Candlemas

I woke up at 5 am with the baby expecting to see a snowy, icy world outside. The forecasters got it all wrong. As I fed the baby and wondered if I should still try to get the kids up and got to Mass at 8 am, I finally decided it would be best to stay home, even though the weather was not a problem. And yet, there was a nagging. Perhaps I could sneak out by myself and go to Confession, which I sorely needed. With the baby back asleep at 6 am, I did some planning and reading at the computer.
The little nagging was still there. I remembered that earlier in the week I had almost given up on celebrating the Feast of the Presentation, when literally, on the verge of the moment of giving up because I was overwhelmed with planning, 4 turtle doves appeared on by back deck. I remember telling my oldest daughter that I took this as Our Lady's gentle nudge to indeed do what I could (and I stress, what I could and maintain sanity) to make the day special.
Suddenly, at just about 7 am, I just made the decision. I got dressed. I got the baby dressed. Off to church in plenty of time for Confession at 7:30 am. I was back by 8:10, before Dave or the kids had even stirred in their beds. The image of having myself "purified", using Our Lady as my model have been with me all day and I have felt so close to Her.

So all my planning granted me a wonderful moment of grace and healing. And as even greater gift, there is mass at 8pm (First Friday) that my Lilly insists on attending as going to Mass was part of our original plan for celebrating. So perhaps we will get my box of votive candles blessed after all.

As for the feast:

• We blessed ourselves with holy water and prayed the collect. Then we lit three floating rose candles, 2 white and 1 red. Also on the table were 2 small white doves from the craft store
  
• Read from Luke about the Presentation. Actually read it from the Catholic Picture Bible, as its paraphrasing would be easier for my younger ones to understand, while still dignified and correct in language.
• Read and talked about the meaning of the feast, its different names, different customs.
• Then, adapting Alice's Liturgical Tea, I made it into a luncheon. We had tomatoes and mozzarella cheese cubes "pierced" with toothpicks, pretzels, rice krispy treats (don't like mallomars and no time to make meringues), bananas (candle-like?) and drank blue (for Mary, Lilly said) kool-aid because no one likes tea. I drank "pure white tea" that I found at the store with a little milk and sugar.
• After some free time, the older kids came back to the table and we did a study of the Presentation Icon, from Katherine (an amazing lady, teaching me soooo much). The kids colored in a blank icon and used the Nunc Dimittis for copy work.
• For dinner...crepes! With raspberries, chocolate sauce, whipped cream...Yummy

So now, I'm off to make crepes so we can be sure to eat in plenty of time before heading to Mass.