A Time To Keep

St Valentine’s Day

Presentation of the Lord and Candlemas

Today, thanks to Alice we had another meaningful Tea celebration. 

Let me quote Alice for menu explanations.

Pure tea for the ritual of purification. 

Sugar Cubes for Our Lady and Milk for St. Joseph.

We call Our Blessed Mother “our life, our sweetness, and our hope.” As we sweeten our tea, we are reminded of Our Lady’s sweetness, the spotless whiteness of the refined sugar symbolizing her purity and innocence. The cubes dissolve in the hot liquid, just as Our Lady conformed herself completely to the Divine Will. Stirring the cubes into our tea, we repeat Mary’s Fiat as proclaimed in the Angelus saying, “Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it done unto me according to Thy Word.”

Water

Water is associated with purity.  I used holy water in a glass bowl, with a floating candle for Candlemass.

Piercing Swords

Simeon was moved by the Holy Spirit to declare to Our Lady, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be contradicted, and you yourself a sword will pierce, so that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” Luke 2: 34-35.

A simple cube of mild cheese, topped with a grape tomato and pierced with a toothpick.  (Raphael patiently made the swords out of toothpicks and foil for us.)

A pair of turtledoves

Edible Tapers (for candlemas)

Pieces of shoestring licorice–dip several times in melted white chocolate leaving a bit of licorice exposed as a wick for tiny and adorable edible dipped tapers.

Holy Simeon’s Arms

Holy Simeon held the Christ Child in his arms saying, “Now, Master, you may let your servant go in peace, according to Your word, for my eyes have seen your salvation.” Luke 2: 29-30. To remember the loving arms of Simeon, twisted pretzels (first invented in the middle ages to represent arms folded in prayer) will be a readily obtained and simple symbol.

As you are serving them, remind the children that Christ would later preach, “You are the salt of the earth . . . . You are the light of the world.” (Mt. 5: 13-14.)

Anna the Prophetess

Because Anna was a widow, something black might represent her well. I can think of many possibilities, but our family will pick up a box of Mallomars. They are perfect for Anna. The black outer shell shows that she is a widow, but inside you will see the purity and goodness of her devout heart represented in the white center. Note that the marshmallow stands on top of a graham cracker, and remind the children that this good woman never left the floor of the Temple day or night.

Pure Hearts

Strawberries dipped into melted white chocolate to represent Our Lady’s pure and innocent heart.

As Alice suggested, after grace we recited the Purification Novena Prayer:

“O Blessed Mother of God, who went up to the Temple according to the law with your offering of little white doves, pray for me that I too may keep the law and be pure in heart like you.

Sweet heart of Mary, be my salvation.”

I read The Presentation of the Child Jesus from the beautiful book “A Holy Card Prayer Book”, that seems to be sadly out of print.

During Tea I recited the gospel canticle from compline (night prayer) .

Now, Lord, you let your servant go in peace:

your word has been fulfilled.

My own eyes have seen the salvation

which you have prepared in the sight of every people;

A light to reveal you to the nations

and the glory of your people Israel.

                                            Luke 2:29-32

St Brigid of Ireland

Yesterday, we celebrated St Brigid’s feast day by reading “Brigid’s Cloak, An Ancient Irish Story” .  We followed Cay’s instructions in Catholic Mosaic, and the children made notebook pages.

Here are Dominique’s and Matthias’ pages.

After some unsuccessful attempts to make a St Brigid Cross out of tall grasses (soaked for three hours), we settled for a pipe cleaner one.  Here it is laying on Laurence’s cloak.

Our Lady of Guadalupe

In March 2006, the children and I each spiritually adopted an unborn baby.  We named our babies, and committed ourselves to say this prayer daily.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, I love you very much. I beg you to spare the life of [baby’s name] the unborn baby that I have spiritually adopted who is in danger of abortion.”

– Prayer of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

In December, we bought a little gift for each of our babies and gave them to our local pregnancy center through our church.  Then, I saw Alice’s idea for a tea party in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe (patroness of the unborn), and realized how perfect this would be to celebrate their faithfulness to their commitment.