Living Liturgically Archives - Truly Rich and Blessed

What to Do When Your Advent (and Life in General) Doesn’t Go as Planned

December 20, 2015 by Tina Leave a Comment

So it’s been almost a month since I said my temporary goodbyes here on the blog. I didn’t think that the “renovation” process here would take so long but — as it says in the title of this post — sometimes life doesn’t go the way we planned it. (And yes, we’re still not done with the process, as you can see!)

This Advent season has not been going the way I planned it either. Admittedly, with this pregnancy slowing me down (just a teeny, tiny bit!) and with all the other things on my plate, I didn’t have “grand” plans for Advent this year. This was the most I could do actually:

Set up our Nativity set (one of a few; the others are still in storage! Ha!)
Buy a ready-made Advent Wreath (FINALLY! After years of wanting to do so!)
Buy an Advent Wreath / Christmas Prayers Devotional Booklet (Also after years of looking for a nice one!)
Look for our “The Story of Christmas” Advent Calendar and Storybook Set
Look for our copy of “Jotham’s Journey”
Set up our Jesse Tree
Set up our image of Baby Jesus (and hide Jesus so the kids can look for him on Christmas Day!)

I did all of this the night before Advent began! 🙂 Talk about photo-finish preparations! I’m grateful to God that I was able to do so though.

Admittedly, we haven’t been able to do our Jesse Tree and Advent Wreath devotions consistently… we missed a few nights for different reasons. But instead of hanging on to feelings of guilt over it (which I would normally do on any given day), I have chosen to just.let.it.go.

Which brings me to the point of this post. 😉

When your Advent — or, like I said, life in general — doesn’t go the way you planned it to, that’s what you should do:

Let it go.

Let go and let God take over.

So many good things can happen if you do. Just as it says in this quote:

Photo Credit: Flickr by deeplifequotes

(Yeah, I should remind myself of this, because I haven’t been letting go and letting Him move lately — which means I have been SO stressed out over so many things!)

So there… my two cents’ worth for all of us this Fourth Sunday of Advent. Christmas is just DAYS away, and instead of beating myself up for all the things I haven’t been able to do, I think I will just do my best to savor these moments. Like I said in the , I don’t want to forget “the better part”:

Let’s ask God to make our hearts His home this Christmas… and beyond! Praying you and your loved ones have a truly rich and blessed, truly bright and beautiful Christmas season ahead! 🙂

Celebrating Saint Therese of the Child Jesus (With Some Suggested Activities and Videos)

October 1, 2015 by Tina 1 Comment

Source.

Today is the feast day of one of our family’s favorite saints: Saint Therese of Lisieux. 🙂 We named our second child after her — so today is also our daughter’s “Nameday”! (“What’s a Nameday?,” you may ask… More info here.). We only started celebrating our children’s “Namedays” last year, so I am still getting the hang of it. 😛

To celebrate, we plan to read about Saint Therese, have some cake and, hopefully, visit Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament, just as Saint Therese loved to do. 🙂 We will also watch these videos:

A simple but meaningful (I hope!) celebration. 😉

In case you want to celebrate this special day too, here are some links to great resources:

Background of today’s feast (Memorial of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, virgin and Doctor of the Church) via Catholic Culture (includes suggested activities)

Printable Activity Sheets from Shower of Roses plus more ideas

Ideas from Holy Family Classical Academy

For us parents — a good read from CatholicMom.com: Can We Help Our Children to Become Saints?

To end, here’s one of my favorite quotes from the Little Flower of Jesus, taken from my latest article for CatholicMom.com:

May we spend this day and beyond with hearts surging, looking towards Heaven, and crying out in recognition of God’s amazing love for us! Saint Therese of Lisieux, pray for us! 🙂

To the Ends of the Earth

April 29, 2015 by Tina Leave a Comment

Mark 16:15-20

Jesus appeared to the Eleven and said to them: “Go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; whoever does not believe will be condemned. These signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will drive out demons, they will speak new languages. They will pick up serpents with their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not harm them. They will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” Then the Lord Jesus, after he spoke to them, was taken up into heaven and took his seat at the right hand of God. But they went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through accompanying signs.

It was the feast of Saint Mark the Evangelist last April 25. It was a full day for our family because it was the last day of our summer outing in Cebu (we are SO blessed that we are able to have such outings every year, together with other employees of Bro./Kuya Bo Sanchez — thank God he’s BOss! 😉 ).

Screen shot from Bro. Bo Sanchez’s Facebook page — Thank you again, Kuya Bo, for your awesome generosity! God’s love truly shines through you! :)

To be honest, I had totally forgotten about the plans I had made for honoring Saint Mark on his feast day — I had actually brought along a few Bible storybooks to read with the kids, and planned to show them photos of our previous mission areas in Timor, which included places that had beautiful beaches, like the one shown below:

One of the views from , where we had our outing — thank You, Lord!

…but we ended up taking one final swim together (which lasted much longer than we’d originally intended), before packing up our things and going to the airport, and it just totally slipped my mind! (Yep, keeping it real here, folks! 😉 We live liturgically as best as we can, but are inconsistent on many, many, many occasions!)

Our only family photo during the trip! 🙂 Oh my, our babies are growing big too quickly!

(Don’t get me started about missing the opportunity to celebrate Good Shepherd Sunday either! *sighs* I’m trying to make up for it this week, though, by including A New Coat for Anna (which you can use as a springboard for discussions about making sacrifices, shepherds and sheep, and a whole lot more!) and other children’s books about sacrificial love and vocations in our list of read-alouds.)

Anyway, back to the point of this post… I thought I’d share with you the reflection I wrote for April 25, which appeared in Didache and on KerygmaFamily.com. I hope you’ll be blessed by it somehow! 🙂

To the Ends of the Earth

“Go into the whole world and proclaim the gospel to every creature.” – Mark 16:15

One of my favorite songs is “To the Ends of the Earth” by Hillsong United. It was actually my theme song when I was still a full-time missionary for my Catholic community.

Part of it goes like this: “Jesus, I believe in You/And I would go to the ends of the earth/To the ends of the earth /For You alone are the Son of God/And all the world will see/That You are God.”

Today’s Gospel reminds us that Jesus wants us to proclaim His Word to the whole world — to the ends of the earth. Even if I no longer hold the official title of being a full-time missionary, I believe that I’m still proclaiming the Gospel through my writing. In fact, I believe we are all called to be missionaries in our own special way.

Are you a parent? You’re proclaiming the Gospel by caring for and loving your kids. Are you an “ordinary” office worker? You’re proclaiming the Gospel by being excellent at your job.

Whoever you are and whatever you do, seek every opportunity to share God’s love with others — even to the ends of the earth. Tina Santiago-Rodriguez ()

Reflection: “The deeds you do may be the only sermon some persons will hear today.” St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, please use me to proclaim Your love to others.

St. Mark, evangelist, pray for us.

Source:

Image credits: World map by khunaspix via FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Saint Joseph, Pray for Us!

March 19, 2015 by Tina Leave a Comment

From the Collect for today’s Mass:

“Grant, we pray, almighty God, that by Saint Joseph’s intercession your Church may constantly watch over the unfolding of the mysteries of human salvation, whose beginnings you entrusted to his faithful care. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.”

Source: CatholicCulture.org

For ideas for celebrating the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary, please refer to my latest article on CatholicMom.com.

Oh, and if you’re looking for wonderful music to listen to on this special feast day, here’s a great playlist I found on YouTube:

Saint Joseph, pray for us! 🙂

Image credits: Photo of Sleeping Saint Joseph was taken from the . Used with permission.