Today the Church celebrates the feast of the Nativity of Mary.
In other words, Happy Birthday, Blessed Mother!
One of the things that I talk about in my liturgical year presentation is keeping our feast day celebrations simple so that we actually do them. How simple (and delicious) is baking a birthday treat?
It’s a piece of cake, right?
And then, when you’re gathered around the table, ask the kids what day it is. It’s September 8th, right? Do they know how long a baby is in his/her mommy’s tummy? 9 months, right? Have them count backwards nine months from today’s date and what do they get? December 8th: the feast of the Immaculate Conception.
Pretty cool, isn’t it, that the Church gets it both theologically and biologically?
(Ed. Note: This little trick works with Our Lord’s birthday, too. You do the Math.)
And that’s it! Today’s “little liturgical lesson” was brought to you by Minnesota Mom—you know, the one who’s obsessed with all things prenatal. Have a blessed & beautiful feast, everyone!
Lovely post. We'll be singing Happy Birthday right along with you today (and I'll sing all the other Mary songs I know all day long). And the teenagers will roll their eyes when I say "Everybody blow out the candles!"
But they'll remember.
One of my favorite feasts not only to celebrate Mary, but also it's hubby and my anniversary date. We always celebrate and make it special for Mary's day as well. Today is declared 'Blue' day (everyone tries to wear blue in some fashion) at our house and we are hoping to go to a local parish and enjoy their Mary garden.
I think it's all of these little things that make these feasts fun to celebrate and memorable.
Awwwww love the cake! Especially love the writing. How did you do that? Stencil? Very cool.
I like simple and I like cake! So important to celebrate our wonderful faith.
Wish I could hear your talk!
Thanks for the reminder about this special feast today. I didn't remember it ahead of time, and so we didn't do anything to celebrate, but because I read this earlier I was able to mention it to my kids when they commented on a family all in blue at the library today .
From what I remember, that is actually backwards. The Church, in determining what days they should hold in honor for Our Lord's Nativity and the Annunciation calculated the Annunciation first and the Nativity second. It was theologically determined that the Annunciation should happen on the Passover A.D. 1; as our Lord would be conceived and died on the same Holy Day. Moving forward from there, you end up with Dec 25.
That's what I was taught once anyway.