Liturgical Living at Home

The Parish Religious Education Office wanted to share a monthly selection of feast days and celebrations within the church that you can celebrate at home with your family. Challenge: try one new thing! It's a fun way to make the liturgical year come alive for your family. Once you start, your kids will ask all sorts of questions--"What feast day is today?" "What do you know about this saint?" "How can we make the celebration of ___ extra fun?"

We hope each month you will journey with us along the special feast days we highlight with a few ideas of how to make them extra special and memorable for your family. If you ever have ideas you'd like to share, send them to kmccarthy@sthilarychurch.org so they can be added to a future newsletter. If you try one of our ideas, or one of your own and take a picture, send it in so we can select a few to share in the next month's newsletter! (See where it will go down below)

Liturgical living isn’t confined to family craft projects or activities for religion classes. For Steffani Aquila, founder of His Girl Sunday, liturgical living is an invitation for all faithful men and women to engage meaningfully with the rhythms of the year. Join Steffani as she chats with Katie on what feast days and sacred seasons can teach everyone, regardless of age or background, about Jesus and how embracing these practices help us discover a joy-filled life based on tradition, hospitality, and togetherness.

Steffani Aquila is the founder of Liturgy Culture & Kitchen by His Girl Sunday, an online space inspiring Catholic culture and liturgical living in the home and parish. Aquila has extensive experience in parish ministry, holding titles such as director of liturgical life at the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart in Houston, associate director of youth ministry, and communications director. She also has experience working with Catholic high schools as a dean and an honors-level theology teacher. She is the author of Festive Faith.

November is the month the Catholic Church dedicates to Holy Souls, meaning both canonized saints as well as our loved ones that have gone before us in faith. My family is going to try a new tradition that we will build on each year--maybe you would like to do it too! We have a large multi-picture frame for the month of November (though maybe we will find a permanent place for it) and we plan to display our loved ones photos as a remembrance so we can pray for them and ask them to pray for us.

I once asked Fr. Steve about his recommendation for remembering to pray for loved ones that have died and he told me he prays for the dead at breakfast every day. He said because breakfast is a constant—something he does every single day he made sure to pair it with something important so he never forgets! If there’s a special prayer practice you hope to implement in your day take a look at your daily activities and pair it with something that’s a constant every day whether it’s brushing your teeth, eating breakfast (I imagine eating breakfast for a priest looks a little different than it does at my house 😊), showering, washing dishes, driving somewhere, etc…).

We are liturgically preparing ourselves to start Advent at the end of this month so I want to personally invite you to join us in preparing for an Advent Tradition called the Jesse Tree. The Faith Formation Office will be hosting a family workshop on Sunday, November 23 immediately following the 11:00 Mass (Noon-2 PM) in the School Multi-Purpose Room. We will have a meal, prayer, and sharing of what the Jesse Tree is as well as an ornament exchange so each family will go home with a full set of ornaments for their tree and new family tradition. See the signup and details here:

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/20F0949AFA72AA5F58-59839060-jesse

Snap a photo and send it our way so we can show others how much fun you're having! There's so much to celebrate and enjoy this month as we wrap up Ordinary Time and start Advent and our preparation time.