Month: September 2019

Michaelmas, Not Autumn

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In the heat of southern Texas, it is hard to believe that Autumn is soon coming. My Pinterest home board is full of autumnal crafts where you shouldn’t need anything but nature lying just outside your door. Sigh . . . I have no colored leaves or pine cones. However, I have discovered a secret and I’ll let you in on it: Michaelmas.  Yes, again, the Church, our mother, who is tasked with nurturing our holy imaginations and providing us the comfort of life rhythms, gives us a celebration on September 29th that is not dependent on where you live. Michaelmas can be a magical day for little children. In our house, we prep for the day. I tell them the story of the Great Heavenly Battle for the whole month of September. Long, long ago, before Adam and Eve sinned, there was a Great Heavenly Battle. . . .  After about a week, my 5 and 3-year olds are play acting the story. Later, I may gently turn their imaginative play into something slightly …

Celebrating St. Michael and All Angels

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As we finish up the Autumn Ember Days, we turn our attention to Michaelmas. When we started this site,  I wrote a little post musing on the question “Why the Church Year? and reflected, The church year means that we don’t accidentally exclude a truth or event that is important for the life of our souls. I remember my first Michaelmas, realizing that I didn’t remember the last time I had thought about angels. My imagination needed Michaelmas to remind me that the cosmic realms are densely populated, not empty, with beings who serve the Lord and us. Ever since I first experienced Michaelmas, I’ve connected it with the wisdom of the church year. I’m grateful to remember the reality of angels — intentionally weeding out what is kitschy and cutesy in my imagination. And, I hope that celebrating the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels with my children helps them to associate the angelic realm with all that is glorious, noble, and courageous. Here is what we’ll be doing: Michaelmas Booklet A few years back, …

Prayer and a Place of Beauty

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Thanks to Anna-Kathryn Kline for this new submission in the vein of our Meaningful Home series.  When she emailed her post, I was delighted for several reasons: 1.) It’s always very fun to receive guest posts 2.) We here are all admirers and fans of Leila Lawler/Like Mother, Like Daughter and 3.) I’ve been meaning to finish a post on The Little Oratory for months. So, clearly, it’s a pleasure to publish this. If you are ever inspired to write something that you think would fit on the Homely Hours, please email thehomelyhours@gmail.com. One of the most appealing aspects for me as we have journeyed towards classical Christianity is the theology of the Incarnation. I grew up with a healthy respect for God’s transcendence, but leaning into His imminence has allowed me to tap into the spiritually thick atmosphere around me. So, you can imagine my excitement when I found a book called The Little Oratory: A Beginner’s Guide to Praying in the Home by Catholic bloggers Leila Lawler and David Clayton. In it, Lawler encourages families to …

Subscribe to the Weekly Guide

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We’ve decided to change the format of our weekly guide (i.e. the posts we put up like this) to an email newsletter. If you want to subscribe, you will receive an email every Sunday morning with the collect and saints of the week. Click here to subscribe. I think we’ll include a very short “Upcoming Dates” section, instead of our “Homely Links.” And then, here on the blog we will have a big monthly post for liturgical living preparation with lots of resources and links. This weekly guide — with only the saints summaries and collect for the week — will be a little detached from the blog, with the idea that some people might just may just want that content without any of the extras.    

The Eleventh Sunday after Trinity

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Collect: “O God, who declarest thy almighty power chiefly in showing mercy and pity; Mercifully grant unto us such a measure of thy grace, that we, running the way of thy commandments, may obtain thy gracious promises, and be made partakers of thy heavenly treasure; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” There are no saints listed for this week in the Ordo calendar, so we’re going to use this post for a few pieces of news. Homely Notes Change in Weekly Guide Format If you follow these weekly guides, please be on the lookout this week for a post about a change of format. For various reasons, we’re going to be moving this weekly guide into a weekly email newsletter. Some of this is just practical: it will be more convenient for me and, I imagine, there are some people who only want to receive the saints and collect of the week (i.e. the other content on this site isn’t very relevant to them). So, we’ll have a sign-up for that email newsletter coming soon. …