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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!

Last Sunday's  advent readings were about John the Baptist and today is the Feast of St. Nicholas! So with that in mind here is a picture from a few years ago - a good friend of ours portraying good St. Nick and Mr. Pete as the voice in the wilderness, John the Baptist! This is one of my favorite Advent feasts! Be sure to visit the St. Nicholas Center today. Also the Bounty of St. Nicholas Fair My links for St. Nicholas on Diigo and also my mega Advent links page! A few years ago we made a  St. Nicholas Spoon Saint! Our assorted St. Nicholas statues come out today.  Here is one that Rosie and I made yesterday. More Feast Day Fun with St. Nicholas here...

Tomorrow is the feast of St. Andrew, apostle, and martyr. St. Andrew was St. Peter's brother. St. Andrew actually heard of Jesus first and took his brother to meet him. What a wonderful example of the importance of Godly siblings in our lives and the positive influence they can have on us! After Jesus ascended into heaven, the apostles scattered all over the known world to spread the Gospel message. Andrew went to Greece where he was eventually martyred. Andrew felt that he was unworthy to be crucified in the same manner as our Lord, so his cross was set up diagonally like a big X. This type of cross is called "St. Andrew's Cross." (Andrew's brother Peter also felt unworthy to be baptized as Jesus was and was consequently crucified upside down.) St. Andrew is to the Scottish what St. Patrick is to the Irish, although as far as we know, the saint never set a foot on the isle! There are two legends explaining this. The first is that St. Regulus had a dream t...

All of my previous posts and pictures about All Saints Day/Halloween can be found via my del.icio.us links here. Some Christian blogs and even some Catholic forums have been vacillating about whether or not it is right to celebrate Halloween. My answer to that is absolutely it's okay to celebrate! as long as you understand exactly what it is that you are celebrating! There is really no historical connection between the setting of this feast to November 1 (naturally placing the Eve to October 31), and the Pagan Celebration of Samhain other than Pope Boniface moved the feast to the same time of year when Samhain is celebrated. But I like to look at it another way. The change of seasons and the harvest are gifts from God, even if the ancient Celts didn't quite see it that way, and as the scriptures say, " Test everything. Hold on to the good, " and Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, wh...