Association Of Catholic Bloggers

From the Presentation of the Lord, also called Candlemas. Here the priest is saying the Gloria (or the Collect, not sure when I took this). The Collect is a beautiful one: Almighty ever-living God, we humbly implore your majesty that, just as your Only Begotten Son  was presented on this day in the Temple  in the substance of our flesh,  so, by your grace, we may be presented to you with minds made pure. Thanks again to Melanie for including me here in the Association. I don't manage a blog post every day, but I am doing so this week, going along with Conversion Diary's "7 Posts in 7 Days" effort. All new photo posts, go see! www.formafidei.com .

Candlemas, a nearly forgotten holiday which happens 40 days after Christmas, began this morning when our sons took the Christmas tree out to the curb and put the tree stand in the basement.  Later, I had two girlfriends over and we made beeswax candles. None of us had made candles from scratch before, so we all learned together. I had bought the beeswax pellets this fall to dip autumn leaves and I had a whole lot left over.  Keep on Reading...

Inspired by the blogger at Feast of the Immaculate Conception : Family in Feast and Feria as well as this thread, my daughter Izzy and I made our own candle for the Feast of the Immaculate Conception back in 2009. Two years later, it's still holding up! I bought a simple white candle at Walmart. Izzy found a picture of Mary to color on line. Then we glued it to the candle and to set it- we melted wax and rolled our candle in the wax to give it a coating and protect it to the candle. I think it turned out pretty well for a first effort! We will light it tonight for dinner!