A Bundle of Myrrh

Well if you want to know how to ruin a perfectly good morning, celebrate St. Lucy’s Day with a lot of little girls. This one started off great. The big girls wanted to help with everything, then things went south. This day is loaded with a lot of nice traditions so I made sure everyone got a special job. But there was still bickering. Who got to help with what, who was getting to do this and how unfair it was, etc. There was pushing, yelling and crying…and that was just from me.

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I’ve been thinking a lot lately on how and why I have chosen to use the liturgical calendar (of the Western church, the Eastern Orthodox Church has it’s own) with my family. For clarity I wanted to write some things down.

To begin with it was all very new to me, this church calendar, seasons, festivals, saints etc. I’m still learning about it. It appealed to me because it gave me a link to something bigger than just my day to day life in the particular community I happen to be a part of, because I love history and I love learning about different people in different times. And it appealed to me for the lessons it could provide that I believe are worth passing on to my children. And because somewhere along the way I picked up the idea that what we do with our bodies, with our time and with our lives makes a confession.

The Church Calendar can be used as a way to order our days. I like the joke Jim Gaffigan makes about how much McDonald’s has given our culture. McDonald’s being a compass for society to know when breakfast ends or that St. Patrick’s Day is coming because it starts selling Shamrock Shakes. Uh, he’s much funnier than that I promise.

But there is truth there. People are bound by time, by calendars, schedules and traditions. These are usually made by institutions, by our Nation’s holidays, our individual values or in our case, I choose to make it the Church Year. (Yes, of course we also keep the secular one too.)

But there has to be certain understandings if the tool of a liturgical calendar, it’s feasts and saint days are going to be used correctly.

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We have had a crazay week and weekend! I think everyone moves their Christmas events up to early December now in order to avoid all the Christmas events being held in late December…which um, are none since everyone moves the dates up. So this week EVERYTHING was going on, 4 parties in 4 days plus community and school happenings.

But Saturday we celebrated the Feast of St. Nicholas with a couple new books, some candy, cookies, orange chocolate chip muffins and Sinterklaas bars. Also some Swiss Roles in/on Phil’s shoes which I snuck in when he wasn’t looking. The babies were looking forward to this celebration. There’s something about getting to leave their shoes by the door that they love. I have to move them to the kitchen table after they go to bed or else the little babies will seek and destroy come morning.

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November 30th is the Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle. First a disciple of John the Baptist waiting for the coming Messiah. Then first to follow Jesus and along with his brother Peter, called to be a ‘fisher of men’. Andrew was martyred for the faith by crucifixion perhaps on an X shaped cross. I love the following quote attributed to him:

“When St. Andrew was threatened with the punishment of the cross, he said joyfully, “If I feared the punishment of the cross, I would never have preached the mystery of the cross.” Then when he saw the cross, he spoke, “Hail, precious cross, you who were dedicated by the body of Christ; may He receive me through you.” Valerius Herberger Treasury

True or not, it is a great example in what it means to live under the cross.

In memory of the fisherman Andrew we ate fried fish sandwiches. I love how my bread resembles a tomb. Also why does food look so gross when I take pictures of it?

Blessed Advent to you all!

Has anyone seen my Jesse Tree ornaments? I can’t find them!!