November Newsletter
Important Dates
13 - Monthly Sunday afternoon formation gathering
27 - First Sunday of Advent (making Advent Wreaths at morning formation)
New Formation Schedule
We have a new formation schedule beginning in November. Our Sunday mornings will remain the same, with PreK-3rd Grade and 4th-5th Grade meeting in their respective classrooms between the 9 and 11 masses.
Instead of meeting weekly on Wednesday evenings, we will meet once a month on Sundays from 12:45-2:00pm. This month’s meeting will be on November 13th and December’s meeting will be on December 11th.
This new meeting schedule will, I think, provide several benefits after hearing from a few families:
Shift away from busy weekday evenings where many children are already occupied with extracurricular activities and parents are sometimes tied up with work
Allow us to spend more time together rather than being sandwiched between other Wednesday church events
Allow our time together to focus on building up families as a whole and preparing them for the month ahead by providing religious resources, take home activities, recipes connected to feast days, and more.
Preparing for Advent
Advent is almost here! Many years, it sneaks up on us and we enter into this season of preparation already feeling like we are trying to catch up. Set aside some time during this month to begin thinking about how you are going to live into the season of Advent as a family. Discovering this season also paves the way to celebrate Christmas as a season rather than a single day. When Advent is neglected, we often times find ourselves “jumping the gun” and celebrating Christmas in small ways early, so that by the time December 26th comes we are ready to be done with it all! The Advent season forces us to prepare our hearts and minds, which then allows us to rediscover the 12 Days of Christmas (going all the way until Epiphany on January 6). I have listed some resources below to help you start thinking about some Advent ideas for the home. December is a natural time of anticipation for kids. You can build on that anticipation by making this season clearly present in your home with all sorts of rituals and celebrations.
Advent Resources to Begin Planning for
The Advent Wreath
On the first Sunday of Advent, we will have a wreath workshop during our Sunday morning formation time when the kids will have an opportunity to make their own wreath to take home. You may want to use this wreath that your kids make, or you may want to make/buy your own. Whatever the case, start planning on how you will incorporate the wreath into your family’s daily life. The Advent Wreath thrives when it is brought into the home and made a part of each day. Place it at the table where your family usually eats dinner (use Advent as a time to try to eat dinner all together each night!). There are short devotions for each day following the Sundays in Advent that you can use after lighting the candles. I have included the one to use during the first week of Advent since that will occur during November this year.
The First Week of Advent
Leader: Watch, for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning, lest he come suddenly and find you asleep. (Mark 13: 35, 36)
Leader or all together: God our Father, we ask for the light of your peace and love to shine in our hearts and in our world. Help us to prepare ourselves and our homes to receive the Light of the world, our Savior Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, for ever and ever. Amen.
(Then follows the Lord's Prayer and the Collect for the First Sunday of Advent)
If a meal is to follow, the usual grace before meals is said.
The Christmas Manger
An Advent custom I find quite nice is that of Preparing the Manger. On the first day of Advent, an empty manger is placed somewhere in the home (now is the time to buy/make the manger so it is ready to go by November 27th). Each day, the children place a piece of straw in the manger for every act of kindness or sacrificial act that they do as a way of preparing a soft bed for Jesus to sleep in once Christmas arrives. One way of doing this is having them place the pieces of straw before or after they say prayers before bed. This tradition helps connect the good deeds of the children with Jesus Christ, as their good deeds are preparing the place for Jesus to enter into the world! As Advent progresses, the children can see how kind and loving they have been by looking at the manger and how much straw is in it.
Advent Calendars
Advent calendars abound, and there are all kinds nowadays. Begin looking around and find one or two that your family would enjoy. Obviously it is preferred for them to be religious in nature and connected to the birth of Jesus. This is yet another opportunity to introduce rituals into the season of Advent. Opening the next door of the Advent calendar every morning before school or every night before bed helps sacralize this season.
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who settest the solitary in families: We commend to thy continual care the homes in which thy people dwell. Put far from them, we beseech thee, every root of bitterness, the desire of vainglory, and the pride of life. Fill them with faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness. Knit together in constant affection those who, in holy wedlock, have been made one flesh. Turn the hearts of the parents to the children, and the hearts of the children to the parents; and so enkindle fervent charity among us all, that we may evermore be kindly affectioned one to another; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
