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Friday, October 30, 2009

All Saint's Day 2009

A few glimpses of our Our Saint's Celebration
2009
Each year, our Little Flowers and Blue Knights group gets together for an All Saint's Celebraton!
The kids dress as their favorite saint but they keep it a secret...Shhhh.
Each child gets up in front of the group and gives a few hints about who they are.  The audience has to guess which saint they are dressed as!
Then we have refreshments and free play....yay!
~Here we have...St. Clare, St. (Padre) Pio, and St. Luke~
Padre Pio's Stigmata
St. Clare of Assisi and her monstrance...
I did not spend a dime or sew a single stitch for this costume...
Can you believe we just used a ladies brown turtle neck (and also a white one underneath) for her habit?  I used all things "on hand"!
St. Luke was known to be a Doctor...
The Bible calls Luke the 'beloved physicain'.
A close-up of the "Soul Doctor"
St. Clare visits with St. Padre Pio at the heavenly party...
And Padre Pio addresses the group...
At the end of the day, we are grateful for the saints who cheer for us, pray for us, and encourage us, as we make our way through the journey of our Christian lives. 
Thank you, Lord, for the 'cloud of witnesses' who have gone before us and wait for us in the winners' circle of heaven!
"Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God."
~Hebrews 12:1-2~
Our version of a "Saint-O-Lantern"
Click here for the link-up...

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

May Magnificat Poem


The May Magnificat

May is Mary's month, and I
Muse at that and wonder why:
Her feasts follow reason,
Dated due to season -
Candlemas, Lady Day;
But the Lady Month, May,
Why fasten that upon her,
With a feasting in her honor?
Is it only its being brighter
Than the most are must delight her?
Is it opportunest
And flowers find soonest?
Ask of her, the mighty mother:
Her reply puts this other
Question: What is Spring? -
Growth in every thing -
Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,
Grass and greenworld all together;
Star-eyed strawberry-breasted
Throstle above her nested
Cluster of blue eggs thin
Forms and warms the life within;
And bird and blossom swell
In sod or sheath or shell.
All things rising, all things sizing
Mary sees, sympathizing
With that world of good,
Nature's motherhood.
Their magnifying of each its kind
With delight calls to mind
How she did in her stored
Magnify the Lord.
Well, but there was more than this:
Spring's universal bliss
Much, had much to say
To offering Mary May.
When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple
Bloom lights the orchard-apple
And thicket and thorp are merry
With silver-surfed cherry
And azuring-over greybell makes
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
And magic cuckoo call
Caps, clears, and clinches all -
This ecstasy all through mothering earth
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ's birth
To remember and exultation
In God who was her salvation.

Source: Written by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889); Provided by the courtesy of Catholic Information Network (CIN)