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Second Sunday of Advent {Affections and Prayers}

by Filed Under: Second Sunday in Advent, Second Week of Advent, St. Alphonsus Liguori Leave a Comment

O my Jesus! if Thou hadst not accepted and suffered death for me, I should have remained dead in my sins, without hope of salvation and without the power of ever loving Thee. But after Thou hast obtained life for me by Thy death, I have again many times voluntarily forfeited it by returning to sin.

Thou didst die to gain my heart to Thyself, and I by my rebellion have made it a slave of the devil. I lost all reverence for Thee, and I said that I would no longer have Thee for my master.

All this is true; but it is also true that Thou desirest not the death of the sinner, but that he should be converted and live; and therefore didst Thou die to give us life.

I repent of having offended Thee, my dearest Redeemer; and do Thou pardon me through the merits of Thy Passion; give me Thy grace; give me that life which Thou hast purchased for me by Thy death, and henceforth mayest Thou have entire dominion over my heart.

Never let the devil have possession of it again; he is not my God, he does not love me, and has not suffered anything for me.

In past times he was not the true sovereign, but the robber of my soul; Thou alone, my Jesus, art my true Lord, who hast created and redeemed me with Thy blood; Thou alone hast loved me, and oh, how much! It is therefore only just that I should be Thine alone during the life that remains to me.

Tell me what Thou wouldst have me to do; for I will do it all.

Chastise me as Thou wilt; I accept everything Thou sendest me; only spare me the chastisement of living without Thy love; make me love Thee, and then dispose of me as Thou wilt.

Most holy Mary, my refuge and consolation, recommend me to thy Son: his death and thy intercession are all my hope.

– Meditations for Every Day of Advent – Second Sunday, St. Alphonsus Ligouri

Advent Planner

by Filed Under: Advent, Advent Planner, Prints 1 Comment

Four weeks of Advent are scarcely enough to “prepare the way of the Lord” for His coming to us as King. However, if we have used that season as a preparation, we are ready now to receive the Redeemer who will deliver us from sin in answer to our requests. Christ’s coming must be, not a lovely idyll or a pastoral scene, but a reality accomplished in our lives and our children’s. Forty days of rejoicing are not too long a celebration for so great an event. –

Advent and Christmas in a Catholic Home, Imprimatur 1950

This Advent Planner includes printables that will help you keep track of your resolutions and plan throughout the Advent season, a “mini Lent.” I’ve also included the basic framework of our very simple Family Advent Plans.

This resource is a labor of love. But well worth it as it is something that we use in our home to help us live out the Faith and tend to our Rule of Life within the Advent season.

The Advent Planner Includes:

  • Advent Plan to document your resolutions – 2 pgs
  • Advent Examination for the duration of Advent 2022 – 1 pg
  • Advent Weekly Log to track resolutions – 4 pgs
  • Liturgical Planner | Advent Feastday Planner – printed and used to help you plan for holy days & feastdays in the Advent season – 1 pg
  • Advent Calendar 2022 – list form for easy reference.  2 pages – 4 pages per sheet
  • Family Advent Plans 2022 – This is what we use for a reference for our basic Advent plans – helping to ensure that we follow the liturgical calendar and tend to our devotions while keeping things in order.  – 15 pgs

May we restore our hearts & our children to Christ through every means we can.

In Christo Rege,

Lena

Advent for Children – Traditional Catholic Jesse Tree

by Filed Under: Advent, Jesse Tree, Prints 1 Comment

There was once a wonderful resource online that provided great gems of the Traditional Catholic Faith.

Most were provided for free and a few items were available to purchase for a nominal price. I collected them all and used them in my home. Unfortunately, I lost all of my saved files when my computer crashed years ago and only a few hard copies remain. Anyhow, in an effort to salvage what I do have for my own family, I’m working to back up my files in multiple places.

This is just one of the great resources, A Jesse Tree Book. It is rich in the Traditional Catholic Faith and can be used solely as an Advent devotional or a complete school study during Advent.

DOWNLOAD THE TRADITIONAL CATHOLIC JESSE TREE BOOK

Files are not to be shared — only share the direct link to the original posting.

Advent God’s Loving Promise – Jesse Tree; The Genealogy of Christ

  • Advent-Book-Cover
  • Advent Book Day 1-2 – pg 5-10
  • Advent Book Day 3 – pg 11-14
  • Advent Book Day 4 – pg 14-20
  • Advent Book Day 5 – pg 21-24
  • Advent Book Day 6 – pg 25-28
  • Advent Book Day 7 – pg 29-34
  • Advent Book Day 8 – pg 35-38
  • Advent Book Day 9 – pg 39-44
  • Advent Book Day 10-11 – pg 45-48
  • Advent Book Day 12 – pg 49-52
  • Advent Book Day 13 – pg 53-56
  • Advent Book Day 14-15 – pg 57-66
  • Advent Book Day 16 – pg 67-68

O Antiphons

  • Advent Book Day 17-22 – pg 69-82
  • Advent Book Day 23-24 – pg 83-90
  • O Antiphons & Reflections

Jesse Tree Ornaments

  • Advent Book – Jesse Tree Ornaments – Black & White to Print, Color & Cut
  • Jesse Tree Ornaments – Colored ornaments to Print & Cut

“And there shall come forth a rod out of the root of Jesse, and a flower shall rise up out of his root.” – Isaias 11:1

Pax Christi, 

Lena

It was unanimous!

Rorate Mass & Gaudete Sunday

by Filed Under: 12 December, Advent, Rorate, The Church’s Year, The Liturgical Year, Third Sunday in Advent Leave a Comment

There is no exercise which is more pleasing to God, or more meritorious, or which has greater influence in infusing solid piety into the soul, than the assisting at the holy sacrifice of the Mass. If this be true at all the various seasons of the Christian year, it is so, in a very special manner, during the holy time of Advent. The faithful, therefore, should make every effort in order to enjoy this precious blessing, even on those days when they are not obliged to it by the precept of the Church. #domprospergueranger

The Rorate Mass offered at our Parish the First Saturday of Advent in 2021

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The beauty and austerity of the morning can not be put into words. The senses are drawn in more than ever before.

Some years we all go and other times one of us stays behind with the littles.

We wake up at 3am to prepare for this Holy Mass and depart at 4:30am, arriving before the gates open.

We remind the children about the darkness that we will be surrounded with in the Church, the world, and that which is placed before us for this Holy Mass. We impress the necessity for us to trust in the maternal love of Our Lady for all our needs as we prepare for Holy Mass.

Holy Mass begins and all the worries fade. The darkness is almost unnoticeable as all the senses are drawn into the true light. It’s all a beautiful preparation for the Christchild.

Divine Infant King Jesus, come down into our hearts! 🙏🏼

The following Advent reflection is one worth reading for all.

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Everyone who acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father.
—Mt. 10:32

Meditation

Our Lord may be the occasion of fall in different ways and notably by human respect. As the name indicates, human respect is the respect of man, but an exaggerated respect, a respect which leads us to renounce doing good to our neighbor by fear of displeasing him.

This subject is especially pertinent insofar as Catholics today are easily singled out and ridiculed.

The desire which we have of pleasing men and the exaggerated fear which we have of displeasing them can make us not dare to bear witness to our Faith. As Bourdaloue says, “We are ashamed to declare ourselves [Christians] and we do not see that this shame is in itself more shameful than the declaration we would have to make. A word, a mockery troubles us, and we do not consider by what or by whom we are letting ourselves be troubled. By what? Since there is nothing more frivolous than mockery when it is attacking virtue. By whom? Since it is by vain men whose blame or approval ought to matter to us but little.”

Under pretext of not shocking people, we may be leaving them in their mediocrity. Human respect puts a muzzle on us and prevents us from being apostles.

Let us acknowledge that this excessive timidity is unworthy of a Catholic and let us strive to make up for it in the future.

Lord Jesus, give me the grace to overcome human respect when Thy honor is at stake. I wish from now on to defend the Catholic Faith, with humility and prudence but also with strength and constancy.

Prayer

O Jesus, who left the imprint of Thy holy Face on the veil of St. Veronica, deign so to imprint Thy features on my soul that, fortified by the courage of this holy woman, never again may I let myself be drawn down by cowardly human respect.
—Way of the Cross, 6th station
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This meditation is taken from #adventtoepiphany

I pray that your Advent has been fruitful thus far and that you have a blessed Gaudete Sunday. 💜💗

Second Sunday in Advent

Third Sunday in Advent

Let us enter into her spirit, and be glad on this third Sunday of her Advent, because our Lord is now so near unto us. Tomorrow we will resume our attitude of servants mourning for the absence of their Lord and waiting for Him; for every delay, however short, is painful and makes love sad.

The Station is kept in the basilica of St. Peter, at the Vatican. This august temple, which contains the tomb of the prince of the apostles, is the home and refuge of all the faithful of the world; it is but natural that it should be chosen to witness both the joy and the sadness of the Church.

The Night Office commences with a new Invitatory. The voice of the Church no longer invites the faithful to come and adore in fear and trembling the King, our Lord, who is to come. Her language assumes another character; her tone is one of gladness; and now, every day, until the Vigil of Christmas, she begins her Nocturns with these grand words:

The Lord is now nigh; come, let us adore. #domprospergueranger

A Young Man’s Patron

by Filed Under: 12 December Saints, Advent, Patron Saint, St. Ambrose Leave a Comment

Today we celebrate a patronal feast of our oldest son — one which he chose for himself.

Our son at his Confirmation with the announcement of his new patron, Ambrosi. 3.16.19

Powerful would be an understatement. I can’t begin to articulate the weight of knowing that your child was specifically called to a saint after great discernment.

What is God calling him to?

That’s the question that I no longer ask. I merely entrust my children to Our Blessed Mother & their patrons, pray for their protection, and ask that they cooperate with all God’s grace.

St. Ambrose, ora pro nobis!

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Remove our prejudices, O you great lover of truth! and crush within us those time-serving and unwise theories, which tend to make us Christians forget that Jesus is the King of this world, and look on the law, which equally protects error and truth, as the perfection of modern systems.

May we understand that the rights of the Son of God and his Church do not cease to exist, because the world ceases to acknowledge them; that to give the same protection to the true religion and to those false doctrines, which men have set up in opposition to the teaching of the Church, is to deny that all power has been given to Jesus in heaven and on earth; that those scourges which periodically come upon the world are the lessons which Jesus gives to those who trample on the Rights of his Church, Rights which he so justly acquired by dying on the Cross for all mankind; that, finally, though it be out of our power to restore those Rights to people that have had the misfortune to resign them, yet it is our duty, under pain of being accomplices with those who would not have Jesus reign over them, to acknowledge that they are the Rights of the Church.

And lastly, dear Saint, in the midst of the dark clouds which lower over the world, console our holy Mother the Church, who is now but a stranger and pilgrim amid those nations which were her children, but have now denied her. ➕

A car selfie of with my son after his braces were removed on 11.21.

Practical Considerations from Father Francis Xavier Weninger, 1871

• Remember the words of Saint Ambrose: “In too much eating many have found their death; but none in fasting.” Heed this sentence well; especially if you belong to those poor and deluded beings who imagine that the fasts, ordained by the Church, are injurious to health. Even the word of God assures us, that many have shortened their lives by intemperance in eating and drinking, and the experience of almost every day is another overwhelming evidence of this fact. But where can you point out to me any one who shortened his life, by observing the fasts ordained by the Church? The word of God assures us that those who are temperate in eating and drinking, prolong their lives. Whom do you believe, the word of God, or the evil Spirit, who, through the mouth of the free-thinkers, the heretics, or of those wicked persons, whose life makes them despicable, says, that fasting and abstaining is hurtful to man, that it is the cause of many infirmities and that it shortens life. The true Church, by whose mouth God speaks, prays: “O Lord, who, by holy fasting and abstinence, dost help both soul and body:” which means: curest soul and body as by a remedy. I believe in this prayer, and with me all those who are true Catholic Christians.

• “I fear not to die, because we have a merciful Lord,” says Saint Ambrose. So it is; we have a merciful, a most kind Lord. All who endeavor to serve Him faithfully during their life, can and may comfort themselves with the thought of the divine mercy in their last hour. Satan sometimes tries to frighten and drive to despondency even pious souls, but recollecting that they have served the Lord rightly, and confessed their sins, they ought not to listen to the Evil One; but, contemplating the infinite mercy of God, comfort themselves and say: “We have a merciful Lord.” In Him will I trust; He will not forsake me. But those who during their life, have abused the divine goodness in order to be more wicked; who sinned because God, so infinitely good and merciful, would forgive them; these, I say, have reason to fear the temptations of Satan in their last hour; for, he generally comes then to throw us into gloom and despair by representing the severity , of the divine Justice. Take care not to be of the number of these unhappy people. Serve God faithfully during your life; do not offend Him: and if you have done wrong, do penance and seek to regain the grace of the Almighty. In this manner, you will be able to comfort yourself on your death-bed with the thought of His goodness, and say: “I have a merciful God; in Him will I trust.” Exercise yourself today in this hope, and say with King David: “The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the protector of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? If armies in camp should stand together against me, my heart shall not fear. Turn not away thy face from me. Be you my helper, forsake me not, do not you despise me, O God, my Saviour!” (Psalm 26) And again: “I cried to thee, O Lord, I said: you art my hope, my portion in the land of the living.” (Psalm 141)

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