Our Lady of the Rosary

Friday was the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary also known as Our Lady of Victory. These titles in reference to Mary come from her intercession during the Battle of Lepanto. This battle is most famous because it was a great Christian victory. Pope Saint Pius V instituted the Feast of Our Lady of Victory to honor Mary and her role in this victory. Later popes renamed it the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary because all of Europe prayed the rosary, led by the pope, all day leading up to a victory that seemed impossible. A small portrait of Our Lady of Guadalupe was also brought into the battle and is also given credit for this huge victory of the Holy League!

The whole month of October is dedicated to the Holy Rosary but it gets extra attention on October 7th. If you have access to Instagram I suggest you check out #Rosaryathon and possibly join us in celebrating this great month. #Rosaryathon is being hosted by @books_for_catholic_teens. I have been having a blast sharing my photos and checking out what others are adding to this photo challenge. 

In honor of of Lady of the Rosary I decided it was finally time to revamp our home altar. I bought new frames for our pictures of Jesus, Mary and Joseph and relocated them directly above the altar. I also added the beautiful print I received in my Little Catholic Box. I am hoping to collect more printables and finally finish my prayer wall I have been working on for months now. I have been collecting cute printables for a couple months but I don't quite have enough to display the way I have envisioned it.

For our special dinner and dessert we enjoyed stuffed pasta boats to symbolize the naval battle of Lepanto and a delicious Rosary cake! The pasta boats were made with angel hair pasta combined with ground turkey, peppers, mushrooms, marinara and cheese. The cake was made with Halloween Funfetti Cake with Caramel Apple icing and fall colored peanut butter M&Ms to create the Rosary. We were all stuffed and still have tons leftover!

Our Lady of the Rosary Novena Prayer:

*A novena can be said at anytime but is normally started 8 days prior to or after a feast day*

My dearest Mother Mary, behold me, your child, in prayer at your feet. Accept this Holy Rosary, which I offer you in accordance with your requests at Fatima, as a proof of my tender love for you, for the intentions of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, in atonement for the offenses committed against your Immaculate Heart, and for this special favor which I earnestly request in my Rosary Novena: (Mention your request).

I beg you to present my petition to your Divine Son. If you will pray for me, I cannot be refused. I know, dearest Mother, that you want me to seek God?s holy Will concerning my request. If what I ask for should not be granted, pray that I may receive that which will be of greater benefit to my soul.

I offer you this spiritual ?Bouquet of Roses? because I love you. I put all my confidence in you, since your prayers before God are most powerful. For the greater glory of God and for the sake of Jesus, your loving Son, hear and grant my prayer. Sweet Heart of Mary, be my salvation.

Amen

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!

{JEI}: Respect Life Month

Welcome to my favorite linkup of the week called Just Enough Info with The Zelie Group. This week we are discussing the theme of October, which is Respect Life Month. In addition to this link up I would suggest you take a look at Instagram and follow the #Rosaryathon. I have so enjoyed participating in the Rosayathon this far and hope to see you join in the fun!

Time to get back to the JEI Linkup and I'd love to introduce you to the other hosts of the Just Enough Info Linkup:

Jessica (myself) – Pinot Noir and Prayers | Instagram | Facebook

Alicia – Sweeping Up Joy | Pinterest | Facebook

Kirby – Under Thy Roof | Instagram | Facebook

Kerry - Fishbowl Fortune | Instagram | Facebook

1. Does your family or parish mark the month in a special way?

October is Respect Life Month but it is also Breast Cancer Awareness Month, ADHD Awareness Month and Spina Bifida Awareness Month which are all important issues in our family. Cancer has taken the lives of several of my close relatives over the years and we have had some Breast Cancer scares. My youngest son is ADHD and I continue to fight for him to get the assistance he needs to cope with his overactive mind and body. I have Spina Bifida. Spina Bifida is a birth defect and cannot be "cured". I had surgery as a child to close the opening in my spine and I have been lucky to not have any complications until now. I think I will save my story dealing with this disability for another time though. 

Back to the question: We do incorporate intentions for the unborn into our family rosary but that is really the extent of anything we have done in the past. This year I plan on doing a Spiritual Adoption because I am on a new fertility journey that I hope leads us to adding a child (and more) into our family. 

As for my parish, I'm not sure yet. We haven't been registered with our parish for even a year yet so we are still learning about all the amazing things they have to offer to us and the community. We were given signs to display in our yards in protest of proposition 106. It would allow physician suicide assistance for the elderly, people with terminal illness and others who are not strong enough to fight for themselves. We should respect all life. God does not make mistakes and although our lives may require suffering, it is ours to endure and part of our story. 

2. Do you have any books or resources to recommend on the Respect Life theme?

I am sad to say that I don't have any books or resources that i could recommend. I am in the process of doing some research for another project that will hopefully help me come across some suggestions if I get asked in the future. I would also love to hear about your suggestions if you have any!

3. What do you wish others understood about the Respect Life message?

I wish that everyone understood that life is a gift. It is not meant to be bad or carry a negative connotation. Unplanned pregnancies, terminal illnesses and so many other unforeseen events that can occur in anyone's life are milestones and crossroads in your life. You can either embrace the things that scare you and face them head on or fight against God's plan for you. As Christians we are asked to embrace the uncertainty knowing that God knows what he is doing. It is when we decide to fight against his plan that things can get messy. I pray that we are all strong enough to put our faith in God and know that his plan is perfect for us and the whole world. Let his will be done.

Well that is my take on Just Enough Info this week. I would love to hear your thoughts! Feel free to use the beautiful picture below in your linkup post if you so desire!

Please Join us and Link Up with your answers to this week's questions about Respecting Life Month (October). Here are the questions:

1. Does your family or parish mark the month in a special way?
2. Do you have any books or resources to recommend on the Respect Life theme?
3. What do you wish others understood about the Respect Life message?

Next week we will be discussing Autumn/Fall Family Fun:

1. Best fall flavor: apple or pumpkin?
2. The leaves are changing colors, and the air is crisp. What are you looking forward to about fall?
3. Do you decorate for the season (and which is it: fall or autumn?)

Feel free to check out the last few weeks of JEI to learn about the link up rules and other fun topics we have already discussed:

{JEI}: The Angel Feasts

{JEI}: Mommy Self-Care

{JEI}: Do Small Things With Great Love

{JEI}: Prayer is the Spirit Speaking Truth to Truth

{JEI}: Back-to-School Edition

Introducing the Zelie Group and Just Enough Info

The Zelie Group has some fun questions coming up in the next few weeks so make sure to follow us on Facebook and we would love to hear what you are interested in! What are you looking to learn about? Do you have questions about the Faith? Questions about the Liturgical Year? We want to help and learn and grow with you and your families!

Saint Faustina: The Saint of Divine Mercy

**This post contains affiliate links. I may be compensated if you chose to purchase something through the links. It will not change the cost to you and would support me and my family. Thank you for your support**

Saint Faustina is most known for her connection with Divine Mercy. Saint Faustina was born in Poland to a poor but religious family. She was the third of 10 children. During a vision where she witnessed the Suffering Christ, Saint Faustina entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy and took the name Sr. Maria Faustina of the Most Blessed Sacrament.

Saint Faustina became God's messenger of of Divine Mercy and began writing a diary that focused entirely on Divine Mercy. On February 22, 1931, Jesus appeared to Saint Faustina and she shared thoughts about Divine Mercy and what would later be the the portrait of Divine mercy.

Resources to help you learn more about this amazing Saint are listed below:

Glory Stories CD Vol 4: St. Teresa of Calcutta & St. Faustina Kowalska

The Story of St. Faustina Kowalska 27-Page Coloring Download

The two links above are listed at a special price on Holy Heroes as Deals of the Day  in honor of Saint Faustina

Divine Mercy Chaplet for Kids

Divine Mercy Craft from Little Ways Blog

Catholic Icing Divine Mercy Craft

Items from Totally Catholic

Diary of Saint Maria Faustina Kowalska

To celebrate today we enjoyed a nice Polish soup I prepared in the crockpot. Kielbasa and Cabbage Soup! Everyone loved it. Ironically enough, the local grocery store was running a "half-way to Saint Patrick's Day" Sale. I've never heard of a Sale like that before but it helped me buy the cabbage at a great price!

2 Links Kielbasa (Sliced)

1 Large Onion (Diced)

1/2 lb Shredded Carrots

1 lb Red Potatoes (Diced)

1/2 Small Cabbage ( Chopped)

1/4 Cup Minced Garlic

32 oz Vegetable Broth (you can use whatever broth you like, this is what I had on hand)

2 Tbsp Parsley (Chopped)

Black Pepper and Salt to taste

Dump all ingredients into the crock pot and cook on low for 6-8 hours or high 4-6 hours. 

We also enjoyed some pumpkin eggnog with whipped cream and pumpkin spice for dessert. It was a nice quiet evening. I hope your celebration was just as good!

Saint Faustina, pray for us!

#WorthRevisit: Divine Mercy Sunday

Today is the Feast of Saint Faustina so I decided to search through the archives and find my post on Divine Mercy Sunday since Saint Faustina is most commonly known due to her correlation with the Divine Mercy picture. I will be sharing our plans for the Feast of Saint Faustina later today but until then here is my post for #WorthRevisit with Theology is a Verb and Reconciled to You.

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Divine Mercy Sunday

Today was the first time in a VERY LONG time that we missed Mass. Circumstances beyond our control but I am still sad we missed the beautiful Chaplet that is normally said after Mass on this special Feast Day, Divine Mercy Sunday. Today also ends the Divine Mercy Novena that was started on Good Friday.

To celebrate today I had the children color a black and white "Jesus I Trust in You" picture from this link here. And I explained the reason this picture is so important and what the colors of the rays coming from Jesus' side. We didn't get to discuss Sister Faustina as much as I would have liked but I think the boys understood the general concept of the day.

Squishy tried eating more crayons than actually coloring so his picture looks a little incomplete. Little Man decided to color Jesus in a rainbow of colors but did color the rays the appropriate colors. I was quite impressed!

We also created the Divine Mercy Statues from Catholic Icing! Little Man was really excited about displaying this in his room.

Little Man already loves the Chaplet for Kids and the Rosary for Kids that we say together from EWTN but we made lacing chaplets from construction paper as we said the Chaplet of Divine Mercy together. He has one more reason to be more excited to say the Chaplet now. 

For our special Divine Mercy Dinner we ate Lasagna and water :o) Very simple but incorporated the colors of red from the lasagna and blue water that poured from Jesus. 

I really liked the idea of Divine Mercy Sundaes from Catholic Icing but I only had sherbet :o) We made sundaes anyways and I think it was a perfect ending to the day. Although the day was definitely incomplete without receiving the Eucharist at Mass or the Chaplet sung afterwards it was a good day. I can't wait to receive Reconciliation this Saturday and feel Jesus' Divine Mercy once again.

Here is the completed crafts hung next to our Alleluia Banner in the Dining Room. They add a lot of Easter flair with all the bright colors don't you think?

Jesus I trust in You!

Have a blessed Divine Mercy Sunday!

Saint Francis of Assisi and the Blessing of Animals

I am a Cradle Catholic otherwise known as someone who was born into the faith and raised within the Catholic teachings. One of my most fondest memories as a child was the Blessing of the Animals. It was always so exciting to have the parish bring all their pets out to the church. Goldfish, ferrets, snakes, spiders, cats, dogs and so much more! The priest would say a beautiful blessing near the statue of Saint Francis and would end would the main event... sprinkling the animals with holy water for their blessing. 

Saint Francis is the patron of animals and a very popular saint. There are some great stories attributed to Saint Francis. First of all, he was born into a wealthy family and was known for being a great fighter on the battlefield. His father was angry at Saint Francis because he returned home before entering into battle after he had a vision that he was to return home to fulfill God's plan for him. There are famous stories about Saint Francis and his intercession with the and the Wolf of Gubbio, rebuilding the church of San Damiano and even stories that he had received the Stigmata.

Today is that special day we celebrate our pets and animal friends! It is the feast of Saint Francis of Assisi and I was disappointed to learn our parish would not be able to host a Blessing of the Animals today so we decided to do one at home. 

As you can see we have three cats and the inclusion of holy water made the boys giggle because as everyone knows... cats HATE water. We have had Lemon since she was a baby and we recently got Shadow and Cloudy for free at a pet store because they were old and the store was told they must be adopted together. They are our sweet little fur babies and we love them all. We found a cute little Blessing online that we used. It was short and sweet and the whole family had a blast... except the cats. After our blessing, they took off running in all directions and I am sure they will be in hiding for the rest of the night. 

In addition to completing a Blessing of the Animals there are some other great ways to celebrate this feast day. We decided to watch The Knight of Assisi: The Story of Saint Francis. It is a great cartoon that illustrates some of the important milestones in Saint Francis's journey to sainthood. It even mentions the prayer that Saint Francis is most known for and I have included it at the bottom of this post. 

There are also several different meals that would be fun to make in honor of Saint Francis. There is some debate whether Saint Francis was vegetarian or vegan but he was neither. He speaks about eating meat for celebrations, especially during the Nativity of Jesus:

“I would like that on Christmas even the walls could eat meat.”

I brought this fact up just to broaden your options to celebrate this special day. I came across a neat idea to make a Tomato Basil Chicken for dinner. You use Grape tomatoes to make them look like lady bugs! Cute idea right? Well I really need to go grocery shopping this week still so I had to use what I had available for dinner. We decided on Turkey Burgers!

I have also seen some cute snack and dessert ideas utilizing animal crackers or teddy grams. We decided to not only treat ourselves but to spoil our fur babies with a new scratching post covered in catnip and a special dinner of soft food. Hopefully the treats will help them forgive us for sprinkling holy water on them earlier in the evening. I hope that you and your families have a great time celebrating the feast of Saint Francis!

Saint Francis Prayer:

Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love; For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.

Saint Francis of Assisi, pray for us!

Menu Plan Monday: October 3- October 9

I am excited to say our crazy schedule should be slowing down in the upcoming weeks. Today was the last soccer game of the season and we only have two weeks left of football before of fall sports seasons are completed. I am hoping that means I will be able to stick closer to my menu plan and not have to use as many back up meals. You know what I mean... those meals that you don't really want on the menu but you make out of convenience. Today was a convenience meal day. We made Vegetable mac and cheese, which sounds way fancier than it is. Vegetable mac and cheese is Velveeta mac and cheese mixed with a bag of frozen veggies.... super fancy I know. The week just snuck up on me! You will probably see some repeats of some meals from last week because I had several back up meals replace what I had planned last week. Here is the rest of my lovely menu for this week's Menu Plan Monday.

Monday:

Vegetable Mac and Cheese

Tuesday: Feast of Saint Francis Assisi

Turkey Burgers

Wednesday: Feast of Saint Faustina

Crockpot Polish Sausage and Cabbage Soup

Thursday:

Stuffed Peppers

Friday: Our Lady of the Rosary

Spaghetti Squash Boats 

Saturday:

Leftovers

Sunday:

Crockpot Chili

Autumn Hometown Hunt: Apple Day

This is going to be my families first "real" Autumn! To clarify, we have lived in Florida the entirety of my children's lives and I have lived in the southern states the majority of my life. Since our relocation to Colorado, this will be our first time experiencing a true Autumn! The beautiful hues of the changing leaves, the crisp wind coming from the mountains, the REAL pumpkin farms and so much more. If you can't tell, I am extremely excited about all this and my family has some serious plans to make this the best Autumn we have ever experienced. We created an Colorado Autumn Bucket List and it is growing every day! Apple Day was not on our original list since I did not learn about it until after I created it but we had a blast!

I came across an event called Apple Day in Penrose, Colorado thanks to a friend and me and the boys decided we just had to go check it out!


Here is a quick summary from the Penrose Chamber of Commerce:

"Penrose, Colorado is called the Gateway to Fremont County. For over 75 years, the people of this hospitable community have proudly been welcoming tourists and locals alike to its annual Apple Day celebration. This event always takes place the first weekend in October and is greatly anticipated by all those who have attended in years past.

Long before Benjamin Franklin penned the phrase, “an apple a day, keeps the doctor away,” people have been enjoying and loving apples. They come in many varieties and colors, and are healthy, crunchy, sweet or tart, and economical.

This celebration commemorating Penrose’s apple crop lasts all day. Start out with breakfast in the park put on by the Volunteer Fire Department! The V.F.W. always has delicious fare, as does the Penrose Senior Citizen's Club and some of the local churches. There are so many events going on, that it is hard to list them all: a softball tournament; a fun run on the Penrose School health trail; plus lots of vendors selling crafts, art, and lots of good things to eat."

Little Man had a football game early Saturday morning so we were unable to arrive in Penrose until the Parades began!

What kind of apple parade would you have if you didn't have some Apple Dumplings?! I was literally overwhelmed by the amount of cuteness in this parade! There were Apple Dumplings and Apple Day Queen! Below are a few pictures I snapped of the elementary school floats:

After the elementary school portion of the parade, the town incorporated many different aspects into the parade. This included a flag presentation (the boys LOVED this because they are new Cub Scouts and are learning the importance of love of God and Country), tractors, fire trucks and even Santa made a debut on a motorcycle! Funny story, Goalie has been singing Santa Claus is Coming to Town for the past few weeks (I am not really sure why but he is my quirky kid that makes me smile) and when he saw Santa he said "Hi" to him then turned to me and said "OK, we can go now." Like he knew Santa would be there? and that was the only purpose of going to Apple Day. I laughed so hard. I hope he keeps that innocence for a very long time. 

After the parade, the amazingly hospitable town give out a traditional FREE slice of apple pie. You can add a scoop of ice cream if you so desire for only $1! The boys weren't huge fans of the Apple Pie but I think that's my fault because it was lightly seasoned and I over season everything! My whole family just prefers being hit with full flavor. Although they wished it had more cinnamon and spices, they finished every bite. But really... who would waste Apple Pie?

In addition to lemonade, pie and an assortment of other goodies, there were also bags of all types of delicious apples you could purchased by the bag including Jonathan, Honey crisp and Gala!

I purchased some Lemonade slushies for us to enjoy with our delicious Apple Pie and we walked along the street and looked at the many vendors that came out for Apple Day. There were so many great arts and crafts on display and there was even a booth to get yourself registered to vote in the upcoming elections. I felt that the town did an amazing job creating such a fun family friendly event. 

Because of the early football game, the boys and I were exhausted after a couple hours of the Apple Day festivities. I wish there would have been a few more kid type events in between the parade and after noon concerts too. The boys had the goal of staying for the evening fireworks but they were ready to go home around 2pm so they could eat and take a nap. This festival definitely got us in the Autumn spirit and we are ready to more Fall activities. 

That was our first experience with Apple Day and it was a fantastic way to start the month of October! I can' wait to share more of the great activities and fall fun we have planned for this Autumn season so make sure to follow me on Facebook and Instagram to get sneak peaks on the fun to come!

God Bless!