Author: thehomelyhours

Family Prayer in the New Year

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Happy New Year! As 2020 begins, perhaps you are resolved to build the habit of morning and evening family prayer in your home. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by options and resources. But, whether you are Anglican or not, if you appreciate the Book of Common Prayer, you can find a simple place to start. The Shortest Form of Morning and Evening Prayer Here is a printable for the most basic form of a family prayer in the 1928 Prayer Book. It contains the Lord’s Prayer, a prayer for morning/evening, and a benediction. (If you own a 1928 Prayer Book, you can find the section on “forms of Prayer to be used in Families” at the very end, after the catechism and before the Articles of Religion). When you click on the printable, you’re probably going to think, “Really, that’s all?” It is indeed very short. But, as the great Anglican Jeremy Taylor said, “I’d rather your prayers be often than long.” Even though it’s short, you’re still praying the “Lord’s Prayer” at least twice …

Advent 2019: Gathering It Together

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“You know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed. The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Romans 13:11-12 As Advent approaches on December 1, I realized it’s time to put together the annual “here’s what we have ” Homely Hours Advent post. This will be our fifth Advent collecting resources for this site. I know we are probably due for some reorganization, but for now, I’m gathering it all together for this post. First, a reminder: there are so many Advent resources available nowadays (it seems much more now than when we started this site 5 years ago!). Our priest, Fr. Wayne, always tells us not to be overwhelmed by anything to do with liturgical living. He says, “we strive guiltlessly.” I wrote this post back in 2016 to poke a little fun at myself and remind myself …

All Saints’ or Reformation Day?

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Thank you to Anna-Kathryn Kline for this reflection on All Saints’ Day. Anna-Kathryn is a military spouse who uses the liturgical year to provide stability and familiarity to her home. She is the privileged stay-at-home mother of three little girls and spends her days rediscovering her childhood by coming alongside her girls in the pursuit of wonder. This is the first year my family will be celebrating All Saints’ Day and I’m really excited about it. And, quite frankly, I’m excited to be excited. For the past few years, October 31st (Reformation Day) and November 1st (All Saints’) have been strange days for me full of new feelings. Our new catholic (lower case) beliefs have given us a strong desire to see the unity of the Church and grief over the lack of brotherly love and unity we see before us: “For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.” 1 Cor. 12:12 “Forbearing one another, and …

If You’re Looking for All Saints’ Ideas….

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All Saints’ Day is coming up on November 1st! I thought it would be helpful to put together a quick post with the resources that we have for the day. Preparing for All Saints’ Last year, I wanted to prepare a little more for All Saints’ — make a bigger deal of explaining why we celebrate this day. So, I wrote a series of daily thoughts to read to my kids in the week beforehand. Here are the topics for each day: What is a saint? (on holiness and wholeness) Lots of Different Saints (on the variety among God’s saints) How to Be a Saint (on The Communion of the Saints and the Beatitudes) Welcoming the Saints (on the question, why do so many saints die for Jesus?) Death and the Saints (on why sometimes it’s not easy to want to be a saint) Dealing with Scary Things and Halloween (self-explanatory) Today is the Day! (on doing small things with great love) If you’re interested, you can download “Welcoming the Saints” here.   Here is …

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 …

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. …

The 10th Sunday After Trinity

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Collect: Let thy merciful ears, O Lord, be open to the prayers of thy humble servants; and, that they may obtain their petitions, make them to ask such things as shall please thee; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Saints of the Week Monday, August 26: St. Louis Born in 2014, the fourth son of King Louis VIII, Louis was crowned King of France at the age of 12 (his elder brothers had all died during his childhood). He married Margaret of Provence, who bore five sons and six daughters and was his strong and loving companion. His life and reign were devoted to God — he prayed the full monastic office every day and night, heard two masses a day, and made confession every Friday. He committed himself to justice and order — outlawing private wars and usury, personally inserting himself into unjust situations. In the midst of splendor and power, he lived austerely, ascetically — it’s said that at one point, he even discussed abdicating the throne in order to become a monk. In …

The Ninth Sunday After Trinity (a bit late)

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Collect: Grant to us, Lord, we beseech thee, the spirit to think and do always such things as are right; that we, who cannot do anything that is good without thee, may by thee be enabled to live according to thy will; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Saints  Tuesday, August 20: Saint Bernard Saint Bernard was born to a noble French family in the year 1090. The third of seven children, his mother’s death when he was seventeen plunged him into despair; only his sister Humbeline was able to bring him out of his depression. He entered the Benedictine abbey at Citeaux at the age of 22, along with 31 others whom he had persuaded to join him. After three years, Abbot Stephen of Citeaux sent Bernard with 12 other monks to found a new branch of the monastery , which he eventually named Clairvaux, or “Valley of Light.” As a leader of the reform within Benedictinism at that time, hundreds of monastic houses were founded using his system of rule. Fr. John Julian states …