Fall Celebrations

This weekend was full of celebrations!

Halloween:  Though I normally write a post ahead of time giving you guys some ideas about how to celebrate the festivity in a way that honors God, this year October turned into an unexpected busy month for me.  Thus, I had to postpone my pumpkin carving activity and converting my candy until the actual Halloween day.  On Saturday morning my nephew and I read our traditional children’s story “The Pumpkin Gospel.”  The book takes the pumpkin carving process and turns it into a neat way of explaining how God helps clean us out of the icky we have inside and once clean He pours Himself into us making us shine with happy new faces.  It’s a short read that helps us focus on God in a creative way.

Then we mark our candy with “smile God loves you” stickers so that the kids that come to our doors get a yummy treat and a positive message of God’s love.  The activity can sometimes generate some good spiritual discussion with my nephew, but usually ends with a race on who can put more stickers on the candy (smile).       

All Saints Day: This year the solemnity fell on Sunday so Father asked all the children to come to Mass in saint costumes.  He had them enter the parish in procession during the beginning of the liturgy.  The kids looked fabulous and produced many smiles amongst the community.  During the homily Father asked the children questions about their saints and it was just such a special liturgical celebration full of giggles and laughter.  I could tell the children felt very special and were more attentive during mass they sat together in a special reserved section.  Before the service ended Father gave our little saints a special blessing and again they left the church in procession.  We are blessed to have Father, he’s so creative and extremely passionate about God - his faith is contagious.      

All Souls Day: Today my brother would have had one more birthday- he was born on El Dia de Los Muertos.  Thus, every year my family and I visit the cemetery to remember and pray for him.  Yesterday, after mass we headed to the cemetery to decorate his grave with flowers and to pray for him.  Our Catholic faith through tradition and rituals really help us heal.  Last week I attended a funeral.  After the Catholic Mass, my friend who doesn’t believe in God came over and told me, “You Catholics sure know how to make people cry, I felt a lot of healing during the service.  I couldn’t stop crying.”  I felt so comforted by her words because that’s what brought me back to God and to my Catholic faith the healing and the hope of life after death.  I too have experienced and continue to experience a lot of healing in our beautiful liturgical celebrations.

In our RCIA class we built our altar and had the students place the name of their faithfully departed in small cards to place on the altar and we did a communal prayer for our deceased and I also saw a lot of healing in this small action.  Some of my students cried during the short prayer.  At the end of class one of my students asked me to be his sponsor! I am super excited – last year I had his soon to be wife in my class.  Her experience in the RCIA program was so moving that she enlisted her man this year.  It’s just so awesome to see God in action in the lives of my spiritual kiddos (smile).