Friday, December 12, 2014

7 Quick Takes {Take 64} Advent feast days & tons of books! edition...

-1- Happy feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe!


Happy Friday everybody, and a lovely feast day it is. :) When it comes to Feast Day Nerdiness, and my presidency of this particular fan club ;-) I love to use SQPN's saint database. And for Our Lady of Guadalupe, you can read their lovely write up here. Our Lady of Guadalupe holds a strong connection amongst indigenous people in the Americas, and thus I have a strong affinity for Our Lady under this title as well. I absolutely love the deep teal of her cloak, just beautiful. I had it in mind when I crafted a rosary for myself using her as the centerpiece:


Given that I made it, this is a very non-professional job :) but it does the praying trick nicely. I plan to pray with it on my way home from work later.

-2- Pillsbury cinnamon rolls for everybody!

As I mentioned yesterday, tomorrow is the feast of St. Lucy:

Yes, those would be eyes on that plate :0
I was brainstorming for ideas to celebrate the feast with the kids, and the fabulous Deltaflute suggested (as she knows that I am prone to debacles when it comes to baking; I mean, I don't even know how to buy yeast!!) those tubes of cinnamon rolls that one can acquire in the refrigerated area of any grocery store. I mean...GENIUS!! Mike had to run to the grocery store today anyway, and thus he now bears a list that includes "cinnamon roll tube with picture of that doughboy on it!" in my charming scrawl.

:0

That is our breakfast plans for tomorrow, along with coffee, and I'll read the St. Lucy book with the kids.

*liturgical gold star!*

-3- Speaking of liturgical nerdiness...

This Sunday is obviously the third Sunday of Advent, also known as Gaudete Sunday. It means "joy!" and is when we light the rose candle on the Advent wreath. I wrote about it a bit last year over here. :)


I always wondered about that pink candle when I was child, who's with me?! It's different, why is it different? Very curious, indeed. We're at a crucial part of Advent, and the rose candle reminds us to be vigilant, Christmas is near. Here's another interesting factoid: the Third Sunday of Advent is also known as Bambinelli Sunday, and is a day on which children traditionally bring their baby Jesus figures into church to have them blessed by the priest for subsequent placement into the home nativity scene. Lovely, yes? Naturally, the librarian has a relevant book to bring to your attention:


*adjusts bun and glasses*

I reviewed this last year for a Catholic library periodical and loved it. It resides in Anne's personal library and I plan for us to read it this Sunday.

-4- Notice a theme here?

I've always written about my love of the liturgical calendar, but I was thinking that maybe over the course of this next year, I will step that up a bit. I received The Year and Our Children: Catholic Family Celebrations for Every Season for Christmas last year, and I think I'm going to start putting it to good use:


The book chronicles the entire liturgical year, starting with Advent, with ideas for commemorative activities children would enjoy. I'm going to give this a go, and of course I will write about everything here so that we can all share ideas with each other. I actually used this book to do the research on St. Lucy that I wrote about yesterday. You'll see all of this more after the new year, and I'm very excited to share all of this with you!

-5- Lots of fun Catholic-y posts next week

Next week will be my last full week of blogging (although I don't think I will blog next Friday, I'm off that day for a Christmas party) until after the new year. I always take a brief hiatus between Christmas and New Year's Day, and this year will be no exception. The week of Christmas I'll blog the first half of the week, but starting Christmas Eve I'll take a brief respite. But I digress! The point of this take was to say that *next* week I have some great faith posts planned. On Monday, I'll debrief our Third Sunday of Advent, then Tuesday I have a Catholic Nook post planned that I am SUPER excited about regarding Our Lady of the Snows. :0 Wednesday is book club day, see more information on that below in take #6, and Thursday I will be posting December's installment of The Church Triumphant.

#soexcited

-6- Catholic Book Club!

The Catholic Book Club will have two posts coming over the next two weeks. Wednesday 12/17 is our regular, scheduled discussion, which for December is Advent of a Mystery, by Marilyn Leach:


I have also been asked to read and review a historical Catholic novel called A Subtle Grace, by Ellen Gable:


I am nearly three quarters of the way done with this one, and I expect to post a review Christmas week, around 12/23. This is an excellent story, and at the part in the action I'm at now, I'm dying to pick up my Kindle each evening and read more to see what happens!

-7- A final book recommendation before the weekend...

You all might remember a book that I reviewed back over the summer, a Catholic YA title called I Am Margaret, by Corinna Turner. I absolutely LOVED the book and have been dying for book two in the trilogy to be released. Well my friends, the day is here:


The Three Most Wanted is the second book in this series, and the instant Corinna tweeted me that the book was out, I fired up my Kindle and downloaded it. I *cannot wait* to read the next installment in this exciting series! Go back and read my review of the first book and you'll see why. I'll plan to include this in a 2015 edition of the Catholic Book Club.

All right everyone, that's it for this week, and I've certainly given you a large reading assignment. ;-) How are you all planning to spend your third weekend in Advent? Leave comments as you wish, and talk to you on Monday!

Don't forget to check out other 7 Quick Take posts over at This Ain't the Lyceum!

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