Advent

All Advent

Prayers & Devotions

  • Jesse Tree: There are lots of versions of this. They use various combinations of symbols representing the family line of Jesus, key biblical figures, or other events from salvation history. Regardless of which symbols are included, each day one symbol is reflected on (usually with a Scripture reading and/or prayer), and an ornament with the corresponding symbol is hung on the “tree”. The “tree” can be a tabletop tree, a branch in a vase, a poster, a jewelry tree, a clothesline-style display, etc. 
  • Blessing of a Manger or Nativity Scene Printable
  • Advent Wreath: The circle, which never ends, teaches us that God and the joy of eternity never end. The evergreen, which never changes, reminds us that God’s love never changes. The purple recalls the penance with which purifies our hearts, and the candlelight, which increases each week, tells us that Christ is the Light of the World; we must not be like the darkness which “grasped it not” (John 1:5). The prayers ask God to stir up in us a great desire for His Coming, to strengthen us so we shall be ready. 
  • Penance: Try to receive the sacrament of penance during the Advent season to prepare for the coming of Christ “for it is not possible coherently to celebrate the birth of Him ‘Who saves His people from their sins’ without some effort to overcome sin in one’s own life.” (Directory on Popular Piety, #105)
  • Pray that God will help you remember to notice all the symbolism of the season to help you stay focused on Him and not get discouraged.
  • Blessing of a Christmas Tree Printable

Activities

Charity


Stir-Up Sunday

First Sunday of Advent

Activities

  • The traditional Collect of the last Sunday of the Church year began “Stir up the wills of Thy faithful people, we beseech Thee, O Lord…”- thus the day became known as “Stir-Up Sunday”. This day is now set aside for Christ the King, so Stir-Up Sunday can now be the first Sunday of Advent.
    • It is traditional to “stir up” a fruitcake, plum pudding, or mincemeat on this day, and then put it away to age until Christmas.
    • For added fun, mix in little symbolic tokens for your family to find when they eat it, like a coin (wealth in the new year) or a horseshoe charm (good luck).

St. Andrew, Apostle

November 30

Prayers & Devotions

Foods & Symbols

  • Shortbread cookies (since he is patron saint of Scotland)
  • Fish (since he was a fisherman)
  • Lace cookies (since he is patron saint of lace-makers- probably because he made fishing nets)

Charity

  • Give to the food pantry or volunteer at a soup kitchen (since he was the one who pointed out the loaves and fishes)

Saint Nicholas

December 6

Prayers & Devotions

  • Reconciliation (since he was a confessor and this is why he knows all the children’s good/bad deeds)
    • Watch for information about the special reconciliation service at MOQ on December 15th.

Foods & Symbols

  • In Eastern Europe/Low Countries, St. Nicholas visits the children wearing a white robe with a mitre (bishop’s hat) and a crozier (bishop’s staff). He asks them to recite prayers or bits of catechism and gives them cookies, apples, nuts, chocolate, and holy pictures.
  • Chocolate gold coins: He heard of a poor widower who was facing having to sell his three daughters off to a “house of ill-repute”, and secretly threw three bags of gold into their open window to provide dowries for the girls so they could be married instead.
  • Candy canes: These symbolize his crozier (and if you turn them upside-down they make a “J” for Jesus).
  • Speculaas (or Speculoos): These spice cookies are traditional in northern Europe.
  • Lebkuchen: These honey cakes are traditional in Germany.
  • Mulled wine: In Holland, it’s called “bischopswyn” (bishop’s wine).

Activities

  • A Dutch custom is for children to put out their shoes or hang their stockings from the mantel on the vigil of this feast, and, if they have been good, find in them the next morning St. Nicholas cookies. Children who have been naughty get straw — a gentle reminder that Advent is a time to strive hard to be very good so that we will be ready for Jesus when He comes.
  • Turn Chocolate Santas into the Real St. Nicholas!

Charity

  • St. Nicholas did his charitable works secretly- do one hidden act of kindness in imitation of this saint.

Saint Ambrose

December 7

Prayers & Devotions

Foods & Symbols

  • Honey: The legend is that when Ambrose was an infant, his father found his face covered with bees, but he was unharmed. This was taken as a sign of his future eloquence, and he is known as the “Honey-tongued Doctor” because the sign eventually proved to be accurate.
  • Italian food (since he was bishop of Milan)
  • Ambrosia salad

Activities

  • Make and/or decorate a Christ candle to replace the purple and pink candles in your Advent wreath during Christmas (Ambrose is patron of candlemakers)
    • Take a Chi Rho symbol printed on tissue paper, position it on a white pillar candle, and use a large piece of wax paper to wrap around the candle and hold the tissue paper image in place.  Use a hair dryer to warm the area where the image is until the edges of the tissue paper disappear and the image darkens, then peel the wax paper off.
    • If you’re using a candle in a glass jar instead of a pillar, you can still use the tissue paper Chi Rho- just brush or spray with a light coat of glue and stick it to the glass.

Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary

December 8

Prayers & Devotions

Foods & Symbols

  • White foods (powdered sugar cookies, chicken alfredo, cauliflower, white bread, rice, etc.)
  • Wear white
  • Moravian Spritz or gingerbread cookies: They remind us of the passage in the Book of Sirach (formerly Ecclesiasticus), 24:20-21 that describes Mary smelling like spices.

Activities

  • Use a coloring page to help explain to children that we are celebrating the Immaculate Conception of Mary, not Jesus.
  • Clean-up day: God prepared Mary to make her ready to welcome Jesus, so we prepare ourselves and our homes in similar way.
  • Mary candle: Cover the Christ candle you made on St. Ambrose Day (or any plain white candle) with a piece of white cloth or lace (symbolizing Mary’s soul without stain), perhaps with a blue ribbon tie. This mantle symbolizes Our Lady, who carried the baby Jesus under her heart until He was born. The candle (which represents Christ, the Light of the world) remains covered all through Advent, until the veil is removed to reveal the newborn Child at Christmas.

Charity

  • In Spain, this is a day to honor mothers.  Do something nice for a mother today.

Saint Juan Diego

December 9

Our Lady of Guadalupe

December 12

Prayers & Devotions

Foods & Symbols

  • Light an Our Lady of Guadalupe votive candle (these tall, glass jar candles with Our Lady of Guadalupe on them can be found at the Dollar Tree/Target/most grocery stores)
  • Decorate with roses (like the ones that spilled out of St. Juan Diego’s tilma)
  • Mexican food

Activities

  • Pinata (traditional seven-pointed ones represent the seven deadly sins)

Our Lady of Loreto

December 10

Prayers & Devotions

Foods & Symbols

  • Italian food (Loreto, where Mary’s house is now, is in Italy)

Activities

  • Make gingerbread houses (this feast is all about Mary’s house and the symbolism of being a home for Jesus)
  • Play with paper or balsa-wood airplanes (Our Lady of Loreto is the patron of air travel since the story of traditionally involves her house being flown through the air by angels).

Gaudete/Bambinelli Sunday

Third Sunday of Advent

Foods & Symbols

  • Wear pink
  • Pink foods

Activities

  • Bring the baby Jesus figures from your nativity scenes to be blessed by Fr. Byrd at Mass.

Saint Lucy

December 13

Foods & Symbols

  • Save eyeball candies from Halloween and serve a pair of them on a plate at a meal.  Diocletian tried to have Lucy executed for her beliefs- by burning her alive (she wouldn’t burn or stop speaking out), stabbing a spear through her throat (to no effect), and gouging her eyes out (her sight was miraculously restored). She was only able to die after receiving the Last Rites.  Reflecting on this should help you feel a little less sorry for yourself about all the work you still have to do for Christmas.
  • Swedish Lussebullar (Lucy Buns)- Saffron buns in a shape that resembles a pair of eyeballs.
    • Make an easier version by unrolling refrigerator canned cinnamon rolls and reshaping them into a backward “S” shape, then baking as usual.
  • Italian food (she was Sicilian)
  • Whole grains: In Sicily, a famine ended on her feast day when ships loaded with grain entered the harbor. (Cuccia is traditional- boiled wheat berries, often mixed with ricotta and honey, but you could also just do sandwiches on whole-grain bread.)

Activities

  • Swedish-style Procession: Choose a girl to be the “St.  Lucy Bride” in a white gown (symbolizing virginity) with a red sash (symbolizing martyrdom) and a crown of candles on her head. (While helping persecuted Christians hiding in the catacombs, St. Lucy wore a wreath of candles on her head in order to have her hands free to bring with her as many supplies as possible). Just before dawn, the St. Lucy Bride leads a procession of girls (in similar dress), each holding a candle (symbolizing the fire that refused to take St. Lucy’s life). The procession sings a St. Lucy song and serves special St. Lucy day rolls (see Swedish Lussebullar above) to the rest of the household.
  • Fire up your Christmas lights or drive around and look at your neighbors’ light displays: St. Lucy Day was on the shortest/darkest day of the year on the old calendar. Her life was a light in the darkness and points to the Light of Christ coming into the world. Even her name comes from the Latin “lux” or “light”.
  • Lucy Fire (bonfire) with incense.
  • St. Lucy’s Wheat: In Croatia and Hungary, wheat seeds are planted in a dish, and the new shoots remind us of the new life born in Bethlehem. (Also that the wheat had to die to be born again.) On Christmas, the new shoots may be tied with a ribbon and put near the Christmas tree or nativity.

Charity

  • Take treats (traditionally, ginger cookies) to elderly, sing, and distribute small gifts.
  • Donate used rx/reading/sunglasses to charity (because of the story of her eyes being gouged out).

Saint John of the Cross

December 14

Prayers & Devotions


O Wisdom (Sapienta)

December 17

Foods & Symbols

  • Symbols: oil lamp; open book or scroll; dove (Holy Spirit); all-seeing eye
  • “Brain food”: blueberries, tomatoes, dark chocolate, avocados, eggs

O Lord & Ruler (Adonai)

December 18

Foods & Symbols

  • Symbols: burning bush, stone tablets, tent/tabernacle in desert

O Root of Jesse (Radix Jesse)

December 19

Foods & Symbols

  • Symbols: flower, root with flowering stem, stump with roots
  • Root vegetables: carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes or yams
  • Root beer

O Key of David (Clavis David)

December 20

Foods & Symbols

  • Symbols: key, broken chains
  • Unshelled nuts with a nutcracker: Without the “key” (nutcracker) you cannot get inside easily. Breaking the nut can be a reminder of the broken chains.
  • Key lime pie

O Dayspring (Oriens)

December 21

Foods & Symbols

  • Symbols: sunrise, sun
  • Citrus fruits remind us of the sun

O King of Nations (Rex Gentium)

December 22

Foods & Symbols

  • Symbols: crown, crown and scepter, cornerstone
  • Crown- or wreath-shaped cake or cookies

O Emmanuel (Emmanuel)

December 23

Foods & Symbols

  • Symbols: manger, chalice and host, crown with tablets
  • Bread and wine

Christmas Eve

December 24

Prayers & Devotions

Activities

  • Caroling
  • Polish “oplatek”: Breaking and passing this thin, wafery bread at the Christmas Eve meal reminds us of our daily bread and the Bread of Life who came into the world.
  • Irish “Coinneal mor na Nollaig” (Great Christmas Candle): This is a large candle stuck in a loaf of bread and placed in the most prominent front window of the house to light the way for the Holy Family on their journey to Bethlehem.

Charity

  • Put birdseed (or hang birdseed ornaments) outside for the animals or donate to an animal shelter (since St. Francis of Assisi insisted that all creation should celebrate Christ’s birth).

Season of Christmas

Christmas Day/Season

December 25

Foods & Symbols

  • Now that it has aged nicely, enjoy the fruitcake, plum pudding, or mincemeat pie you made on Stir-Up Sunday.
  • Mincemeat pies- The original mince pies were oblong crib shapes decorated with a baby Jesus on top. They were made from 13 ingredients to represent Jesus and his disciples, including dried fruit, lamb to represent the shepherds, and spices for the Magi- with all of the contents representing the gifts of the Magi to the Christ child.  During the Reformation, the Puritans banned Christmas and everything related to it, including mince pies. Sounds like a good reason to revive this tradition!
  • Have a birthday cake for Jesus.

Activities

  • Replace advent wreath candles with the Christ candle you made on St. Ambrose Day (or just a white candle) placed in the center of your advent wreath.
  • Put on a Nativity play at home- let the children lead it, but allow them to pull adults (grandparents, etc.) in to play some of the parts if necessary. (This can also be done just as a reading if you don’t want to mess with costumes and props- although that’s half the fun for the little ones.)
  • Listen to or attend a performance of Handel’s Messiah
    • If you have school-age children, try listening this Hallelujah Handel CD for some historical context.

Saint Stephen

December 26

Prayers & Devotions

  • Read about St. Stephen in the Acts of the Apostles (ch. 6 and 7).

Activities

Charity

  • Honor your deacons. The apostles made Stephen and six others deacons to take care of the corporal needs of the faithful so that the apostles could focus on the faithful’s spiritual needs.
  • Boxing Day (in England, this is the day to give gifts to servants and delivery workers).
  • Serve the poor in some way (like King Wenceslas did).

Feast of the Holy Family

December 26

Prayers & Devotions

Foods & Symbols

  • Lebanese food: stuffed grape leaves, stuffed cabbage rolls, lentils and rice, spinach and meat pies, chicken and dumplings, hummus, Lebanese bread, tabbouleh, kibbi, etc.  This is the same kind of food that Mary served Jesus and St. Joseph.

Activities

  • Do some kind of activity together as a family.
  • Have a family portrait done.

Saint John

December 27

Prayers & Devotions

Foods & Symbols

Activities

Charity

  • Honor your priest. Our priests are like John who, strengthened by his love for Jesus, was not afraid to stay close to Our Lord during the Passion and Crucifixion.

Holy Innocents (Childermass)

December 28

Prayers & Devotions

Foods & Symbols

  • “Baby” food- cream of wheat, oatmeal, grits, chicken nuggets, applesauce, etc.

Activities

  • Latin American “Dia de los Santos Innocentes” (kind-of like American April Fools’ Day- because of the way the magi tricked King Herod)
  • Play or procession of the Magi’s dealings with King Herod
  • If you have replaced your purple and pink advent candles with a larger, white Christ-Candle, today surround it with smaller white candles representing the Holy Innocents. Have as many as there are children in your family. Each child is allowed to light one small candle from the flame of the Christ-Candle, signifying that just as he received his life from Christ, he will live and (if need be) die for Christ just as the Holy Innocents did.

Charity

  • Honor altar servers
  • Donate to Embrace (ministry for families experiencing miscarriage, stillbirth, or infant death)

Saint Sylvester

December 31

Prayers & Devotions


Mary Mother of God

January 1

Prayers & Devotions


Epiphany of the Lord

January 2

Prayers & Devotions

Foods & Symbols

  • King Cake (to celebrate Christ, the newborn King) There are all kinds of these, not just the New Orleans kind- French puff pastry, Swiss sweet rolls, Scottish fruitcake, English tart. Make what you like- but remember to put the little plastic baby (through a hole you poke in the bottom after you bake it).  The lucky finder is “king for a day”.
  • International-themed food (since the Magi came from foreign lands)
  • Chocolate gold coins (for the gifts the Magi brought)
  • Smarties, Nerds, Milky Ways (for the Wise Men and the fact that they followed the star)
  • Wassail or “Lambs’ Wool” (mulled ale with baked apples)

Activities

  • Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night (or What You Will): This was written as a Twelfth Night entertainment for the close of the Christmas season.
  • Twelfth Night Party
  • White Elephant gift exchange (maybe a good way to trade off not-so-favorite Christmas gifts?)
  • Star Singer procession: This stems from an acting-out of the Christmas story in the gospel of Matthew, and traditionally involves boys walking from house to house with a star on a rod, dressed to resemble the Magi. They sing special songs, act out the story, and collect for charitable causes.

Charity

  • Collect donations for poor children (especially those in other countries). Children’s shoes or toys might be good choices.

Most Holy Name of Jesus

January 3

Prayers & Devotions


Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton

January 4

Saint John Neumann

January 5

Prayers & Devotions

  • Pray for Catholic schools/education: Elizabeth founded a Catholic school, and John was the first ecclesiastic to organize a diocesan school system in the United States.

Foods & Symbols

  • Colonial American food
  • New York food (pizza, cheesecake, etc.): Elizabeth was born there, and John ordained there.
  • Black-and-white cookies: These are very “New York” and also resemble Elizabeth’s habit.
  • Philadelphia food (cheesesteak, etc.): John was bishop of Philadelphia.

Charity

  • Honor teachers in some way (especially Catholic teachers).

Baptism of the Lord

January 9

Prayers & Devotions

Activities

  • Invite the children’s (and/or your own) godparents over for a little party.
  • This is the official end of the Christmas season. You can take down your decorations now.
  • Have a Christmas greenery bonfire.

Charity

  • Honor godparents in some way.

After Christmas Time

Saint Sebastian

January 20

Foods & Symbols

  • Shish kebabs (since his first attempted execution was by an archer firing squad)

Activities

  • Sporting event of some kind (since he’s the patron saint of athletes)

St. Thomas Aquinas (The Dumb Ox)

January 28

Prayers & Devotions

Foods & Symbols

  • Oxtail soup
  • You can probably find “XO” valentine candies in the stores around this time.

Activities

  • Play pin-the-tail-on-the-ox or tic-tac-toe

Saint Brigid of Ireland

February 1

Foods & Symbols

  • Scones with jam: The order she founded produced jam to support themselves.

Activities


Presentation of the Lord (Candlemas)

February 2

Prayers & Devotions

  • Read Luke 2:22-35, the account of the presentation, including the Canticle of Simeon (Nunc Dimittis)
  • Meditate on the constant fiat of Our Lady of Sorrows, who embraced the will of God even as Simeon predicted that a sword would pierce her heart.

Foods & Symbols

  • Crepes: It’s Crepe Day in France. Their round shape and golden color remind us of the sun, which in turn reminds us of the Light of Christ which has finally dawned on the world.
  • Pancakes: They’re like crepes (see above).

Activities

  • Bring all the sacramental candles you plan to use during the coming year to church to have them blessed.
  • Make or decorate candles.
  • Procession of lights
    • Look for details to come of MOQ’s own procession and special mass
  • Dine by candlelight.
  • Have a bonfire to burn any leftover Christmas greenery.
  • If you haven’t already, you really need to take down your Christmas decorations today.

Lent

All Lent

Prayers & Devotions

Charity

  • Give what comes of your penance to charity or back to God. For example, if you give up eating out, give the money you save to charity. If you give up watching TV, use that time in prayer or spiritual reading.
  • Donate meatless main dishes and Easter food to a food pantry.

Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras/Shrove Tuesday

February 13

Activities

  • Serve pancakes for breakfast (to use up all the eggs and cream and milk that traditionally were not eaten during Lent).
  • Have a pancake race. Racers run with a pancake in a frying pan and toss it three times- for the trinity- en route.
  • Serve King cake. The lucky one who gets the baby in their piece of cake gets to be “king” for the day.

Ash Wednesday

February 14

Prayers & Devotions

  • Attend mass and get your ashes.
  • Bury the alleluia.
  • On this day, fasting and abstinence from meat are obligatory from age 18 until age 59. When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal.

Friday during Lent

February 16 & 23
March 1, 8, 15, 22, & 29

Prayers & Devotions

  • Abstinence from meat is required from age 14 onwards.

February 22

Prayers & Devotions

Activities


March 1

Prayers & Devotions

Activities

  • Read some interesting facts about St. David
  • Make a soup using leeks (St. David ate nothing but leeks and water)
  • Find ways to practice small, helpful acts of kindness to practice the words of St. David himself: Gwnewch y pethau bychain (Do the little things)
  • St. David is the patron saint of Wales. Find and make a delicous recipe from that beautiful part of the U.K.

Saints Perpetua & Felicity, Martyrs

March 7

Prayers & Devotions

Activities

  • Get your hair cut or styled (or do a fancy hairstyle for young girls). Perpetua stopped to fix her hair while she was being martyred so she wouldn’t look like she was “grieving in her glory”. This is a good reminder not to whine about our Lenten penances.
  • Serve beef. Perpetua and Felicity were martyred by being gored by a “savage cow”.

Laetare Sunday

March 8 (fourth Sunday of Lent)

Activities

  • Serve pink foods and/or wear pink.
  • Bless a (golden?) rose and display it as tribute to Mary, the Mystical Rose, who bore the Son of God and won for us our redemption. Popes used to do this and send the rose to a Catholic queen.

Saint Patrick, Bishop

March 17

Prayers & Devotions

Activities

  • Wear green.
  • Serve corned-beef sandwiches, lamb, cabbage, potatoes, whiskey, beer, shepherd’s pie (since he was a shepherd), fish chowder, or fish & chips.
  • Make paper shamrocks and label them to illustrate the nature of the Holy Trinity.
  • Read Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland by Tomie dePaola.

Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary

March 19

Prayers & Devotions

Activities

  • Read The Song of the Swallows by Leo Politi. This is a picture book about the swallows that always return to the Mission San Juan Capistrano on St. Joseph’s day after flying south for the winter.
  • Do a little carpentry project.
  • Have a St. Joseph’s Table. This Italian tradition is tiered table with specialty breads and pastries, pasta and vegetable dishes sprinkled with bread crumbs to look like sawdust, fava beans, fish, cream puffs, etc.

Annunciation of the Lord

March 25 (exactly nine months before Christmas)

Prayers & Devotions

  • Recite the Angelus at 6:00.
  • Read Luke 1:26-38.
  • Abstinence from meat is not required today, since it’s a solemnity.

Activities

  • Put on a simple Annunciation mystery play or puppet show.
  • Serve waffles for breakfast. “Lady Day” sounds like “Waffle Day” in Swedish, so this is a tradition there.

Charity