All Hallows!

Last year we wrote about "Keeping the Hallows in Hallowe'en".  Here are some photos and a video of our festivities this year.  We had a 3-stop "progressive dinner" party with friends - 4 families with 13 kids under 7.  Each stop had a game related to Hallowe'en (the real honoring the saints and mocking evil, not the nihilistic secularized fright-fest version) and candy for the kids.

IHS and St. George on his horse "saint-o-lanterns."  The boys learned about the mess that our souls are because of Original Sin.  Our journey towards sainthood starts with Baptism, when God cleans out the mess and replaces it with the light of Christ.

The winning teacher costume at school - St. Maximilian Kolbe

Pope St. John Paul the Great and St. Juan Diego

St. Lawrence

The Church Militant honoring the Church Triumphant

It's a Christian!

Born on Mother Teresa's birthday, our little Fulton was reborn on her Feast Day, September 5! (How cool is that?!)

As instituted by Jesus Christ, the Sacrament of Baptism has saved him (see 1Pet. 3:21)!  He has been adopted by God and now shares as an heir in the eternal glory of Jesus Christ (see Gal. 4:5-7).   Fulton's covenant relationship with God was ratified at 8:17 A.M. before an all-school Mass with all students and staff on hand.  As circumcision initiated children into the Old Covenant at 8 days old based on the faith of their parents, Fulton was initiated into the New Covenant via Baptism, which replaces circumcision, as taught by St. Paul (see Col. 2:11-12).  These promises have been made to us and our household (see Acts 16:15, 31, 33; 1Cor. 1:16).

Since we celebrate a baptism within our circle of friends quite often, it's easy to forget about these truths, which were taught by our Lord, passed on to his apostles and their successors, and confirmed in Scripture.  The familiarity makes it easy to forget about the magnitude of what actually took place here!

Fulton was the 31st Hoffman, including his mother and grandmother, to wear this 68-year-old baptismal gown made my his great-great-grandmother, with some help from the Carmelite nuns in Louisville, Kentucky.

Some might wonder, why so early?  While we had our first two sons baptized barely within the 40-day window recommended by the Church, those weeks were filled with some anxiety.  But after losing a child before the chance to baptize, the sense of urgency was greatly magnified for us.  This time, waiting 10 days seemed a long time, and we experienced a huge sense of relief on Friday.

The proper sense of urgency has been largely lost by modern Christianity for several reasons.  Part of this loss stems from missing the effects of Original Sin (see Rom. 5:12-19; 1Cor. 15:21-23), which leads to a lack of understanding regarding the necessity of Baptism, even for "innocent" infants (see John 3:5).  Part of this shift in practice also comes from a misreading of paragraph 1261 of the Catechism, which mentions a "hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism."  Notice hope, not certainty.  For more on this misunderstanding, I highly recommend this article from Crisis Magazine:  The Urgency of Infant Baptism by Dr. Jared Staudt.

And to see further questions on infant baptism (an issue close to our hearts for multiple reasons) addressed on a previous post, see this tab.

Please join us in offering prayers of thanksgiving and welcoming Fulton into the family of God!

Bl. Teresa of Calcutta and Ven. Fulton Sheen, pray for us!

A special thanks to his Godparents, Elias and Claudia, and Fr. Brian.

Are you seeing it?

The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ (Corpus Christi) marks the beginning of another set of celebrations in the DCM.  The 24th is the Nativity of John the Baptist, the 27th is the Sacred Heart of Jesus, and the 29th is Sts. Peter and Paul.  Out of 17 solemnities (the highest form of celebration in the Church) in the Liturgical calendar, 4 of them come in these next eight days of late June.  It's good to be Catholic!

In honor of this solemn feast, I wanted to share another great new video by Chris Stefanick at RealLifeCatholic.com.

"For the past two thousand years, since the birth of the Church, Catholics have risked their lives, just to be at Mass.  Beautiful ornate cathedrals have been built, because of what happens inside those cathedrals at Mass.  And I just joined the pope and tens of thousands of Catholics in procession behind the Eucharist, because of what happens at Mass.  What do all these people see at Mass?  If you're not seeing it, you're missing something pretty amazing."  ~Chris Stefanick

So surreal: SAINT JP2!

Less than 4 years ago we named our first born after Pope John Paul II, the man whose life and writings had much to do with our "reversions" back to a life in Christ and His Church.  Living in Denver, we certainly experienced (and continue to experience) the many graces left in the wake of his visit here in 1993.  Also, JP2's teachings on the "Theology of the Body" gave us a deeply rooted view of the human person, powerfully revealing for us who we are and our true purpose.  In short, God used Pope John Paul II and his writings to change our lives.

In naming our son after Pope John Paul II, we had high hopes that he would be declared a Saint someday.  But we had no idea it would be this soon!  Praise God!

Today we had much to celebrate!  After brunch with friends this morning, we had another Easter egg hunt for the Second Sunday of Easter.  We watched EWTN's replay of the Canonization Mass in Rome before praying a Divine Mercy Chaplet and eating our traditional "Divine Mercy Sundaes" to celebrate Divine Mercy Sunday. (Not to mention watching the Blackhawks wrap up their first-round playoff series!)

Kolbe has his game face on.

The Tomb is Empty!

Pictures from our Lent and Easter (so far) in the DCM...

We mark the days of our Lenten journey.

For every sacrifice he made during Lent, John Paul removed a thorn from Jesus' crown.

GOOD FRIDAY:  Soldiers nail Jesus to the cross.

Happy New Year!

Today, we are celebrating New Years Day!  This is the first day of Advent and therefore, the first day of a new liturgical year.  The purpose of the liturgical year is not simply a Church calendar that marks the passage of time.  Rather,  it is to help us celebrate and better understand the mystery of Jesus Christ.  Each season of the liturgical year should be an opportunity to grow in faith and love for our Lord and Advent is the season where we begin this journey.

Advent (which means "coming") has a three-fold purpose where each part is focused on preparing for the coming of Christ.  The first and most obvious part is the preparation to celebrate the birth of Christ.  We celebrate the anniversary of the Nativity on December 25.  This was the first coming of Christ and something we remember yearly.  Additionally, the present coming of Christ is one we can celebrate each day in the Eucharist.  Christ makes Himself present to us through His body and blood at Mass.  We should constantly be preparing our minds and hearts for His coming in this form, as well as receiving it as frequently as possible.  Finally, the "advent" which is maybe the easiest to forget about on a daily basis, is the future/final coming of Christ.  Most importantly, Advent is a chance for us to prepare for this coming, one that we do not know the time of.  We should be using this season as a chance to re-focus and align our priorities with our ultimate goal - joining Christ in heaven as saints.

We do several things during this season to try to "shake up" our usual routines.  Our efforts are made to help ourselves, and our children, better prepare for Christ to come into our lives - in remembrance of the Nativity, daily through the Eucharist, and in His future coming.  Our first effort is made in how we decorate our home.  We alter the interior of our home more during this season than any other because we think this visual change invokes feelings of change inside us.  We take down most of our regular decorations and replace them with ones that celebrate the purpose of this season.  We add purple throughout our home (on our family altar, as a table runner, in the candles we use, etc.) since this is the color that symbolizes a time of preparation.  We have an advent wreath which we light nightly as we eat dinner and pray.  We will add a Christmas tree, nativity, and other decorations on the Feast of St. Nicholas.

Our Advent table runner with our Advent wreath, complete with candles made at Magnificat Moms.

We also are adding a Jesse Tree to our daily Advent preparations.  The purpose of the Jesse Tree is to connect the decorations of a Christmas tree to the historic events which prepare us for Christ's birth.  This tree is named from Scripture (Isaiah 11:1) where it says that "A shoot shall come out of the stock of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots."  Jesse was the father of King David which is the line from which Joseph, Mary, and most importantly Jesus, was born.   Each day we read a story from the Bible that corresponds to an ornament we hang on our tree.  These stories and ornaments tell the story of our salvation history, leading to the birth (and ultimate death) of our Lord and Savior.

This year I got together with some friends to do an ornament exchange.  We each mass produced 2 ornaments for the Jesse Tree.  We shared them with one another at a party and each ended up with 25 unique and beautiful ornaments for our families to use during this time of preparation for our Lord.

Here is our "tree" not yet adorned by ornaments.  We'll add the first one (a branch as a symbol of Jesse from the above reading) later tonight when we pray after dinner.

The tree could easily be re-produced (and probably improved) 

but that cheesy boy is definitely one of a kind.  

Here are all the ornaments.  I have some very talented friends and my favorite part is that so many of them are completely different than how I would've done them.   They are all unique and beautiful; I am grateful to have them to celebrate with my family for many years to come.  

John Paul cannot wait for these all to be on the tree.  

He loves sorting them and looking through each one - over and over.

Keeping the Hallows in Hallowe'en

The saying "Keep Christ in Christmas" has become popular among many Christians today, and praise God for that!  But we think there are several more Christian holidays that need to be reclaimed after being hijacked and sterilized, if not paganized, by secularism.

St. George & the "dragon"

It's also important to keep the Hallows in Hallowe'en.  How many people in our culture have never been taught what this bizarre modern fright-fest is really about?  While the honoring of the martyrs/saints of the faith goes all the way back to the first Christians, the official feast became part of the liturgical calendar in the fourth century.  Then, Pope Gregory IV transferred it from May 13 to November 1 in the year 844.  Since the holy ones are called "Hallowed," the day honoring all the saints in heaven became known as "All Hallows."  The evening, or "e'en," before the feast became "All Hallows Eve," which was eventually shortened to "Hallowe'en."

The history of how we got to what most Americans know as "Halloween" is fascinating, although not easy to decipher exactly what happened.  But even the appearance of demons and the like has Christian roots.  In preparing to celebrate our heroes in the faith, those who have triumphed over death and entered heaven, we can have hope in the same destiny for ourselves.  Thanks to Jesus Christ, we no longer have to be afraid of death or the devil.  In fact, we can even mock death like St. Paul did as he recalled the prophets Isaiah (25:8) and Hosea (13:14) in 1 Corinthians 15:55:  "O death, where is thy victory? O death, where is thy sting?"

Unfortunately, the modern celebration of Hallowe'en has twisted this mockery of evil into a glorification of it.  And that's a big problem!  Fr. Steve Grunow said it best:

"There is a lot that is unsavory about the contemporary celebration of Halloween. What does the singular focus on violence, horror and death have to say about our culture? The traditional, Catholic Halloween placed these realities within the context of Christ’s victory over sin, death and the devil. The current secularized version of the festival has no salvific content and has been loosed from its theological moorings. It looks very much like a festival of death for a culture of death..."

So how should a Christian respond?  How do we be in the world but not of the world?  How do we teach our children the true meaning of Christian holidays?  How do we teach them that living as a Christian isn't simply a negative rejection of evil, but also a positive acceptance of an invitation to joy?  How do we make sure kids don't get the false impression that being a Christian means not having fun?

Of course, with each holiday, there is more than one way to do this.  I know some who send out their kids "trick or treating" dressed as saints, as a way to evangelize.  And I've heard of other great ideas like this one that might be in our future.  The bottom line for Christian parents, I think, is to make sure candy (especially the greedy-grabbing variety), jack-o-lanterns, ghosts, and spider webs don't overshadow Jesus Christ, His saints, and our call to be one of them.

Here's what it looked like for us this year...

J-P-2, We-love-you!

Today we celebrated John Paul's "Name Day," the Feast of Blessed Pope John Paul II.  The Church chose October 22, because it's the date he was officially installed as Pope in 1978.  This is the last time we'll celebrate "Blessed" John Paul II, since he'll be canonized on April 27.  So next year it will be Saint John Paul II.  So amazing!

John Paul picked potstickers (a nice change from his usual choice of hot dogs) for the meal, so Sarah made some of her delicious sesame chicken to go with them.  We were so thrilled to have Father Juan join us for our celebration.

Reading "A Boy Named Lolek" - about a young JP2

Opening his presents

A statue of Pope John Paul II

Wearing his new Bears hat as Fr. Juan blesses his new statue.

Racing Fr. Juan!

Looking at Fr. Juan's ordination pictures

Another Birthday Party

Happy Birthday to Our Mother Mary!
JP picked the balloon; "She likes flowers," he said.  Daddy picked the peanut butter pie.

Celebrating John Paul's Re-Birthday

Celebrating birthdays is always fun.  As a mom I have discovered that the kids birthdays are a really awesome chance for Ryan and I to re-visit the days of their birth as well.  The labor, the delivery, the things we said, the anticipation - it is all extremely fun to remember.

Besides celebrating these events we think it is equally important, maybe more, to remember what we call Re-Birthdays. (Some people call it a Christian Birthday.)  We celebrate the anniversary of their baptism day - the day that they were re-born in Christ.  You can watch John Paul's pre-birth to re-birth video here. 

John Paul was baptized on August 21, 2010 and so on the 21st of August this year we go back to that day.  I showed John Paul his baptism pictures and we talked about his godparents (Tony and Nicole - they are awesome!).  We played with friends in the morning and spent the afternoon making and then flying kites in the backyard.  Dinner was John Paul's choice of hot dogs and french fries and for dessert cupcakes in ice cream cones.

We always re-light their baptismal candles as a sign that Christ still leads and lights our lives every day. We also give a few small gifts as part of our celebration.  This year John Paul got his own copy of The Three Little Pigs (a favorite story that we did not own) and a kids size scapular (which he has been asking Ryan repeatedly for).

This is a pretty accurate depiction of the day.  John Paul running wildly kite sailing behind.  Kolbe "running" dragging his kite behind. 

John Paul was entertained for a long time by flying his kite, Kolbe pretty quickly abandoned the work to look longingly through the fence.

During our rendition of "Happy Re-Birthday To You"

It's awesome to have a child who is so filled with joy over new books to read.

Kissing his scapular before putting it on - just like Daddy does.

Under the Assumption...

We are very fortunate to have a great community of friends and family who are all too happy to help us celebrate an important feast.  Many of our friends have annual feast day parties (Immaculate Conception, Epiphany, Annunciation, etc.) and we decided to add one to the rotation with the the Assumption.

We say this often, but it is worth repeating.  It is not enough to live in a counter-cultural way in our own home.  In order for our children to truly grow in the search of truth, beauty, and goodness they need more than just what happens in our home.  They need to see a whole community that embraces and cherishes their faith.  We have a lot of friends who are raising their children in a similar way and we are inspired by them as individuals and as parents.  Ryan and I grow in our own faith through them and they set an awesome example for our children.

The Solemnity of the Assumption is to celebrate Mary being assumed into heaven, body and soul.  We must suffer death due to sin. but Mary was sinless so her body did not need to be separated from her soul.  To celebrate this and give the kids a tangible way to imagine it, we gave every child a balloon, and after saying a Hail Mary, they released their balloons to float up to heaven and be with Mary (and God, of course!).

It was a blessed celebration for our family, and while it involved WAY TO MUCH sugar for all the children, we are happy to have enjoyed it with some of our favorite families.

Here are some photos of the action:

If this had been all the sweets it probably wouldn't have been bad, but the amount grew exponentially when the party started!

Kids love balloons - end of story!

We got a chuckle thinking of the popular story in the media this same week about the "trend toward not having children."

John Paul and his best little friend processing while singing Alleluia - one is definitely better than the other at singing and as a hint, it isn't my child!

*Friends if you got any great shots we'd love to see them!

Kolbe's Feast Day!

Holding Kolbe's 3rd class relic of St. Max Kolbe,
which was touched to a piece of his beard.

We don't like to miss a chance to celebrate around here, and today was Kolbe's turn.  Today was his "Name Day," as we like to call it, or his patron St. Maximilian Kolbe's Feast Day.

Mama made his favorite, french toast, for dinner, and he got a couple of presents too.

 A new book about guardian angels.

Who's more excited?

Another sword of truth and shield of faith!!! 

Admiring his new shiny weapon to fight evil dragons.

Showing Mama how it's done.

Finally gets his hands on it.

Saint Maximilian Kolbe, pray for us!