Advent Homily

 I have just finished looking at this interesting blog post on forgiveness. Leave a comment or thought on it
 and here are thoughts from this Saturday night's homily   which Father gave on Repentance:

Turning around physically 

….a complete change of perspective…

turning from the boredom of the small way we see ourselves and looking towards how God would see. 

Yes we need to do this in the way we see the world and how we see others(ie the looking outwards) but also  in how we see ourselves (which must impinge on the later anyway!). 

We limit what we can  or are in God’s reality by holding on to  a self limiting view of “me” in our subjective unreality. 

Dare we believe we are made in the image of God, can we truly trust that he has chosen us as a daughter/son of the King of kings. 

How can I begin to see things with God sight and not my own eyes(which in my case have always been impaired anyway)…to think on waiting for the King.

Saint Nicholas comes to the hills

Saint Nicholas came early to the Adelaide Hills this year. Important to remember I suppose that he does have a busy schedule! Of course some of us will still be putting out our shoes in a few days time, but for an actual sighting of the man this hills visit can't be beat! The car (is it a Morris?), was a unique feature this year.






Of course a greater part of this season is "the waiting" as our two youngest families members show.

Now Mathilda can you recognize your dad?

And your brother?

Or your sisters who sang so beautifully "Silent Night"

Picture Book Advent :Through The Animals Eyes by Christopher Wormell

Day Two:

Through the Animals Eyes by Christopher Wormell

what can I say? I often choose picture books and will continue to do so for their art. And this is no exception. The moment I looked at the cover I knew this would be a book that would "grab my boys in". Seriously if you enjoy good art, and love nature you will be the same!

This is a book to be studied long after advent and Christmas seasons are over. The book gives us more than the "simple" story too but adds to our knowledge of middle eastern animals.A further "rabbit trail pending.

We read quite a sizeable biography at the end of the book about the author/ illustrator, delighted to find that he "cut his teeth" on an assembly line of lino-cut Christmas cards before developing his own particular style of wood-cuts.(wood-cuts? lino-cuts? already a study to come back too)

Finally ds9 was delighted to learn that the Mr Wormall had been chosen as the illustrator of the 2004 Christmas stamps collection in Britain.(more stamp/artist study to follow!)

 ACTIVITIES:

Copybook or calligraphy the following:

"Her child would be the Son of God whose kingdom would have no end”

“So a humble manger became blessed with the light of life."

 CRAFT:

Lino cuts for cards

O Night Divine

Every year since we have been attending our parish, part of our Advent traditions is the Christmas Carol Service our choir hosts. This year we wondered. The service was very early in December, did we feel ready for it? But two boys had offered to serve so off most of us went. We were not disappointed.Firstly two of our favourite priests lead the celebration , one who is  now 82 lead us into the church a few years ago and the other quite a number of years younger (shall we say  couple of generations!) is like us, a convert to Catholicsm and one of its strongest supporter.

The music was as always superb. We started with Advent hymns including one of my favourites by Eleanor Farjeon and moved through to ones of a more Christmas feel, including Tomorrow Shall Be My Dancing Day,Noel Nouvelet, But the most memorable carol(see title of post) came right near the end. It started as a solo, a "mature voice", a little hesitant and we all journeyed with her as we wondered is she going to get there, can it be done. While at the same time we marveled as each second built on the preceeding as we realized we were truely witnessing something amazingly powerful, fantastical in its strength of message.While the number of those attending was not large I doubt any will forget and we are hopeful for an equally magical Midnight Mass on Christmas .

Picture Book Advent :Little One We knew You’d Come

Wonderful book. Love the lyrical way it is written and the illustrations which beautifully match the theme. We shouldn't have been surprised as the author writes one of our favourite children's Bible

And do check out the web site of the illustrator. she has some beautiful images there. I love the hint of something medieval, almost make-believe in them.

Little One we knew you’d come.

We hoped. We dreamed. We watched for you.

We counted the days till you were due. We waited. How we longed for you,

 And the day that you were born.

Little on we know you’ll come.

We hope . We dream. We watch for you.

We count the days till you are due.

We wait. How we long for you.

And the day that you were born.

 ACTIVITIES:

Copybook or calligraphy the following:

And every year, we remember you, our miracle child, our dream come true.

Oh how we thank heaven for you.

And the day that you were born.

Little one we’re so glad you’ve come.

                  From Little One We knew You’d Come.    By Sally Lloyd-Jones illustrated by Jackie Morris.

MEMORY WORK:

 memorizing our scripture from Luke Chapter Two:

MUSIC:

Learn + play some hymns:

specifically we will learn these carols; "Joy to the World',"We Three Kings","God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" on violin

we will also listen to and revise the words of "People look East""O Come Emmanuel""Lo he Comes""O Jordan's Bank""On this Holy Mountain""Lo How a Rose"

CRAFT:

Make angels for gifts

Make advent box

Sew stars to hang on noticeboard + on tree. Use buttons + sequins: need lavender/purple/red/lime green felt,       need purple + green thread  + need needles + templates

The Feast of Saint Andrew

Saint Andrew is the first saint' feast day in Advent. I fact often it precedes the beginning of Advent by a day or so.
One of our family traditions for this feast is that it marks the start of our special Advent prayer which we pray every day for our special intentions of the season. The boys and I will pray this each morning . We are also reading the Jesse tree devotions from this site Thanks Anne they are brilliant!

This evening as we lit our Advent wreath we prayed the prayers and verses on this red card. I found this somewhere on the internet but forgot to write down the site so if it is yours, thank you and please take this as acknowledgment that the thoughts on the Scriptures came from you and I do not claim them.

Our feast day meal included a crumbed fillet of fish, with fried potatoes and a tomato and cucumber salad.
Cupcakes iced in blue with a fish shape liberally sprinkled on most completed the meal. Happy feast day!

Making cards

Guess what has kept the boys busy today?! Christmas card making! We didn't send too many last year so we are very keen to do so this year. Youngest son in particular is hoping to get some back in return by post("for the stamps mum!")
Both progects have been a nice conclusion to some of our art studies this year. In the first we were able to review our look at Mondrian and other modern art that emphasizes line and colour.

The second progect almost didn't work until we figured out we needed printers ink(a touch expensive!). But then it sparked a real enthusiasm with older son who thought that lino cutting/printing might be an interest he would want to go back to after Christmas.

as an aside we discovered that dandelion juice and other green vegetation is great at ridding fingers of black stains. How did we discover this? Well another feature of today was a worthwhile hour spent in the garden "discovering" a multitude of green goodies for our hens!!

Memory work!

As part of our Advent preparation ds's and I are learning the familiar words from  the Gospel of Luke Chapter Two that talk about the birth of Christ. Each day we read the entire passage ,then we take a verse and focus on its meaning before committing it to memory. An effective way we have found is to cut the words of the verse apart,removing sections while still reciting the entire verse. Then when we have it all in pieces the boys put it together on a bulletin board set aside for this project.

Readalouds for Advent

We have three new books waiting to be read together for Advent. Just a few more days,we can hardly wait! Patricia MacLachlan is one of our favourite authors. Her style is lyrical and reads almost like poetry.We were thrilled to find a new book by her for Advent. Elizabeth Gouge writes beautifully for adults and children. She often intertwines make-believe with the real world, but in a way that amplifies both.Youngest son has been humming the carol the title takes its name from ever since he saw the book. The third and final selection is a new author and so exciting in its own way as we wonder if it too will become a remembered favourite!

Cimabue

We are studying the artist Cimabue as part of our Medieval history programme. Our study will only last for a week as we are hoping to finally complete our studies before Advent! As we looked at our three chosen works by the artist we noted that Cimabue was the first  to have human figures tilt their heads.

"Instead of studying his letters, Cimabue spent all his time covering his paper and his books with pictures showing people, horses, houses, and the various other things he dreamt up."

Landscape and art

We had a lovely day yesterday doing art with another family in a country town not far from us.

 The artist whose studio the workshop was in has an amazing nature corner which kept us occupied for some time. The workshop was on printing. the other family had been studying the art of Albrecht Durer and in particular his wood cuts. We started off by drawing some funny animals which combined features of real animals and became our fantaminals. Then we moved onto mono printing and tried out various methods. Finally the boys attempted their first lino cut/print. I can easily see this skill being used in advent in making our homemade christmas cards! after the workshop we had lunch down by the river and then went for a walk beside it.

We discovered the mural the our teacher had made and examined it in detail.The boys enjoyed trying out various skill points along the way! And spotting the family with the largest number of ducklings.

A pleasant drive home and we arrived home weary but well satisfied with life!