Vol. 1, Issue 9: Summer Feasts and Ordinary Time
The ordinary and the miraculous.
From the Editor
Hello, friends!
Here in rural Virginia, the sun is hot these days and, as the pastor said at the Liturgy I attended this past Sunday, the grass is so dry that it crinkles underfoot like snow. Father reminded us this week that we should pray for all things, including the rain that our region so desperately needs this August. My own garden has dried up almost completely, nearly an utter failure. A few tomato plants are hanging on, God bless ‘em, but even they are spare and sparsely-fruited.
What a good time this is — this time of potential harvest but also potential drought — to be turning toward God in the ordinary things of life, which are so important. We find ourselves happy today to have the chance to focus this issue of Signs + Seasons on liturgical living in Ordinary Time — which, of course, still includes many feasts!
I’ve already shared some of my own sense of liturgical living in Ordinary Time in the previous two posts (one that introduced our new schedule and one that sent out the call for submissions for today’s post), so instead of saying more myself right now, let us together jump right into the rich posts and pieces that we have to share today.
Happy August!
Editor Features
Rushbearing Time
For S+S Editor
, summer is the season of rushbearing. Kristin has a number of posts on this old tradition of liturgical living that are well-worth perusing! A taste:Every summer, we harvest our local version of rushes (broadfruit bur-reed, Sparganium eurycarpum, I think?) to gather a basket-full for plaiting. This is also the pinnacle of haying season, when we’re cutting and baling hay that will tide the herd over during the cold winter months - so we look for projects to do with hay. So far, we’ve used these plaited mats of rushes & hay to bless our little domestic monastery of our home (though the dog sure loves rolling on them & they’re gone in an instant, haha!) - but it makes me wonder how the heart of this can be translated to our local church community, too.
Enjoy Kristin’s posts on rushbearing.
How to Find Your Family Prayer Style
S+S Editor
(ahem, that’s me) has an intro and then an article for you this summer on finding your family prayer style — that is, a way of praying regularly together without the kids going crazy (much) or the parents getting resentful or frustrated (much). A quote from the piece at Radiant magazine:Every evening around the world, Catholic families kneel together and pray the beautiful prayer of the Rosary in peace and joy. Meanwhile, other Catholic families kneel together and pray the same Rosary while toddlers whack each other with wooden strings of beads, teens roll their eyes and pray in a huff, and middle children pick their noses pensively, totally undisturbed by the chaos around them but also not really praying….And so the family stops praying together at all.
Read the intro here and then the article here!
Five Things Parishes Can Do Today to Build a Family Culture
S+S Editor
has a piece for us today about practical things that churches can do to draw in and prepare for families with children. These aren’t big things, but rather are minor changes that yet make a big difference to families and clearly demonstrate that children are welcome. For example:The parish by our house has offered a diaper station in the family bathroom for about a year now, and it’s a huge blessing. The basic idea is that parishioners can donate diapers and wipes to be made available for families who, for whatever reason, need a clean diaper during Mass and don’t have one. (Maybe you forgot to grab your diaper bag; maybe your kid just outgrew a size; the possibilities are endless.) This is a super scalable project…
Read Sara’s ideas here!
Guildmember Features
We had so many wonderful submissions for this issue that we decided to run through them in a shorter form than usual, so as to be able to fit as many as possible.
We can’t wait to hear what you think of them. Which ones are your favorites?
For the feast of Sts. Peter & Paul (June 29),
tells us about “The "Twin Founders" of Rome” and the catacombs. I love stuff like this!For Ordinary Time, frequent contributor
brings us one of her deep dives fitting to this seasons: “What’s Ordinary in ChurchSpeak?”- has a wonderful Ordinary Time-themed post “Cultivating Hospitality and Beauty in the Home (as an Orthodox Christian)” which — super major brownie bonus points here — is influenced by the great Sally Clarkson, whose words are so often balm to my own harried-Christian-mother soul. Catie also has an August feast day cake to share!
Powerful Christian writer
has a striking piece up about the June feast of Corpus Christi (the Body and Blood of Christ) and its relation to suffering and creation: “A Year of Body and Blood.”Frequent contributor
has a new children’s book out on Eucharistic Saints! It is absolutely BEAUTIFUL in word and illustration (the illustrator is one of my very favorites, Adalee Hude). You can read my (Dixie’s) review of the book here or read Meredith’s post on why she wrote the book here.In the spirit of “signs,” we’d also like to share this piece by
on Christians and bees: “Bees.”Steffani Aquila of His Girl Sunday has a wonderful post full of ideas for the upcoming Feast of the Transfiguration (August 6): “Liturgical Living for the Transfiguration.” The timing is perfect — so get planning!
- shares the memory and meaning of hearing the monastery bells toll in the summer (along with a beautiful orginial watercolor): “To Hear the Bells Ringing.”
Next we have some deep and lovely thoughts on the value of the ordinary and Ordinary Time (and dogs!) in “A Dachshund + Ordinary Time,” by
.- shares her Sunday rhythm, among other things, in her post “One-Sided Conversations with Self-Help Authors” (the title alone made me laugh!).
Vonda Drees periodically shares her liturgical artwork on her website, and she has some fascinating work for Ordinary Time here.
Poet Olivia Oster has two new poems on “Summer Blessings” up at Spirit Fire Review.
Know someone who might enjoy the topics covered in this issue of Signs + Seasons? We’d be honored if you’d share this post with them!
And that’s all she wrote, for this issue, at least! But won’t you join us for the next one?
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Publication Date: late October 2024
Submission Deadline: TBD
Themes/Recommended Prompts: August, September, and October feast days (including Hallowtide!)
In Christ,
Kristin, Sara, & Dixie
I have to like this piece just for the picture of birds.