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JOY{filled}family

striving to radiate Him always

Start Lacing Up

by Filed Under: Catholic Products, Nun Run, Running, Team ALL FOR

There is some excitement in the air during this sober time of Lent.  Two more days until race day! 

Have you received your t-shirts and race numbers?  Are you ready?

Be sure to record your race day.  I will create a linky for everyone to share their race day fun and results. 

You can still register.  Info can be found here.

Team ALL FOR!

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Check back later for more details on giveaways from the below supporters of Team ALL FOR!

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Far from a typical fitness-oriented book, The Catholic Workout involves performing five specific resistance exercises while meditating on important events in the Life, Death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Michael Carrera leads by example, offering guidance through his touching stories and confessions. All you need is a Rosary, a set of dumbbells, and thirty minutes, three times a week to get the body and life you always wanted!

 

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Romantic Catholic is a group  of enthusiastic believers who offer appealing Catholic apparel – with the hope of spreading the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ as a result of great love to his Holy Catholic Church.

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This program is unique. The Rosary Workout incorporates the fundamental principles of exercise physiology. It applies the science of interval training and periodization to provide over 100 varied and challenging workouts carefully designed to improve fitness and prevent injury. At the same time, the program focuses on exercising the “muscles of the spirit” through Rosary prayer and meditation.

Mamas Movin' With Mary

Mama’s Movin’ with Mary have a mission to Strengthen your Body, Strengthen your Soul.  They seek to inspire others to take time for themselves and “Get Movin’ With Mary”.

Resurrection Eggs

by Filed Under: Crafts, Lent

 

 

SUPPLIES:

  • cardboard egg carton (styrofoam does not take well to paint) 
  • purple paint
  • paint brush
  • 12 plastic eggs
  • purple sharpie
  • glue stick
  • printed carton cover
  • printed narration
  • scissors
  • 2 pieces of small plastic wrap
  • egg contents
    • 1 – aluminum foil cut into 30 small pieces.
    • 2 – plastic chalice (can be found at your local Catholic supply store or party store)
    • 2 – pita bread cut into a small circle
    • 3 – olive pits or olive branch
    • 4 – 2 sticks
    • 5 – string/twine
    • 6 – thorns from a rush bush
    • 7 – purple cloth
    • 8 – sticks and string
    • 9 – 3 nails
    • 10 – cut sponge
    • 11 – white cloth
    • 12 – this egg will remain empty

DIRECTIONS:

paint the outside of the egg carton with purple paint

print, cut and color the carton cover.  glue it to the top of the egg carton

Resurrection Eggs - Carton Cover

label the plastic eggs #1-12

insert the egg’s contents

  • 1 – cut and roll 30 pieces of aluminum foil.  wrap with plastic wrap
  • 2 – plastic chalice.  cut pita bread and wrap with plastic wrap.  (my pita bread has lasted for years w/o mold)
  • 3 – olive pits or olive branch
  • 4 – 2 sticks
  • 5 – tie several pieces of string/twine together
  • 6 – thorns from a rush bush
  • 7 – purple cloth
  • 8 – create a cross using the sticks and string
  • 9 – 3 nails
  • 10 – cut a small piece of sponge and mark it with a purple sharpie
  • 11 – white cloth
  • 12 – this egg will remain empty

print narration onto purple paper.  fold.  insert into egg carton.

Resurrection Eggs - Narration

 

share, recite and meditate as desired.

 

Lenten Calendar & Family Lenten Program

by Filed Under: Lent

JOYfilledfamily Lenten Calendar 2011 16x20

My Lenten Calendar Inspiration – Shower of Roses

This year’s Lenten calendar has slightly changed from last year.
I print my calendar at Costco Photo in 16×20 ($5.99) for the family down stairs and 8×10 ($1.49) for bedrooms upstairs.
Here is the link to the PDF version of my 2011 Lenten Calendar.  I’d be more than happy to share the digital file with anyone who is interested. 
Email me your request – JOYfilledfamily{at}gmail{dot}com.
**UPDATE** I’m happy to share this Lenten Calendar for your personal use.  I will gladly send out the 2011 Lenten Calendar – JPEG file at any time in the Lenten Season.  Please do not hesitate to ask.  It’s never too late!

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Not much has changed in our Lenten program this year.  As always, we look to simplify.  We use free resources or resources we already have on hand.
Family Goals For Lent:*

  • Grow in CHARITY
    • Be Charitable.Be Useful. Be Gentle. Be Joyful. Forget about self. ALL FOR!
  • Increase prayer life and grow in devotion to Our Blessed Mother
  • Learn more about the lives of the saints
  • Reclaim our family Adoration time
  • Clean physical house by simplifying and purging
  • Clean spiritual house by almsgiving, works of mercy, and spiritual readings  

*these are in addition to our personal Lenten programs
Lenten Activities: listed on the calendar

  • Lent for Children: A Thought a Day (daily)
  • Update the bean jar for sacrifices/almsgiving (daily)
  • Review personal Lenten program chart (daily)
  • Pick Cleaning item out of jar & perform assigned task from the Lenten Cleaning Calendar (Mon.-Sat.)
  • Adoration (Thursday)
  • Stations of the Cross (Friday)
  • Select family almsgiving activity for the week (Sun.)

in addition to the children’s collection for the Bishop G’s Maternity Home and simplifying our home by donating new and old items to the homeless shelters.

  • visit the elderly/sick in the rest home
  • pray at the abortion clinic
  • provide service to the pregnancy resource center
  • cook meal for Father
  • cook meal or invite family to home for meal
  • invite someone to Mass
  • provide additional service to Parish

Daily Prayer Intention:

  • Mon – End to Abortion
  • Tue – Conversion of Family
  • Wed – Godparents & Godchildren
  • Thur – Pope Benedict XVI & Priests
  • Fri – Souls in Purgatory
  • Sat – Vocations
  • Sun – Poor, homeless, and those in great need

Lenten Resources:
kids

teens & adults

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Now it is only right that, before we arrive at that glory of impassibility and immortality which began in Christ, and which was acquired for us through Christ, we should be shaped after the pattern of Christ’s sufferings.  It is then only right that Christ’s liability to suffer should remain in us too for a time, as a means of our coming to the impassibility of glory in the way He himself came to it. ~Meditations For Lent – St. Thomas Aquinas,  (1-2 85 5 ad 2.)
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Prayers for a blessed and fruitful Lenten Season.
Pax Christi,

No Flower More Fair

by Filed Under: Birthday, Friends, Girls, Rose, Rose GFG

Rose will be 16 on March 29.  Dad and I asked her what she would like to do for her birthday.  She asked to have her annual bday retreat with me.  I assured her that we would go on retreat and that we wanted to give her a special treat this year.  I came up with elaborate  ideas, all of which, she rejected.  She asked to have friends come over for the day.  She was thrilled when dad and I told her she could have them spend the night.  We’ve opted out of sleepovers for the children.  This seemed like the perfect opportunity for a first for Rose, sweet fun.

We decided to have Rose’s party prior to her birthday and Lent.  We wanted her and her friends to go all out.  It would be a “Fat-Tuesday Weekend.”

We attended first Saturday Mass and Sodality/Little Flowers.  Then we loaded the girls up in the two getaway vehicles. 

The Sodality of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or the The Congregation of the Children of Mary, has for its object to assemble its members at the feet of the Mother of God, to dedicate them in a very special manner to the veneration and service of the Blessed Virgin, and to place them under her particular patronage and protection both in life and at the hour of death.

A person truly devout to Mary will be enrolled in her Sodality; will celebrate her feasts very piously; will wear her scapular and medal; will venerate her images and visit her shrines; will love to read books on her life and virtues, and will endeavor throughout the year, but especially in May, to imitate her example. Certainly, a girl, a woman, cannot be said to have a true devotion to the Mother of God unless she honors and invokes her by frequent and fervent prayers. ~ Father Lasance, Catholic Girl’s Guide

16th bday party

The girls had a blessed time together.  They had wholesome girl fun together, outdoors, without any technology.  It was refreshing to witness 10 girls, ages 15-18, enjoying each other’s company – being in the world but far removed from being of the world.  We gave thanks to God for blessing Rose with beautiful friends, inside & out.

Your innocence guard with the utmost care—
Once lost, there is nought that loss can repair.
How sweet the fragrance it sheds around—
No flower more fair on earth can be found.

~ Father Lasance, Catholic Girl’s Guide

 

girlfriends

True friends seek to promote the good and happiness of each other. ~ Father Lasance, Catholic Girl’s Guide

friends JOY 
What friendship out to be, for it ought to be pure and true, like gold and precious stones. ~ Father Lasance, Catholic Girl’s Guide

Pax Christi,

Poor Clare Nuns

by Filed Under: Nuns, Pilgrimage, Poor Clare Nuns, Religious Orders, St. Clare of Assisi, Vocations

We strive to live in continual and joyful penance, imitating Christ’s emptying of Himself and making more evident our love of God and neighbor. ~ Poor Clare Nuns of Los Altos

The Immaculate Heart Monastery of the Poor Claresmonastery JOY

Our last visit here was seven years ago.  Rose was only 8 years old at the time and Sparkles was months old.  Rose was deeply touched by the lives of these faithful sisters.  In fact,  one day, several weeks after the visit, we found Rose sleeping on her bedroom floor.  Turns out, she had been sleeping on the floor since our visit to the Monastery.  She recalls it being her Lenten sacrifice. 

Clare from her cloister proclaimed to the world what life was really all about. In the bull giving approbation to her Rule on August 9, 1253, Pope Innocent IV wrote:
"Because you, beloved daughters in Christ, have held the pomps and pleasures of the world of no account and, following the footprints of Christ himself and of his most holy Mother, have chosen to live enclosed in body and to serve the Lord in highest poverty so that with mind unencumbered you may be servants of the Lord, we, approving in the Lord your holy way of life, with fatherly affection do gladly desire to grant benevolent support to your requests and holy desires."

st mary magdalene relic visitWe were able to visit the Poor Clare’s portress after we venerated St. Mary Magdalene’s relic.  The children enjoyed this special time with the ever joyful nun, Sr. Margret Mary.  She spoke to us from behind her screen.

Why do you speak through a screen in the parlor?
A. Because of our vow of enclosure, which of its nature seeks to express its reality in signs. And this also explains the low brick walls and ivy-covered fencing which surround our property. That is, we are perfectly content to remain on our monastery grounds for the love of God because, as our loved Mother Mary Francis has written, "God is enough, and everything else is not enough."

Sparkles shared our family with her and wrote down our names for prayers.  Sweetie sought special prayers since her name sake is St. Clare of Assisi.  Papi shared his enthusiasm and Dragonfly attempted to jump through the grille into Sr. Margret Mary’s arms.  The children left their coloring pages as a reminder to the nuns that little ones will be praying for them.

God is everything for us.
God is life. God is power.
God is truth. God is goodness
God is beauty. And, in the end,
God is our happiness.
ALLELUIA!

~Pope Paul VI

RESOURCES:

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We were also able to visit with sisters from Servants of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará.

The name “Servants” (Servidoras) is a reference to (a) the faithful women who stood at the foot of the cross (Luke 8: 1-3) and (b) the term used by St. Louis Marie Grignion de Montfort in his True Devotion, 56.

The second part of the name, “of the Lord and the Virgin of Matará” (del Señor y la Virgen de Matará) refers to the Crucified Christ and His Blessed Mother as found on the Cross of Matará worn by the sisters, since Jesus on His Cross and the Virgin Mary must be the foundations of our spirituality.

Sister Incarnation told us her vocation story.  She had us all laughing with he self proclaimed humility.  Rose was drawn to her down-to-earth personality.

Dragonfly took a special liking to all the nuns this special day.

papi and sister incarnation He went straight for Sr. Incarnation and enjoyed her crucifix, Cross of Matara.

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May we all find our way to the foot of the cross during this blessed time of year, Lent.

Pax Christi,

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