Raised Catholic...can you tell?: December 2013

Sunday, December 8, 2013

Kindness Elf

After reading this wonderful post over at The Imagination Tree I decided that I'm going to incorporate some of the ideas in my classroom this week! I've got my elf all ready--he's an old ornament from my childhood tucked into a vase of holly. Isn't he cute?

If all goes according to plan, he'll be in the classroom when we return from Mass on Thursday, complete with a letter to the children about acts of kindness and a plate of homemade cookies! Once I compose the letter I'll post it here for you to see. (DH will be the actual scribe--a left-handed male handwriting will look sufficiently different from mine and from our classroom teacher to hopefully keep the children guessing!)

And later today DH will be putting up the 2nd Advent candle in the yard...photo tomorrow!

A Wife's Prayer

Lord, I come into your presence to say a special prayer for my husband.

Thank you for the blessing of a godly life companion. I pray that You would continue to grow in him a deep and abiding love for You.

Guide him, I pray, as he guides this family; give him wisdom and understanding. Invigorate him with the knowledge of Your grace, and refine him with Your truth.

I pray that I would be a helper, a source of encouragement; and I pray that he would find this home to be a place of rest and refreshment.

Amen.

St. Paul, pray that America follows in your footsteps.

Because our country needs to undergo a great conversion, one as great as the one St. Paul experienced!

Novena Prayer

O glorious St. Paul, after persecuting the Church you became, by God's grace, Her most zealous Apostle. To carry the knowledge of Jesus, our Divine Savior, to the uttermost parts of the earth.

You joyfully endured prison, scourgings, stonings, and a shipwreck, as well as all manner of persecutions, culminating in the shedding of the last drop of your blood for Our Lord Jesus Christ.

Obtain for us the grace to labor strenuously to bring the Faith to others and to accept any trials and tribulations that may come our way. Help us to be inspired by your Epistles and to partake of your indomitable love for Jesus, so that after we have finished our course we may join you in praising Him in heaven for all eternity.

Amen.