Christmas Joy

Time for this. 😊

It's ThanksGiving Day

Now that everybody cooked their turkeys, the side dishes and desserts, is time to seat around the table and give thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving to all the american friends.

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And now lets remember the real First Thankgiving. 

"Blaring trumpets and thundering serenaded Don Pedro Menéndez de Avilés as he waded ashore on September 8, 1565. The Spanish admiral kissed a cross held aloft by the fleet's captain, Father Francisco Lopez, then claimed Florida for both his God and his country. As curious members of the indigenous Timucua tribe looked on, the 800 newly arrived colonists gathered around a makeshift altar as Father Lopez performed a Catholic Mass of thanksgiving for their safe arrival in the newly christened settlement of St. Augustine. At the invitation of Menéndez, the Timucuans then joined the newcomers in a comunal meal.

Some Florida historians have argued that this feast - and not the one held 56 years later by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoags in Plymouth, Massachusetts - was actually North America's First Thanksgiving. It was the first community act of religion and thanksgiving in the first permanent settlement in the land", wrote University of Florida Professor Emmeritus of History Michael Gannon in his book The Cross in the Sand."

https://myfloridahistory.org/frontiers/article/140 

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And to finish this post on Thanksgiving, I can't resist on posting again that wonderful painting of Norman Rockwell on each Thanksgiving because I do like it. More than the perfect American Dream is the Family Christian Dream as it's so beautiful to see the family around the table,  everybody happy, everything nice and tidy. Quite perfect.

Happy ThanksGiving.

Saints of October

So October begins with a lot of strong Saints Feast Days. On the 1 we have St. Thérèse de Lisieux, the French St. Therese, and on the 2 we have the Guardian Angels Feast Day. On the 3 it's the death of St. Francis of Assisi which feast is on the 4.

On the 5 we have St. Faustina Kowalska, to whom Our Lord talked about His Mercy. On the 6 it's St. Bruno day.

On the 7 is the Feast of Our Lady of Rosary. For information about this feast and the Battle of Lepanto read here.

And then it comes the 12 and 13 of October.

On the 12 people venerates Our Lady Aparecida (Brazil) and Our Lady of the Pillar (Spain) commemorating the Apparition of Our Lady to St. James the Apostle in Zaragoza.

Also the 12 it's the eve of the last Apparition of Our Lady in Fátima. There is a big candle procession in the night followed by Mass. People from all the world go there and some even sleep on the street for lack of hotels - and there are plenty !

In the morning again procession and Mass in commemoration of the Apparition and Miracle of the Sun.

The 15 is the Feast day of St. Theresa of Avila, the great.

On the 16 is St. Longinus the Centurian, whose feast can also be on the 15 March.

On the 17 is St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, the Saint of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. St Luke Apostle will be on the 18.

The 22 is the feast day of Pope JPII and also the birthday of one of my children.

On 24 we have the feast of St. Raphael, Archangel who, after the CVII began being honoured together with St. Gabriel and Michael on the 29 September, but who many still honour and will do on the 24 of October.

On the same day we celebrate the feast of St. Anthony Mary Claret.

On the 28 we have St. Jude Thaddeus and St. Simon Apostle.

Obviously there are a lot more Saints with their feast days in October but these are the ones of my special devotion. And, above all, the days of Our Lady and not forgetting that October is the month of the Rosary.

So, there you have it, a kind of post you don't read everyday. 😉

Pink Roses

As it is Friday, here are some of my roses for Floral Friday Photos

and for Anything Goes Pink Saturday

Lourdes, close to Heaven

We went on holidays. As my children say, mum only goes on holidays to places where there  are plenty of churches. That's true. I like the landscape, trees, flowers, nice houses, fresh air but without churches no holiday is good enough for me.

So we went to Lourdes. We has everything booked, plane tickets and hotel, since January - or was it last December ? Anyway, we did it a long time ago. We counted our days and it looked as if there was years before those dreamt holidays in France.

Let me tell you. I went to Paris with my husband in honeymoon, which was like hundreds years ago. The girls never went there or any part of France. England, Spain and Italy several times they did but not France. One of them even went to Morocco and other to Ireland and now it was time to go to France but we didn't go to Lourdes only to go to France, it was the opposite way.

The Catholic world knows Lourdes, if not more, at least the name. It's a town in France, in the Pyrenees, where in the 19th century Our Lady appeared to a girl called Bernadette Soubirous. People interested in the matter can read about it here. It's the recount of the Apparitions. On the history of the place, please go here to know more about it. I can even leave here an excerpt: "Located in the Pyrenees Mountain region of France, Lourdes is the home of one of the most important shrines in the Catholic Faith: the Grotto of Massabielle. Approximately five million pilgrims, of whom a great number are sick or handicapped, come to Lourdes each year. It may be through curiosity, through a desire for a physical cure, in a movement towards belief, or to be of service to those who suffer, that they come to drink the water from the Holy Spring. "

So we went. 

The beauty of its surrounding it's astonishing. Mountains and mountains everywhere we look covered in a delicious green, many times smoothed with fog. The quality of the air and all the beauty around us makes that place a delight for the senses.

And then there is the spiritual side, which makes most people who go there.

I must say that I knew about the Apparitions since I was a child and, as a grown up, I always wanted to go there but the trip was not that easy as we would have to go to Paris and, from there, take the train to the town. But some months ago we had a delightful surprise: direct flights to Lourdes ! We booked at once. And last month we went.

I knew about Lourdes and I even went to interactive maps to know the way to the hotel and to the Sanctuary and all but what I didn't know was what we feel there. I didn't knew what I would feel there ! The strong sense of spiritual is amazing. Only going there we can understand what we feel in Lourdes - and I am used to go to Fátima, so tell be about spiritual !

As Catholics we were so happy to go and we knew it would be wonderful, what we didn't know was that it would be even more wonderful that we could dream. It was like to be in Heaven. The people there, most of them, knew well what they were doing there, they were pilgrims, not tourists. It feels really good to be amongst people like us.

Here we can see the candle procession minutes before its beginning. Every evening at 9 pm there is a Procession with a huge crowd.

Another daily Procession is the one of the Blessed Sacrament from which I almost have no pictures because, due to the most intense sense of the presence of God, I almost haven't took any and the few I have are from the end of the Procession, inside of one of the Basilicas, at the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament and Benediction and from before it started. 

I will leave you mainly with pictures of the outdoors. This crown is the exterior of the cupola of the Basilica of the Rosary. Inside there are fifteen altars with "paintings" representing each one of the Mysteries of the Rosary. I wrote paintings in comas because they are not really paintings, they were made with tiny mosaic. A most astonishing thing !

The church on the right side is called Basilica of the Immaculate Conception. We can see also the dome and entrance of the Basilica of the Rosary on the left. 

Look at those stairs. We climbed it but decided that next time we would go by the ramp !

There are ramps on each side full of statues. In this image we can see Saint Anne and young Our Lady. From here we can have amazing views of the river and surroundings.

The Basilica of the Immaculate Conception and the entrance to the Basilica of the Rosary.

It's unforgetable ! I think I must make another post, another day, so you may see more of Lourdes. And maybe you will want to go there. You will not regret it.

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Inspire Me Monday

Inspire me Tuesday at A  Stroll Thru Life

Travel Tuesday at Intelliblog

Our World Tuesday 

Home and Garden Thursday at A Delightsome Life

Grace at Home at Imparting Grace

A French Hydrangea

 

As I posted before  - and I will post more next days - we went to Lourdes, France for our Summer holidays and it was even better that we could antecipate. There everything is beautiful. Nature is so lush there, everywhere we look we find beauty.

These hydrangeas we found in the garden of our hotel. So pretty, aren't they ?

Joining :
Floral Friday Photos
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My Sunday Best Meme

Solemnity of the Assumption of Mary - 15 August

Altar in Lourdes, France, in the Basilica of the Rosary, made with little mosaics, representing the Assumption of Our Lady to Heaven.

About this Solemnity - https://www.franciscanmedia.org/solemnity-of-the-assumption-of-mary/

On Lourdes I will post something tomorrow or the day after.

Yes, that true - but not this week.

Wait ! It's still Christmas

No, it's not yet time to take the decorations down. Christmas will NOT end till the 6 of January when it will be the Epiphany. That's right, the day when we celebrate the adoration the wise men did to the Infant Jesus and gave to him gold, incense and myrrh.

Then we will take the decorations down, will put the Christmas tree and Nativity scene in the attic or whatever place you keep those things till next December.

We are having a wonderful Christmas, thanks God and we had a very good transition from the old year to the new. The First of January was wonderful too with all the family, parents and sister and brother included, together with in laws and nephew. Thanks be to God.

Such a pity that I was so busy that I completely forgot to take pictures of the wonderful meals. Oh, well, never mind, the important part was that we were happy and giving thanks to Our Lord from Whom all things come.

And now I will leave you with the song of the Twelve Days of Christmas and it's meaning.

“The Twelve Days of Christmas” celebrates the official Christmas season which starts liturgically on Christmas Day and ends twelve days later on the Feast of the Epiphany.
 “My true love” refers to God, “me” is the individual Catholic. 
The “twelve lords a leaping” are the twelve basic beliefs of the Catholic Church as outlined in the Apostles Creed. 
The “eleven pipers piping” are the eleven Apostles who remained faithful after the treachery of Judas. 
The “ten ladies dancing” are the Ten Commandments. 
The “nine drummers drumming” are the nine choirs of angels which in those days of class distinction were thought important. 
The “eight maids a milking” are the Eight Beatitudes. 
The “seven swans a swimming” are the Seven Sacraments.
The “six geese a laying” are the Six Commandments of the Church or the six days of creation. 
The “five golden rings” are the first five books of the Old Testament called the Torah which are generally considered the most sacred and important of all the Old Testament. 
The “four calling birds” are the Four Gospels. 
The “three French hens” are the Three Persons in God or the three gifts of the Wise Men. 
The “two turtle doves” represent the two natures in Jesus: human and divine or the two Testaments, Old and New. 
The “partridge” is the piece de resistance, Jesus himself, and the “pear tree” is the Cross.

http://www.catholic.net/index.php?option=dedestaca&id=3465

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