Recently my mom gave our family a beautiful old out-of-print book (originally published in 1940) which my Grandmother had given my family when we were children! (I wasn’t able to find the hardcover available and the two paperback copies are very expensive.) Today is not only the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, but also the 6th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum going into effect. As Father Z mentioned earlier today, “We have a lot to be thankful for, both in the way of the Holy Cross and in how we renew the Sacrifice of the Cross during celebrations of Mass with the traditional Roman Rite.” We plan to read this book to our children after dinner…
… and then celebrate with cake!
We are so very thankful for the extra blessing of our occasional Latin Masses
and continue to pray that they will become more frequently available in our area.
Happy Feast Day!
Your cake is so lovely! What a great idea.
What a lovely book! How nice you had a cake today to celebrate!
LOVE, LOVE & LOVE SOME MORE! That cake is SOOOOOO NEAT!!! My husband is the organist and music director at our parish and we both are schooled in the ancient Latin music of the church and have sung in various choirs that sang traditional Latin Mass music. I showed him your cake and he loved it! Thumbs up!!!! 🙂 We'll have to do something like this for St. Cecilia's or St. Gregory's feast! And what a great little book!!!! LOVE IT!!! I love all the "old school" works and am always looking for republished works! You are a WEALTH of info for that!!!! THANK YOU!!!!!
Unfortunately, we do not have access to the Latin Mass in our diocese (which encompasses our entire state!) and the closest ones are two hours away in all directions… I have yet to experience the "Old Rite" and REALLY HOPE that I will before my last breath. 🙂
Happy reading tonight!!! 🙂
Wonderful cake, Jessica! Deo Gratias indeed! (and that looks like one beautiful, beautiful treasure of a book!) Enjoy your celebration, and may the use of the Traditional Latin Mass continue to spread and grow!
Jessica,
Did you see Fr. Z'z blog?!?!?!?!!?!?!? Bud's picture with the cake is there – he posted it today!!!!! 🙂
http://wdtprs.com/blog/
Thank you everyone! It was such a simple and fun cake to make! I'm sure we will create some additional variations of it in the future! 🙂
I'm in the girls choir at our Latin Mass, and I absolutely LOVE that cake!!! It is so amazing! Great job.
God bless,
Melanie
That looks like a wonderful little book. You are lucky to have a copy :-). I will add it to my list of old Catholic books to keep an eye out for (we are fortunate to have a second-hand Catholic book store in our city, which often gets large lots of old books from estates, closed seminaries/churched, etc.)
This is just wonderful, what a great idea for the cake too! We recently discovered a parish in Dallas that has a Latin Mass. We are hoping to make a monthly trip in to attend!
Kathy – if you ever make it to the Latin Mass in Irving, you might meet one of my husband's brothers who was just transferred to the FSSP parish there! 🙂
Explain something…do the ideas just pop into your head or do you have to spend hours and hours thinking things up? You are one talented lady! Love this and I love that Fr. Z. follows YOU! 🙂 What a fantastic cake for a super exciting anniversary. God bless Pope Benedict!! (Excellent idea to save for St. Gregory or St. Cecilia as the other Commenter pointed out!) – Genevieve
Thank you, Genevieve!
I had included a tag for St. Gregory over at Catholic Cuisine, but will have to add St. Cecilia too! I have one other little idea for her feast this year (which will be in the November issue of Catholic Digest) and on Catholic Cuisine when the feast gets a little closer! 😉
Let's see… Yesterday morning we slept in after a challenging first week of school. We made coffee and a late breakfast/brunch. I noticed Sean reading Father's blog and saw his reminder for the feast/anniversary. We usually have a picnic or at least a special meal for the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, but I didn't have anything planned and hadn't grocery shopped since before our company arrived the week before last. I asked Sean if he had any ideas on how we could celebrate and he told me to bake cupcakes and decorate them with "Deo Gratias." I could have done that, but I remembered the chant book cake Anne had made years ago (and shared at Catholic Cuisine) and thought that would tie in nicely. (Her's is much more elaborate than mine!) I decided to skip the book shaped cake and just decorate mine like a sheet of music on a plain 13×9 cake. Once the cake (box cake mix) was in the oven I googled "Latin Chant Deo Gratias" and used this image for inspiration. I happened to have a mostly full can of fluffy white frosting in the fridge left over from Twinkle Toes' birthday cake (I still need to post pictures!!!) and frosted the cake once it had cooled. I wasn't sure what I was going to use to make the square notes, but a Hershey's bar worked great. (I had a couple left over from when we made smores with our company.) Thankfully I happened to have black and red sparkle gels along with the black shoestring candy (I can't even remember what I thought I'd use it for when I originally purchased it?!?!) with my decorating supplies. So there you have it… No previous planning whatsoever, and overall I probably spent less than an hour planning, baking and decorating. I guess I'm just really weird when it comes to how I think about food! lol
Oh! And I highly doubt Father Z follows my blog(s). After I baked the cake and linked to his post in my post, I did leave him a comment thanking him for the reminder to celebrate the anniversary and told him that we baked a cake – sharing the link. 🙂 Then again… he did post our older boys' Lego "Habemus Papam" earlier this year too, so who knows, maybe he does stop by every once in awhile!
Oh how I wish books like these were still common!!! It is such a tragedy that the Latin Mass is so rare now!!! It is absolutely beautiful and the only Mass we will attend. Thank you so very much for sharing this priceless treasure!! God bless you.
And that cake is amazing!! 🙂
So AMAZING!! The book and your cake! I love that Father Z shared it on his blog – Bud looks so cute!!! Thank you for continuing to inspire us all. When you have a minute could you please share where you found the gorgeous crucifix and your Pieta statue? Also do you have any other suggestions for similar books for teaching children about the Latin Mass?
Thank you! Our Pieta Statue was actually a gift from one of the groomsmen in our wedding, who ended up marrying my younger sister the following year! 🙂 I can't find the exact statue online (the base is different) but it is the 14" Pieta Statue carved by Santini and imported from Italy.
As for the crucifix… It is an Antique/Vintage French Crucifix which I purchased as a gift for Sean at a local antique store when we were first married. I'd suggest searching ebay and you might find something similar.
And Know Your Mass is another great option for children's books on the Latin Mass. My husband suggested it in the comment box to another commenter over at WDTPRS. You can see a couple additional pictures of it in my First Holy Communion Gift Ideas post from last year. The Traditional Latin Mass for Children DVD is also excellent.
Being a musician, and having St. Cecilia as my confirmation saint, I LOVE your Gregorian Chant cake! I will have to make it sometime…By the way, for her feast, you could make harps out of bread dough…or make some cupcakes resembling crowns of lilies and roses.
Jessica,
Do you have a link for the Catholic Digest? Are your articles online?
You are going to make us wait to tell us what your other little idea is for St. Cecilia's feast?!?!?!?!?!!? 🙂
Yes, I do have a link! You can actually subscribe to Catholic Digest on Amazon (using my Affiliate link) or on their website. I have been compiling the Celebrate/Quiet Moments Section this year, which includes a quote for each day of the month and a few activities as well. Some of the activities are from Shower of Roses or Catholic Cuisine, with some new ideas slipped in as well. You can subscribe to the Quiet Moments via email, but it doesn't include the additional activities and pictures. 🙂 I just started working on my submission for the December issue today!
So thankful the creative juices flow on this blog, because we sure benefit! Thank you 🙂 Genevieve
Another suggestion for the book-try St. Vincent DePaul shops! You may have to wade thru some junk, but I often find very nice religious books there. Older, vintage books can be so pricey! We have had some gems turn up at library sales, yard sales (look in older neighborhoods, where maybe there were lots of Catholc families at one time) or troll thru the flea markets. I am on the look out for this one too.