I have lively and never-to-be-forgotten Fr. Norbert Wood of St. Michael's Abbey (where my brother Fr. Chrysostom now lives) to thank for today being a day of celebration. Before he made my freshman religion class memorize that Sept. 29th is the Feast of St. Michael, I'm not sure I realized that such a thing as a saint's day existed. But since then I have never let the feast pass without some thought about or celebration of the archangels.
I plan for us to read the story of St. Michael from Rev. 12:7-9
And there was war in heaven. Michael and his angels fought against the dragon, and the dragon and his angels fought back. But he was not strong enough, and they lost their place in heaven. The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray. He was hurled to the earth, and his angels with him.
and offer the Prayer to St. Michael for our deployed friends and all soldiers, especially those in harm's way. The younger kids memorized this prayer for poetry (or was it religion?) today.
We have a fun little picture book version of the Book of Tobit called the Tale of Tobias in which the archangel Raphael plays an important role, so we will read that along with Luke 1 where the archangel Gabriel appears to both Zechariah and Mary. I'm hoping to elicit a conversation with the older kids about the work of these heavenly messengers.
Yesterday--keeping in mind that we should not eat blackberries after Sept. 29th-- we relished an end of summer blackberry, raspberry, strawberry and grape salad, and today the Devil's Food cupcakes were a hit after lunch.
I wish we could have made it to Mass, but our priest is on leave and James has the stomach flu. However, I do plan for us to "join with all the choirs of angels in an unending hymn of praise" for our bedtime prayer.
2 comments:
Okay... hilarious. Who knew the devil spit on blackberries. Not me!! So we missed our chance. But as we don't have any blackberries growing around us, I guess the grocery store knew this little tidbit and picked them in time. LOL!
Thought of you a lot on this day. We went to Cox Farms, and as soon as we pulled up, the older kids remembered going here with you guys (THREE years ago - I looked it up on my blog...can't believe they remembered).
Had my fingers crossed that they would have blackberry pie for sale, but alas, they were sold out. I bought blackberry jam instead. Not the same thing. Then again, nothing is the same without you!
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