Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Winter Ordinary Time, how shall we spend it?

Happy Tuesday everybody! Still cold here :) but a beautiful, sunny winter day. I was thinking as I was driving into work today about the fact that we are now officially back in Ordinary Time. Yet far from being boring, this beginning segment (if you will) of Ordinary Time is always interesting to me because it varies in length each year depending upon the placement of Easter. This year we have from now until February 18th to savor the non-penitential nature and saint feast days Ordinary Time has to offer. So, even though it isn't a "special" liturgical time the way Advent and Lent are, this period of Ordinary Time has a lot going for it. So, what are my plans (and yours!) for how to spend it?

As I mentioned, there are some rather awesome saint feast days coming up, so the first thing(s) that came to mind are novenas. Keep an eye on the top navigation bar on the blog for what I'll be praying in case you want to join in! :) You'll notice that the current listing is for the novena to St. Francis de Sales, and that starts this Thursday, January 15th! He is the patron of teachers and writers, so lots of great fodder there to work with in terms of intentions. As soon as his feast day rolls around on January 24th, it's time to start another novena, this time St. Blaise (feast: February 3rd), and then Our Lady of Lourdes (feast: February 11th) and I plan to incorporate the kids into both of these, so stay tuned for information!

I'm very excited about all of this, and I will be incorporating in some feast day celebrations with the kids which I will also write about. I have decided that each year (I will try) to set "saint themes" for each child, and select a few other feast days to draw special attention to. I think I can write a whole post just on this whole nerdy saint theme business, so we'll come back to that. ;-) I'll have a big reveal as to who Henry and Anne's theme is for the year, oohhhhh...

*excited!*

But there is one other thing I want to focus on for this stretch of Ordinary Time, and that is Eucharistic Adoration. Over Christmas I started going weekly, and I am quite determined to keep this habit up. What a *difference* it makes in terms of how I feel spiritually and emotionally when I'm able to work this into my weekly schedule. It's almost guaranteed that I won't be able to make it at the same time each week, but just so long as I get it in once per week, I'm a happy girl.

So, those are my goals. How about you? Any ideas for this short stretch of winter Ordinary Time?

I wanted to mention that I have a book review coming tomorrow, a non-fiction title about a man who walked the Camino de Santiago called Humbled by the Journey, a fascinating subject, to be sure. I hope that you'll join me tomorrow to hear more about it!

1 comment:

  1. I love the idea of incorporating more novenas in to the year! We started to this fall but had kind of tapered off, so I definitely want to pick that up again with the family. I also put together a calendar with a feast day picked out for each week, for a saint I want to learn more about with the kids. I'm really hoping I can stick with it this year!

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