share our JOY

JOY{filled}family

striving to radiate Him always

How should this solemn time (Advent) should be spent by Christians?

by Filed Under: Advent Leave a Comment

The first week of Advent is underway.



Our candles in the window have been set on a timer, unbeknownst to me. Our bare tree is up to remind us of the Christ Child. Our family Advent plans have been set and most of our spiritual reading has been gathered.


But we’re not on point. My husband just blessed our Advent wreath this evening and we lit our first candle today. Our Christmas Novena was prayed by all in the home while two others helped their big sis with a new milestone — serving. We will start the Jesse Tree tomorrow and select the family ChristKindls once all of our children are home.



From there, we’ll continue to slowly work into our Advent plans in a manner that best suits our season of life and spiritual needs.


We do not follow a strict Advent schedule each day, perse. We have simply let our Advent devotions take root organically over the years.

My #1 tip is to assign specific devotions or activities to your children. Allow them to be responsible for making sure that your family adheres to your Advent plans.

This will help lighten your load and your children will most likely be one invested in the season.

We do not seek perfection. Our ultimate goal during Advent is to grow closer to Christ and purge sin.

Dom Prosper Guéranger tells us how this solemn time (Advent) should be spent by Christians.


“They should recall, during these four weeks, the four thousand years in which the just under the Old Law expected and desired the promised Redeemer, think of those days of darkness in which nearly all nations were blinded…and drawn into the most horrible crimes,…

Then consider their own sins and evil deeds and purify their souls from them by a worthy reception of the Sacraments, so that our Lord may come with His grace to dwell in their hearts and be merciful to them in life and in death.

…Unjust to themselves, disobedient to the Church and ungrateful, indeed, to God are those Christians who spend this solemn time of grace in sinful amusements without performing any good works, with no longing for Christ’s Advent into their hearts.”

The Way of the Cross

by Filed Under: 11 November Saints, Advent, Christmas Novena, St. Andrew Leave a Comment

Below is a brief but powerful meditation inspirers by St. Andrew whose feast we celebrate today, November 30.

Father Francis Xavier Weninger, in The Livesthe Saints from 1876, writes the following reflection.

Saint Andrew manifested great joy on beholding the cross that had been prepared for him; he greeted it warmly, and embraced it lovingly. He wished not to be released from it, but prayed to be allowed to die on it.

You are not bound to a cross of wood like Saint Andrew, but the All-Wise sometimes lays a cross of suffering upon you, because He wishes to prepare you for heaven.

How do you regard your cross?

How do you carry it?

I fear to ask you how you greeted, embraced and kissed it.

Perhaps you have carried it, as Simon of Cyrene carried the Cross of the Lord, because you were forced, and could not help yourself. You have suffered only because you were obliged. You suffer murmuringly and complainingly, and perhaps even endeavor to free yourself from your cross by improper means.

Oh! how differently did Saint Andrew act. He esteemed himself happy, because he could die on the cross like his Saviour, and because he had heard, from the lips of Christ, that the way of the Cross is the surest road to eternal life.

You know all this; but you do not think seriously enough of it. In future, keep these truths before your eyes: first, the way of the Cross is the way to heaven; secondly, Christ died on the Cross for love of me.

Whoever rightly considers these two points, will in his sufferings, not give way to resentment, murmurs or complaints, but will bear them if not cheerfully, at least patiently.

Hence Saint Paul admonishes us, saying: “For, think diligently upon him that endured such opposition from sinners against himself, that you be not wearied, fainting in your minds.” (Hebrews 12)

Let us continue to mediate upon the life of St. Andrew throughout Advent as we pray the Christmas Novena in preparation for the Christ Child. .

The First Thanksgiving

by Filed Under: 11 November, Thanksgiving, Thanksgiving Day Leave a Comment

Today may be a secular holiday but we gather and give thanks for our greatest blessing, the First Masses said on Catholic soil.

2019 Thanksgiving

We thank God for our Catholic past and ask him to take up again the original plan for our Nation that it may rightly celebrate the Reign of Christ and Our Lady in all its festivals and actions.

9.8.1565 — The land was claimed for Spain and
a Mass of thanksgiving was said.

The first American Thanksgiving was neither at Plymouth Rock in 1621 nor in Texas on April 20, 1568 when Don Juan de Oñate crossed the Rio Grande and took formal possession of present day El Paso.

The first American Thanksgiving took place in St. Augustine, Florida, the first and oldest city of our present day US. The land was claimed for Spain and a Mass of thanksgiving was said on Sept. 8, 1565. – Reality & Myth regarding Thanksgiving, Marian T. Horvat. Ph.D.

St. Catherine of Alexandria

by Filed Under: 11 November Saints, Martyr, St. Catherine of Alexandria 1 Comment

We look to the heroic martyrs more now than ever. St. Catherine of Alexandria whose feast we celebrate today (11.25) was a grandiose witness.

PC – Sweetie

Before dying she said the following prayer:

“Lord Jesus Christ, my God, I thank Thee for having firmly set my feet on the rock of the Faith and directed my steps on the pathway of salvation. Open now Thy arms wounded on the cross to receive my soul, which I offer in sacrifice to the glory of Thy Name…

Forgive the faults I committed in ignorance and wash my soul in the blood I will shed for Thee.

Do not leave my body, slaughtered by love for Thee, in the power of those who hate me.

Kindly regard these people and give them the knowledge of the truth.

Finally, O Lord, in Thy infinite mercy exalt those who will invoke Thee through me so that Thy name be always glorified.”

Once her prayer was said, she calmly tolerance d the soldiers to carry out her sentence. No trembling, no desire to prolong her life a little more. Also, no precipitation, which sometimes is a reflection of fear. No. She said everything she wanted to say, and when she finished, she delivered herself into the hands of God. The soldiers beheaded her, and immediately afterward, her prayer started to be answered.

What grace should we ask of St. Catherine of Alexandria?

We should ask her that when the chastisement predicted in Fatima will be realized and we face the enemies of the Church and Christendom, that we have the same serenity she had in face of death.

It is a serenity that only grace can give. In face of death, there are two kinds of serenity: one is the serenity of the idiot, another is the serenity that comes from grace. Death, the separation of the body and soul, the apparent plunging into nothingness, is such a terrible thing that only two kinds of serenity are comprehensible: that of the idiot who never measures the consequences of anything, or the serenity of the man inundated by grace.

So then, let us ask St. Catherine to help us be calm in every situation in our lives, and especially in the risks and dangers of life, and even in the extreme sacrifice of death, if that should be the will of Our Lady for us.” – Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira

Maxims of St. John of the Cross

by Filed Under: 11 November Saints, St. John of the Cross Leave a Comment

The following maxims of St. John of the Cross are fierce and perfect to meditate on in all seasons for the good of our souls.

PC Sweetie – Oct. 2020

* I did not know Thee, my Lord, because I still desired to know and relish trifling things. My spirit became dry because it forgot to rest in Thee.

* If you wish to attain holy recollection, you will do so not by approving but by denying.

* The devil fears a soul united to God as he does God Himself.

* The purest suffering produces the purest understanding.

* Through small things, one reaches the great. The evil that at the beginning appears insignificant, later becomes enormous and without remedy.

May we “Live in the world as if God and your soul only were in it; so shall your heart be never made captive by any earthly thing.”

Subscribe to our Newsletter