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)

How has it been a year already?

I don't know about you, but in the last year of putting together this newsletter I have learned a LOT. I've always admired other women in our parish that know which saint to call on when a challenge arises. This last year, I've learned so much about the saints in heaven that are available for us to call on in times of need. From a computer problem (Carlo, pray for me!), a sick pet (St. Francis, please intercede), I even lost my car keys during a reconciliation service this year and asked some of the PSR kids to ask St. Anthony to help me out (someone brought me the keys within 5 minutes!). There are so many intercessors in the saints, our friends, in heaven. I hope each month you learn something with me and maybe give something new a try with your family! Thanks for joining me on this adventure for the past year and I pray for many more years to come. All you Holy Men and Women, pray for us!

Happy September,

Katie

The season of Creation runs through this whole month and concludes with the Feast Day of St. Francis on October 4

This year's Season of Creation theme is "Living Water." Maybe your family wants to do something special during this season celebrating Care for Creation and all the beauty God has created.

Plant something new, even though fall is coming soon, many plants are supposed to be planted in the fall.
Go flower picking, many flowers are in full bloom right now.
Take a hike: The Summit Metro Parks Fall Hiking Spree kicks of every year on September 1 (through November 30). If you want to complete the spree (my family does this every year!) you must complete at least 8 of the listed hikes.
Install a rain barrel at your home or somewhere it would be beneficial to celebrate the "Living Water" theme.
While it's warm, go for a "creek crawl": put on your oldest sneakers and trounce through the streams/creeks of a nearby park!

September Marian Feast Days

We celebrate Mary many times over in September

September 8: The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary

September 12: The Most Holy Name of Mary
September 15: Our Lady of Sorrows
September 27: Our Lady, Star of the Sea (Stella Maris)

Many months have beautiful opportunities to celebrate Mary, the month of September has four blessed days. If your family wants a fun way to say the rosary, contact the religious education office to borrow the bean bag rosary!

September 21: St. Matthew

St. Matthew was a tax collector before he joined Jesus and the other apostles, so celebrate his feast day with paydays! This idea is lovingly being shared from Catholic Cuisine, a great resource for fun feast day recipes.

I am convinced I "suffered" in childhood because I have two brothers who are allergic to chocolate so many of the desserts we enjoyed were adapted to be chocolate free! We often had paydays because they were safe for all of the members of our family (thanks mom). These payday bars are a little walk down memory lane, I'm going to try this and see what my brothers think!

Homemade PayDay Bars

(adapted from Food.com)

Ingredients:

1 (16 oz) jar dry roasted peanuts
3 tablespoons butter
1 (10 oz) bag peanut butter chips
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 cups miniature marshmallows

Directions:
1. Grease the bottom and sides of a 9x13 pan. Pour half of the peanuts into the pan.

2. Over medium-low heat, melt butter and chips. Remove from heat and mix in sweetened condensed milk. Stir in marshmallows, do not melt marshmallows.

3. Spoon mixture over peanuts in pan, pat down.

4. Top with remaining peanuts and press down to help adhere the top layer of peanuts.

5. Chill until set.

6. Cut into desired serving size.

*These bars only took about 20 minutes to assemble and another 20 minutes to chill. If you are looking for something even easier you can always just pick up some PayDay candy bars.

September 30: St. Jerome

St. Jerome is busy interceding for linguists, translators, librarians, archivists, students, archaeologists and people with difficult personalities.

There's a fun medieval legend that accompanies St. Jerome. One day while he was teaching in the monastery a roaring, limping lion walked in. The monks in attendance of the class all fled, but St. Jerome greeted the lion, examined its paw and removed the large thorn. The lion became tame and chose to stay at the monastery as Jerome's loyal companion.

The monks decided for the lion to stay it had to accompany their donkey each day to guard it while the donkey gathered firewood (as if this story was believable before and now there's a donkey collecting wood).

One day the lion fell asleep while the donkey was working and a group of passing merchants stole the donkey. When the lion returned to the monastery without the donkey the monks believed it was because the lion had gotten hungry.

As punishment the lion now had to complete the donkey's firewood chore each day. The lion did as he was told, but months later he spotted the merchants passing by WITH THE DONKEY so he roared fiercely and proudly led the donkey back to the monastery to prove his own innocence.

If you like to bake, maybe you would like to make cupcakes and turn them into lions to celebrate this feast day!

Have you tried a new liturgical tradition in your family?

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 every month! We hope you have a great summer and can find ways to incorporate our faith into every day. Send in a photo to kmccarthy@sthilarychurch.org to be featured here in future newsletters.