got MYSELF going on it now, I would really like to sit down again and watch it!!

Have you seen it before? If not, I do recommend it. I think there are very strong parallels between the two movements - the way they were perceived in their time and the people who fought for their convictions.

Well anyway, here is something to whet your appetite...

Natural Bridge

Here we are at the Natural Bridge in the Gold Coast hinterland. This is simply gorgeous part of the world. The beaches at the Gold Coast are one of the world's best and then half an hour's drive away you enter this lush world of rainforests and spectacular views and scenery.

I mentioned previously that I thought it fortunate that we had alot of overcast and even on-and- off rainy periods. This was a holiday where we all needed to relax and renew badly and I just didn't think day after day of hot weather, traking wet sand into units were going to do it.

So on all the cloudy days we went into the hinterland for bushwalking and we had a simply lovely time. We were still praying for the US elections as we travelled and since it is easy to pray as a family in the car, we were happy to do some slow motoring around the range.

We didn't receive the news of the elections until Wed afternoon because of the time difference. The last full day of our holidays was Thurs and that was the one, hot day we had, where we swam at the beach all day. So when I think of the hinterland I think of many prayers and anticipation...and sadly, disappointment.

I'm Australian as most people would know but I've always been very interested in American politics. I suppose I was aware how much we are influenced by the States and how a good or bad political outcome, does in turn, effect us - it effects the whole world.

I can even say I remember where I was and/or how I reacted to the previous two US elections where the presidency changed hands.

When Clinton was elected in the early 90's, I cried and cried. I bawled. I thought, "what will come of the world?". I knew he was not pro-life and sadly his notorious vetos on partial birth ban proved that, among many other things.

When George W Bush was elected, we were at friend's place, way out in the country, fairly isolated. We all looked at the TV and we were excited and had feelings of anticipation... Here was a pro-life president elected on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Then each year when I watched the March for Life rally in January, I'd listen to all the new and good pro-life legislature he had been responsible for - I'd listen to his recorded speech to the pro-life people...

Now this time, I'll always remember this beautiful Australian landmark with the 2008 US election results. Strangly enough I didn't cry or react with emotional passion as I had in the early 90's. Maybe because I don't remember actually praying for the elections back then, I may have said a few prayers but I can't remember.

For us personally, I think the intensity of prayer by us all, took away the intensity of emotion on the other side. Though maybe if I were actually a US citizen, it might have been different.. Not that I wasn't deeply disappointed, for in fact I was experiencing an even greater disappointment than the early 90's election. Because I knew that while all elections mattered, nothing to date counted quite like this one.

Maybe the emotions were tempered with the fact I knew we had done our best (well, we can ALWAYS do better, particularly me, but we had tried to respond to the promptings of grace as much as we could.)

Or maybe we were in the wash of peace and serenity FROM all those prayers to Our Lady, you see, we didn't watch the coverage on the screen (Australian channels started the coverage from late in the morning) as would do with the Australian elections. I knew I couldn't handle that, I just had to pray with faith and not hear the bias from the media.. So we were separated from the worldly take on it all, just left to our prayers only and beautiful, natural surroundings.

Or maybe I'm just numb? Though I don't think so, I AM feeling and thinking and pondering about it all...

For whatever reason, it is not time. It is sad I know. I'm sad because it looks like the 40th anniversary of Roe vs Wade in the future will come and go with this still standing.

I remember watching the March for Life two years ago and a priest was being interviewed, he said something interesting. He said that if the 40th anniversary were to pass in the future without it being overturned, he believed there would be serious times ahead.

40 years. It's a biblical figure. Trial and testing. 40 years of anti-life legislature. The sanctioning of taking life for no reason at all, enshrined in law.

It all seems surreal in a way. Why does the world allow this to happen everywhere throughout the world? Even 50 years ago this sort of thing was unthinkable in most people's mind. Why are pro-life people viewed as fanatics?

Once again though, I think of the movie Amazing Grace and see how the abolitionists were viewed..pretty much the same...fanatics. Yet we ALL cheer them on! Everyone does! No one sits there thinking, "I hope that pompous, selfish lot of politicians on the other side wins the day." Didn't we all cheer when the tickets to Exeter were waved over the top of the lounge chair?"

BUT, see HOW they won...they had to trick the senate into passing a law that would indirectly close down the trade of human lives, they had to cut off the 'money source', no wonder they say that money is the root of all evil.

This has been like a 'dear diary' tonight, I'm just in a very reflective mood and truly wonder what the future holds for us all.

I do wonder but I have peace also, for I believe in the power of prayer. I remind myself 'that the gates of hell will not prevail.' My Faith will always stand strong as a beacon to the world. I pray that my own faith will also stand strong, for my family, for their future. Bubby is now calling for me.