In the traditional calendar of the Church, the Feast of the Presentation was the close of the Christmas season. It still is the day for the blessing of church candles, a blessing we have been able to receive for our home altar candles, too, in several previous parishes.
We like to celebrate with lots of candles at dinner, especially our Easter candle, reminding us that Christ is the light of the world. And, of course, a special dinner and dessert. John found a blessing for the meal in Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers. Since Patrick was camping out on his baptism day, he chose the dessert for us: dark chocolate mint cake. He received his baptism day blessing as well.
After dinner tonight we began something new: Sunday Vespers, part of the Liturgy of the Hours. This is something we have prayed as a family a few times, but now we plan to make it the regular closing of our Sunday. We wanted a way to keep Sunday more holy, and this helps us frame the day with the Mass in the morning and the liturgy of Evening Prayer after dinner.
Tommy is a big help in figuring out how to pray this appropriately, as the Reach teams pray morning and evening prayer regularly. So are Magnificat and this book, which I ordered to help us get started.
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