Sanctus Simplicitus

Could You Explain Catholic Practices? By: Rev. Charles J. Mullaly, S.J. Impr. 1937

The Ecclesiastical Year

The first Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of the ecclesiastical year. There is a difference between the ecclesiastical year and the calendar year. Could you explain this difference?

The ecclesiastical year starts on the first Sunday of Advent, while the calendar year begins on January 1. As the season of Advent, or "the coming" of our Redeemer, includes the four Sundays that precede Christmas, the ecclesiastical year may begin as early as November 27 or as late as December 3.

Advent is a season of penance, and of preparation by the Faithful for the spiritual joy of Christmas. It is a time when the Church admonishes us to lifed our hearts to God and to trust in Him who is to free us from our sins. Aas Advent is a season of penance, the color of the vestments used at its seasonal Masses is violet and the altar is not decorated with flowers, except on the third Sunday which is called Guadete, or "Rejoice Sunday," because the Introit of the Mass of that day reminds us of the near approach of our Lord's birth: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice. Let your modesty be known to all men. The Lord is nigh." During this season of penance, as in Lent, the solemn celebration of marriage, that is with Nuptial Mass, ect., is forbidden.

The ecclesiastical year includes fixed and moveable feasts. Many of the fixed feasts of the Church are determined by their relation to Christmas Day: the Feast of the Circumcision, January 1, being eight days after the birth of Christ; the Purification, February 2, forty days after Christmas; while the Annunciation, March 25, is nine months before the Feast of the Nativity. Epiphany,  commemorating the coming of the Wise Men from the East to Jerusalem to adore the Christ Child, is also on a fixed day because of its relation to Christmas.

There are variable feasts which depend upon the changing date of Easter. Ash Wednesday and the feasts of Ascension and Pentecost come earlier or later in the year with the variation of the date of Easter, which rangers from March 22 to April 25. It is easy to remember that Easter is always on the first Sunday following the first full moon after March 21, the beginning of Spring. Our Divine Saviour rose from the dead on the Sunday after the Passover, the Jewish feast commemorating the night when the Lord, smiting the firs-born of the Egyptians, "passed over" the houses of the children of Israel. This Jewish feast was determined by the time of the first full moon after March 21.

Certian days of the ecclesiastical year are marked Rogation Days, while others are noted as Vigils, and still others as Ember Days. A Rogation Day is one of prayer, and formerly also of fasting, insituted by the Church to appease God's just anger at man's sin, to ask Heavenly protection in calmities, and to beg a bountiful harvest. The Rogation Days are April 25, called Major, and the three days, called Minor, are before the Feast of the Ascension.

A Virgil is the day preceding certian feasts and observed as a preparation threfore, and formerly always with a fast attached. The Vigils of Pentecost, Assumption, All Saints, and Cristmas are fast-days, except when the feast falls on a Monday. (*see note below)

Ember Days (Quatutor Tempora, four times) are days of abstinence and fasting at the beginning of the seasons. Their purpose is to thank God for the gifts of nature and, at the same time, to teach us to use the gifts in moderation and to assist those in need. December 13, after Ash-Wednesday, after Pentecost and after September 14.

* Note that the fasting rules for the list of  Vigils was changed by Pope Pius XII in 1957 with his document Motu Proprio.

Sermons of the Cure of Ars
 Sermons for all Sundays and 
Feast Days of the Year Impr. 1901

"Of whom was born Jesus." - Matt. i. 16.

Here, my dear brethren, expressed in a few words, is the most complete praise which could be given to Mary, by saying that of her was born Jesus, the Son of God. Yes, Mary is the most beautiful creature that ever came forth from the hands of fthe Creator. God Himself elected her to be the star  from which His most precious and richest blessings should shine upon all those who place their confidence in her. God presents her to us as a beautiful mirror, in which He is reflected, a perfect model of all virtues. Consequently the Church looks upon her as her Mother, her protectress,, and her powerful helper against her enemies, and she celebrates to0day the happy day on which this lovley start first illumined the earth. Let us, my dear friends, abandon ourselves to a holy joy with the whole church, and contemplate why we admire in this holy Virgin

I.- The model of perfect virtue, and
II.- The mediator between God and mankind.

Give me your earnest attention, for to speak of Mary must touch your hearts, because we are talking of the object of your confidence and love.

I.

My beloved brethren, if it were necessary, so as to inspire you with a loving devotion to Mary, to show you how great is the happiness of those who confide in her, how powerful is her aid, and how numerous the graces and the favors which she can obtain for us- if it were necessary, I say, to prove to you the blindness, and the misery of those who are indifferent, and disregard so good, so tender, so powerful a Mother, I need only refer to the Prophets and the Patriarchs, and all the great things, which the Holy Ghost inspired them to say to her, should be a source of reproach for the little esteem in which we often hold this good Mother. Furthermore, if I were to relate to you how her example was followed by the Saints, we should be moved to lament our blindness, and to revive our confidence in her. In the first place nothing is more capable of inspiring in us a tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin as the first passage which we read of her in Holy Scripture, where we behold God Himself the first One to announce Mary's coming.

When our first parents had the great misfortune of falling into sin, God, moved by their condition, promised that a day would come when a Virgin should be born, and she would bear a Son, by whom the misery caused by their sin would be redressed. In consequence of this, the Prophets have never ceased, time and again, to proclaim for the consolation of the human race, sighing under the tyranny of the evil spirit, that a Virgin would bear a Son, who would be the Son of the Most High, and be sent by His Father to redeem the world, lost by Adam's sin. All the Prophets foretold that she would be the most beautiful creature that had ever appeared upon the earth. They called her the Morning Star, which would eclipse all others by it's radiancy and beauty, and would guide the traveler upon the sea - a perfect model of every virtue.

With justice, therefore, the church in holy joy, says to the Blessed Virgin: "Thy birth, O blessed Virgin Mary fills the whole world with a sweet consolation and a holy joy, because of thee was born this sun of justice, our Jesus, our God, who has taken away from us the curse in which we were plunged by  the sin of our first parents, and filled us with all kinds of blessings." In fact, although the Blessed Virgin wandered in the common path of life, yet the Holy Ghost willed that her soul should be the most beautiful, and the richest in grace. He also willed that her body should be the most beautiful body which had ever appeared upon earth. Scripture compares her to the dawn of morning, to the moon at its full, to the sun at middday. From the time of Adam's fall, the world was covered with terrible darkness. Mary appeared, and, as a beautiful sun, dispersed the darkness, and revived hope. Must not God, dear breathern, have said to Mary, as He did to Moses: "Deliver my people who are groaning under the tyranny of Pharaoh; announce to them that their deliverance is at hand, and that I have heard their prayers, their sighs, and their tears."

O what treasures Mary's birth brings for heaven and earth! The evil spirit trembles with fury and despair, because he beholds in Mary she who is to crush his head. whereas the angels and the blessed make the vault of heaven ring with songs of joy at the birth of a queen who will add new glory to their splendor.

But because God wished to show us that  heaven can only be gained by humility, self-denial, poverty, and suffering, He decreed that the birth of Mary should be accompanied by ordinary circumstances. She was born in a state of weakness, her cradle was moistened with tears like that of other children who, when they are born, seem to foresee the misery to which they will be subjected through life. As the Holy Ghost tells us through the mouth of the prophets: "The day of death is preferable to that of birth." Mary was born in a state of obscurity. Although she was of the race of David, and numbered among her ancestors Patriarchs, Prophets, and Kings - all these honorable ancestors, so much sought after by the people of the world, had passed into oblivion, she had nothing more splendid than virtue, which, in the eyes of men, does not call for much esteem. God had permitted this, so that this birth might be in accordance with that of His divine Son, of whom the Prophets declared that He would have no place of rest to lay His head. If, however, she came into this world so poor of earthly riches, still she is rich in the gifts of Him whos Mother she was predestined to be from all eternity. Do we, said one of her great servants, a saintly Bishop of Geneva, wish to know who this crowned Virgin in the cradle is? Let us ask the angels. They will tell us that Mary infinitely surpasses them in grace, merits, dignity, and in all other perfections. St. Basil tells us that the eternal Father, from the creation of the world until Mary's arrival, had not found a creature who was pur and holy enough to be the Mother of His Son. How often have not the Patriarchs and the Prophets cried out, amid sighs and tears: "When will the happy moment arrive, when the Blessed Virgin shall appear in the world? Blessed the eyes that shall behold this creature who is to be the Mother of the Redeemer of the world!"

II.

It would be impossible, my dear brethren, not to love Mary, if we reflected for a moment upon her affection for us, and the benefits which she never ceases to lavish upon us. "Alas," exclaims St. Bernard, that great servant of Mary, "how blind and miserable are we that do not love so kind and good  a Mother! The world, without Mary's prayers, would long ago have ceased to be, and on account of our sins, have fallen back into chaos." The same Saint tells us that all the graces which we obtain from heaven, pass through Mary's hands. Another Father of the Church tells us: "Mary is like a good parent who is not content with caring for her children in general, but watches over each one of them in particular." If God had treated us as we deserved after many of our sins, we should long ago have been burning in hell. O how many are in those flames who would not be there if they had had recourse to Mary! She would have implored her Son to prolong their lives, to give them time to do penance. If this misfortune has not happened to us, dear brethren, we may thank Mary for it; it is she to whom we really owe it. She throws herself at the feet of her divine Son, and says to Him: "My Son, a little more time for this sinner; perhaps he will amend, perhaps he will act differently than he formerly did" What does she do to avert the wrath of the Father? She points out to Him all that His Son did and suffered, to repair the honor of which He has been deprived by sin. She hastens to remind her Son of everything that she suffered during her life for His sake. "My son," she says to Him every moment, "just a few days longer, perhaps he will amend." O how great is the affection of a mother! And yet there are some who despise her; others not only despise her, they despise by their mockeries all those who have confidence in her! Now, dear brethren, although they have only shown contempt for her, she has, nevertheless, not forsaken them, for were this the case, these mockers would already be in hell.

When we love some one, we are happy to possess his or her picture. It is the same if we love the Blessed Virgin, my dear friends. We consider it an honor and duty to have her picture in our house, to remind us frequently of this good Mother. Furthermore, those parents who are truly Christians should never omit to inspire their children with a tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin. This is the best means to call down the blessings of heaven, and the protection of Mary upon your families.

III.

The Blessed Virgin is not only a dispenser of graces, but also a rampart against the assaults of the evil spirit! Once, when St. Dominic, her great servant, was about to drive the evil spirit out of one possessed, the evil spirit declared, with a loud voice, that the Blessed Virgin was his bitterest enemy, for she brought all his intentions to naught; that without her the world would be without religion, as he would have been able to destroy the Church by schism and heresy. Thus you see, dear brethren what valuable hep Mary is to all who call upon her  in the battle with the archfiend.

It is safe to say that all Christians have a great devotion to Mary, with the exception of those hardened sinners who have long lost their faith, and who wallow in the mire of their passions. The evil spirit strives to hold them in the blindness until the moment of death opens their eyes. Ah, if they had taken refuge in Mary, they would not have fallen into hell as they did!

But, again, my dear friends, it is not enough to honor Mary only with our lips in order to deserve her protection. We must also endeavor to acquire those virtues of which she was such a shining example. We must strive to acquire her great humility. Although she wll knew that God had exalted her to the highest of all dignities, to be the Mother of God, Queen of heaven and earth, she despised no one. She looked upon herself as the least of creatures. We must also aspire to her extraordinary purity, which made her so pleasing to God. Her modesty was so great that God regarded her with delight. We must, my dear friends, detach ourselves from the things of this world, and think only of heaven, our true country. After the ascension of her divine Son, she only languished upon earth. She endured life, indeed, with patience, but she ardently awaited death, which would reunite her with her divine Son, the sole object of her love. How often did she not cry out with the Prophet: "My God, how much longer wilt thou permit my banishment to last? O when will that happy moment come when I shall be united to Thee forevermore? O if you see my beloved, tell Him that I languish with love!" God took her out of this world where she had suffered so much during her long pilgrimage. She died, but it was neither old age nor the feebleness of nature that caused her death, but it was her love for her divine Son. Her first breath had been an aspiration of life; it was proper that her last should be a sigh of love. She knew no fear, because she had never offended God by sin; she had no sorrow, because she was never attached to the things of the world; she signed only for Jesus, and death procured this happiness for her. She beheld Him coming to meet her, with the whole court of heaven, to honr her triumphant entry into heaven. Thus did this holy Virgin fall asleep in the embrace of the Lord; thus did this beautiful star vanish, which had illumined the world for seventy-two years. Thus triumphed over death she who gave birth to the author of all life!

What should we conclude from all this, dear brethren? This, that like Mary we are striving for the same happiness, and that it should be our sole purpose so to strive that we may merit it. This is what I wish you all! Amen.

Sent by a friend by an unknown Author
Second Sunday of Advent 
St. Peter Chrysologus - Bishop, Confessor, Doctor 
J.M.J. 
  
LIFE, LITURGY, AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS 

 
Alex is only seven years old. Nevertheless, Alex is a heretic. His heresy is 
as much a part of him as the Faith is a part of the children who live next 
door to him. This creates a problem for the parents of those children, who 
are concerned that Alex will jeopardize the faith of their children. So they 
work up the courage to talk to Alex's parents. They fear that Alex, steeped 
in the unbelief that characterizes his whole family, will menace the 
innocence of their children and they would like Alex's parents to counsel 
the boy so as to avoid the unthinkable. The parents are accountable for 
Alex's heresy. They have not merely failed to instruct their boy, they have 
positively inculcated in him utter disbelief in the providence, the 
omnipotence, the goodness, the very existence...of...Santa Claus. Alex must 
be instructed to keep his little secret to himself. Because the neighbors 
cannot abide his heresy. 
Come now, you may be thinking. What harm is there in a cute story? Pehaps 
none at all, but then again, consider this: Our Lord tells us that we adults
must have the faith of little children. The child believes what he is told 

because he is a child. If you tell him that reindeer fly or that a fat man 
living at the North Pole makes toys for all the children of the world and 
delivers them on Christmas Eve, he will believe you because he is a child. 
If you tell him that at midnight, in Bethlehem, in the piercing cold, God 
almighty, Creator, Lord and Master of the universe was born into this world 
as a tiny baby, he will believe you because he is a child. 
 
God makes children innocent. He makes them guileless. He makes them 
believing - all the better so that they will believe what their parents tell 
them, especially when they tell them the mysteries and marvelous truths of 
the Catholic Faith. For some strange reason, when our children will most 
readily believe whatever we tell them, we tell them this silly story about 
Santa Claus. They accept the Santa Lie with as much simplicity and faith as 
they accept the truth of Christ's birth in a manger in Bethlehem. 
Side-by-side with the Great Truth of the Incarnation, they believe the Santa 
Lie. 
 
Perhaps you may object to calling it the Santa Lie, but from the point of 
view of a child, what exactly is the difference between lying and 
pretending? We tell him that we pretended about Santa, but not about baby 
Jesus. Why should he believe you in either case? It might even be easier for 
him to believe that reindeer fly than that God Himself was born in a stable 
cave. 
 
The child who trusts, who believes so readily, will not always be a child, 
and he will not always have childlike faith. Our children are growing up in 
a world filled with doubt. Doubt is fundamental to modernism. We all 
recognize Descartes' "I think, therefore I am," but we should also know that 
in Descartes' philosophy he might as well have said, "I doubt, therefore I 
think; I think, therefore I am." Doubt itself is given as the rational basis 
of one's existence. Our culture demands that we doubt, and that we doubt 
absolutely everything. In this climate, it is insane to give a child a 
reason to doubt, and to tell a child the story of the birth of our Lord 
side-by-side with the Santa Lie indeed gives a child a reason to doubt. 
 
The problem isn't in pretending per se. It's in pretending in something that 
detracts from the truth. It's in the juxtaposition of the lie with the 
truth, thereby Âcasting doubt on the truth. Christmas celebrates the fact 
that God has become a man. Isn't this marvel enough? Why do we have to 
invent this story about a man who has become a god? Santa is omniscient. "He 
sees you when you're sleeping; he knows when you're awake; he knows if 
you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake." Santa dispenses 
justice "You'd, better watch out, better not pout, better not cry. I'm 
telling you why..." And if he's not omnipresent, as is God, then he 
certainly has the agility of the angel: The problem is not that we pretend 
that there is a Santa. The problem is that we do so in opposition to the 
Incarnation. 
 
The name of Santa Claus is a linguistic corruption of Sinter Klaas, itself a 
corruption of the name of St. Nicholas in the Dutch language. Yes, St. 
Nicholas was particularly generous to children. He was not fat, however; he 
was thin from fasting, which he did even from his infancy. He wasn't married 
to a Mrs. Claus; he was celibate. He wore red because he was a bishop, but 
he did not wear a red stocking cap. He did not live at or anywhere near the 
North Pole; on the contrary, he lived in Myra (a provincial capital in Asia 
Minor), and his feastday is nearly three weeks before Christmas. This fellow 
we call Santa Claus is not St. Nicholas, but rather is a perversion of St. 
Nicholas. 
 
We all bemoan the commercialization of Christmas. But to say that Christmas 
is commercialized is to stop short of the bigger problem. We should not 
lament the commercialization of Christmas but rather its paganization. It is 
our duty to restore the truly Catholic observance of Christmas, to strip 
away all that is pagan in its celebration. That duty begins in our Catholic 
homes. 
 
Consider that we hesitate to say "Merry Christmas," in order not to offend. 
Rather, we say, "Happy Holidays," or "Season's Greetings." We would edify 
our neighbor if, instead, we were to emphasize the Catholic nature of the 
feast by wishing him "...a blessed and holy Christ-Mass." It is ironic that 
folks have lost the connection between holiday and holiness. 
 
And so begins the holiday season: There's the office holiday party, the 
neighborhood holiday party, the church holiday party and the club holiday 
party. On it goes, from one holiday party to the next, all during what, in 
days of more restraint, was a penitential season. Then we go shopping. Out 
come the lists. Who did we buy what for last year and who bought what for 
us? How much did they spend, and how much did we spend? There's Mum and Dad, 
Gran and Grandpa, Dad's new wife, Aunt Marie, eight other aunts and uncles, 
and the cousins and the brothers and the sisters. We find ourselves with one 
last thing to buy along with all the other nuts 15 minutes before closing on 
Christmas Eve in the Wal-Mart in a blind stupor asking ourselves why we are 
buying this? Why? Because it's Christmas! 
 
A lady at work told me that her Christmas gift budget for her three children 
was $1000 per child. Here's a lady, a secretary, who has to work a long, 
long time to scratch together $3000 after taxes, and I wondered why she just 
didn't quit work and give her kids some of her time as their Christmas 
present. I suppose we do as we must to assuage our guilt. 
 
During the holiday season, the radio stations play this really silly, that 
is to say, secular, Christmas music. Think of it. Secular Christmas music; 
what a concept. The big day approaches. The advertising section in the paper 
grows bigger; the Wal-Mart becomes intolerably more crowded; the suicide 
rate climbs to its annual peak; holiday music saturates the airwaves. Mommy 
is hyper-baking and sending Christmas cards and wrapping presents. Garlands 
are strung out and so are Mom and Dad. Daddy's putting toys together and 
trimming the tree and hanging the lights and putting up decorations, and now 
its Christmas Eve. The tree is wired up with lights and the kiddies are 
wired up on sugar. The camcorder batteries are fully charged and so is the 
MasterCard. The camera is loaded with film and Daddy's a little loaded 
himself. We've been to all the parties, visited all the friends; the 
presents are under the tree; and now it's the dawn of Christmas Day. And 
after so many days of rabid expectation, it all ends in one anticlimactic 
and disappointing morning. How can Christmas ever live up to our 
expectations? As a metaphor of our disappointment, the exalted tree will be 
out on the curb tomorrow morning. 
 
A Protestant work colleague of mine asked once, "What do you traditional 
Catholics do for holidays? Do you celebrate?" I took a moment to reflect on 
how our holy time, our ChristMass, fundamentally and quintessentially 
liturgical, has been appropriated, perverted, and bastardized by usurpers. I 
shook my head and said to him, "Ray, the problem with you Protestant folk is 
that you just don't know how to party." And I thought about how well-ordered 
and sensible the Catholic Liturgy is. 
 
 
We begin our Catholic observance of Christ's birth with the beginning of a 
new liturgical year. We commemorate 4,000 years of longing for the Messias 
with the four weeks of Advent, a time of penance and restraint. We fast on 
Christmas Eve. There are three separate Masses on Christmas Day; one at 
midnight, one at dawn, and one during the day. All that Christmas means 
could never be grasped and commemorated in a single day. That is why the 
Church gives us the Twelve Days of Christmas to celebrate. Beyond these, we 
have the entire Christmastide in which to rejoice. And when the 40 days of 
the Blessed Mother's purification have been completed, we conclude our 
Christmas season with the blessing and procession of Candlemas (February 2). 
 
No matter what our ethnic background, we all have customs and traditions 
associated with Christmas that are uniquely and distinctively Catholic. What 
customs do you observe for Christmas in your homes? Are they distinctively 
and evidently Catholic? Do you have a nativity scene? It should be the 
outstanding feature of our Christmas decorating. 
 
Yes, Christmas has been commercialized, secularized, and paganized, but that 
is not the whole of our problem; it is only one manifestation of our 
problem. Christmas, like the Mass itself, is part of a greater whole. It is 
only one aspect of the Liturgy. Our problem lies in the fact that we have 
ceased to live the liturgical lives of our ancestors. Their every day was 
quickened by the Liturgy, most of it committed to memory. Their thoughts 
flowed from the wellspring of the official prayer of the Church and from the 
psalms, which they chanted freely in the fields and at the hearth. The 
perennial Liturgy, however, has been snatched from us. We have been robbed. 
The first blow came with the Reformation, when monasteries and churches 
throughout Europe fell to the axe of the so-called reformers. Even in 
countries that remained Catholic, the Liturgy was weakened by the 
rationalism that emphasized action over prayer. The final blow came with the 
liturgical revolution wrought by the Novus Ordo Missae. Without the 
monasteries and convents, the Liturgy lost its substance and objectivity and 
no longer overflows to fill our hearts, our homes, and our entire lives. 
 
If we are to understand the solution to restoring liturgical life and its 
holy days, we must first understand the problem. I believe there are five 
distinct aspects of the same problem. 
 
The first aspect of the problem is that those holy days that have survived 
the onslaught are slowly but surely being secularized and perverted, most 
notable among these, I include Christmas, Easter, and Halloween. 
 
The second aspect of the problem is that new, secular, quasi-religious 
feasts have been introduced, which serve as poor substitutes for genuine 
Catholic holy days. These include Mother's Day, Father's Day, Thanksgiving, 
and others. 
 
The third aspect of the problem is that totally secular or even pagan feasts 
have been introduced that celebrate occasions that are not Catholic, or are 
even anti-Catholic, for example, Independence Day, President's Day, Martin 
Luther King Day, and Earth Day. 
 
The fourth aspect of the problem is that countless saints' days, fasts, 
feasts, seasons, and traditions are completely forgotten or ignored. 
Examples of these include the Ember Days and the Rogation Days. 
 
The fifth and certainly the most far-reaching aspect of the problem is that 
the most important and frequently recurring holy day, namely, Sunday, has 
lost its meaning in the modern world. It is routinely desecrated, and in 
practice has become indistinguishable from the other six days of the week. 
Likewise, the holy days of obligation are ignored and desecrated. 
 
The restoration of Christendom will not happen apart from a restoration of 
the Liturgy. Don't hold your breath waiting for your local Ordinary to lead 
processions through the streets of your city for the Rogation Days or for 
the Feast of Corpus Christi. Monasteries and convents are not going to send 
us robust men and women to teach us Gregorian chant. It would be illegal for 
the civil authorities to declare that, as a nation, we will conform the 
patterns of our daily lives to the Liturgy of the Catholic Church. The 
solution will have to come from within the walls of our own Catholic homes, 
and we should begin by examining how we celebrate holy days and holidays. 
Consider a few cases in point. 
 
What a surprise to find, when one looks at the liturgical calendar, that 
Valentine's Day is, well, the Feast of St. Valentine (February 14). A 
wonderful feast it is, and it has been totally trivialized and most likely 
made lustful. Catholics must not lose sight of the fact that Valentine is a 
great saint of God who gave his heart to the Sacred Heart. This is the 
feastday of a martyr who loved his Beloved enough to die for Him, the fact 
to remember in order to give the observance of St. Valentine's Day a more 
Catholic character. 
 
But if St. Valentine's Day has been trivialized, pity poor St. Patrick. With 
the possible exception of St. Nicholas, no saint has suffered so much at the 
hands of the neo-pagans. In 1994, in Boston, the annual St. Patrick's Day 
Parade was canceled because a group of Irish-American sodomites won a State 
Supreme Court battle to be permitted to march in the St. Patrick's Day 
parade there. The US Supreme Court overturned the State Supreme Court ruling 
so the parade was held in 1995, without the sodomites, but not until May of 
that year. How it must pain St. Patrick and all good Irish Catholics to see 
the mockery that is made of his feastday as the tide of paganism once turned 
back by St. Patrick seems to have turned again in its favor. We are justly 
horrified at the desecration that takes place on his feastday, in parades in 
his honor, and in and about the cathedral that bears his name in New York 
City. There are a lot of fun things to do on St. Patrick's Day (March 17), 
but do not neglect to give proper attention to the heroism and sanctity of 
this truly great saint. 
 
The Feast of St. Joseph is especially dear to Italians. His feastday (March 
19) is the authentic Catholic Father's Day among Italians. The custom of the 
St. Joseph's Altar used to be maintained in their parishes and homes. The 
significance of decking out an altar with food and crafts in thanksgiving 
or St. Joseph's intercession in our temporal affairs is now all but gone. 

It is hard to understand what the world has done to Easter. The Easter bunny 
is a bit too goofy even for modern man. (Little Alex has not gotten in 
trouble with the neighbors for divulging the facts about the Easter bunny, 
as he did for his heretical views on the Santa Lie.) I think the problem 
with Easter is not that it has been co-opted, because it hasn't really. 
Likewise, I don't think that the problem is that it has been commercialized 
or paganized, because it hasn't really, at least not to the extent that the 
other holy days have been. I think that the problem isn't with Easter at 
all; the problem is with Lent. That is to say, we just don't make serious 
Lents anymore. It's absolutely true that the satisfaction of our Easter is 
directly proportional to the austerity of our Lent. The postmodern Catholic 
Church gives up meat on Friday and fasts on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday. 
That's all. And that's not very austere. The culmination of the Lenten 
Liturgy occurs during Holy Week and in particular during the Sacred Triduum. 
Now, the rites of Holy Week are opposed by the pagan rites of Spring Break. 
We Catholics used to impose upon ourselves the sweet burden of penance and 
reparation during Lent, sometimes heroically. This included abstaining from, 
among other things, eggs. Come Easter Sunday morning, what else would one do 
with all the hen-fruit but eat it, decorate it, and give it away. Easter 
eggs and the new life cracking its way out of the shell symbolize the 
resurrection and new life that Christ won for us on Easter. Do remember to 
explain that symbolism to your children. Don't have Easter without first 
having Lent and Holy Week. And don't have Lent without having Carnival. The 
Church says to fast well and to feast well, too. 
 
It's May, the month of our Blessed Mother, yet we Catholics are honoring 
earthly mothers. Is this wrong? Surely we traditional Catholics with our 
large families and our heroic mothers should celebrate Mother's Day. But 
there is something wrong with Mother's Day American-style. It is a purely 
secular feast. While it expresses a noble human sentiment, it does so on 
purely a natural level. It does so entirely apart from our Liturgy. Finding 
himself without the religious feasts of the Catholic liturgical year, the 
neo-pagan concocts new feastdays for himself and invests them with a 
non-Catholic, but still quasi-religious, character. When Mother's Day was 
introduced by an Act of Congress in 1913, the reaction of the Catholic 
Church in the United States was to question whether Catholics should 
celebrate the day alongside their Protestant countrymen, precisely for the 
reasons I have mentioned. Catholics better understood their Faith and had at 
least a marginally better sense of the Liturgy and the necessity to resist 
the secularization of culture. Immigrant American Catholics capitulated, 
however, presumably not wanting to appear un-American. In any case, that 
Americans honor mothers and celebrate motherhood one day a year is so 
hypocritical as to be ludicrous. For 364 days a year we denigrate 
motherhood, we despise motherhood and we despise mothers-unless of course 
they have 1.2 absolutely perfect children and full-time jobs. Oh, we like 
single moms, too. And we like the mother that has seven babies all at once. 
We buy her a house and put her on the news every night. But heaven help a 
woman who should have her seven children sequentially. She will certainly be 
subject to abuse, scorn, derision, and ridicule. It has become inconceivable 
that one could suggest that, for a woman to fully realize her womanhood, she 
should be a mother. Why celebrate Mother's Day with a nation that is 
eliminating mothers? What to do about Mother's Day? The answer might be to 
downplay secular Mother's Day. I wouldn't recommend that you stop sending 
flowers to your own mother on Mother's Day unless you have agreed beforehand 
that, in keeping with the Liturgy, there is a more Catholic way for 
Catholics to honor mothers. Two good alternatives come to mind. In many 
countries, even to this day, mothers are honored on December 8, Feast of the 
Immaculate Conception. In other Catholic countries in the past, mothers were 
honored on Laetare Sunday, a day that was known as "Mothering Sunday." In 
the Epistle for Laetare Sunday, St. Paul points out that the Catholic Church 
is a Mother leading us to eternal life. There are many delightful customs we 
must revive for this day, customs that honored our natural mothers; our 
heavenly mother, Mary; Holy Mother Church; and even the mother church of the 
diocese, the cathedral. This is a superior and Catholic alternative to a 
secular sham Mother's Day. 
 
As springtime gives way to summer, we all look forward to fireworks. The 
Fourth of July is the High Holy Day of secularist America, especially so for 
devotees of the goddess Liberty. Let us be reminded that there is no such 
thing as secular. Things are either for God, or against Him, and this 
exalted feast of liberty is anything but for Him. Yet we Catholics eagerly 
celebrate an event (the signing of the Declaration of Independence) that is 
fundamentally anti-Christ, implicitly anti-God, and explicitly 
antiÂCatholic. If you are scandalized by my words, then consider these 
words, written in response to the English Parliament's having passed the 
Quebec Act: 
 
The affair of Canada is still worse. The Romish Faith is made the 
established religion of the land... The free exercise of the Protestant 
faith depended upon the pleasure of the Governor and the Council... They may 
as well establish Popery in New York and the other colonies as they did in 
Canada. Your lives, your property, your religion, are at stake. 
 
These are the words of none other that Alexander Hamilton. He, and the other 
Founding Fathers, used such hyperbole to stir up widespread anti-Catholic 
hatred and bigotry so as to incite the people to break ties with England. 
Much is made of the other four so-called Intolerable Acts, but it was this 
fifth intolerable act that was so offensive to the Founding Fathers. It did 
little more than allow a Catholic in a Catholic land to hold public office 
without having first to renounce his Catholic Faith, which renunciation was 
absolutely required of him in the other colonies and in England in 
compliance with the so-called Test Act. 
 
Perhaps it is unfair to characterize Independence Day with the words of 
Alexander Hamilton, so consider also these words, penned by the author of 
the Declaration, Thomas Jefferson himself, on the 50th anniversary of its 
signing (July 4, 1826): 
 
May it be to the world what I think it will be, the arousing of men to burst 
the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition have persuaded 
them to bind themselves, when the human mind was held in vassalage by kings, 
by priests, and by nobles. 
 
Jefferson understood that the Declaration of Independence was not so much a 
declaration of independence from England but rather a declaration of 
independence from Christendom. We would do well to understand it likewise. A 
cursory reading of nearly all the Founding Fathers will reveal a similar 
hatred for the Catholic Church. 
 
I will leave off the Founding Fathers with these words of Benjamin Franklin 
which are particularly appropriate: 
 
I wish Christianity were more productive of good works and not holy day 
keeping, and long prayers that area despised by wise men. 
 
Roast your weenies, light your fireworks, and go to the parades if you must, 
but when you talk to your Catholic children about July Fourth, stop short of 
canonizing the anti-Catholic Founding Fathers, and do what you can to 
diminish the pseudo-sacred character the day has been given by our national 
mythology. Yes, it is a Catholic's duty in religion to love his country, and 
there is much to love. Look first to honor those who sought to make this 
country truly Catholic: Christopher Columbus, Hernando Cortez, Frances 
Cabrini, Mother Elizabeth Seton, the North American Martyrs, Juan Diego and 
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Juan de Padilla, Junipero Serra, and others. Where 
was the first permanent settlement in the New World? Jamestown, you say, in 
1607? Fifty-six years earlier 1551) Lima, Peru, was already becoming a 
thriving Spanish Catholic cultural capital. As the Jamestown Pilgrims were 
barely surviving their first winter, Spanish Catholics were celebrating the 
42nd anniversary of the founding of St. Augustine, Florida. 
 
Catholics don't have to pass mid-summer without serious merrymaking. 
According to our Lord, it is St. John the Baptist (not Thomas Jefferson) who 
is the greatest man ever born of woman. St. John the Baptist was a martyr, 
and typically it is the day of the martyr's death, and hence his birth into 
eternal life, that we celebrate. But St. John was born without original sin, 
sanctified in the womb by the presence of our Lord. So we celebrate his 
nativity (June 24) with a Liturgy that bears a striking resemblance to that 
of our Lord's Nativity six months earlier. As St. John the Baptist's 
feastday comes at mid-summer, St. John begins to decrease so that our Lord, 
the Light of Whom he gives witness, can increase. Thus, the custom in 
Christendom was to celebrate the feast of the Baptist with bonfires. So go 
ahead, roast your weenies, but roast them on the Baptist's fire. Shoot off 
your fireworks, not to announce the coming of the British, but rather the 
coming of the one who would announce the coming of the Messias. 
 
Christopher Columbus brought Christ and the Catholic Church to a land that 
practiced human sacrifice, yet he is despised by the world as the 
quintessentially evil, white, European, Catholic male. Though their motives 
need purifying, many Catholics, particularly those of Italian descent, 
celebrate the voyages and discoveries of Columbus with great merrymaking. 
Catholics must rejoice that he discovered our land, not because it gave rise 
to the political entity that is the United States of America, but precisely 
because he brought the Catholic Church to our shores. 
 
Soon after Columbus Day, it's time for what used to be All Saints' Day, 
preceded by All Hallows' Eve. Now called Halloween, it is an absolute 
inversion of its original intent. Instead of praying for souls and fearing 
damnation, Halloween is celebrated as though we wish to become among the 
damned. Witches, devils, ghosts, ugliness-these things are satanic and are 
often made to appear cute and benign. But to make evil things cute in no way 
mitigates their evil. On the contrary, it makes all the more insidious. 
 
We must reclaim Halloween. One of the most delightful alternatives is the 
All Saints Party. Rather than dressing up like Power Rangers, Pocahontas, 
Godzilla, anti-heroes, children and their parents dress like saints. The 
secular world will never have as much material to choose from as what the 
panoply of catholic saints provides. 
 
Three or four weeks later and it's Thanksgiving. Just what can possibly be 
wrong with a day given thanking God for his bounty? Consider that 
'Thanksgiving was instituted by anti-Catholic Pilgrims as a reaction to and 
a substitute for the "Christmas of the Papists." The celebration of 
Christmas was made legal and remained so in many states well into the 
1800's. Disregarding its anti-Catholic origins, we should also consider that 
Thanksgiving is a favorite event of the ecumaniacs. This is the day when we 
are to put side all religious differences in order to give thanks together. 
This is a secular, quasi-religious feast that I think ought to be downplayed 
if not ignored in the Catholic home. For Catholics, every holy Mass is a 
thanksgiving. Holy Mother Church gives us the Ember Days as our days of 
thanksgiving. The four Ember leeks coincide with the changing of the 
seasons. We thank God for the gifts of nature and seek to use them in 
moderation. And how does the Church require us to give thanks for the 
earth's bounty? By fasting. Catholics show their appreciation not by 
indulgence, but rather by sacrifice. 
 
If, after the 12 Ember Days, you are still not satisfied that you have 
adequately discharged your debt of gratitude, then consider also observing 
the long-standing and Catholic tradition of giving special thanks for 
harvest bounty at Michaelmas, the Feast of the Dedication of St. Michael 
(September 29). If you insist on observing Puritan Thanksgiving, then at 
least baptize it and make it a Catholic day. Sing the Te Deum, go to Mass, 
teach your children about God's providence. Don't fall for the myth about 
the fun-loving bunch of pilgrims who wanted nothing more than religious 
liberty for all. Every last one of them would have despised you and your 
"Popery." Avoid to sin of gluttony. But better still, give thanks with the 
Church on the Ember Days and on Michaelmas. 
 
The most frequently occurring holy day in the Liturgy is Sunday. We should 
pause perhaps and reflect on how we spent last Sunday. Maybe the Sunday 
before that. Then we should consider this from Exodus: 
 
Remember to keep holy the Sabbath Day, six days you may labor and do your 
work, but the seventh is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. Take care to keep 
my Sabbath, for that is to be a token between you and me, whoever desecrates 
the Sabbath shall be put to death. Six days there are for doing work, but >the seventh day is the Sabbath of complete rest, sacred to the Lord. 
 
But sometimes it happens that our ox ends up in the ditch on the Sabbath 
Day, and we're faced with the necessity of pulling it out. I suppose that if 
this happens every Sunday, we should evaluate where and how we are driving 
our ox. 
 
Have a look at the Wal-Mart parking lot on a Sunday afternoon. It looks 
exactly like the Wal-Mart parking lot on a Saturday afternoon. Can we 
distinguish ourselves from our pagan neighbors in how we observe the Lord's 
Day? Do we find our ox in the Wal-Mart parking lot on Sunday? Apart from 
assisting at Mass and refraining from prohibited activities, what else might 
we do? Prepare for this holy day on Saturday evening, spending half an hour 
as a family reading and discussing the Epistle and Gospel of the coming 
Sunday Mass. If possible, eliminate certain daily chores for the children on 
Sunday. Listen to some liturgical music in the car on the way to Mass. Put 
on your Sunday best as a tangible way of fostering the proper interior 
dispositions. The idea is to set the day apart by sanctifying it with such 
special gestures. 
 
My wife was talking to a Novus Ordo friend recently, someone with whom she 
likes to get in some friendly taunting about the Faith when they talk. Their 
conversation went something like this: 
 
So, Peggy, what are you all doing for the Rogation Days? 
 
The what kind of days? 
 
The Rogation Days. Three days of prayer, fasting and petition. You know, the 
procession-Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday before Ascension Thursday. By the 
way, your kids are in Catholic schools so they'll be out of school for the 
Ascension, right? 
 
Well, actually, no. 
 
You're kidding; why not? 
 
Well, see, there's the problem of child care. A lot of moms have jobs, and 
if the kids are off and both parents have to work, what are they going to do 
with the kids? They try to keep in sync with the public schools so the 
parents can be off when the kids are off. As a result they've used up all 
the holidays. 
 
What do you mean, "they've used up all the holidays?" You mean they don't 
get off for Ascension Thursday but they get off for other holidays? Were 
they off for Martin Luther King Day? 
 
Well, yes. 
 
A Catholic must question all the underlying assumptions here. 
 
First point: What is the father doing working on a holy day of obligation? 
Of course, If there's a buck to be made, his employer won't be closed to 
commemorate the event. But, the father knows that the Ascension is a holy 
day of obligation. Assuming he gets a few days vacation, shouldn't he have 
planned for the occasion? 
 
Second point: What is the mother doing working on a holy day of obligation? 
Same argument. Couldn't she have arranged to have the day off? 
 
Third point: What is the mother doing working when she has school-aged 
children? Perhaps she means to earn a few extra bucks so the family can send 
the children to a "Catholic" school. But there's something wrong when that 
school doesn't have off on Ascension Thursday. 
 
Fourth point: what is the school doing working on a holy day of obligation? 
 
The children, along with their parents and the school, are celebrating 
secular feasts and desecrating genuine Catholic holy days, all with the 
approbation of the Chancery Office. Do you think it is even remotely 
possible, when these kids leave that school and then their homes, that they 
will have any sense of the liturgical year, any notion of what it means to 
be Catholic? 
 
What is true of Sundays is true of the holy days of obligation. The 
distinction is that most of us do not have to work on Sundays. The fact is 
that we probably don't have to work on the holy days either. We can go 
through our calendars at the beginning of the year and mark the holy days 
(those of obligation and otherwise). We can make our plans to take vacation 
for the holy days. What a message this will send to our co-workers, to our 
bosses, and to our children. And, we might even keep our ox out of the 
Wal-Mart parking lot on holy days, too. 
 
As so-called traditional Catholics, we know the way we pray reflects what we 
believe-Lex orandi, lex credendi. Similarly, the way we celebrate reflects 
what we believe, too-Lex convivendi, lex credendi. 
 
The secular, pagan, anti-Catholic world will have its celebrations, its 
feasts, its own diabolical anti-liturgy And what will we do? Will we 
renounce it in favor of the celebrations, the feasts, the commemorations, 
the prayers of the Catholic Church? As it is natural to man to celebrate, 
likewise it is natural to man to use his celebrations to teach. The holy 
days instruct. They teach us and our children. We must decide which lesson 
plan we will use, which curriculum will form the basis of our instruction. 
 
Holy Mother the Church, guided by the Holy Ghost, has sanctioned the pious 
customs of her people. She has integrated them into her Liturgy, and made of 
her Liturgy a whole that speaks to man as God wants us to hear Him-simply, 
as children, united with Christ, in sorrow and in joy, in prayer and in 
song, in fasts and in feasts. Our genuine Catholic holy days must be 
restored. Our genuine Catholic holy days have been replaced by secular, and 
therefore necessarily anti-Catholic festivals. If our Lord Himself tells us 
we are either for Him or against Him, then there is no middle ground. 
Nothing is neutral. Nothing is truly secular. Secular is a myth. Secular is 
a lie. Secular is not for Christ, therefore, secular is against Christ. 
These so-called secular feasts must either be baptized and made Catholic, or 
they must be eliminated from our homes and our lives. 
 
To make our homes truly Catholic we will have to make radical changes. We 
will have to make concerted efforts to rethink and redirect the focus of our 
holiday celebrations. Change is the mantra of the modern world. We're 
constantly reminded that everything must change, that change is the only 
thing that is constant. The destruction of the Catholic Liturgy took change. 
The destruction of Christendom took change. And, the restoration of it all 
will take change, too. A change back. That will take courage, and it must 
begin with the resolution to change, with the resolution to restore Christ 
first to His rightful place in our hearts and then in our homes. 
 
No one can described our current situation better than did the incomparable 
and prophetic Dom Gueranger: 
 
But now for many ages past, Christians have grown too solicitous about 
earthly things to frequent the holy vigils, and the mystical hours of the 
day. Each new generation increased in indifference for that which their 
forefathers in the Faith had loved as their best and strongest food. 
Chanting, which is the natural expression of the prayers and even the 
sorrows of the Church, became limited to the solemn Feasts; that was the 
first sad revolution in the Christian world. 
 
But even then Christendom was still rich in churches and monasteries; and 
there, day and night, was still heard the sound of the same venerable 
prayers which the Church had used through all the past ages. So many hands 
lifted up to God drew down upon the earth the dew of heaven, averted storms 
and won victory for those who were in battle. These servants of God, who 
thus kept up an untiring choir that sung the divine praises, were considered 
as solemnly deputed by the people, which was still Catholic, to pay full 
tribute of homage and thanksgiving due to God, His Blessed Mother and the 
saints. 
 
Then came the Reformation, and at the outset, it attacked the very life of 
Christianity. It would put an end to man's sacrifice of praise to God. It 
strewed many countries with the ruins of churches. The clergy, the monks, 
the virgins consecrated to God, were banished or put to death, and in the 
churches which were spared, the Divine Offices were not permitted. In other 
countries, where the persecutions were not so violent, many sanctuaries were 
devastated and irremediably ruined, so that the life and voice of prayer 
grew faint. Faith, too, was weakened. Rationalism became fearfully 
developed. And now our own age seems threatened by what is the result of 
these evils, the subversion of all social order (Dom Gueranger, The 
Liturgical Year, Vol. 1, "Advent," General Preface). 
 
And thus it has come to pass. 
 
The world is again as universally evil as it was in the time of Noe. The 
Sacrifice of the Mass is disappearing and the "abomination of desolation" is 
at hand. Once again let us listen to Dom Gueranger: 
 
The Liturgy is essentially and intimately connected with the Eucharist." 
Where the dogma of the Real Presence has ceased to be believed, there also 
have the canonical hours ceased and could not but cease [emphasis added] 
(ibid). 
 
We should not be surprised. The majority of Catholics today no longer 
believe in the Real Presence. And "...there also have the canonical hours 
ceased and could not but cease." 
 
Our world is once again pagan. Our world is once again barbarian. It was the 
Liturgy in the monasteries that rescued the world from barbarism into the 
light of the Middle Ages. It will be the Liturgy that rescues us from the 
barbarism of the postmodern age. 
 
The Reformation began with physical violence and attacks on the Liturgy. The 
violence eventually subsided, but the attacks on the Liturgy continued. 
Again, hear Dom Gueranger: 
 
For when the Reformation had abated the violence of its persecution, it had 
other weapons wherewith to attack the Church. By these several countries 
that had continued to be Catholic were infected with the spirit of pride, 
which is the enemy of prayer. The modern spirit would have it that prayer is 
not action. 
 
There were found men who said "Let us abolish all the festival days of God 
from the earth"; and then came upon us that calamity which brings all others 
with it, and which the good Mardochai besought God to avert from his nation, 
when he said: "Shut not, O Lord, the mouths of them that sing to Thee!" 
(ibid.). 
 
The monasteries are silent; the convents are silent; the seminaries are 
silent; and in our churches we are dumb to singing the chant of St. Gregory. 
The festival days of God have been abolished from the earth, and the mouths 
of them that sing to the Lord God of Hosts have been decisively shut. 
 
Imagine that in the time of David, 4,000 men-ÂLevites-daily chanted the 
Liturgy in the Temple, the type for our holy Mass. Imagine that in the time 
of our Lord, four times a day, 500 priests and 500 Levites, forming two 
mighty and magnificent choirs, chanted David's Psalms together. Their entire 
existence was given over to perfecting the singing of the praises of 
Almighty God. In the ages of faith, hundreds of thousands of men and women 
who had consecrated themselves, who had given their very lives to God, paid 
homage at all hours of the day and night to Him, His Mother, and His saints, 
by chanting the Divine Office. This is how the mighty and good God should be 
glorified. 
 
And today? Today, the monasteries, the convents, the seminaries are 
silent-because they are empty. And they will stay silent and they will stay 
empty until we fill them with our sons and our daughters. But our sons and 
our daughters will not go there if they do not understand what it means to 
be Catholic. And they will not understand what it means to be Catholic if 
they do not understand the Liturgy. And they will certainly not understand 
the Liturgy if they have not lived the Liturgy. And they will never have 
lived the Liturgy if they have not lived it in their own homes-in our homes. 
 
This is not about vacuous customs and quaint ways to pass the time during 
the year. This is about war. And not war against flesh and blood, but 
against principalities and powers. We are in the army and the City of God is 
under siege. This is about restoring the edifice of Christendom, one small 
liturgical stone upon the other. This is about having the courage to change 
our lives to make that happen. The restoration must come, by the grace of 
God, beginning in us and in our homes. Christ must reign. Our homes must 
become the monasteries and convents of our age. 
 
With the help of God we must live fully and entirely Catholic lives, not 
secular lives with a few Catholic adornments. We must live the Liturgy. We 
must make our homes schools wherein the Liturgy teaches us our Faith. Our 
Catholic homes must be islands of liturgical beauty in a sea of secular 
ugliness. Our homes must be havens of godly sanity in a world gone mad. Our 
homes must be bulwarks against barbarism, founded solidly on the Liturgy. 
 
God, give us strength. God, give us the courage to restore Thy festival days 
upon earth, to once again open our mouths and sing to Thee. By Thy good 
grace we will fast, we will pray, and we will sing with the Church, 
sorrowfully, and joyfully, and we will feast; we will feast heartily, like 
good Catholics, in anticipation of the heavenly banquet of eternity. 
.

A little late but we needed a new placemat for the season so I designed a 7 Gifts of the Holy Ghost Placemat to replace our Stations of the Cross Placemat from Lenten Season. Print on 11x14 paper at Costco and then laminate, you have my permission to reprint this.

Picture say 1000 words, well coloring pages seem to be equal when it comes to teaching children about religious items. This week we are going to work on explaining the Rosary as our youngest is more than happy to partake of our nightly Rosary with us but rather confused about what beads to hold. Here is a great color page with an explanation on the beads: http://www.christiancoloring.com/cmpdf2005/Coloring%20Rosary.pdf


Here are some links to color pages on each mystery of the Rosary as well:
JOYFUL MYSTERIES 
Annunciation,  the Visitation, the Nativity, the Presentation and the Finding of the Child Jesus


SORROWFUL MYSTERIES
The Agony in the Garden, the Scourging at the Pillar, the Crowning of Thorns, The Carrying of the Cross and the Crucifixion 

GLORIOUS MYSTERIES
The Resurrection, the Ascension, The Decent of the Holy Ghost, The Assumption and the Crowning of Our Lady in Heaven



We are also trying to explain Guardian Angels so we will be going over that this week too. Here are a few links to color pages although none of them really what I was hoping for. 
http://www.catholicparenting.com/Html/Coloring/Guardian%20Angel2.htm



http://www.scribd.com/doc/6148746/Guardian-Angel



http://www.sjtbre.org/docs/Guardian%20Angel.pdf