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On October 4th, the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi - one of the most beloved and recognizable saints in all of Christian history. Known as the founder of the Franciscan Order, Francis embraced a radical way of life shaped by the poverty, humility, and self-giving love of Christ. His devotion to God overflowed into love for the poor, care for those whom society rejected, and delight in the goodness of creation. St. Francis is often remembered today primarily as a gentle lover of animals and nature. While that is certainly part of his story, it can obscure the costly faithfulness at the center of his life. Francis did not simply admire creation or choose a simpler lifestyle. He gave up wealth, status, comfort, and his family’s approval because he wanted his entire life to be conformed to Christ. This year’s feast is especially significant because 2026 marks eight hundred years since the death of St. Francis in 1226, a fitting occasion to look again at the life of a man who took the words of Jesus seriously and allowed them to reshape everything. The Early Life of St. Francis Francis was born in Assisi around 1181 or 1182 into a wealthy merchant family. His father, Pietro di Bernardone, was a prosperous cloth merchant, while his mother, Pica, is traditionally believed to have been of French origin. As a young man, Francis enjoyed all the privileges his family’s wealth could provide. He was charming, generous, fond of fine clothing, and captivated by the songs of the troubadours and the chivalric ideals of knighthood. He spent his youth pursuing pleasure, popularity, and adventure, dreaming of earning glory as a soldier. Even during these years, however, there were signs of the compassion that would later define his life. Francis once encountered a beggar while working among his father’s goods. After initially allowing the man to leave empty-handed, he was overcome with remorse, ran after him, and gave him generously from his own money. His companions mocked him, and his father was furious, but the encounter began to reveal the growing conflict between the life Francis was living and the life to which God was calling him. In 1202, Francis joined Assisi’s war against the nearby city of Perugia, was captured, and spent about a year as a prisoner. During his captivity, he became seriously ill and began to question the ambitions that had once seemed so important to him. After his release, he attempted to return to his former life, but he remained restless and spiritually unsatisfied. Around 1205, after experiencing a dream or vision at Spoleto, he abandoned plans for another military campaign and returned to Assisi. His conversion did not happen all at once. It unfolded gradually through illness, prayer, disappointment, and a series of encounters that loosened his attachment to the life he had once wanted. The Leper Who Changed Everything One of the most important moments in Francis’s conversion came through an encounter with a leper. Francis had always been deeply repulsed by leprosy. Those suffering from the disease were feared, isolated, and forced to live outside the ordinary life of the community. One day, while riding near Assisi, Francis encountered a leper on the road. Rather than turning away, he dismounted, gave the man money, and kissed him. Francis later wrote that what had once seemed bitter to him was changed into sweetness. His encounter with the leper helped him understand that following Christ would require more than generosity from a safe distance. It would mean drawing near to those he feared, touching those society considered untouchable, and discovering Christ among them. Francis began spending time in the leper colonies outside Assisi, caring for the sick, washing their wounds, and sharing meals with them. This was not an additional charitable interest alongside his spiritual life. It became one of the places where his life with Christ took its most concrete form. “Francis, Repair My Church” Another decisive moment came when Francis entered the neglected chapel of San Damiano, just outside Assisi. While praying before an ancient crucifix, he heard Christ speak to him: “Francis, go and repair My house, which, as you can see, is falling into ruin.” Francis initially understood the command literally. He sold cloth and other goods belonging to his father and offered the money to the priest at San Damiano so the chapel could be repaired. The priest, aware of Francis’s father and the questionable source of the money, refused to accept it. The incident intensified the conflict between Francis and his father, who expected his son to continue the family business. The dispute eventually came before the bishop of Assisi. In a dramatic public act, Francis returned not only his father’s money but also the fine clothing he had received from him. The bishop covered Francis with his own cloak as Francis renounced his inheritance and placed himself completely under the care of God. Francis then began living as a beggar, praying, serving lepers, and rebuilding ruined chapels around Assisi with his own hands. Over time, he came to understand that Christ’s command to repair His Church meant something larger than restoring stone buildings. Francis’s entire life would become part of God’s work of renewing a Church that had grown wealthy, divided, and too often distant from the poor. Francis’s Call to Holy Poverty Francis embraced poverty not because he believed material things were evil, but because he wanted nothing to stand between him and complete dependence upon God. He was especially moved by Christ’s instructions to His disciples to take nothing for their journey and to go out preaching the Kingdom of God. Francis adopted a rough tunic, tied it with a simple cord, and began traveling through the countryside to preach repentance, peace, and the love of God. He called poverty “Lady Poverty” because he saw it as a path to freedom - by possessing nothing, he hoped to become free to receive everything as a gift from God and to give himself without reservation in return. His poverty was not simply an exercise in self-denial. It was an attempt to imitate Jesus, who was born in poverty, lived without earthly power, associated with the rejected, and gave Himself completely for the life of the world. Founding the Franciscan Order and the Poor Clares As Francis’s reputation for holiness spread, other men began asking to join him. In 1209, Francis and his small group of companions traveled to Rome to seek the approval of Pope Innocent III for their form of life, drawing their rule primarily from the words of Jesus in the Gospels. The pope eventually gave them verbal approval, and they became the Order of Friars Minor - commonly known as the Franciscans. The name, meaning “lesser brothers,” expressed Francis’s desire that they take the lowest place rather than seek status or authority. The brothers traveled from town to town, preaching the Gospel, serving the poor, caring for lepers, and depending upon the generosity of others for their daily needs. In 1212, a young noblewoman named Clare of Assisi left her wealthy family to follow the same Gospel way of life. With Francis’s guidance, she established a community of women devoted to prayer, poverty, and service - originally called the Poor Ladies and later known as the Poor Clares. Francis and the Sultan In 1219, during the Fifth Crusade, Francis traveled to Egypt and crossed the battle lines to meet Sultan al-Kamil, the Muslim ruler of Egypt. Francis went with the desire to preach the Gospel, knowing that the journey might cost him his life. The Sultan received him, listened to him, and allowed him to remain for a period of time before Francis returned safely to the Christian camp. Francis’s Love for Creation Francis’s willingness to cross enemy lines to speak with the Sultan was of a piece with his broader vision - that every human being, and indeed every creature, bears the mark of its Creator and deserves to be met with reverence and love. This vision found its most beautiful expression in the Canticle of the Sun, also known as the Canticle of the Creatures, which Francis composed near the end of his life while suffering from illness and failing eyesight. Written in the Umbrian language rather than scholarly Latin, the hymn praises God through Brother Sun, Sister Moon, the stars, wind, water, fire, and Mother Earth. Francis addresses the elements of creation as brothers and sisters because they share with us the same Creator and depend upon His goodness for their existence. The Canticle is not ultimately addressed to nature. It is a song of praise to God: “Most High, all-powerful, good Lord,Yours are the praises, the glory, the honor, and all blessing.” Francis’s love for creation flowed from his love for the Creator. He understood that the world belongs to God and that human beings are not its absolute owners but fellow creatures called to receive it gratefully and care for it faithfully. The Anglican priest William Henry Draper later adapted the Canticle into the beloved hymn “All Creatures of Our God and King.” Francis’s love for animals also inspired many legends. One tradition tells of a wolf that was terrorizing the town of Gubbio - Francis confronted the wolf, made peace between the animal and the townspeople, and persuaded the people to feed it. Another describes Francis preaching to a flock of birds, urging them to praise God for the feathers, wings, food, and freedom their Creator had given them. Whether speaking to people or animals, his message remained the same: the goodness of God and the praise owed to Him by everything He had made. The Christmas Celebration at Greccio Another enduring part of St. Francis’s legacy is the tradition of the nativity scene. In 1223, Francis wanted the people near Greccio, Italy, to experience the humility and poverty of Christ’s birth more tangibly. He arranged for a manger filled with hay to be placed in a cave, with a living ox and donkey nearby. There were no statues or costumed figures. Instead, the people gathered on Christmas Eve carrying candles and torches, and Mass was celebrated over the manger. Francis, who was a deacon, proclaimed the Gospel and preached about the birth of Christ. The celebration allowed the people to see with their own eyes something of the poverty into which the Son of God had entered, and it connected the mystery of the Incarnation with the Eucharist - the Christ who was laid in the manger at Bethlehem continues to give Himself to His people as the Bread of Life. The Christmas celebration at Greccio inspired the nativity scenes that now appear in Christian homes and churches throughout the world, making it one of Francis’s most quietly enduring gifts to the Church. The Death of St. Francis By 1226, Francis’s health had deteriorated severely. He was nearly blind and suffered from several painful illnesses, yet he continued to praise God and called even death “Sister Death” in the final verses of the Canticle of the Creatures. As Francis approached death, his friend Lady Jacoba came to visit him, bringing a burial cloth, candles, incense, and Francis’s favorite almond cookies. Francis asked to be laid on the bare earth, and the account of Christ washing His disciples’ feet was read aloud. Surrounded by his brothers, he died on the evening of October 3, 1226, at the Portiuncula - the small chapel that had become the heart of the Franciscan movement. Franciscans continue to commemorate his passing on October 3 with a service called the Transitus, meaning “passage,” before celebrating his feast on the following day. Francis was canonized in 1228, less than two years after his death. Ways to Celebrate the Feast of St. Francis at Home Attend a Blessing of the Animals. Many churches invite people to bring their pets to receive a blessing in remembrance of Francis’s love for God’s creatures. It is also a beautiful opportunity to thank God for the animals entrusted to our care. Read the Canticle of the Creatures. Read Francis’s great hymn of praise together, noticing that every part of creation directs our attention toward its Creator. You might also sing “All Creatures of Our God and King,” which was drawn directly from the Canticle. Here’s a sweet digital download I created for you to print out and read - Serve Someone in Need. Francis’s life was shaped most deeply not by his affection for animals but by his sharing of Christ among the poor, sick, and rejected. Volunteer at a local shelter or food pantry, make a donation, visit someone lonely, or find another simple way to serve a person in need. Care for Creation. Spend time outdoors, take a nature walk, work in the garden, pick up litter, refill a bird feeder, or care for an animal. Use the time to thank God for what He has made and consider how your family can exercise better stewardship of His creation. Read books about St. Francis. There are so many great children’s books about St. Francis. HERE are my favorites. Set Up or Plan Your Nativity Scene. Francis’s Christmas celebration at Greccio gives us a wonderful reason to begin thinking about the family nativity before Advent arrives. You might choose a new figure, repair an old set, or tell your children the story of how this beloved tradition began. Eat Almond Cookies. According to Franciscan tradition, Lady Jacoba brought Francis his favorite almond cookies as he lay dying. the recipe - St. Francis’ Almond Cookies 1 3/4 cups whole almonds 1 cup sugar 2 Tablespoons flour 1/8 teaspoon salt 4 large egg whites 1 teaspoon almond extract 1/4 cup sliced almonds Toast whole almonds in a 300° oven for five minutes. Cool. Place in a food processor with sugar, flour, and salt. Process until finely ground. In a separate bowl, whisk egg whites to loosen them up. Add everything except the sliced almonds, and stir thoroughly until it forms a dough. Use a teaspoon to scoop the dough onto the baking sheet, leaving at least an inch between the cookies. Drop by teaspoonfuls on parchment-covered baking sheet 1″ apart. Sprinkle with sliced almonds. Bake at 300° for 20 to 25 minutes.

The Feast of St. Francis of Assisi is coming up on October 4th. St. Francis of Assisi holds a special place in Christian history. St. Francis of Assisi is known for his radical love for God, giving away everything that he had to live in poverty and to serve those in need. He is also known for his love for all God's creations. His unwavering faith and love for Jesus have made him an enduring symbol of devotion. One of my favorite ways to celebrate the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi is with children's books on St. Francis. Reading books about the saints is such an easy and fun way to help our children learn about our faith's heroes. They are a powerful teaching tool to help children understand who the saints were and why they are important. Today, I am sharing some of my favorite books about St. Francis. I hope they are a blessing! 1. Brother Francis of Assisi by Tomie dePaola Tomie dePaola, a master storyteller and illustrator, weaves the enchanting tale of St. Francis in a way that is accessible and captivating for young readers. Through vibrant illustrations and simple yet engaging storytelling, children will journey with Francis from his days as a carefree young man to his transformation into a humble and devoted servant of God. This book brilliantly captures the spirit of Francis and his message of love and compassion. 2. Brother Sun, Sister Moon by Katherine Paterson Katherine Paterson, renowned for her storytelling, brings St. Francis's profound connection with nature to life in "Brother Sun, Sister Moon." This beautifully illustrated book introduces children to the saint's unwavering belief in the interconnectedness of all living things. As they follow the poetic narrative, young readers will discover the wonders of creation and the importance of stewardship, making it a perfect choice for nurturing a love and care for nature. 3. Saint Francis and the Animals by Phil Gallery In "Saint Francis and the Animals," Phil Gallery offers a heartwarming exploration of St. Francis's extraordinary affinity for animals. This delightful book invites children to join Francis in his encounters with creatures great and small, emphasizing the message of kindness and respect for all living beings. Through engaging text and vivid illustrations, young readers will learn valuable lessons about empathy and the beauty of coexisting harmoniously with the animal kingdom. 4. The Prayer of St. Francis illustrated by Giuliano Ferri "The Prayer of St. Francis" is a timeless classic that introduces children to the profound prayer attributed to the saint. Illustrated by Giuliano Ferri, this book beautifully illustrates the words of St. Francis's prayer, encouraging young hearts to embrace its wisdom and embody its values of peace, love, and selflessness. Through the serene and evocative illustrations, children will gain a deeper understanding of the prayer's significance in the saint's life and its enduring relevance today.

In my previous post, I shared the history, meaning, and biblical background of the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, along with delicious recipes for Blackberry Hand Pies and Roast Chicken to mark the day. If you missed it, be sure to go back and read that one first, it’s packed with theology, Scripture, and practical ways to understand who the angels are and why we celebrate them. Now, let’s keep the celebration going with a few more fun and meaningful traditions, perfect for gathering your family, engaging your kids, and connecting your table with the life of the Church. Read about angels in the Bible Read about the different angels in the Bible: Revelation 12, Ezekiel 10, Revelation 8, Luke 2:13-15, Genesis 19:1, Psalm 91:11, Matthew 24:31. Light sparklers or fireworks In San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, Michaelmas is joyfully celebrated with La Alborada, a pre-dawn festival (4 a.m.!) filled with fireworks, music, and processions honoring St. Michael as defender of the light. Bring the tradition home: Surprise your kids with a sparkler walk at dawn (or dusk!) Light candles and sing a hymn to start the day Enjoy a sunrise breakfast together as a celebration of light overcoming darkness Bake an Angel Food Cake Angel food cake is a perfect dessert for the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels. Top it with seasonal blackberries in honor of an old Michaelmas legend, which says that blackberries turn bitter after the feast because Lucifer cursed them when he fell from heaven and landed in a blackberry bush. Bake Traditional Scottish Bannocks In Scotland, bannocks - simple, round barley or oat cakes - were baked for Michaelmas. They symbolized sustenance, blessing, and the turning of the seasons. Make your own: Bannocks are quick to whip up and perfect for kids to help with. Serve warm with butter, jam, or honey for an easy, rustic breakfast or snack. Here’s a great recipe. Slay the Dragon! One of the most iconic images in Scripture comes from Revelation 12: St. Michael battling the dragon, a symbol of Satan and the forces of evil. This moment captures the spiritual warfare that continues even now, and the victory we have through Christ. Make it fun for kids: Create or buy a dragon piñata. Let children “slay the dragon” in the backyard with a baseball bat or stick. Talk about what it means for Michael to fight for us still today. Sing “Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones” This hymn is a powerful chorus of praise, joining our voices with the angels and saints: “Alleluia, angel choirs above are raising,Cherubim and seraphim, in unceasing chorus praising…” Perfect for family prayer time, morning devotions, or even while baking together. Tip: If your family enjoys singing, try teaching one verse each year and build your hymn knowledge slowly over time. Let’s Get Ready Together Celebrating Michaelmas in our homes gives us an opportunity to recover a feast that Christians once knew and observed well. The blackberries, bannocks, hymns, and other traditions are so fun, but they also help us remember what the feast teaches: that God created far more than what we can see, that the angels continually worship and serve Him, and that every power opposed to God remains under His authority. However you choose to celebrate, I hope Michaelmas helps your family see the world a little more as Scripture describes it and gives you another occasion to praise God for the whole of His creation, both seen and unseen. the recipe - Heavenly Angel Food Cake 1 1/2 cups plus 1 Tablespoon sugar 1 cup cake flour (no cake flour? See note at end of the recipe for a substitution) 12 egg whites, at room temperature 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 1/4 teaspoon almond extract 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar Preheat oven to 325ºF. Do NOT grease the angel food cake pan.Put sugar in a food processor and pulse about 15 times until the sugar granules are finer. Sift flour with 3/4 cup of the sugar. Set aside. In a large bowl, use the whisk attachment to whip egg whites, extracts, and salt until it becomes a bit frothy. Add cream of tartar and whip until the mixture forms soft peaks.Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1/4 cup at a time, while the mixer is running. Continue beating until the mixture is glossy, smooth, and holds a stiff peak. In three additions, sift the flour/sugar mixture over the top of the beaten egg whites and carefully fold. Once incorporated, spoon batter into the pan. Run a knife or a thin spatula through the batter to break up any air pockets. Smooth the top with the back of a spoon.Bake for 35–40 minutes, or until the top is lightly golden and cracked, and the cake bounces bake when lightly touched.Cool the cake upside-down in the pan, using a bottle in the center, the attached feet that are part of some pans, or handles balanced on something sturdy. Let cake cool completely, about 2 hours.Run a knife along the edge and center tube of the cake. Invert onto a cake plate and give the cake a few good shakes. If the cake does not release, repeat the steps. Cut with a serrated knife and serve with whipped topping. Cake Flour Substitution For 1 cup of cake flour, sift together 14 Tablespoons of all-purpose flour with 2 Tablespoons of cornstarch. Sift one more time.

St. Michael by The Master of Belmonte On September 29, the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels, traditionally known as Michaelmas (pronounced MIK-uhl-mus), a shortened form of “Michael’s Mass.” This is the day the Church sets aside to honor St. Michael the Archangel, captain of the heavenly armies, and to celebrate the ministry of all the angels, those powerful and awe-inspiring creatures who worship God and carry out His purposes in heaven and on earth. For many Christians, this feast can feel unfamiliar or even a little uncomfortable. Angels have been so distorted by popular culture, and the biblical teaching about the unseen world so often ignored or sensationalized, that we may not know what to make of a day devoted to them. Some worry that honoring angels distracts from the worship of God, while others associate them with sentimental decorations or strange spiritual speculation. But Michaelmas is not about worshiping angels or becoming preoccupied with them. It is about praising God for His whole creation, seen and unseen, and recovering a biblical understanding of the mysterious beings who worship and serve Him. Although Michaelmas is unfamiliar to many Christians today, it was once one of the great landmarks of the year. During the Middle Ages, it was observed as a holy day when Christians attended Mass, and because it fell near the end of harvest, it also became an important marker in the agricultural and civic calendar. Rents were paid, accounts were settled, workers were hired, university and legal terms began, and families gathered for a traditional meal. Even the autumn term at universities such as Oxford and Cambridge is still called Michaelmas Term. As the days shortened and winter approached, the Church celebrated St. Michael’s victory over the dragon and remembered that, however real the powers of darkness may be, they remain subject to the power of God. Why Do We Call Him “Saint” Michael? The title saint might sound strange when it is applied to an angel, but the word simply means “holy one,” someone set apart for the purposes of God. We most often associate the word with holy men and women, particularly those formally recognized by the Church. However, the Church has long used the title for Michael because he is one of God’s holy angels, entirely devoted to His worship and service. Why Celebrate Angels? When we celebrate the angels, we are not worshiping them. We are joining the Church in thanking and praising God for everything He has created, including these mysterious and mighty beings who faithfully serve Him. Throughout Scripture, angels bring messages from God, guide and protect His people, war against evil, carry out His judgments, and continually worship before His throne. What the Bible Really Says About Angels Much of what popular culture has taught us about angels bears little resemblance to what we encounter in Scripture. The angels of Scripture do not resemble the chubby, winged babies floating sweetly on clouds that we often see in art and decorations. Biblical angels are startling, mysterious, mighty, and frequently fear-inducing. Some appear in the form of men, while others are described in ways that are almost impossible to imagine. The heavenly beings in Ezekiel’s visions are covered in eyes. Some angels appear with blazing swords, while others move invisibly through the world. Human beings who encounter angels in Scripture are often terrified, which is why an angel’s first words are so frequently, “Do not be afraid.” These are not harmless decorative figures. They are powerful servants of the living God who exist to worship Him and carry out His will. Types of Angels in Scripture Scripture gives us glimpses of several different kinds of angels and heavenly beings. Archangels The word arch means “chief” or “principal.” Michael is the only angel explicitly called an archangel in Scripture, in Jude 1:9. An archangel is also mentioned, although not named, in 1 Thessalonians 4:16. Gabriel is never specifically given the title of archangel in the Bible, but he is often understood to be one because of his prominent role in delivering some of God’s most important messages. He appears to the prophet Daniel, to Zechariah before the birth of John the Baptist, and to the Virgin Mary at the Annunciation. Cherubim Cherubim appear throughout Scripture in connection with the holiness and presence of God. They are stationed at the entrance to Eden after the Fall, guarding the way to the tree of life in Genesis 3:24. Images of cherubim overshadowed the mercy seat on the Ark of the Covenant, and they also appear prominently in Ezekiel’s extraordinary visions. Far from the sweet, chubby “cherubs” of popular art, biblical cherubim are strange and formidable heavenly beings associated with the throne, presence, and glory of God. Seraphim The seraphim appear in Isaiah 6, standing before the throne of God. They have six wings and continually proclaim: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” Their unceasing worship is echoed in the Church’s Eucharistic prayers whenever we join “angels and archangels and all the company of heaven” in singing the Sanctus: “Holy, holy, holy.” The Angel of the Lord The Angel of the Lord is a unique and mysterious figure in the Old Testament. At times, He appears not only to speak for God but to speak as God Himself. Because of this, Christians and biblical scholars have long debated His identity. Some understand the Angel of the Lord as a theophany, a visible manifestation of God, or even as a pre-incarnate appearance of Christ. Others understand Him as a distinct angelic messenger who speaks with the full authority of God. Unnamed Angels Many of the angels who appear in Scripture are not given names. They are sent as messengers, guides, protectors, and agents of God’s purposes. We encounter them throughout the biblical story. Angels visit Abraham, rescue Lot’s family from Sodom, announce the birth of Christ to the shepherds, minister to Jesus, open prison doors, and carry out countless other works on God’s behalf. Although their names are unknown to us, their anonymity tells us something important about the nature of angelic ministry. The faithful angels do not draw attention to themselves. Their messages, power, and work always direct us beyond them to the God they serve. Fallen Angels Scripture also speaks of angels who rebelled against God. Satan and the fallen angels rejected God’s authority and became enemies of God and His people. Although they are spiritual powers opposed to God’s purposes, they remain created beings whose power is limited. What Do the Angels Teach Us? The faithful angels show us something about the life every creature was made to live. They worship God, obey His commands, carry His messages, and direct all glory toward Him. Although they possess astonishing power, they never claim that power as their own. Everything they are and everything they do points beyond themselves to the God who created them. Their presence also teaches us to see the world more truthfully. In the Nicene Creed, we confess our belief in God as the maker “of heaven and earth, of all that is, seen and unseen.” Yet we live in a time that encourages us to believe that only what we can see, measure, and explain is real. Scripture gives us a much larger vision. Around our ordinary earthly lives is an unseen creation in which angels worship, serve, protect, carry messages, and participate in the mysterious providence of God. This is particularly important when we gather for worship. Every Sunday, when we sing “Holy, holy, holy,” we join the song of the seraphim. Our worship is united with that of angels, archangels, saints, martyrs, and all the company of heaven. We are not beginning a song of praise that did not exist before we arrived but joining the worship already taking place before the throne of God. Michaelmas reminds us that Christian worship is never merely earthly and that the congregation we can see is only one part of the great company gathered in God’s presence. The angels also remind us that spiritual conflict is real. Scripture does not present evil as merely an idea, a metaphor, or the unfortunate result of human ignorance. Yet Michaelmas does not encourage us to become fascinated with evil or frightened by it. Instead, it directs our attention toward the sovereignty of God. We celebrate the angels, then, not because they turn our attention away from God, but because their worship and ministry direct our attention more fully toward Him. Why Do We Celebrate St. Michael in Particular? Of all the angels, Michael holds a special place in Scripture and in the tradition of the Church. His name means “Who is like God?” It is a question whose answer is clear: no one is like God. No creature, however glorious or powerful, can compare with the Creator. Michael’s name expresses the very heart of faithful angelic service. Satan’s rebellion is rooted in pride and self-exaltation, but Michael’s name rejects the possibility that any creature could rival God. His power lies not in independence from God but in his complete faithfulness to Him. The Book of Daniel describes Michael as “one of the chief princes” and as the great prince who protects God’s people. In Jude 1:9, he contends with the devil over the body of Moses. In Revelation 12:7–9, Michael and his angels fight against the dragon, who is identified as Satan, and cast him down. Christian tradition has also associated Michael with other moments of angelic protection and intervention, including the angel who stopped Abraham from sacrificing Isaac. Although Scripture does not name that angel as Michael, the association reflects the Church’s long understanding of Michael as a guardian and defender. Michael is also traditionally remembered as the captain of the heavenly armies who led the faithful angels against Lucifer and the angels who joined his rebellion. He is honored as a defender of heaven, of God’s people, and of truth, faithfully carrying out the will of God. Michaelmas takes the reality of evil seriously without ever suggesting that evil is equal to God. The dragon is terrible, but he remains a creature. Michael and the faithful angels overcome him through the power and authority of God. The spiritual battle is real, but its final outcome is not uncertain. Ways to Celebrate the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels As always, there are many simple and meaningful ways to mark this feast in your home. Michaelmas has accumulated some especially charming traditions over the centuries, many of them tied to the arrival of autumn and the foods that were traditionally harvested at this time of year. Seasonal Foods: Carrots and Blackberries In the British Isles, carrots and blackberries were traditionally in season around Michaelmas, making them natural additions to the feast-day table. There is also a wonderfully colorful Irish legend surrounding Michaelmas and blackberries. According to the story, when Lucifer was cast out of heaven, he landed in a blackberry bush. Angry at his thorny landing, he cursed, or in some versions spat upon, the berries, making them sour after September 29. Because of this legend, Michaelmas was traditionally considered the final day of the year to gather and enjoy blackberries. Whether or not you take the story too seriously, it gives us a wonderful excuse to enjoy them while we can, so try making my Blackberry Hand Pies during Michaelmas week! Roast Chicken—or Goose! In medieval Europe, roast goose was the traditional centerpiece of the Michaelmas meal. The custom may have been connected to the agricultural calendar and the payment of rents around Michaelmas, when tenants sometimes presented their landlords with a goose. Over time, eating goose on Michaelmas became associated with prosperity and good fortune in the coming year. If goose is difficult to find, or simply more ambitious than you want your Michaelmas celebration to be, a roast chicken makes a delicious and fitting substitute. My Perfect Roast Chicken is an easy way to bring this old tradition to your family table. Want more ways to bring Michaelmas to life in your home? In the next post, I’ll share more fun and festive ways and recipes perfect for this heavenly feast! the recipe - Blackberry Hand Pies Dough 2 cups all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons sugar Pinch of salt 3/4 cup unsalted butter, cut into small pieces and cold 3/4 cup sour cream Egg wash (1 egg and 1 teaspoon water) Granulated sugar Filling 3 cups of blackberries 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice 1 teaspoon lemon zest 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 3/4 cup granulated sugar 2 tablespoons cornstarch To prepare the dough Blend the flour, granulated sugar, and salt in a food processor. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles a coarse meal. Add sour cream and pulse until the dough starts to form a ball. Turn out onto a lightly floured surface and press into a rectangle. Divide the dough in half, wrap each in plastic, and refrigerate for at least an hour. To prepare the filling Combine the blackberries, lemon juice, lemon zest, and vanilla in a medium saucepan. Cook over medium heat until they start to break down slightly. Cook until the blackberries are tender and have released their juices, about 5 minutes. Whisk together the sugar and cornstarch in a small bowl, then add to the blackberries. To assemble the hand pies Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. When you are ready to prepare the hand pies, roll one of the chilled doughs out on a floured surface. As you are rolling, you can straighten out the edges with your hands to create a 10 x 15-inch rectangle. Using a pastry wheel, cut the dough into 12 equal squares by cutting 4 strips along the length and 3 strips along the short side. Put about 2 tablespoons filling in each center of half the squares. Lightly brush the edges of the filled squares with egg wash. Cover with the remaining squares. Press the dough together then use a fork to gently adhere the hand pies around the edges. Cut a cross on each top. Brush with egg wash and sprinkle with granulated sugar. Repeat the process with the remaining dough and filling. Transfer to the prepared baking sheets. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown. If baking both baking sheets at once, rotate top to bottom after 15 minutes.

On September 21st, Christians around the world celebrate the Feast of St. Matthew, remembering the remarkable story of one of the Twelve Apostles - a man who was once a despised tax collector and became a beloved disciple and witness to the resurrection. Christian tradition also remembers him as the Evangelist whose name is attached to the first Gospel in our New Testament. Matthew’s life is one of the great stories of transformation in the New Testament. When Jesus called him, Matthew left behind a career associated with greed and social exclusion and stepped into the heart of God’s redemptive story. His feast gives us an opportunity to pause and reflect on mercy, vocation, and the extraordinary things that can happen when an ordinary person hears the words “Follow me” and says yes. Matthew or Levi? In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, we meet this apostle at his calling, but you may notice something interesting: Matthew’s Gospel calls him Matthew, while Mark and Luke call the tax collector Levi. Having more than one name was not unusual in the ancient world, and traditionally these accounts have been understood as referring to the same man. But Scripture does not actually tell us why the names differ, and scholars have offered various explanations over the centuries. The name Matthew comes from a Hebrew name meaning “gift of God,” a beautiful meaning when we consider the life that followed his encounter with Jesus. Throughout Church tradition, he has been remembered as Matthew, the apostle and Evangelist. The Call of St. Matthew Before his encounter with Christ, Matthew was a tax collector, or publican. His calling takes place in the region of Capernaum near the Sea of Galilee, where Jesus conducted so much of His early ministry. In first-century Judea, tax collectors were deeply despised. They worked within the Roman system of taxation, were viewed as collaborators with an occupying power, and had a reputation for enriching themselves through dishonest practices and extortion. Their regular dealings with Gentiles also contributed to their social and religious exclusion. It is not surprising, then, that throughout the New Testament we so often find tax collectors grouped together with “sinners.” One small detail I especially love - when Matthew’s Gospel later names the Twelve Apostles, it calls him “Matthew the tax collector” (Matthew 10:3). The other apostolic lists simply call him Matthew. The part of his story that might have brought him shame is not erased. Instead, it becomes part of the testimony of what the call of Christ can do with our lives. Jesus’ Radical Mercy Against this backdrop, the moment Jesus calls Matthew becomes even more remarkable. Jesus sees him sitting at the tax booth and gives him a simple invitation: “Follow me.” Matthew rises and follows Him. That same day, Jesus shared a meal surrounded by other tax collectors and sinners. The Pharisees are scandalized and demand to know why Jesus would eat with people like these. His response goes directly to the heart of Matthew’s story: “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick… I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”(Matthew 9:12–13) This is at the heart of Matthew’s story and of the Gospel that bears his name: Christ came for the outsider, the broken, and the unlikely. The man others saw as unclean and unworthy was the very man Jesus called to become one of His closest disciples. The Ministry and Legacy of St. Matthew After the resurrection and Pentecost, Matthew is named among the apostles gathered together in Jerusalem. From there, the details of his life become much less certain, and several different traditions developed about where he traveled and preached. Early Christian tradition associates Matthew with missionary work beyond Judea, and some accounts place him as far away as Ethiopia. Traditions surrounding his death also vary, although he has long been honored in much of the Church as a martyr. One later tradition tells of Matthew’s confrontation with King Hirtacus, who attempted to force a consecrated virgin named Ephigenia into marriage. According to the story, Matthew defended her and was put to death because of it, laying down his life while defending the Christian faith and Ephigenia’s vow. Whatever uncertainty surrounds the details of Matthew’s later life, his most enduring legacy in the Church is the Gospel that bears his name and that Christian tradition has long attributed to him. The Gospel of Matthew is rich with references to the Old Testament and deeply rooted in the story of Israel. Again and again, it connects the life of Jesus with the Scriptures that came before Him, proclaiming with particular clarity that Jesus is the long-awaited Messiah. As you read it, notice how often Matthew points out that something has happened in order to fulfill what was spoken through the prophets. If you have ever noticed Matthew represented in Christian art by a winged man or angel, there is a reason for that, too. Each of the four Evangelists came to be associated with one of the four living creatures described in Revelation 4:7. Matthew’s symbol is the winged man, traditionally connected to the fact that his Gospel begins with the human genealogy of Jesus Christ. Ways to Celebrate the Feast of St. Matthew at Home As always, celebrating a feast day at home does not have to be complicated. A little Scripture, a good story, and something memorable around the table can be enough to help the people in our homes begin to recognize these days as part of the rhythm of the Christian year. Here are a few simple and symbolic ways to celebrate St. Matthew on September 21st. Read Scripture Begin with Matthew’s own story by reading Matthew 9:9–13 or Mark 2:13–17. Spend some time reflecting together on Jesus’ words, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice,” and what His willingness to call Matthew tells us about the mercy of God. With older children, you could also open the Gospel of Matthew and look for some of the places where Matthew connects the life of Jesus to the Old Testament. It is a wonderful way to begin noticing one of the distinctive features of the Gospel that bears his name. Enjoy Grapes, Grape Juice, or Wine In Logroño, Spain, the Fiestas de San Mateo coincide with the grape harvest. You can make a simple nod to this tradition by putting grapes on the table or serving grape juice or wine with dinner. Have a Pay Day This one is simply fun, especially if you have children at home! Serve Pay Day candy bars or chocolate coins as a lighthearted reminder of Matthew’s former life as a tax collector and the far greater “treasure in heaven” he chose when he left everything behind to follow Jesus. Give Something Away Matthew’s feast is also a wonderful opportunity to turn our attention from keeping money to giving it away. Consider making a donation to your church, a ministry, or someone in need. If you have children, invite them to choose something from their own money to give. It is a simple way to remember a man who left his livelihood behind when Jesus called and to remind ourselves that what we possess is ultimately entrusted to us by God. Play Monopoly or Life A family game night with Monopoly or Life is another playful way to remember Matthew’s former occupation. It can also open the door to a conversation about money, generosity, what we value, and what it means that Matthew was willing to walk away from worldly success when Jesus called him to something greater. Make Pancake Stacks For an easy breakfast or dinner, make stacks of little pancakes to resemble piles of coins. Let’s Get Ready Together The Feast of St. Matthew is a beautiful reminder that no one is beyond the reach of God’s mercy and that a single “yes” to Jesus can transform the direction of an entire life. Matthew was sitting at a tax booth when Jesus found him. Nothing about his life or reputation made him an obvious candidate to become one of the Twelve, and yet Jesus called him anyway. Matthew got up and followed, and the story of his life became something entirely different because of it. And year after year, as we continue to remember these stories, they slowly become part of the rhythm of our homes and part of the way we understand our own place in the story of God. Let’s continue walking together through the liturgical year, anchored in Scripture, tradition, and joy. the recipe - St. Matthew’s Day Coin Pancakes 1 egg 3 Tablespoons butter, melted 1 cup flour 1 Tablespoon sugar ½ teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 cup buttermilk Melt the butter. When cool, blend in the egg. In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients. Add the egg, butter, and buttermilk to the dry ingredients. Whisk until smooth. Heat a griddle to medium-low heat. Melt 1 tsp of butter in the griddle. Pour out the batter, making small circles. Flip when golden brown. Drizzle with honey or syrup.

Every year around this time, I begin looking ahead. Advent still feels a little way off. We are still firmly in Ordinary Time. But a new Christian year is coming, and with it we will begin the story all over again: waiting for Christ in Advent, celebrating His birth at Christmas, following Him through His ministry, walking with Him toward the cross, rejoicing in the Resurrection, and then learning, once again, what it means to live as His people in the long months of Ordinary Time. One of the things I love most about the liturgical year is that it gives our lives a different way of keeping time. The world around us has its own calendar, with its school years and fiscal years and holidays and shopping seasons, but the Church quietly gives us another one. It orders our time around the life of Christ and the story of our faith, returning us year after year to the things we most need to remember. And that is why, all those years ago, I created the first Liturgical Calendar. I wanted something I could hang in our home that would allow me to see the Christian year unfolding in front of me. I wanted to know what season we were in, which feast days were coming, and when I needed to begin preparing if I wanted our family to actually celebrate them rather than realizing, once again, that a feast day was tomorrow. Over the years, that simple calendar has become one of the things The Liturgical Home is best known for, and it has found its way into so many of your homes. I never take that for granted. And this year, for the first time, the collection is growing in some significant ways. The Original Liturgical Calendar Our Original Liturgical Calendar is back for the 2027 Christian year. Perfect for Anglicans and liturgical Christians of all denominations. This is the calendar so many of you already use to follow the seasons, Sundays, feast days, and rhythms of the liturgical year throughout your home. It is still the calendar I use myself, and it remains at the heart of this collection. But this year, you have more choices for how it fits into your home. For the first time, the calendar is available in three sizes: 12×18, our original 18×24, and a new large 24×32. I know not everyone has the same wall space, and I wanted there to be an option for the small kitchen corner as well as the big family command center. We are also introducing bamboo magnetic poster hangers for the 12×18 and 18×24 calendars, which make it incredibly simple to hang the calendar beautifully without framing it. A New Catholic Liturgical Calendar Many of you who follow The Liturgical Home are Catholic, and over the years I have heard from many of you asking for a calendar created specifically with the Catholic liturgical year in mind. This year, it is finally here. The 2027 Catholic Liturgical Calendar was created especially for Catholic homes that want to see the rhythms of their own liturgical calendar laid out clearly and beautifully throughout the year. Designed according to the liturgical calendar published by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), this beautiful visual guide helps families, parishes, classrooms, and ministries follow the seasons and major celebrations of the Catholic Church throughout the year. A Calendar You Can Keep Year After Year The other completely new addition is our Perpetual Liturgical Calendar. Unlike the dated calendars, this one is designed to remain with you year after year. It gives you a way to see the shape and movement of the Christian year as a whole — the seasons, the great feasts, and the recurring rhythm that carries us from Advent through the entire story again and again. And the Liturgical Planner Is Back For those of you who want to move beyond simply knowing what is coming and actually prepare for it, the Liturgical Planner is back as well for 2027. The calendar helps you see the year. The planner helps you live it. This is where you can look ahead to the feasts and seasons you want to observe, decide what matters to your family, make plans, gather what you need, and keep the liturgical year from becoming one more thing you intended to do but remembered too late. The planner includes monthly and weekly calendars for the liturgical year with all of the feast days marked, a recipe for each month, room for notes, and the menaing behind each season. These calendars and planners are meant to help you see where you are, know what is coming, and choose intentionally how the rhythms of the Christian year will become part of the rhythms of your own home. The Shop Is Open The 2027 Liturgical Home Collection is officially available at The Liturgical Home today. You’ll find: The 2026–27 Original Liturgical Calendar The NEW 2026–27 Catholic Liturgical Calendar The NEW Perpetual Liturgical Calendar Three calendar sizes: 12×18, 18×24, and 24×32 Bamboo magnetic hangers for the 12×18 and 18×24 calendars The Liturgical Planner Over the next few weeks, I’ll be sharing much more about the new calendars, how the different versions work, and how to decide which one is right for your home. But today, I mostly just want to say how grateful I am that these things get to become part of your homes. My hope is that these tools are an aid to what happens around the liturgical year — the stories told at the dinner table, the candles lit, the meals shared, the saints remembered, and the seasons noticed. It is about allowing the story of our faith to become part of the ordinary rhythm of our lives, until Christian time begins to feel like home. The new liturgical year will be here before we know it. Let’s get ready. 🤍 Shop the 2027 Liturgical Year Collection at The Liturgical Home.

The Crucifixion by Fra Angelico On September 14th, Christians around the world celebrate Holy Cross Day - one of the oldest feast days in the Christian calendar, with roots stretching back to fourth century Jerusalem. The cross is not merely a symbol of suffering but the very instrument of Christ’s redemption for the whole world, the means by which He made peace through His own blood. That the cross, once an instrument of shame and execution, has become the sign of our salvation is reason enough to celebrate with joy and gratitude. The Rediscovery of the Cross Holy Cross Day commemorates not only the cross itself but also its remarkable rediscovery after centuries of burial beneath the ruins of Jerusalem. The earliest Christians held the site of Jesus’ tomb in deep reverence. But when Jerusalem fell to Rome in 70 AD, the city was reduced to rubble. Decades later, in 130 AD, Emperor Hadrian built a Roman colony over the ruins, ordering the tomb of Christ filled in to create a level foundation for a temple dedicated to the goddess Venus. It was a deliberate act of erasure, a pagan overlay on the holiest ground in Christendom. In doing so, Hadrian unwittingly fulfilled Paul’s words: “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Corinthians 1:18). In the fourth century, Emperor Constantine converted to Christianity and set about recovering and restoring the faith’s most sacred sites. He sent his mother, Helena Augusta, to Jerusalem with instructions to have the pagan temple demolished and the ancient ruins beneath it excavated. What the excavations uncovered amazed everyone involved - three crosses, believed to be the cross of Christ and the crosses of the two thieves crucified alongside Him. The discovery was met with tremendous celebration, and Helena, along with her delegation and the local Christian community, established a feast day to mark the occasion. That feast day has been observed by the Church ever since. What the Cross Means for Us It is easy, in the familiarity of the cross, to lose sight of what an astonishing thing it actually is. We wear it around our necks, carve it into our churches, and trace it over our bodies with our hands, and yet the cross was not originally a religious symbol. It was an instrument of execution, the Roman Empire’s most brutal and deliberately humiliating method of putting a person to death. It was designed not only to kill but to shame, to display, and to warn. And yet this is the thing that stands at the very center of the Christian faith. The question worth sitting with on Holy Cross Day is how that happened - how the instrument of the most shameful death imaginable became the sign of the greatest love the world has ever known. When Jesus went to the cross, He did not go as a victim of circumstances beyond His control. He went deliberately and willingly, in full knowledge of what awaited Him, because the cross was the only way to accomplish what needed to be accomplished. The debt of human sin was real. The separation between a holy God and His broken people was real. And the only way to bridge that separation, to cancel that debt, to make peace where there had been enmity, was for Someone who was without sin to bear the full weight of it on our behalf. Paul says it as plainly as it can be said, “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). On the cross, the sin of the world was laid upon the Son of God, and in His death it was dealt with completely. The curtain in the temple was torn from top to bottom. The way to God was opened. The peace that had been impossible was made. This is why the cross is not primarily a symbol of suffering for Christians, though it involved the most profound suffering imaginable. It is a symbol of victory and of love and of the lengths to which God was willing to go to bring His people home. Paul tells the Corinthians that he resolved to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and Him crucified, not because the crucifixion was the end of the story, but because everything that came after it, including the resurrection and the life we now have in Christ, flows directly from what happened there. The cross changes who we are, what we owe, where we stand before God, and what we have to look forward to. It is the hinge upon which all of history turns, and it is the reason that on September 14th the Church pauses to stand before it again, to receive what it offers, and to give thanks for a love that was willing to go that far. For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.- 1 Corinthians 1:18 Ways to Celebrate Holy Cross Day at Home Make a cross-shaped dessert.This is one of our favorite activities for Holy Cross Day, a simple and delicious dessert that children can help make and that gives a tangible shape to the day’s celebration. Whipped cream and crisp dark chocolate wafers are involved, which means it is very difficult to go wrong. The recipe is shared below. Make a cross from toothpicks.This is a simple craft that even young children can do. Break toothpicks into pieces and arrange them in the shape of a cross on black construction paper, gluing them in place. Punch holes in the corners, thread twine through, and hang the finished cross somewhere visible in your home, or let the children process through the house carrying them. It is the kind of simple, handmade thing that children remember. Make something with basil.An ancient tradition associated with Holy Cross Day holds that basil was growing abundantly on the hill where Helena discovered the cross. In Greece to this day, priests distribute sprigs of fresh basil to their parishioners on this feast. You can bring that same tradition into your home by having your children gather small bundles of basil, tie them with ribbon, and place them on the table as simple decorations. For dinner, make a fresh homemade pesto and toss it with hot pasta, fragrant, seasonal, and perfectly suited to the day. Teach your children to make the sign of the cross.Holy Cross Day is a beautiful occasion to introduce or deepen your children’s understanding of the sign of the cross. Many people assume it is a superstitious gesture or something belonging only to certain traditions, but it has always been intended as something far simpler and more beautiful than that - a physical reminder, made with our own bodies, that we belong to Christ and have been marked by His cross. Showing your children how to make the sign of the cross on Holy Cross Day gives the gesture its full context and meaning. the recipe - Holy Cross Icebox Cake Chocolate Cookies 1 cup (5 ounces) all-purpose flour 1⁄2 cup (1 1⁄2 ounces) Hershey’s Special Dark Cocoa Powder 1⁄2 teaspoon baking soda 1⁄4 teaspoon table salt 1 1⁄4 cups (5 ounces) confectioners’ sugar 3 tablespoons water 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted Whipped Cream 1 quart heavy whipping cream 1 cup sugar For the cookies: Whisk flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl until combined. In a second medium bowl, combine sugar, water, and vanilla and whisk until smooth. Add butter to the sugar mixture and whisk until incorporated. Add the flour mixture to the sugar mixture and stir with a spatula until fully combined. Transfer dough to the counter and knead until smooth, about 20 seconds. Roll into a 5-inch log. Wrap tightly and refrigerate until very firm, at least 2 hours or up to 5 days. Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 300 degrees. Line 2 rimmed baking sheets with parchment paper. Using a sharp chef’s knife, slice the log into ⅛-inch-thick rounds and transfer to prepared sheets (20 cookies per sheet), leaving ½ inch between rounds. Bake until the center of the cookies gives very little when pressed with your fingertip, 20 to 22 minutes, switching and rotating sheets halfway through baking. Let cookies cool on sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack and let them cool completely. Serve. (Cookies can be stored at room temperature for up to 2 weeks.) Whip the whipped cream on high until soft peaks form. Slowly add sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form. Add a layer of whipped cream between layers of chocolate wafers and arrange them on a platter. Stack the wafer layers on their sides in the shape of a cross. When you are satisfied with the shape, cover the whole cross in the remaining whipped cream. Place the ground wafers in a sifter and sift over the cake. Serve immediately or refrigerate and serve. Whisk flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt in medium bowl until combined. Combine sugar, water, and vanilla in second medium bowl and whisk until smooth. Add butter to sugar mixture and whisk until incorporated. Add flour mixture to sugar mixture and stir with spatula until fully combined. Transfer dough to counter and knead until smooth, about 20 seconds. Roll into 5-inch log. Wrap tightly and refrigerate until very firm, at least 2 hours or up to 5 days.

When my husband and I were first married, we had no money. He was no longer in his band, and the only job he could get was stocking shelves at Camelot Music. I was an art student with no income. We lived in an old apartment, packed our lunches, and watched every penny that we spent. Children were definitely not part of the picture. We were barely keeping our heads above water. And then my husband got a full-time job as a programmer at a life insurance company, and suddenly everything changed. We felt like we were rich - we definitely weren’t - but it is amazing what the move from an hourly wage to a salary makes in a young couple’s life with no children. We went to the movies, we ate out, and we explored the city. In the evenings, I would read while he played guitar. Life was easy, life was simple, we were free, and we were in no hurry to change any of it. During that time, nobody challenged us. The choices we were making, waiting, enjoying our lives, building financial stability before adding the complication of children, were so very sensible, so responsible. Everyone around us was making the same kinds of choices for the same kinds of reasons, and there was not a single voice in our lives asking us to examine whether sensible and responsible were the same thing as faithful. My husband and I had begun reading a lot of theology during that season. One of the gifts of that quieter, simpler life was the time it gave us for reading, and somewhere during that period, we came across a book that changed things for us. The funny thing is, it was not a book either of us had wanted to read for the reasons it ended up mattering to us. But in it, we discovered a theology of marriage and children and what the Christian tradition has always said about the meaning of the two together that shocked us. Neither my husband nor I had ever seriously thought about the theology of marriage and children. We were simply swimming in the cultural waters - that children were a choice, that timing was a matter of personal preference and financial readiness, that waiting until we felt ready was not only reasonable but wise. We had never examined those assumptions. We had never asked whether they were consistent with what we actually believed about God, about marriage, about the shape of a faithful life. The more we thought about what we had read, the more uneasy we became. Not because anyone was accusing us of anything. But because we were beginning to see something we had not seen before - that the life we had been living so contentedly, the life that felt so free and so easy and so entirely sensible, was organized primarily around our own comfort. And that comfort, left unexamined and unchallenged, has a way of becoming its own kind of captivity. We were not avoiding children for any compelling theological reason. We were avoiding them because everything was going well, and we did not want to disrupt that. Sacrifice felt optional when so little was being asked of us. And the longer we waited, the more settled we became in the life we had, and the harder it was to imagine choosing anything else. We knew we were at a crossroads, and we knew we needed to choose, not just about children, but about something larger than that - about which direction we were walking. We had to decide whether we were walking toward the life God was calling us into, or whether we were going to keep protecting the comfortable life we had already built. We chose to walk toward holiness - to stop arranging our lives around ease and open ourselves to the costly gift God was placing before us. It was one of the best and hardest decisions we have ever made. I tell that story not because the specific question we were wrestling with -children, timing, what faithfulness looks like in a marriage - is the subject of this series. It is one example among many of a pattern I have come to believe is one of the defining spiritual challenges of our moment. Because my husband and I were not alone in our complacency. We were surrounded by people in the same place - good people, faithful people, people who loved God and went to church and read their Bibles - who were nevertheless making the same quiet, reasonable, sensible choices in the direction of comfort and away from the harder, more costly, and more formative things that faithfulness requires. As I have grown older, I have watched that pattern only deepen. The comfort is more readily available, the expectations are even lower, the cultural pressure to choose ease over sacrifice has become more relentless, and the voice within the Church calling people toward holiness - toward the hard, beautiful life the New Testament actually describes - has grown quieter and quieter. I think about that crossroads moment all the time. Not just what we decided but what it took to get us there - the fact that it required a book, a lot of uncomfortable conversations, and a moment of honest reckoning with ourselves. Without any of that, we would have simply kept walking in the direction we were already going, never questioning it, never quite realizing that comfort and contentment are not the same thing as faithfulness, and that the life we were living, however pleasant, was not the life we were made for. That is what frightens me about the moment we are living in now. It is not only that we may be making wrong choices, but that we have lost the inclination to ask what our choices are forming us to become. So many of us are making choices - about marriage, about children, about church, about prayer, about how we spend our time and order our days and give ourselves to things larger than our own preferences - with no one asking us to examine them, no voice in our lives naming what is actually at stake, no moment of honest reckoning with the question put into words on that ordinary evening so many years ago. Which direction are we walking? Here is what I have come to believe after years of thinking about that question and watching the people around me navigate it in their own ways. Comfort is not the enemy of the Christian life, but comfort unchallenged, comfort unexamined, comfort that has quietly become the organizing principle of our days and our decisions - that is something entirely different. That is something the New Testament has a great deal to say about, and what it says is not what our culture wants to hear. I often wonder if our deepest problem is not that we sometimes choose comfort over holiness, but that we have forgotten to want holiness at all. It’s innate in us to want happiness, security, success, and ease. But how many of us find ourselves wanting, above everything else, to become holy? How many of us examine our choices not by asking, “Will this make my life better?” but “Will this make me more like Christ?” I certainly don’t! Christianity has never promised that the good life is the easy life. It teaches us to take up our cross, to die to ourselves, to practice steadfastness and faithfulness and sacrifice and self-denial - not because suffering is good in itself, but because holiness is worth pursuing, and becoming holy will sometimes be hard. I think this is the strong conviction we have most failed to pass on to the next generation - that hard things are not obstacles to a joyful life - sometimes they are the very means God uses to lead us into one. There is a joy on the other side of faithfulness that comfort alone can never give us. My husband and I found that joy when we chose the harder thing on that ordinary evening in our apartment. And in the years since, through the children who arrived and the sacrifices they required and the people they have made us into - we have found more of that joy than we could ever have imagined from where we were standing then. I want to spend the next several weeks exploring what that conviction looks like lived out - in marriage, in celibacy, in the decision to have children, in the faithful weekly practice of showing up to church, in eating together, in daily prayer, in the rhythms of the liturgical year, in care for the poor, and in the ancient practice of self-denial that our own age finds so baffling and so unnecessary. Not because I have mastered any of these things - I most certainly have not! But because I think we need to hear again - clearly, honestly, and without apology - that a life spent becoming holy is worth the cost.

On August 24th, the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Bartholomew, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke each mention him by name (Matt. 10:3, Mark 3:18, Luke 6:14), and in the Gospel of John he appears under the name Nathanael, giving us one of the most honest first encounters with Jesus in all of the Gospels. When Philip finds Nathanael and tells him they have found the one Moses and the prophets wrote about, Jesus of Nazareth, Nathanael responds with the kind of refreshing honesty that must have made him immediately likeable: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). Philip simply says, “Come and see.” And when Jesus meets him, He greets him with words that tell us something important about who Bartholomew was: “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no guile.” When Bartholomew asks how Jesus knows him, Jesus tells him He saw him under the fig tree, and that is enough. Bartholomew’s response is immediate and wholehearted: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” It is a brief encounter, but it reveals a man of genuine faith and transparent heart, exactly the kind of person Jesus gathered around Him. The Life of St. Bartholomew Unlike some of the other disciples, the New Testament does not give us a detailed account of Bartholomew’s life and ministry. What we know is that he traveled everywhere with Jesus, learning from Him and participating in His mission throughout those years of public ministry. He was present with the other disciples after the resurrection and ascension and was in the upper room when the Holy Spirit fell at Pentecost (Acts 1:13, Acts 2). From that point, tradition takes up the story. After the descent of the Holy Spirit, Bartholomew is said to have traveled widely in service of the Gospel, to India, to Armenia, and possibly to parts of Africa, bringing the Christian faith to regions far beyond the borders of the Jewish world he had known. He is credited in various traditions with establishing the Church in these places, a missionary whose reach extended further than almost any of the other apostles. The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew St. Bartholomew’s martyrdom is one of the most vivid and enduring parts of his tradition. He is believed to have been martyred in Albanopolis in ancient Armenia, though the accounts of exactly how he died vary. Some traditions say he was crucified upside down. Others say he was beheaded. But the account that has captured the Christian imagination most powerfully and that appears again and again in art and iconography across the centuries is that he was flayed alive. Perhaps the most famous depiction of St. Bartholomew in all of Western art is found in Michelangelo’s Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, where the apostle stands holding his own flayed skin, a haunting and unforgettable image of martyrdom and faith. Scholars have long suggested that the face on the skin is a self-portrait of Michelangelo himself, which gives the image yet another layer of meaning. Though the details of his life remain sparse, St. Bartholomew has been widely commemorated in art, architecture, and tradition. Churches, cathedrals, and monuments throughout the world bear his name, and the feast day associated with him has given rise to some of the most distinctive and enjoyable folk traditions in the Christian calendar. How to Celebrate St. Bartholomew’s Day at Home Make gingerbread. During the Middle Ages in England, gingerbread was among the most traditional foods served on feast days, often stamped with the image of the saint being honored. At the famous Bartholomew Fairs held across England, gingerbread marked with the image of St. Bartholomew was one of the signature treats of the celebration. We are making Gingerbread Cake from one of my favorite seasonal cookbooks, Honey and Jam by Hannah Queen, whose recipe captures the warmth and spice of this old tradition beautifully. The recipe is included at the end of this post. Have a race and eat a currant bun. In the village of Sandwich in Kent, England, children still observe a St. Bartholomew’s Bun Race, running around the chapel of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and receiving a currant bun as their reward. It is the kind of simple, joyful local tradition that has survived for centuries because children love it, and it translates beautifully to a backyard or neighborhood on the feast day. Make Bartlemas Beef. St. Bartholomew has long been considered the patron saint of butchers, for what are perhaps obvious reasons, given the manner of his martyrdom. Traditionally, the beef served on his feast day was known as Bartlemas Beef, a name derived from “Bartlemas,” meaning the Mass of St. Bartholomew. The Cook’s Guide from 1664 offers this remarkable recipe, which we share here in its original form: “Take a fat Brisket piece of beef and bone it, put it into so much water as will cover it, shifting it three times a day for three dayes together, then put it into as much white wine and vinegar as will cover it, and when it hath lyen twenty-four hours take it out and drye it in a cloth, then take nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and mace, of each a like quantity, beaten small and mingled with a good handful of salt, strew both sides of the Beef with this, and roul it up as you do Brawn, tye it as close as you can; then put it into an earthen pot, and cover it with some paste; set it in the Oven with household bread, and when it is cold, eat it with mustard and sugar.” Please let me know if you make this, and particularly what you decide to use as “some paste!” Eat watermelon and make watermelon lanterns. In Italy and Spain, watermelon has long been the traditional food of St. Bartholomew’s Day, arriving as it does at the very height of watermelon season in late August. On the feast day, communities would gather for watermelon festivals, attending Mass, eating the fruit, and celebrating the saint together. At the Cathedral of San Bartolomeo all’Isola, which stands on the Tiber Island in the middle of the Tiber River in Rome, a market would be held with vendors displaying whole and sliced watermelons for the crowds gathered to celebrate. And on the Spanish island of Majorca, children carried on a tradition that sounds like pure delight, hollowing out watermelons, carving them into lanterns, and parading through the village with them glowing in the summer evening. It is hard to imagine a more festive or more seasonally perfect way to honor a feast day in late August! the recipe - Gingerbread Cake 1 cup strong brewed coffee 1 cup dark unsulfured molasses ½ teaspoon baking soda 2-¼ cups all-purpose flour ½ teaspoon salt 1-½ teaspoons baking powder 1 Tablespoon ground ginger 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg ¼ teaspoon ground cloves ¾ cup vegetable oil 3 large eggs 2 cups packed dark brown sugar Powdered sugar for dusting Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 10-inch Bundt pan. In a large saucepan, combine the coffee and molasses, bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, then remove the pan from the heat. Whisk in the baking soda (the mixture will foam). Allow the syrup to cool. Whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves in a medium bowl. Whisk together the oil, eggs, sugar, and molasses mixture in a large bowl. Add the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Pour the batter into the pan. Bake until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert it on a wire rack and cool completely. Dust the cake with powdered sugar.

On August 15th, Christians around the world celebrate the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin, Mother of Our Lord. It’s a beautiful time to pause to honor the remarkable life of the woman God chose to bear His Son into the world. It is a feast day filled with reverence, gratitude, and deep reflection on the extraordinary role Mary played in the story of our salvation. The Life of St. Mary the Virgin Of all the women in all of human history, God chose Mary. He chose her to be the vessel through which His eternal Son would take on human flesh and enter the world as one of us. Her obedience, her faith, and her wholehearted surrender to God’s purposes were not incidental to the story of our redemption - they were woven into its very fabric. God’s Plan for Mary To fully appreciate Mary’s role in the story of salvation, we have to go back to the very beginning, to the moment when everything went wrong and God’s response to that brokenness contained, hidden within it, the first whisper of hope. In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve disobey God and eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God does not destroy them but issues a series of consequences for their sin and speaks a curse over the serpent who tempted them. And then, in Genesis 3:15, something extraordinary is embedded in that curse - a prophecy that Christians have recognized from the earliest centuries of the Church as the first proclamation of the Gospel: “And I will cause hostility between you and the woman,and between your offspring and her offspring.He will strike your head,and you will strike his heel.” This prophecy is known as the Protoevangelium, a Latin word meaning “first gospel” or “first good news.” It is understood to be a prophetic announcement of the coming Messiah and His ultimate victory over sin and death. Mary is the woman. Her offspring is Jesus. Satan will temporarily strike at Christ’s heel through the crucifixion, but Christ’s death and resurrection will crush the serpent’s head forever. From the very moment sin entered the world, God was already at work preparing the way for Mary and the Son she would bear. Mary’s Fiat When the fullness of time had come (Galatians 4:4), God sent the angel Gabriel to a young girl in Nazareth named Mary (Luke 1:26). She listened in wonder as Gabriel told her that she would conceive a son by the Holy Spirit, that He would be called the Son of the Most High, and that His kingdom would have no end. Mary’s response has echoed through the centuries as one of the most beautiful and courageous acts of faith in all of Scripture: “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be unto me according to your word.”— Luke 1:38 This response is known as Mary’s Fiat from the Latin word meaning “let it be” or “so be it.” It was a profound act of faith, obedience, and surrender to God’s will, spoken by a young woman who could not have fully understood what she was saying yes to and said yes anyway. Her willingness stands in deliberate contrast to Eve’s disobedience in the Garden, making Mary’s fiat one of the pivotal moments in the entire history of salvation. This event, the Annunciation, is also the moment of the Incarnation, when the eternal Word of God took on human flesh in Mary’s womb. At this moment, Mary became what the Church has called since the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD the Theotokos, a Greek word meaning God-bearer, often translated as Mother of God. The title is not primarily about Mary but about Jesus. By calling Mary the Theotokos, the Church affirms that the child she carried was not merely a holy man or a great prophet but God Himself, fully divine from the moment of His conception. Shortly after the Annunciation, Mary travels to visit her elderly cousin Elizabeth, who is also miraculously pregnant. The moment Mary arrives and speaks, Elizabeth and her unborn child are filled with the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth cries out: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” Mary responds with the Magnificat, one of the most beautiful songs of praise in all of Scripture, a hymn of gratitude and joy that has been sung by the Church in evening prayer for centuries (Luke 1:46-55). “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me,and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear himfrom generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.” Mary and Jesus Months later, Mary travels with Joseph to Bethlehem for the census, gives birth to Jesus in a stable, and watches as shepherds arrive that night with astonishing stories of angels and heavenly proclamations. Luke tells us simply that Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart. That phrase captures something essential about who Mary was. She did not always understand. She was not always given explanations. She held the mystery, turned it over, and kept faith through what she could not yet see. The Gospel accounts give us a series of remarkable moments in Mary’s life alongside Jesus - meeting Simeon and Anna in the Temple, receiving the Wise Men from the East, fleeing to Egypt with the Holy Family, finding the twelve-year-old Jesus among the teachers of the law, witnessing His first miracle at the wedding in Cana, and standing at the foot of the cross as He died. Each of these moments reveals something of Mary’s faith, her willingness to follow, to trust, to remain present even when presence cost her everything. After the resurrection and ascension, Mary is found in the upper room with the disciples, praying and waiting for the promised Holy Spirit (Acts 1:14). She was there at the birth of the Church just as she had been there at the birth of her Son. The Faith of Mary Mary’s appearances in Scripture are relatively few but deeply significant. Again and again she is portrayed as a woman of faith, obedience, and humility, deeply connected to her Son’s mission and to the broader movement of God’s compassion and justice in the world. Her life bridges the Old and New Testaments. She embodies the ideal response to God’s call. And her unique role as Theotokos establishes one of the most important theological foundations of the Christian faith - that in Jesus Christ, God truly became one of us. Lesser Feasts and Fasts expresses something of her significance beautifully: “What we can believe is that one who stood in so intimate a relationship with the incarnate Son of God on earth must, of all the human race, have the place of highest honor in the eternal life of God. A paraphrase of an ancient Greek hymn expresses this belief in very familiar words: ‘O higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim, lead their praises, alleluia.’” Mary’s Remaining Days According to tradition, Mary spent her remaining years in the care of the Apostle John, as Jesus had asked from the cross (John 19:26-27). The early Christian writer Hippolytus of Rome records that John took Mary to Ephesus, in what is now modern Turkey, where she lived until her death. Tradition tells us that she spent those years in prayer and in service to the early Christian community, a mother to the Church as she had been a mother to its Lord. How to Celebrate the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin The Feast of St. Mary the Virgin offers some of the most beautiful and accessible traditions for celebrating at home. Here are a few ideas for honoring August 15th with your family: Read Luke 1:26-38 and recite the Magnificat together. The Annunciation and the Magnificat together tell the essential story of Mary’s faith. Reading them aloud as a family on her feast day is the simplest and most meaningful way to mark the occasion. Display or eat something with rosemary. An old legend says that the blossoms of the rosemary plant were originally white until Mary stopped to do laundry during the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt and threw her blue cloak over a rosemary bush to dry. From that day, the story goes, the flowers turned blue. Whether legend or not, rosemary has been associated with Mary for centuries and a sprig or small bouquet on the table is a lovely and fragrant way to honor her feast. Display marigolds. The name marigold is itself a tribute to Mary, combining “Mary” and “gold.” The golden color of the marigold has traditionally symbolized her virtues of purity, love, humility, and obedience. A bouquet of marigolds on the dining table is both beautiful and deeply connected to the tradition of her feast day. Use something blue. Blue is the color most associated with Mary throughout Christian art and tradition, symbolizing purity, humility, and fidelity. Lay a blue tablecloth on the table, use blue dishes, or make something with blueberries - a blueberry lemon tart is a beautiful and delicious option for the feast day table. the recipe - Blueberry Lemon Tart Pastry: 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 2 tablespoons sugar Pinch kosher salt 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold, in chunks 1 large egg, separated 2 tablespoons ice water, plus 1 teaspoon Filling: 4 large eggs 1 cup sugar 1 cup fresh lemon juice (about 5 lemons) 1/4 cup heavy cream 1 lemon, zested Pinch kosher salt 1 pint blueberries To make the pastry, pulse the flour, sugar, and salt together in a food processor. Add the butter and pulse until the dough resembles cornmeal. Add the egg yolk and two tablespoons of ice water and pulse again until the dough pulls together. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface into a 12-inch circle. Roll the dough onto the pin and lay it inside a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Press the dough into the edges of the pan and fold the excess dough inside to reinforce the rim. Cover the tart pan with plastic wrap and put it into the refrigerator for another 30 minutes to rest. To bake the shell, heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Put the tart pan on a baking sheet and prick the bottom of the dough with a fork. Cover the shell with a piece of parchment paper and fill it with pie weights or dry beans. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove the parchment and weights. Lightly beat the egg white with one teaspoon of water and brush it onto the bottom and sides of the tart shell; set aside to cool. Whisk the eggs, sugar, lemon juice, cream, zest, and salt together. Add the blueberries to the cooled tart shell and pour the filling over the blueberries. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. The curd should jiggle slightly when done. Cool to room temperature, remove from the tart ring, and serve. Recipe from The Food Network.

The Feast of the Transfiguration, celebrated on August 6th, is one of the most profound and breathtaking moments in the entire life of Christ. All three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, recount it, and each account invites us to stop, look, and take in the full weight of what happened on that mountain. Unfortunately, the Transfiguration is one of those events that so often becomes a victim of reductionism. There is so much that occurs in such a short span of time, so much meaning, so much symbolism, so much beauty, so much that defies ordinary categories, that we struggle to hold it all together. And so we reach for bulleted lists. But the Transfiguration cannot be reduced to a bulleted list. The Transfiguration in Scripture The Transfiguration is a remarkable moment where the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Man converge. It is a moment where a man is not only a man but God Himself, where heroes from the distant past suddenly appear alive and present, and where the voice of God rings out from the clouds. In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up to a high mountain. There, He undergoes a transfiguration before them. His face shines like the sun and His garments become as white as light - a vision that calls to mind Ezekiel’s description of the glory of God: “I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire, and brilliant light surrounded him.”— Ezekiel 1:27 In this single extraordinary moment, the disciples witness the divine nature of Jesus, confirming that He is not merely a prophet or a rabbi but the very Son of God. Moses and Elijah Then, suddenly, Moses and Elijah appear on the mountain, engaging in conversation with Jesus. The significance of their presence is almost impossible to overstate. These great heroes of the faith, long thought to be beyond the reach of the living, are suddenly very much alive and present before the disciples. Moses, the great lawgiver, and Elijah, the great prophet, had both pointed throughout their lives toward the coming of the Messiah. Here, on this mountain, they witness the fulfillment of everything their lives and labors had anticipated. It is worth noting that this encounter takes place on a mountain, the very kind of place where both Moses and Elijah so often met with God. Luke 9:31 adds a detail that is easy to overlook but remarkable in its depth. We are told that Moses and Elijah are speaking with Jesus about His departure, the thing He is about to accomplish in Jerusalem. The Greek word Luke uses for departure is exodus. Moses, who led God’s people out of slavery in Egypt in the original Exodus, and Elijah, who led a spiritual exodus by calling the people of Israel back from idolatry and toward faithfulness to God, are now conversing with Jesus about the ultimate Exodus, the deliverance that will free God’s people once and for all from the slavery of sin and death through His death and resurrection. It is an extraordinary convergence of the whole sweep of salvation history in a single conversation on a mountaintop. My Beloved Son As Moses and Elijah depart, Peter, recognizing that something of immense significance is happening, suggests putting up three tents to mark the moment. While he is still speaking, a bright cloud overshadows them all, and a voice speaks from within it: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!” This moment reaches back deep into the Old Testament, where God so often made His presence known to His people through a cloud, to Moses on Sinai, to Elijah at Horeb, to the people in the wilderness. It also echoes the voice that spoke at Jesus’ baptism: “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). The Father is not saying something new here. He is saying something confirmed, reaffirming before these three witnesses the identity and authority of His Son at the precise moment when the road to Jerusalem and the cross is beginning to come into view. The divine voice is not only a declaration. It is also a commission for every Christian who has heard it since: Listen to Him. Jesus speaks not merely as a wise teacher or a gifted prophet but with the full authority of God Himself. His words are worth ordering our lives around. The Transfiguration and First Fruits In many Christian traditions, the Feast of the Transfiguration is associated with the blessing and eating of fruit, particularly grapes. The timing of the feast in early August corresponds to the grape harvest and the season of first fruits in the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions where these traditions first developed. With the gathering of the harvest, God’s people remembered His goodness and celebrated His abundant generosity. Fruit was brought to the church for a blessing and then shared together in communal celebration. This practice of blessing fruit on the Feast of the Transfiguration continues to this day in many Byzantine Christian communities. The connection is ancient. As early as 220 AD, the theologian St. Hippolytus records a prayer of thanksgiving for the new fruits of the season. He mentions by name the blessing of grapes, figs, pomegranates, pears, mulberries, peaches, and almonds, a harvest table that sounds as beautiful as it must have been to share. Ways to Celebrate at Home The Feast of the Transfiguration offers some genuinely beautiful opportunities for celebration at home. Here are a few ideas for marking August 6th with your family: Read the Transfiguration accounts together. Matthew 17:1-8, Mark 9:2-8, and Luke 9:28-36 each offer their own angle on the same extraordinary event. Reading them together and noticing what each one emphasizes is a rich and rewarding way to spend time on the feast day. Light a candle. Throughout Christian history, candles have symbolized the light of Christ. On the Feast of the Transfiguration, when His face shone like the sun and His garments became as white as light, that symbolism is especially fitting. Take a walk or hike. If you are able, take a nature walk or hike to a nearby hill or high point, as Jesus did with Peter, James, and John. Even a modest hill or an elevated overlook can become a small act of remembrance on this feast day. Eat fruit. In keeping with the ancient tradition of the first fruits, eat grapes or any other fruit that is in season, or bake something with fruit, a fruit pie or a simple fruit tart is a beautiful and delicious way to honor the harvest tradition associated with this feast. Make a Chocolate Silk Pie. This has become one of my favorite ways to celebrate the Transfiguration at home, and the reason is simple, when you place a slice on the plate, you can see it clearly. The rich, dark chocolate custard below and the billowing whipped cream above, meeting together in a single slice, are a beautiful and delicious picture of the earthly and the heavenly converging, which is exactly what happened on that mountain. It is the kind of a truth that everyone can taste. The Transfiguration is not a theological concept to be outlined or a doctrine to be defended. It is a moment, blazing, astonishing, and alive, in which the veil between heaven and earth was pulled back and three ordinary men from Galilee saw, for a few breathtaking moments, exactly who it was they had been following. His face shone like the sun. His garments became as white as light. That is worth celebrating. the recipe - French Silk Pie Crust: 12 graham crackers (the 4-section large pieces) 1/3 cup butter, melted 1/3 cup sugar Filling: 1 cup heavy whipping cream 8-ounces bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate chocolate, finely chopped 4 large eggs 1 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature 1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract Topping: 1 1/2 cups heavy cream 1/4 cup powdered sugar Instructions: For the crust: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Crush the crackers in a food processor or resealable bag. Pour them into a bowl and stir in the melted butter and sugar. Press into a pie pan and bake until golden and set, 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool slightly. For the filling: Using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, whip the heavy cream on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form, about 4 minutes. Set whipped cream in the refrigerator until step 8. Melt the semi-sweet chocolate. You can melt it in a double boiler or the microwave. If using the microwave: place the chopped chocolate in a medium microwave-safe bowl. Microwave in 20-second increments, stopping and stirring after each increment until completely melted and smooth. Set aside until the end of the next step. Whisk eggs and sugar together in a heatproof bowl or the top piece of a double boiler. Place over a pot of simmering water (or the bottom part of your double boiler) on medium heat. Do not let the surface of the simmering water touch the bottom of the heatproof bowl. Whisking constantly, cook the egg mixture until it reaches 160°F on an instant-read thermometer, about 10–11 minutes. Do not stop whisking or the eggs may solidify. Carefully remove from heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes. After cooling, slowly stir in the melted chocolate. Cool for another 10 minutes. Using a handheld or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment beat the butter on medium-high speed until creamy, about 1–2 minutes. Add the vanilla and beat on medium-high speed for 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl. With the mixer running on low speed, pour in the chocolate/egg mixture and then increase to medium-high speed and beat for 3 minutes. With a silicone spatula, fold in the whipped cream until combined. Spread filling into pie crust. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4–6 hours or overnight, until chilled and thickened. Pie may be refrigerated for up to 2 days before serving. Using a handheld or a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, whip the heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla extract on medium-high speed until medium peaks form, about 3–4 minutes. Spread the whipped cream on top of the chilled pie.

Last year's calendar and planner. If you have been following along here for any length of time, you know that one of the things closest to my heart is helping people bring the rhythms of the Church calendar into their homes in ways that are beautiful, accessible, and genuinely formative. That is why I started writing about the liturgical year. It is why I created The Liturgical Home. And it is why, for the past two years, I have put together the Liturgical Home Calendar and Planner, because I wanted to give families a single, beautiful resource that made the feast days, seasons, and sacred rhythms of the Church year easy to plan for and joyful to celebrate. The response over the past two years has genuinely moved me. Families have written to tell me about feast days they celebrated for the first time, about children who now know the saints by name, about tables set with candles and special foods for days they had never heard of before. Homes that are being slowly, faithfully shaped by the story of the Gospel told through the turning of the Church year. That is everything I hoped this resource would do. And it has kept me coming back to make it better every year. So I am happy to tell you that the 2026-27 Liturgical Home Calendar and Planner is coming in August. If you used last year’s calendar, you already know what it does. You know what it feels like to look ahead at the month and see the feast days marked, to have everything you need to plan a simple celebration already gathered in one place, to feel the rhythm of the Church year shaping the rhythm of your home rather than the other way around. If you have been curious but haven’t yet tried it, this is your year. I would love for you to have it in your hands before the new liturgical year begins. I will share all of the details - including what is new in this year’s edition and where to purchase it - as we get closer to the launch date. In the meantime, if you have questions or want to be notified the moment it goes live, simply reply to this post and I will make sure you are the first to know. And if you have been using the calendar and planner and it has made a difference in your home, I would genuinely love to hear about it. Those stories mean more to me than I can say, and they remind me why this work is worth doing year after year. The 2026-27 calendar launches in August. I cannot wait to share it with you!