Spiritual

On the First Day of Christmas, my True Love gave to Me:

Standard

…a history lesson. 🙂

It was only after a discussion with my husband and my own new found education now that I am more familiar with the Catholic liturgical calendar that I realized how most of us think of Christmas as ending with Christmas when in reality it begins with it.

The Christmas season begins with the birth of Christ and continues through the Epiphany.

Just like the Easter season begins with the end of Lent and continues through Pentecost, there is more than meets the eye.

Sometimes it’s a good thing to look a little deeper and see why we observe or celebrate the things we do. Children aren’t the only ones who ask the whys and wherefores.

We all have an insatiable curiosity and sometimes we have to feed it for ourselves.

I’ve included two links to get you started.

Happy Christmas.

Looking forward to a joyous Christmastide.

The Twelve Days of Christmas
Christmastide

Holiday Traditions – Christmas Eve

Standard

​Before we moved and had children, my husband and I would spend Thanksgiving with my parents and Christmas Eve and Day with his parents. My sister always alternated Thanksgiving with her in-laws and I thought our way made things much simpler and fair for everyone since my family didn’t celebrate Christmas. After we moved and decided to stay home with our kids for Christmas so they could wake up in their own house, things changed for us, but we still kept several, if not all of my husband’s family’s traditions that my husband  brought to our family.  Continue reading

Holiday Traditions – Chanukah

Standard

I’ve written recently about how I celebrated Chanukah as a child and growing up. I’ve included two of those links below. Some of those traditions I’ve brought to my own family, but because of our interfaithness I’ve added and tweaked some of them over the years.

In some ways it was easier to celebrate Jewish holidays while growing up Jewish in primarily Jewish neighborhood. In those early, formative years, our neighbors were mostly Jewish, and so we all celebrated the same things. It wasn’t until moving at the end of fifth grade that my new friends celebrated something different. I don’t even recall if the schools were closed on Christmas before; I imagine they must have been, but  it wasn’t until my own kids were young that I realized that schools didn’t close for the High Holy Days. I would keep my own kids home, and the only time there was a dispute with the school was when my middle son went to kindergarten and the first day of school was to be on Rosh Hashanah. I discovered another Jewish family and I joined them at the Board of Education meeting to change the first day of school. We did. But it was met with a plethora of excuses on why they should not change the status quo. It was demoralizing and it instilled in me a more vocal advocacy than I’d had before.

As the only Jewish family in our schools or the only Jewish teacher when I taught, it’s fallen to me to have to explain Chanukah, and unfortunately the expectation is usually how it fits into Christmas, which of course, it doesn’t. It would even be doubtful if Jesus observed/celebrated Chanukah; It’s always been considered a minor holiday.

Continue reading

Advent Reflection – Dec. 8 and Dec. 9

Standard

What role does music play in your faith life? What role does Mary have in your Christian discipleship?

From Daily Reflections for Advent & Christmas: Waiting in Joyful Hope 2016-17 by Birhsop Robert F. Morneau


Music plays such a profound role in the church I attend, both the physical parish and the church of my heart. We are blessed with a beautiful choir and our musical director is so talented and has such an amazing voice. For the Immaculate Conception, he sang Ave Maria, and each Christmas I look forward to his singing of O, Holy Night. It defies description and takes my breath away.

I have always been a fan of Gregorian chants and Welsh choirs are the voices of angels.

It is not only hymns and church music that brings me spirituality. I have an affinity for modern, albeit alternative music that lets me travel in my mind to many places and thoughts. My current favorite is the Hamilton soundtrack and my collection of Supernatural and The Walking Dead music. They truly do feed my soul in ways that only writing typically does.

If the flute is being played, we dance. At Christmas parties and wedding celebrations we eat and drink in moderation. If a dirge sounds, we mourn the loss of a loved one or repent of our sins by doing penance, by practicing asceticism.

From Daily Reflections for Advent & Christmas:Waiting in Joyful Hope 2016-17 by Bishop Robert F. Morneau

We’ve had this difficulty all year – of trying to discern when to dance and when to mourn. This whole year has been a long, drawn out pop culture funeral beginning with David Bowie and Alan Rickman followed by Prince and Muhammad Ali, and continuing most recently with Florence Henderson and John Glenn. Some of them have been harder on my heart than others, but so much of my childhood has been disappearing before my eyes.

It is always difficult to continue living our daily lives with so much sorrow hanging over us. Each death brought me down, but I got back up. We get ourselves back up and we keep going. Because that’s what we do.

After my mother-in-law was hit by a car and almost died three years ago, we thought she’d live forever. She wasn’t supposed to walk or leave the hospital, and she did. As hard as it was, and as long as it took, she was home, she was walking and she was doing great. She is the epitome of energy and independence and inspiration. We are fortunate that my daughter seems to have inherited all of that from her.

We were stunned while on a visit after school let out that she passed away suddenly at the end of June. We were with her earlier in the day, talking, joking, she admiring my daughter’s taste in clothes as well as the discount we got in buying it. Bargains and garage sales made her happy.

Her passing made all the others less significant, and it’s taken a lot to get through it.Thanksgiving without her was difficult and I know that Christmas will be even harder. We didn’t see her for Christmas, but we spoke to her throughout the day. She is missed every day. Her birthday is in a few weeks, and we will continue to struggle with this loss that is so deep and devastating.

Feast of the Immaculate Conception

Standard

It’s funny how year after year we do things, like observe or celebrate days, and they pass without extra thought.

Today is December 8th and the Immaculate Conception of Mary.It is a holy day of obligation, but I think that even if it weren’t, as our church is named for this feast, we would still enjoy our patron’s day.

At church today, we had the Mass, filled with music followed by hospitality in the gathering space. Sweet breads with apples, cranberries, nuts. Clementines. All varieties of bagels. Coffee, tea, water and juice. Our hospitality ministry really outdoes itself each and every time.

We celebrate Mary’s conception, but we also talk about and remember her Son’s conception, the annunciation, the visitation, the assumption, all the things Mary represents. Our musical director has a beautiful voice, and sings Ave Maria, a rendition that makes me want to simply close my eyes and open my ears and let the prayer rest on my heart.

It wasn’t until later, until after I left, as I thought about all the ways I’m attached to Mary, as a mother, as a daughter, putting the world ahead of her own needs as all mothers do. We give to our kids all the time; so much so that we often don’t even notice we’re doing it.

I glanced at the calendar and realized quite suddenly that my mother died twelve years ago today. I hadn’t noticed because for her yartzeit, her memorial candle, we follow the Jewish calendar, and so her anniversary is the first night of Chanukah, which changes each year. This year it is on Christmas Eve, so that is the date on my mind, but physically, it was today.

She died before I wandered into the church, so I never made the association before today. My mother shares her day with Mary, Mother of All.

It was comforting.

Advent Reflection – Dec. 1

Standard

​Each of us has to decide on what or whom we will build our spiritual security.

-From the Reflection portion of Daily Reflections for Advent & Christmas: Waiting in Joyful Hope 2016-17 by Bishop Robert F. Morneau

While we’re in anticipation of the birth of Christ, it is a good time to evaluate or re-evaluate our own spiritual security and/or foundation.

Today is World AIDS Day, and while things are much better than they once were, there is still a long way to go as we strive to help those afflicted and find a cure.

Two days ago was Giving Tuesday, a charitable follow up to Black Friday. Before the end of the year, our family will contribute to:

ACLU
Planned Parenthood
NAACP
Random Acts, and

my local church parish or St. Vincent de Paul Society.

Three of these have stemmed from the recent election here in the United States. Find where you want to support with your money, time, and talents and discuss your reasons with your children. Let them make their own suggestions for charitable contributions.

I’m pretty clear on my spiritual foundation and when I have concerns or a lack of faith, I find a way to think more about it and get through that period.

I’m enjoying praying and meditating privately on a daily basis.

I’d like to share this article that I read this morning on Vox: 

Advent, explained

Advent Reflection – Nov. 30

Standard

​How “immediate” is your response to God’s morning call to follow in his way? Who are the individuals, whose feet are beautiful as Isaiah says, who have brought to you the good news?

– From Daily Reflections for Advent & Christmas: Waiting in Joyful Hope 2016-17 by Bishop Robert F. Morneau

When I was first encouraged through signs to visit my current church, it was simply for a quiet place to think and to ask for G-d’s help. I didn’t know Jesus, but I figured He wouldn’t mind my using His house to speak to G-d.

There was no intention to hear a call or seek out something other than guidance, and even then I was really looking for a place to find my own guidance away from the everyday.

I sat.

I thought.

I randomly opened a missal and read a passage. When that passage was exactly what I needed to read, I cried.

It wasn’t until days later that I heard the call. Something in me had changed, and I was ready. I didn’t know it until after, but I was ready to hear it, and when it came, in bright light and deafening silence, it was astonishing.

I continued to come more often, and for anyone who reads this page regularly, it is clear where that calling has brought me.

In those early days, there were two individuals who encouraged me through their prayers and music, and through them I was able to let myself be open to the call. Ben provided the music and in his own prescient way only reiterated what I was already thinking and feeling. Tim, who is now in seminary for the Lutheran Church prayed for me and encouraged me to take that first step and attend a Mass. Things changed quite suddenly after that.

They were led to me by Jesus and He allowed me to be open to their guidance, whether any of us consciously knew it or not.

In all its struggle, that year was a blessing that brought so many more blessings.

This Advent it is good to look back at how we’ve gotten where we are, and to draw the map on our hearts to where we’re heading in the next few weeks and months.

Advent Reflections

Standard

This is the first week of Advent, the four or five weeks culminating in the Nativity and the birth of Jesus. It is a time of waiting, of searching, of journeying, always moving forward but not forgetting what and where we’ve come from.

My church gives out a small meditation/reflection book for Advent (and also for Lent), and it is the perfect size for a five minute read. As I mentioned on Sunday, it is the opportunity to either read it and begin your day or take a longer time and meditate on it, perhaps discover your own reflection.

I won’t guarantee a daily reflecton, but as I read each day’s pages, I may write some thoughts down and share them here.

This week is the first week of Advent, but it is also filled with other meaningful days: Today begins the Novena of the Immaculate Conception, the nine day prayer period that concludes with the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. In addition to a holy day of obligation, this is also my church’s patron. I read the prayer for the today’s first day, and will pray it each day until the feast day. I will also pray the rosary, one of the links to the Holy Mother.

We also have a series of half days from school, the penultimate episode for the mid-season of The Walking Dead, mid-season finales of all our other shows, my niece’s Sweet 16 birthday, my daughter’s winter concert with chorus, and my 50th birthday in four days.I have four more of my 50 Reflections to complete before then, and a wonderful birthday surprise to share that my family gave me this past weekend. (I mentioned some of it in my reflection called Adventure that posted on Sunday.)

Today’s Meditation Questions/Suggestions for discernment from the Robert F. Morneau book, pictured above:

What happens to your heart when you are looked at in a loving way? When you look at others is it a stare and critical analysis, or is it a childlike look of affection?
I find myself doing both the critical stare and the look of affection at various times throughout the days. I enjoy watching my two youngest children sitting side by side, one on their tablet, the other reading a book with three other books piled next to her, not fighting, not yelling, not arguing. There are even moments that we need them to do a chore or errand, and we leave them be because it’s so nice to have the brotherly and sisterly peace that is so often missing at their ages as they compete and try each other’s patience.

It’s important to be able to recognize the critical stare and sort out if it’s warranted, even in a small way. I try to pull myself back from that judgment and look away, then start again for a more compassionate thought process.

I know that with our current political climate, I am having a much more difficult time not being judgmental and angry, but I have been walking away more, and instead of 24/7 cable news, I’ve been picking a few programs for a few minutes a day to catch up on breaking news and I save important articles to read before I post or make comments. I’ve only had one breakdown/rant and I refuse to go back to where I was as a political junkie in 2012 when I quit cold turkey. I plan on being politically active and advocate for my beliefs, but in keeping that critical stare at bay, I can think more, discern more, let G-d lead, and act more.

Advent is waiting, and waiting is okay. It is the time we need to gather ourselves, both physically and spiritually to greet this new year, to collect our thoughts, meditate on what’s important, and meet Jesus in his birth. G-d will meet us where we are; we need to meet him as well, and then journey together.