share our JOY

JOY{filled}family

striving to radiate Him always

An Advent PSA & Ways to Keep it Simple

by Filed Under: 11 November, Advent, Advent Planner, Christkindl, Christmas Novena, Jesse Tree 1 Comment

When you’re out shopping for Thanksgiving Day, digging in your garage for your decorations, or just kicking your feet up for a much-needed break — remember to pick up the necessary items for any of the traditions that you’re seeking to observe this Advent.

This is an Advent Calendar (in list form) for 2022. The current year Advent Calendar is included in Advent Planner.

Help your children discern their Advent Resolutions or discern as a family.

You can print out a blank Advent plan to record the family plans or each family member can have their own. I usually print 4 per child (2 pages/sheet) to cover the entire Advent season (in most years).

Advent Wreath — candles (they need not be purple and pink), wreath, and you can print out the prayers from here.

Advent/Christmas candles for your home window. I opted for battery-operated candles covered in real wax that can be controlled by remote. They were left over from our daughter’s wedding. If you don’t know about this tradition, you can read more here. I’ve also used a stick-candle-like option.

Christkindl cards for all those children, family, or friends that will be participating in this lovely tradition to serve & keep Christ at the center of the season.

Christmas Novena prayer cards or sheets are also helpful to have handy ahead of time. The actual devotion starts on Nov. 30, a day after the start of Advent this year. Be certain to get beads if you plan on making a Chaplet or ribbon if you perfected Novena lacing cards.

Jesse Tree — get a tree to use, branch, or twine to tack up to the wall. Ornament hooks or clothespins are needed. If you don’t have ornaments on hand, print out a simple set for free and follow along with an easy guide. A Bible is a must even if you have the readings.

Jesse Tree Devotional with Traditional Catholic Reflections & Scripture from the Douay Rheims Bible & Cut/Color Jesse Tree Ornaments

Jesse Tree Readings from the New Catholic Picture Bible – Shower of Roses

Jesse Tree Schedule for the Year and printable Jesse Tree Ornaments – Holy Heroes

Gather your manger (box cutout or wood crafted) and straw for the Christ Child. Each child or family member can place a prince of straw or paper into the manger when an act of service or kindness is done. This serves as a great visual for children regarding how their small acts add up to something grand. It also serves to grow joyful anticipation for the glorious season to come.

Other items to consider:

  • Spiritual reading & Pray the Divine Office
  • Feastday goodies — Refer to the Advent Calendar to select which feasts you want to celebrate in a special way. Below are a few to consider.
    • Presentation of the BVM – Nov. 21 — Marian feastday go-to
    • St. Nicholas – Dec. 6 — Cuties, chocolate coins, socks, a book, candy canes, St. Nicholas chocolates…
    • Immaculate Conception of the BCM – Dec. 8 — Holy Day & Marian feastday go-to
    • St. Lucy – Dec. 13 — crown, candles, tea, and all the simple sweet breakfast fixings.Hot cocoa as you take your family to see the lights.
    • Our Lady of Guadalupe – Dec. 12 — Mexican dinner or pastries
  • Advent book basket — You do not need to have anything grand. You can select one good book this year and read it throughout Advent or four and rotate one for each week. You could also just select a few titles from your bookshelves or at the thrift store that will help your children grow in their Faith and life of Jesus.
  • Consider fasting and abstinence when meal planning. Advent was traditionally observed as a “Mini-Lent.” There are also Ember Days in Advent which are traditional days of fast and abstinence.

You can check out this post if you have more questions or desire additional resources.

Advent Plans 2020

by Filed Under: 11 November Saints, Advent, St. Clement Leave a Comment

This reflection on today’s saint (the 4th pope and saint from the Canon) is just what I needed to read as my husband and I finalize our Advent plans which always includes the spiritual & physical.

Today, has been set aside for my family to prepare our home for Advent, a soft prep for an even greater purge that we will embark on during Advent in preparation for the Christ-Child.

I have been prompted by the Holy Ghost to “lay everything on the line” specifically in regards to my physical wellness. The message is imprinted in my heart but my mental conviction has not caught up. I desire not to be held up any longer by my concerns about tomorrow.

I realize that there is a fine line between prudence and trust in His care & providence. I pray for His grace.

I fully understand that nothing on this earth can compare to the sufferings of Hell, purgatory, or that which Our Lord suffered for me (us).

This understanding of this reality is what compels me to push forward — to die to my flesh and glorify Him with everything I have.

Today’s reading is a consolation of sorts for me to keep going forward with our Advent plans.

“Did you observe how St. Clement encouraged himself and his fellow captives in the hard labor they had to perform?

To work for the sake of Christ, and to expect for one’s work an eternal reward in heaven, is surely enough to make all suffering and exertion sweet.

Every man is bound to work according to his station, and it is quite sure that we are in danger of losing our souls, if we do not work as we ought, but lead an idle, luxurious and sensual life.

One station, however, has harder and more troublesome work than another, and there are numbers of people who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow and have, day and night, hardly an hour for rest.

It is quite natural that these sometimes become impatient…

Their impatience goes so far that they become dissatisfied with God’s providence in their regard, and murmur against Him, curse their labor, or perform it unwillingly; and thus not only lose all the merits which they might have earned, but incur heavy responsibility.

I would ask such people to recollect, that their work, if performed with a good intention, in the grace of God and according to His will, will merit for them great glory in heaven.

They ought to arm, themselves against the impatience which sometimes rises in them, with the thought of the reward that awaits them in heaven; for God recompenses every man according to his work, as Holy Writ teaches us. Ought not every one to work with pleasure, when he expects an eternal reward?” -Father Francis Xavier Weninger, Lives of the Saints, 1876.

The Last Sunday After Pentecost

by Filed Under: 11 November, Fr. Leonard Goffine, The Church’s Year, The Last Sunday After Pentecost, Time after Pentecost Leave a Comment

The Liturgy for the Last Sunday of Pentecost features the warning, “He Who came in Mercy shall return in Justice.”

Visit to the cemetery for indulgences for the Poor Souls in Purgatory —11.2020

Here is an explanation of the Gospel (Matt. 24:15-35) from Fr. Leonard Goffine.

“When you shall see the abomination of desolation. The abomination of desolation of which Daniel (9:27) and Christ here speak, is the desecration of the temple and the city of Jerusalem by the rebellious Jews by perpetrating the most abominable vices, injustices and robberies, …, but principally by the pagan Romans by putting up their idols.

This destruction which was accomplished in the most fearful manner about forty years after the death of Christ, was foretold by Him according to the testimony of St. Luke (21:20).

At the same time He speaks of the end of the world and of His coming to judgment, of which the desolation of Jerusalem was a figure.

Pray that your flight be not in the winter or on the Sabbath. Because, as St. Jerome says, the severe cold which reigns in the deserts and mountains would pre­vent the people from going thither to seek security, and because it was forbidden by the law for the Jews to travel on the Sabbath.

There shall rise false Christs and false prophets. According to the testimony of the Jewish historian Josephus, who was an eyewitness of the destruction of Jerusalem, Eleazar, John, Simon, …, were such false prophets who under the pretence of helping the Jews, brought them into still greater misfortunes; before the end of the world it will be Antichrist with his followers, whom St. Paul calls the man of sin and the son of perdition, (2 Thess. 2:3) on account of his diabolical malice and cruelty.

He will rise up, sit in the temple, proclaim himself God, and kill all who will not recognize him as such. His splendor, his promises and his false miracles will be such that even the holy and just will be in danger of being seduced, but for their sake God will shorten these days of persecution.

Wheresoever the body shall be, there shall the eagles also be gathered together. That is, where the wicked are, who have aimed at spiritual corruption, there punishment will overtake and destroy them.

This generation shall not pass till all these things be done. By these words Christ defines the time of the destruction of Jerusalem, and says that many of His hearers would live to see it, which also happened.

But when the end of the world will come, He says, not even the angels in heaven know. (Matt. 24:36).

Let us endeavor to be always ready by leading a holy life, for the coming of the divine Judge, and meditate often on the words of our di­vine Lord:

Heaven and earth shall pass, but my words shall not pass.”

PRAYER Remove from us, O Lord, all that is calculated to rob us of Thy love. Break the bonds with which we are tied to the world, that we may not be lost with it. Give us the wings of eagles that we may soar above all worldly things by the contemplation of Thy sufferings, life and death, that we may hasten towards Thee now, and gather about Thee, that we may not become a prey to the rapacious enemy on the day of judgment. Amen.

Christkindl Cards & More

by Filed Under: Advent, Christkindl, Prints Leave a Comment

Below is a link for Christkindl Cards that my children use to track their prayers & acts of service for their “Christ Child” throughout Advent to Epiphany (or your preferred end-date).

This creates a wonderful atmosphere of joyful suspense, kindness, and thoughtfulness. Perhaps you will find that somebody has made your bed or shined your shoes or has informed you, in a disguised handwriting on a holy card, that “a rosary has been said for you today” or a number of sacrifices have been offered up. This new relationship is called “Christkindl” (Christ Child) in the old country, where children believe that the Christmas tree and the gifts under it are brought down by the Christ Child himself.

Maria Von Trapp

The card can be used in the home for your own version of the Christkindl. It’s merely a tool to help us keep on track – offering a daily gift for Christ among those who are before us.

The boxes represent a day in Advent to Christmas or Epiphany Day. This year, Advent starts on Nov. 29, 2020.  I made it blank so it can be reused each year, assigning the dates as needed.

Download Christkindl Cards

Here is an easy overview of the Advent Season. You can post it in your home or just use it for your planning.

Click here for the 2020 Advent PDF
Download Advent 2020

“O come O come Emmanuel” was taken from the Liturgy, from the antiphons. It includes the seven names that are given to Our Lord. We the Divine Office with our older children. For my littles, singing or just reading O Come Emmanuel each night after our family rosary connects them with the Divine Office.

O Emmanuel Lyrics in Latin & English – JOYfilledfamily

O Emmanuel with coordinating O Antiphons – Family in Feast and Feria

Maran Athan–Veni Domine—Come O Lord Jesus!

An Advent Proposal

by Filed Under: Advent Leave a Comment

Below is an Advent proposal from a faithful Shepherd.

“…Advent, that wonderful season of preparation of the feast of Christmas marking that event that changed history forever in the birth of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world who is God and man.

The season…is marked by darkness as we approach the shortest day of the year…The birth of the Christ Child is the beginning of the conquering of the darkness of sin and death, the essence of hope that Light will conquer darkness. 

It has become a popular custom in the Christmas season for candles to be placed in the window of homes as a symbol of the Light of the world who was born into this world over two thousand years ago.

I have always been a stickler about not anticipating Christmas too far in advance. I have always insisted on keeping Advent almost in opposition to the secular and commercial push to begin Christmas on Thanksgiving Day and ending it on Christmas Eve.

So I have always frowned on Christmas decor being displayed before at least the O Antiphons. I…refrain from listening to Christmas music before late Advent.  No candles in the windows until after the feast of St. Lucy.

But this year is deeply different…the past year has been one of social & political turmoil that has caused great pain to all…

But just as significant is the rupture of familial and social bonds. Loneliness is the norm. The lack of touch, of embrace,…, for Catholics the deprivation of participation in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass,…this is a cause of deep sadness that cannot be quantified by charts and admonitions.

…I offer a modest proposal.  Let every Catholic home put candles in the windows of their homes beginning on the First Sunday of Advent. 

This year is not a time to wait until Christmas is imminent.

Those lights in our windows have to shineforth in this time of physical & spiritual darkness to proclaim to those around us that Christ is the Light of the world especially in times of terrible darkness.

And let those lights shine forth every night in Advent and through Christmastide to the glorious feast of the Epiphany commemorating the whole world brought to Christ by the light of a Star.

…in our own and small way amidst this real pain we must remind the world of the Good News of Jesus Christ who alone can pierce the darkness of this world.

Put those candles in your windows and witness to the Light in the darkness!”

You can read Fr. Cipolla’s complete address at Rorate Caeli.

Subscribe to our Newsletter