Here we are! It's Advent!
The Catholic Church is like a big road map to heaven. First there is the liturgical calendar, which has the seasons. The world has spring, summer, fall and winter. We have Advent, Christmas, Ordinary days, Lent, and Easter.
Advent is very springy as we joyfully await the coming of the Baby Jesus. The priest at Mass is wearing violet almost the whole time. He always wears violet when we have to be preparing for something by thinking things over.
Some people may not have noticed that Father has a whole wardrobe at Mass. Father doesn't just go to his Mass robe closet and say to himself, "I look great in green and the Bishop is coming." He dresses according to the Church calendar. If you ever want to know what's going on on any given day in the Church, just check out Father's dress of the day. He wears violet (almost every day) in Advent, green on Ordinary days, violet during Lent, White at Easter, Red on martyr's feast days.
He never wears white after Labor Day.
Of course he does. That was a joke. White is the happiest color. He wears white for the happiest of days.
On the third Sunday of Advent (and the third Sunday of Lent) Father cracks out his rose colored vestments. If you're following along at home, you have an advent wreath to mark the weeks with one pink candle in there.
This is my point here. The road map. Not only do we have the year all mapped out for you to follow along, we have the 'home version' of the game, so to speak.
It's not a game. It's heaven or hell and eternity.
We do everything we can every second to remind you of that. That's why we have the statues of saints to remind you that it is possible to live a holy life in this world and end up in heaven. We have candles to light the way, medals and prayers and rosaries, holy water, songs, shrines, chapels, churches, a saint for every possible problem or situation or occupation or illness, novenas.... I mean seriously, people, we have now included DANCE and PUPPETS.
We have a TV network.
A small country.
An army.
It's exhausting. We don't mind. We offer it up for the Poor Souls in Purgatory.
I'm happy to tell you today, that I found this website. It isn't at all new. I'm sure many of you visit it often. It's new to me. It's the Catholic Calendar web site. It ought to be called the Road Map to Heaven website. There you can find out how to turn your attention on any given day. You can see what color Father will be wearing, what mystery of the Rosary you should be dealing with, what to read in the Bible that day.
Everything but which saint is on what day. Maybe it's on there somewhere and I just didn't see the link.
The point is you can go on there and keep yourself really, really busy as a member of the Church Militant and be up to date on what Father will wear and all of that good stuff. You'll know on which mystery of the rosary you should land. So exciting. You won't want to miss a day.
We unloaded all our Advent bags and candy. Time for our spring cleaning. It's Advent!
6 comments:
you have got to be kidding - with the liturgical dancing.
I have a white t-shirt that says "My other shirt is the proper liturgical colour." It was really funny until I ran into 6 other people wearing the exact same shirt at a weekend retreat.
Sister, who is the patron saint of women who are abused by their husbands?
Another question (I emailed this to an "ask a priest" website and didn't get a response) I was married in the church (definitely a valid marriage, I could not have gotten it anulled) then we stupidly divorced and I got remarried to a man who ended up being a nightmare. My first husband later passed away from cancer, but I did not want to "remarry" my current husband in the church because the marriage is so abusive. Finally, only because I confessed all his physical abuse to our marriage counselor and she told me I was endangering all 5 of my children by letting him live here and I could lose the kids for that, I got the courage to at least separate from him. Is it WRONG to end this marriage, since we were not married in the church and because of all this abuse and fear we were living with? If we are no longer living together, would I be able to start receiving sacraments again, like go to confession and communion?
Kristie asked "who is the patron saint of women who are abused by their husbands?"
Have a look at Santa Rita of Cascia, www.umilta.net/rita.html
Kristie,
In the eyes of the Church you were never really married to the second man at all. So don't hesitate to get yourself a civil divorce for your own legal protection. Then get yourself to confession so you can start receiving Communion again.
Like a good obedient soul that I am, I went to the Catholic Calendar website..... and it does list the saint if there is one for that day. You musta got a day without a saint when you looked!
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