Family Rosary

Written by Gae
The children come quietly into the family room carrying their Rosaries in hand and the booklets they have to help them meditate on the Mysteries. Each child goes to the place in the room that they feel most comfortable to pray. They kneel look over to me as I finish feeding the baby and start to take this sweet dumpling up to his bed.
While I am gone Daddy reads a short bible story from our picture bible, mainly for our little children.
As I come back down stares I glance at the clock and see that it is 7:30pm, it is perfect timing as usual.

I come back into the room cuddle our next little one who has her Rosary beads all ready. She looks at mine and asks sweetly if we can trade tonight. I let her and we look at Daddy as the signal to begin.

At this everyone except me with the sweet snugly one kneel to pray and we being the nightly process -
'In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit........"

During the Rosary our little ones curl up next to an older child and nearly drop off to sleep. Each child know when it it their child to lead a decade and we have a most meditative and rewarding prayer time.

Twenty minutes later the younger children say good night to everyone with hugs and kisses and softly start up to bed, being very quiet so as not to wake the baby. The older children take up their reflective reading and spend some more quiet time together.

I know you all have families who pray the Rosary like this!

Sadly this is not how our family does either. As I was typing this our I wondered would there ever be a time in our lives when we would pray the Rosary like this.
Perhaps! When we do not have little ones to participate in our prayer time. However that in itself will be a  sad time for me I am sure.

Our Family Rosary is a little  very much different form the perfect scenario I described.

Let me give you a little sneak peak~
The time, well the time can be anything from 7:00pm onwards and sometimes way past our little peoples bedtime. Oh and read carefully, sometimes we do not say the Rosary AT ALL - GASP. SHOCK, HORROR.

Yes you did read that right. We are a Rosary loving family but we go through stages where  we just don't pray it together every night. Our goal is to pray daily as a family, but that family goes through well, 'stuff' that means we fall of the 'Rosary Wagon' every so often.

So on those nights when we pray our Rosary as a Family it more likely resembles this~
Mum calling all the children from all over the house. We have a large house and some children will be finishing up the Dinner clean up. Others will be helping to get our little ones ready for bed; teeth cleaned, toilet stops etc.
I usually am feeding our little dumpling (that part is true from the ideal picture above) and sometimes he even goes to sleep.
Some of the children come when called but experience has shown that there are always stragglers to the family room and no one wants to just hang around waiting for the stragglers. So it becomes a situation of calling for the stragglers while keeping those who came after leaving their own individual pursuits to remain in the room waiting for said stragglers.

Of course then there is the battle  choosing of spots ready to pray. I would love to say we all knelled down for the Rosary, and there was a time when we did, but I find it difficult when holding a little one or too far pregnant and I do believe the children got out of the habit as I came to full term.

We usually then have more than one child want to 'sit next to mummy' or 'I was just about to sit in that spot' issues to deal with which lead to more waiting time.
I suppose this could be avoided if we started without some of the children or adults BUT I do believe that if we are praying together as a family then we show respect and courtesy by waiting for ALL family members to be present. Sure we might get finished quicker but I think it effectively diminishes the value of family prayer and devalues the weight of an individual if we start without them. In effect  it says you are not really very important to this family activity and your prayers are not valued either.

On with the story ~
During the Rosary we usually have the baby babbling, the special needs boy fidgeting a bit (or a lot) depending on how his day has gone. Our other special girl, 99 our of 100 times falls asleep during this time and has to be carried up to bed. Sometimes we have even had a race to see who can lead the decade first! We have had older people fall asleep and only a few end up praying. I am sure I could think of a few more examples to shock you with but I wont go on.

Why not......you were enjoying how lacking in piety we are!

Well believe it or not we really do have a devotion to praying the Rosary as I am sure a lot lot of other families do. I do believe we are doing this to the best of our ability.....not perfect but as best we can for OUR FAMILY, RIGHT NOW AS WE ARE NOW.

Change will come upon our family you can be sure. In fact I see a change again for us in the coming year, and yet we will continue to pray the Rosary as best we can - and perhaps if we are truly blessed we will become that perfect Rosary praying family!!

However I do believe that  God reads our hearts and intentions and I can say that our intentions are pure, even if our 'follow through' is not up to standard. I do  think it important that we lead our little ones in prayer and that it is a VERY important part of our training our children.

However I also believe that prayer is a conversation with God  and how we show our love and respect to the children in our families as they 'interupt ' our perfect Rosary/prayer time, can be a great example of having a servants heart and drawing our children toward God.

And is that not what we are called to do..........to lead our children to their Heavenly Father!

If you enjoyed this post perhaps you would enjoy more about our family at my blog ~ Cherished Hearts At Home

Blessings to you and your homes,
   

Christ the King Plans 2011

By Gae at Cherished Hearts at Home

The Feast of Christ the King ~
"that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father"
 Philippians 2: 10-11

Ideas to Celebrate~
On a  home made drawn crown , write all of the reasons that Jesus Christ is our King and Savior.
Another idea is to  make a special "Christ the King" banner out of paper, or a more permanent idea out of fabric and fabric paint to proclaim The Kingship of Jesus.

Definitely make some felt crowns following this simple tutorial. Honestly you can never have too many crowns in a home in my opinion, they can be used for anything but for today in memory of Christ The King.

This detailed colouring page was made for us by Eden  based on the original image above. We will definitely be colouring this one in, I hope you would like to use it too

Great colouring page
Colouring stained glass window look page 
We have made this before but from Jen - a Foldable Table or Altar Decoration
Family Procession idea from Catholic Culture

Make a King Cake ~ I know there are many super duper version of this however we simply make a bundt cake and ice it. The kids then decorate it with lollies as jewels.
Lots of fun, easy to make and yummy to eat!

Here are our ideas and activities from  past years

 PRAYER~
O Jesus Christ, I acknowledge you as universal King. All that has been made has been created for You. Exercise all Your rights over me. I renew my Baptismal Vows. I renounce Satan, his pomps and his works; I promise to live as a good Christian. And, in particular do I pledge myself to labor, to the best of my ability, for the triumph of the rights of God and of Your Church. Divine Heart of Jesus, to You do I offer my poor services, laboring that all hearts may acknowledge Your sacred kingship, and that thus the reign of Your peace be established throughout the whole universe. Amen. 


May you have a blessed and memorable feast day,

The Feasts of Halloween, All Saints and All Souls

Last week while in hospital with Trahaearn my friend Erinasked me if she could use one of my old posts about All Saints day for the  Australian Catholic Families Blog, I said sure no problem and assumed all was well.

It wasn't until I came home and started to look at my own blog to plan our own celebrations that I couldn't find a post on any of these three feast days that I began to wonder what was wrong. I knew we had celebrated these days over the last few years as well as pre blogging days and 'why can't I find the posts on this?"

The reason why was that, um, well,  I never actually posted them and I found them partially done in drafts. Oh dear how I hate my drafts, so many posts I part;y do and then leave some never to be published at at all.

So although we have celebrated All Hallows Eve today - commonly know as Halloween I wish to share these past photos of how we have celebrated in our home.
We have no parish parties here or home school groups to join in with for these and so essentially ours are 'home made feasts' in our Domestic Church

We have a wonderful opportunity  on this special three days to celebrate the Liturgical season of All Hallow Eve, All Saints and All Souls day this year and we will gradually do so with out trying to do too much.

So with out further ado  what I would like to share is some of our older photos of our feasts of these days and the celebration we have at home.
The reason we celebrate this at home is we have never lived where it was celebrated within the Church as a parish or had other homeschooling celebrate with us.
So over the years we have clelbrated many of these traditions with in the context of our family circle.

When instituting these traditions into our family, before blogging was a big thing on the Internet. I gleamed most of our ideas from the 4real message board and Catholic Culture.
I have a folders full of ideas I have printed out of Liturgical and seasonal ideas to do with our family, along with lots of handwritten notes over time.

As our ideas had to be home based one of the most influential  articles in how we spend these days was on Catholic Culture but written by Jennifer Miller and I will go into more depth as we cover the feast days per post. 

AS you will see the children look a whole lot younger and our little Arwen does not even feature as she was  a babe in arms or a 'thought in the mind of God' still.

These photos are of our dressing up for All Saints Day and the 'party' we had at home. They continue for a while down the page

This is our procession for All Souls Day and our subsequent bonfire for it

Home made graves for the remembering the souls of the departed.

An earlier year again with a combination of All Saints and All Souls Day

Another year-we celebrated in typical  Halloween fashion. 

We carved our first ever Pumpkin Moonshine (finding a pumpkin the right shape is harder down under as it is Spring not Autumn season)

We also had a new party complete with Paper Bag Pinata

Rather than Apple Bobbing we had Cheese Nibbling

Braedon has always been a comic and wonderful actor for these type of events.

Decorating our home for appropriate events is a huge must do for our family

Well with this blast from the past published finally I hope to write up today's events in another post and share our fairly easy day of celebrating  All Hallows Eve together.

Blessings to you and your homes,
Gae.


Enjoy more of Gae's posts at Cherished Hearts at Home including Celebrating Halloween 2011

Sacrificial Love

By Gae

What do you think of when we talk of 'Sacrifical Love'?

Mostly for us Christians it refers to the love of Jesus Christ and his death on the Cross at Calvary for our redemption.

But can it mean more than that,? Yes I think it does and I believe we are called to offer our own sacrificial love each day, everyday, for the rest of our lives.

When I write it like this it sound scary and an impossible task but each time I review this in my own personal life I know that IS what God has called me to do.

For some people God asks a lot with his call to 'sacrifical love'. He asks for their very lives or the lives of loved ones and major upheavals in life. This doesn't mean that God does not expect me to live a life of 'sacrifical love' each day though. I have never been asked for this demonstration of my love for him, and frankly I am not sure I could handle that!

My offer each and every day of 'sacrificial love' is in the little things that happen in my daily life. While I wish I could say that I do this all the time without thinking and that I have developed this as a lifestyle, I know I cannot say that. At some times I am better at it than others. Sometimes I can even help our children see this in my life and hopefully they will be encouraged by it and embrace it as well, but mostly I flounder with the small progresses and then no progress for some time.

Sometimes I think it is easy for mothers (and fathers) to think of this sacrificial love in terms of a new born or very small baby and the fact we are required to be 'on demand' for our little cherubs. The feeding, changing and loving that goes into a very dependant baby seems to be very much alright and acceptable as a 'sacrificial love' thing.

But what about those little tykes that are just a bit too rambunctious after a long day of play and learning, or those older children who are tending through an emotional stage and of course those young adults and youths that dwell in our homes and the complex issues that they bring to the mix. Let us not forget also that some of us have been blessed with those more dependant children, and those with more special needs  and they  tend to require a much more giving and 'sacrificial love' on a more ongoing basis.

Do we allow these individuals to cramp into our personal space, demanding our much sought after attention, or to let some of their own preferences and individual likes be put in front of our own choices?

Must we always have OUR own way, or do we need to evaluate the thought of 'sacrificial love'.
Of course after a long day at work or within the home it can be quite easy to say NO! I want my own personal space or have it the way I like it.

However I know I need to ask myself at these times; Is this more important than allowing the other person their own way. Is what I want to do or have, or not have done of more value than the other persons choice? I think in some ways being the parents  in these situations can lead to a very selfish attitude, simply because we are the parents.

But I would have to ask myself. Is this a moral issue that requires me to respond in this manner? Is it an issue of obedience for a cause? Or is it simply that I don't really want to be bothered with that noise, issue or the lateness of the hour because it prevents my......... from happening in the way I had planned.

I do believe that our children learn from the behaviours or us parents! How can we expect them to be servants to one another and thus to serve our Lord and King, when we their parents and the closest to them do not model this in our behaviour to one another and to our children.

While I do not pretend to have this 'sacrificial love' thing down pat I do know I try to put relationships first over the more 'typicallly important,' as society dictates of having our home tidy and neat at ALL times. It is more important for me to allow myself the opportunity to serve others by putting their preferences first. And I must say that while our more traditional values of putting our husbands first (of which I agree) is an acceptable fact in our society, I also believe that our children's preferences and needs should be another opportunity of serving the Lord, although this may get me in trouble with some other schools of thought.

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' Mathew 25: 40

Truly how can I read that and not think of the verse I have taught our children for so many years
" Jesus first, myself last and others in between"

Is this only for children to obey? Or is it for all of us?
For husbands to wives, wives to husbands, parents to children, children to parents and to any others we have the opportunity to serve in our daily lives.

This is our opportunity to allow ourselves to be givers of the lesson taught to us by our Saviour.....SACRIFICIAL LOVE!

I pray that each day I may be a more sacrificial person, a more caring and loving wife and mother, and that my example will help others see the love and joy we have in serving each other, even as Christ served and sacrificed for us.

Blessings to you and your homes,

 

Please share more of Gae's posts at her blog, Cherished Hearts at Home

St Patrick's Day in Our Home 2010

This post was written by Gae last year. Her family's celebration is sure to inspire you with ideas for celebrating St Patrick's Day on the 17th March.

Here is a look at how we celebrated St Patrick's day in our home this year.
All did not go according to plan but we still had a very busy and enjoyable day.
I loved reading the old favourite books that Rogan set up on the bookcase for the St Patrick Display.
It was all his own idea where to place the arrangement and how to set it up and I was so impressed. I think we will display all our special feast day's here as it is right in the heart of our living area.We have a close up of the middle section.
A collection of clover , (shamrock's) St Patrick a map of Ireland and Rogan's own collection of four leaf clover he has collected over the last few months.
We are all amazed how he can just find them so readily.We also have some pip cleaner shamrocks along the display.Our Lenten calender courtesy of Kimberlee at Pondered in my Heart.
Corbyn, Myffwyn and Moran working on some of the colouring pages we had after my having read some of our favourite St Patrick's day books to them.Painting of the green?Shamrock cookies before we placed them in the oven with green jelly on them. I referred to them in my planning post. I was happy with how they turned out just by using the heart shaped cookie cutters. Straight out of the oven.These are our Shamrock Mint Cupcakes we used chocolate frosting this year instead of the white.An Irish flag Autumn made last year for me and beautiful "Irish eyes smiling."While waiting for the Irish stew to cook, yes it took longer than we wanted it to. More colouring in was done.Myffwyn hard at work on her St Patrick from Paper Dali
Eden is very diligent with her St Patrick that Charlotte directed us to.Our little feast day memorabilia. Not what I planned but all I could manage.Our St Patrick banner on the balustrade.Our Irish Soda bread, well one of the other one is still cooking.I couldn't resist the green jelly.WE made Lime green Spiders for our drink .
A "Spider" is simply green fizzy drink with a scoop (or more) of ice cream added.
So simple and quick but the children, and Mummy's and Daddy's love them.
Don't you love the green shading?Irish stew, and Lime Green spiders along with the Feast day treats.Myffwyn with her collection of colouring.Rogan with his set of colouring.Moran is so happy to share her colouring with us. I think she actually did 2 or 3 of most of them.Eden was able to make a copy of Anne's Pin the Shamrock on St Patrick. We copied her St Patrick picture and added our own Shamrock stickers and drawn leaves and shamrocks. Then each of us had our own little shamrock to put on St Patrick.Did I mention we had a prize for the winner of this event.
We have some very competitive children.Saxon has first chance. But not even close.Little Arwen was not in the running either.Rogan was close, but not enough.Moran had a little feel around and still did not get it in St Patrick's hand.Poor Eden. Sorry honey.Vellvin had two turns but still did not win.

Kynan and Autumn also failed to win the elusive prize.

Do you want to know who won.....well it was yours truly. So I didn't have to give the book away at ll. I will save it for another interesting opportunity.

Well I pray you all had an enjoyable day celebrating this special Saint.

Saint Patrick Pray for us!!

For more ideas, recipes and helpful links please read Gae's planning post for St Patrick's Day

Please visit Gae's beautiful and inspiring blog Cherished Hearts at Home