The Advent Wreath
**Updated and reposted from last year! 🙂
I love the tradition of the Advent wreath. It so totally packed with symbolism! It is such a great way to teach the children even more about God, Christ and the Christmas season.
The round shape stands for God’s eternity. Like God, it has no beginning and no end.
The greens used to make the wreath are EVERgreen, and therefore unchanging, just like God.
The four candles symbolize the four centuries that man waited for the coming of our Savior.
Three of the candles are purple since Advent is a time of penance. It was because of our sinfulness that we needed a Savior, and so we must prepare ourselves through sacrifice and penance during Advent for Christ’s coming at Christmas. However, we know that Christ HAS and IS coming again, and so our penance is a joyful one! We are joyfully anticipating and preparing ourselves for the celebration of Christmas, as well as Christ’s second coming. Therefore, one candle is pink to represent our joy.
On the first Sunday of Advent we light one purple candle. On the second Sunday of Advent, two purple candles are lit. On the third Sunday of Advent, which is called “Gaudete Sunday”, we light the pink candle since “Gaudete” means “let us rejoice!” And then, on the fourth (and final) Sunday of Advent, all four candles are lit. The gradual lighting of the candles is a visible sign for us. We can see the light growing brighter the closer we get to birth of Christ, who IS the light of the world!
We use to make our own Advent wreath by gathering greens from our yard, but the past couple years I have been purchasing wreaths. This year I found a beautiful artificial wreath from Costco, for only a few dollars more than the real evergreen wreath, and decided to switch over since it sits in front of our fireplace and dries out so quickly. We will also be able to reuse it now! 🙂 I have four silver candle stands on which I place the candles. I use to purchase taper candles, but since we light them every night, we burn through them so fast… So, I switched to pillar candles which will last all of Advent, and have been working great! (Thankfully I was FINALLY able to find a pink candle, though not exactly the shade I was looking for… oh well!)
After dinner, on the first Sunday of Advent, my husband leads us in prayer as he blesses our wreath before we light the first candle. We use the blessing found in a great little book called Handbook of Prayers. (I just LOVE this little prayerbook!) You can also find the blessing here.
Each evening of Advent, before we relight the candles of our wreath, we say one of the following prayers, depending on which week of Advent it is:
The First Week
Bestir, O Lord, Thy might, we pray Thee and come; That, defended by Thee, we may deserve rescue from approaching dangers brought on by our sins, and being set free by Thee, obtain our salvation. Who livest and reignest, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen.
The Second Week
Stir up our hearts, O Lord, to prepare the ways of Thine only-begotten Son, that through His coming we may be worthy to serve Thee with purified minds. Who livest and reignest, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen.
The Third Week
Incline Thine ear to our prayers, O Lord, we beseech Thee; and make bright the darkness of our minds by the grace of Thy visitation. Who livest and reignest, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen.
The Fourth Week
Bestir, O Lord, Thy might, we beseech Thee, and come; and with great power come to our aid, that, by the help of Thy grace, that sins may be hastened by Thy merciful forgiveness. Who livest and reignest, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, world without end. Amen.
An early visit from St. Nick?!?
Today we attended a 50th Anniversary Mass and reception for some very dear friends of ours. In fact, it was for our children’s wonderful swimming teacher! We had a wonderful time, and it was so nice being able to reconnect and visit with lots of old friends!
However, we forgot to lock our door before we left, and when we arrived home, we were all stunned to find a Christmas Tree in our living room!
What a nice surprise!!!!
Now, if we could just figure out where it came from?!?
UPDATE: Well, it turns out that the tree was a gift from 2 of my brothers, Paul & Scott! Actually, my first guess WAS Paul. 🙂 He is such a sweetie! A few years back, on Thanksgiving, I unsuccessfully tried to get him to stay late at my parents and play board games with us, but he said he had another job to do. (He has an Outdoor Lighting business, and is always super busy hanging Christmas lights this time of year.) Anyhow, a few hours later, we headed home and were shocked to find OUR home COVERED in little white Christmas lights! It was BEAUTIFUL! He is always so thoughtful. When I called him last night, I asked if he had been playing Santa Claus again, and he laughed. He said that it was from him & Scott and that they had just done a job for a tree farm who wanted to add a bit of extra lighting in exchange for a few trees.
So that explains how we came home to find a tree in our living room… Something I would have never expected! Don’t I have the sweetest brothers?!
Thanksgiving Day in Pictures
Making Oreo Turkeys
My twin sisters with all three of their nieces.
Snuggles with his Daddy, Godfather, and Grandma.
More pictures…
My parents recently remodeled their kitchen, and it is SO pretty!
A couple of my contributions to the meal.
Feast… Feast… Feast… Feast…
Of my parents 12 children, 11 of us made it home for Thanksgiving this year, in addition to all 7 grandchildren! We sure missed you Sean, I can’t believe it has been 5 years since we have all been able to get together at the same time!!! I am SO bummed that we didn’t take a family photo… Hopefully we can find an opportunity while everyone is still in town.
I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving! God Bless!
Celebrating the Feast of St. Catherine
Each year we celebrate Twinkle Toes nameday on November 25th, the feast of St. Catherine of Alexandria.
Usually I try to make a Heart Shaped Cake for the feast, but this year it was just too much. Instead we were able to pick up a super yummy (White Chocolate Raspberry) cake from a local bakery. They were more than willing to add a pink heart to the top of the cake, which served the purpose just fine. Twinkle Toes loved it!
I wasn’t able to get a picture until it was already missing a piece… but I took one anyways! 🙂
We usually give our children a small gift on their namedays. I generally use it as an excuse opportunity to add another book from my our wishlist, so this year Twinkle Toes received Take It to the Queen: A Tale of Hope
.It was a simple last minute feast day/nameday celebration, but it brought smiles to all our children’s faces in the midst of a very sad week, and for that I was very thankful!
Meeting Godparents
My sister and her family live all the way on the other side of the country, and we were so excited that they were able to fly home for Thanksgiving this year! Not only were we looking forward to seeing them, we were so excited that Snuggles was going to finally be able to meet his Godparents, and that we were going to be able to meet there youngest son, who is also one of our Godsons!
My hubby with our Godson/nephew
Isn’t he a cutie?!? Our Godson is pretty cute too! 😉
So very much to be thankful for…
Our Completed Tree of Thanksgiving
Thank you ♥
I can’t begin to thank you all enough for the outpouring of love and support that you have given to our family. I KNOW that it is all of the prayers that got us through yesterday, and continue to give us the strength and grace that we need right now.
It was such a blessing to have a priest available to hear my confession and give me the anointing of the sick just before my D&C yesterday afternoon. I couldn’t even believe how calm I was, and how accepting I was able to be that this was the will of God. I kept telling my husband that “people must be praying for us!”
My husband conditionally baptized the baby and we will be meeting Father at the cemetery tomorrow afternoon for the burial.
We will always miss our little Gabriel dearly. It helps to do as a priest recommended this past weekend and place myself at the foot of the cross and try and imagine what the Blessed Mother must have felt as she had to watch her Son, the Son of God, die on that cross. She embraced her cross, and in imitation of her, I must try to follow her example. St. John Vianney once said, “our greatest cross is our fear of crosses.”
Through the grace of God, I pray that we will one day be reunited with all our beloved in Heaven. Thank you again for your prayers, may God reward you!
I have overcome the world. ~ John 16:33
Heartbroken
This past Wednesday I went in for my regular OB check up. At the appointment, my midwife was not able to find our baby’s heartbeat. She was not very concerned due to the location of my uterus, and the fact that we had a hard time finding Chiquita’s heartbeat until the second trimester as well. Nevertheless, she gave me the option of either coming back in two weeks for a recheck, or scheduling an ultrasound. I opted for the ultrasound.
My ultrasound was scheduled for Friday morning at 7:30am. I was confident that everything would be fine, but hubby took the morning off work to go with me just the same. I am so thankful that he did.
As the woman started the ultrasound, she didn’t say much. I noticed that she was measuring the baby, and asked about it, but then she changed the screen to my overall uterus and she just said that she was taking a couple measurements. A few minutes later she turned to us and said, “I’m afraid that I have bad news for you guys.”
Our baby’s heart was no longer beating.
It was such heartbreaking news for us, and I immediately started crying.
My uterus measured at the correct 11 weeks gestation, but our baby only measured between 7-8 weeks. They don’t know when exactly our little one died, but said that it could have been anytime in the past few weeks.
My midwife prescribed some pain medicine for when the miscarriage starts, and suggested that I schedule a D&C for Monday or Tuesday, which already happen to be two very emotional days for me each year.
I decided to try and see a very pro-life specialist in the area. I have the appointment tomorrow morning. If I end up needing the D&C, I want to have the best doctor available. I am so scared.
Even though I know that our little one is in God’s hands, and is perfectly happy, I can’t even put into words, how hard this has been for us. It is amazing how quickly you can bond with a child. This baby has only been a part of our lives for a few months, and yet is already so dearly loved and such a precious part of our family.
If you could all please keep us in your prayers, it would be greatly appreciated!
Our Lady of Sorrows, pray for us!
Update: Thank You ♥
Painting Leaves…
Remembering…
You may remember this past summer, I asked for prayers. I would like to share a poem that my sister wrote about:
**If you click over, be prepared to shed a few tears, and please continue to pray, especially for my little brother.
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