“Everything that belongs to the spouse belongs to the bride as well. So also everything that belongs to the Lord, no matter how much it is, He entrusts to you. Yet you do not understand this nor do you perceive your dignity…”
Egyptian monk and hermit
I absolutely love today’s great feast. The thought that Our Lord reigns supreme makes me giddy, because I know—I know—that no matter how we might choose to treat Him…no matter the indifference, the ingratitude, the sin…
He is a king and He loves His subjects.
He rules with dignity, grace and tremendous mercy…and—perhaps most reassuring of all—doesn’t beat us over the head with His jeweled scepter, despite our really needing it at times.
Therefore, in honor of today’s great feast, I’d like to give away two very special books. One is a copy of December’s Magnificat—an extra copy that I bought over the counter because it took them forever to mail me mine, and I worried they hadn’t received my renewal.
There is no way in, well, hell that I’d go through Advent without my beloved Magnificat. Consequently I made a special trip to Leaflet Missal, (“the Jesus store,” my children call it), and then received my copy in the mail two days later.
Doesn’t it figure?
This book makes Advent a rich, rich experience. The daily prayers, the meditations, the O Antiphons come December 17th…well, I love it all and wish the same for you.
So enter the giveaway for a chance to win…and if you don’t win the December issue of Magnificat, (which will come with a complimentary copy of the Advent companion, by the way!), then you might try for the other item in the giveaway, which is a copy of the prayer book, Mother Love.
(I have two.)
(I don’t need two.)
All you need do to enter the giveaway is leave a comment on this post. If you felt truly inspired, though, you could tell us your favorite Advent tradition…because I, for one, would love to hear it.
Oh, and the giveaway will end tomorrow (Monday) at midnight so I can get the books in the mail ASAP. Good luck and have a blessed Advent!
I would LOVE magnificat. I just told DH that I think we should get ourselves a subscription. 🙂 One thing (not sure it's quite tradition yet here) that we like to do is to slowly decorate. We may put the tree up one weekend, the next weekend add garland and whatever "extras". The following weekend we add lights (3rd Sunday in Advent!) and the last Sunday we add the ornaments.
Another one we like to do is get a new ornament that represents the year. One year my son got a frog ornament because he accidentally let the frog go in the house and it went under the fridge. 🙂
Awesome!
My favorite Advent Tradition when I was younger was having Advent Angels. WE kids (there is 9 of us) would draw each others names on the 1st Sunday (sometimes Mom and Dad would be part of this too). Then throughout Advent like Secret Santas would do something special for that person. However we had to be nice to everyone so everyone thought you were theirs. Then on Christmas eve we would guess and get our special gift from our Advent Angel.
Also I enjoyed it when we would have 1-on-1 time with Mom baking in the kitchen. Each of us would pick our favorite type(s) of Christmas cookies to make and make those with her. We would then freeze our cookies after baking them. Then on Christmas they would come out again be our dessert for Christmas (all 12 days). It was so much fun.
My husband would love the copy of the Magnificat and since he doesn't read your blog, I'll enter for him! I just love the simplicity of Advent. I love that we don't decorate until right before Christmas. I love the purple in various spots around our house to remind us of the penitential part of Advent!
We too did Advent Angels at the Catholic School I went to. We all drew names and had to keep them a secret. Then every day your angel would leave a small gift or note at your desk. At our Christmas party we would tell everyone who we had as our angel. It was a lot of fun!
Katie
Hi, I love the Magnificat. My youngest enjoys his junior edition as he learns more about the mass. During advent, we decorate slowly and my children love advent angels. My husband especially loves the feast of St. Nicholas and the children wake up to special surprises from St. Nick on St. Nicholas' feast day. I have especially enjoyed singing in a choir with my daughters for Christmas Mass and this year we are planning to sing at Midnight Mass on Christmas. I can't wait!
I would love the Magnificat. I am an old (59) lady with no children at home. My favorite Advent tradition is hostessing a table at our Advent By Candlelight, this is only the second year, but it is my favorite tradition already.
We used to use the Magnificat but now we use Laudamus Te. It follows the liturgical seasons of the 1962 calendar. Nonetheless, I could use another beautiful devotional. Thank you!
My favorite Advent tradition growing up was lighting
the candles on the Advent wreath every night, and saying our prayers as a family, then one child each night would get to blow out the candles, and another one would get to open the window on the calendar. We do the same for our kids now.
Thanks for a chance to win. Ann
We love the St. Andrew's prayer. I tape copies of it all over the house to help us remember. And The best thing we've done so far is to not do: don't decorate the house or sing Christmas carols, don't go to optional Christmas parties, don't eat those luscious cookies until CHRISTMAS! Then what a feast it is, all 12 days!
My favorite Advent tradition is putting up our outdoor Advent "candles" and lighting one per week. Our elderly neighbor across the street looks forward to it each year as well.
Putting one piece of straw in the empty manger for each nice thing done, every day of Advent, is our favorite tradition. Jesus has a soft place to lay by the time Christmas rolls around.
Stephanie
I love Magnificat but never seem to be able to find a copy when I want one. When I have one even if I don't make it to daily Mass I at least read the prayers and meditations. When I'm done with them I used them in my accent reduction sessions with the foreign seminarians. I find that it helps to read aloud out of something they aren't totally familiar with but still uses the words they will need after being ordained to the diaconate and hopefully to the priesthood.
I am looking forward to our baby due January 1st and to preparing my heart as Mary did. Hopefully I'll get time to do some meditation since we're moving in a week!
We love the Jesse Tree! And reading Scads of picture books too.
Have always loved the penitential seasons. Would really appreciate getting the copy of Magnificat.
We love the jesse tree too!
My favorite Advent tradition is one we created when our daughter was about 2, and was always bugging us to put up the Christmas tree. We decided to wait until "pink candle Sunday." That has become our go-to day to decorate the Christmas tree.
You make me laugh. The only thing we do consistanly is St. Nicholas (you recall my stress post on FB about Advent). I have Mother Love. Isn't it a beautiful little book? Fr. Angelus Shaugnassy did our OCDS retreat a few years back, and he gave me one as a gift. I cherish it!
We love Magnificat as well! Our favorite Advent traditions are the daily opening of the Advent calendar and the Advent candles. I love it when EWTN has the Advent candles displayed on tv, too! We're trying the Jesse Tree this year for the first time. We're recent converts and are loving all the wonderful rich traditions of the Catholic faith.
We do the Advent wreath/candles and I'm hoping to put together a Jesse Tree this year. Another tradition we do is St. Nicholas Day.. we're Dutch, so we kinda have to do that one! 😉
I would love a copy of the Magnificat. This year I'm forcing myself to go through the motions for Advent as my mother died unexpectedly in September…but we will do a wreath and an Advent calendar for the kids. And lots of stories.
We do the advent wreath and Jesse tree. We have O Antiphon ornaments for our Jesse tree. So the last week when we put the ornaments on the tree we sing the verse of O Come Emmanuel together. We like to go to a Christmas tree farm and cut down our own tree too.
We decorate throughout Advent, pull out all of our Advent/Christmas books, bake in preparation for Xmas, set out the Advent wreath and remember to light the first candle, usually forget the next week and then spend some time the following week burning the candles so they look like I didn't forget…again! 🙂
We also live celebrating all the feasts that fall during Advent. (good thing I bopped back over…I commented last night, but it must have gotten swallowed up somewhere).
Blessings to you!
Thanks for the great giveaway! For the past several years we've done "What God Wants for Christmas". It is really sweet! We also read lots of books (so many saints to celebrate feast days in Advent!)and bake, bake, bake!
Best wishes with the arrival of your newest little blessing!
Natalie
My favorite Advent tradition is reading all of the fabulous picture books with my children. We slowly pull them out a few at a time throughout the season. 🙂
My other favorite tradition is the kids filling a manger (small basket) with pieces of hay (yellow felt strips) for small acts of kindness or other good deeds and then baby Jesus appearing in the manger when we return from Mass on Christmas eve. They are so sweet about it and what mother doesn't love a positive incentive for good behavior!
Our favorite traditions are the Advent prayer we pray at meal time when we light our Advent candle(s), and my kids love the Advent calendar that has a piece of candy hidden behind each door 🙂 I am reading all of the great ideas that others shared, and hopefully we can add a few more traditions this year. Blessings on your baby to be arriving soon! I am expecting baby #5 and reading your blog always inspires me that large families really are a blessing (even though it's hard sometimes) 🙂
Well, you know me Maggie and I am absolutely embarrassed to say that I have never read the Magnificat. Please don't judge me! Anyway, we have been very busy wrapping up all of our Advent and Christmas books. Each night the children take turns picking one to unwrap and read. It's a lot of fun. Lots of love to you!
Our favorite Advent tradition is to go to the LaSalette Shrine in Attleboro, MA and walk around the living rosary and see all the beautiful Christmas lights mixed in with all the Catholic statues.
Thanks for the giveaway! 🙂 My favorite Advent tradition (and subsequently it's also becoming my children's) is a calendar which was made by my grandmother. Not an Advent calendar in the truest sense as it only has the days from Dec. 1st to the 24th. Each evening a child takes a turn removing a little scroll of paper (hung up by one of those "eye and hooks") which begins with some age appropriate catechism type questions followed by clues to find a little hidden bag of candy. The clues (and sometimes riddles) have been such fun and most times memorable…..myself and my grown siblings oftentimes say "remember when…." Another favorite would have to be the Jesse Tree. Oh, I'm excited for the Advent season to begin!! 🙂
Thank you for the giveaway! I would love to have a copy of Magnificat, but I already have the wonderful Mother Love prayer book, so don't enter me for that one. My mom relies on that book, and has given away so many copies; I cherish it, too. My favorite advent tradition has become the St. Andrew Christmas novena.
Would love the book! A few of our favorites are:
-Singing while lighting our candles at dinner.
-Reading our Advent Book with beautiful art and a new door to open each day to complete the nativity story.
-The sacrifice manger is always a hit with adding a piece of straw or yarn to a small box(manger) each time we do something nice for someone else.
We sing Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord and then do our Jesse Tree. The kids are already asking about coloring a picture of Mary, Joseph and the donkey. We then will cut it out and watch where they travel around the house on their way to Bethlehem–much better than loosing those Nativity pieces. We celebrate St. Nicholas Day too! Aldi has the gold coins if you are looking. Looking forward to doing the O Antiphons this year. Cheri
Advent is my favorite season! We do so many great things including Advent candles and readings as well as opening the boxes of the playmobile Advent calendars every day in December. This year we wrapped our huge outdoor wreath with purple, purple, pink, purple lights and will light them accordingly.
PS I hope I win!!
Thanks for the giveaway. One of my favorite advent traditions is to light the advent candles while praying the nightly family rosary.
Thanks for the giveaway. I would love the Magnificat for Advent devotions for myself. I would give Motherlove to my daughter who is expecting her first baby. We love to celebrate the feast days during Advent…cinnamon bread shaped into a St. Nicholas, an all-white dinner for the Immaculate Conception, a Mexican dinner on Our Lady of Guadalupe and a Swedish dinner on the feast of St. Lucy.
Patty G.
Margaret,
Thanks for the giveaways. I'd love either the Magnificant or Motherlove.
Our Advent traditions include making an Advent wreath each year from "scratch." We also deliver Christmas baskets through our parish to shut-ins and the elderly.
Love,
Gail
We just started getting Magnificat again through a bulk order. So glad. I'd love the Mother Love book, as I've heard about it for a year or so and never purchased. It sounds wonderful!
Oh, and I think if you draw me for Magnificat you should give it to someone else as my husband and I each have a copy.
Favorite advent idea- simplifying. I'm so tempted to do everything – letters on the mantle, Jesse tree, etc. I'm hoping to just live the liturgy as much as possible, celebrate some feast days, bake cookies, and use Jennifer Miller's Advent calendar at Feast and Feria.
Our favorite Advent traditions are reading our beautiful Advent picture books and lighting the Advent wreath and saying the prayers together as a family every night. I would love to win either one. Thanks so much Margaret!!
Would love to win!
What a fun giveaway! Don't have any tried and true Advent traditions yet as I've been married just 2 months, but… we're hoping to do a bit of spiritual reading and light our advent wreath each night at dinner this year.
Happy Advent to you and upcoming birth of your sweet little one!
Our favorite Advent tradition is making a paper chain…one link for each day in Advent. On each link we write one special thing to do that day…Ask Mom what you can do to help, pray for the souls in Purgatory, do a kind deed in secret, etc.
Amy
A favorite Advent tradition in our household is baking, please don't judge us! We bake for the neighbors and have cookie swaps with the extended family. Growing up we were not allowed to touch a single bake good until Christmas. We sneak goodies now.
Lighting our advent wreath is a close second.
Our favorite Advent tradition is to set up my Fontanini (minus the Holy Family, kings, etc.) and let the kids play with it all Advent. When we get closer to Christmas we'll put out the traveling Mary and Joseph. On Christmas Day my dh reads the Nativity story from the bible and the kids move the figures around accordingly. We've been growing this set slowly for 20 years. It's the one thing we consistently do every Advent
My favorite Advent tradition is the felt advent wreath given to us by my mother-in-law when our first born was…well…born. 🙂 It obviously doesn't light up, but it's oh so little kid friendly. They love taking the candles off & on, talking about what they're for, and I never have to worry about leaving it in the middle of the kitchen table with the littlest one running about!