Saint Agnes: the Patron of Challenge
132-year-old tradition—the Blessing of the Lambs and Saint Agnes
Every year on her feast day (January 21), lambs–a sign of Saint Agnes’s purity–are blessed at the basilica, and their wool is then used to create palliums, the distinctive garments given by the Pope to archbishops to show their unity with the Holy Father.
Follow God’s commandments to honor father and mother.
Show Christian love for our spouses and honor and obey each other.
Try not to discourage ourchildren
Live the call as a Christian parent providing children physical, emotional and spiritual needs
Help them grow in faith and love for God.
Teaching our children how to act as parents.
Family is love in action. When we show our children the love we have for them and for God, we teach them how to love others.
Family is God’s gift to us. Our gift in return is to strive to follow the footsteps of Joseph and Mary as we parent our children each day.
The Coventry Carol
This beautiful English lullaby carol originated in the Coventry Corpus Christi Mystery Plays performed in the 15th century. In a play called The Pageant of the Shearmen and Tailors, the women of Bethlehem sing this song just before Herod’s soldiers come to slaughter their children. It tells the story of the murder of the Holy Innocents, and is sung on December 28, the feast of those tiny martyrs.
Lully, Lullay, thou little tiny child.
Bye, bye, lully, lullay.
Lullay thou little tiny child
Bye, bye, lully, lullay
O sisters, too, how may we do,
For to preserve this day;
This poor Youngling for whom we sing
Bye, bye lully, lullay
Herod the King, in his raging,
Charged he hath this day;
His men of might, in his own sight,
All young children to slay.
Then woe is me, poor child, for thee,
And ever mourn and say;
For thy parting neither say nor sing,
Bye, bye lully, lullay.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. – John 1:14
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of the Americas,
and in the Aztec language, “She who overcomes the Devourer.”
Saint Teresa of Avila’s Feast Day – October 15
Saint Teresa of Avila lived in a time quite similar to ours, when the Christians of her own country needed to hear the message of the Gospel preached with renewed vigor.
Video about Saint Teresa of Avila
Like many Marian feasts, the Feast of Our Lady of the Rosary celebrates the protection of Christians through the intercession of the Mother of God.
Salve Regina by Choeur des moines de saint benoit-du-lac
Salve Regina
Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy,
our life, our sweetness and our hope.
To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve;
to thee do we send up our sighs,
mourning and weeping in this valley of tears.
Turn then, most gracious advocate,
thine eyes of mercy toward us;
and after this our exile,
show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.
Pray for us O holy Mother of God,
that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.
Let us pray: Almighty, everlasting God, who by the co-operation of the Holy Spirit didst prepare the body and soul of the glorious Virgin-Mother Mary to become a dwelling-place meet for thy Son: grant that as we rejoice in her commemoration; so by her fervent intercession we may be delivered from present evils and from everlasting death. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.