Sir John and the Knights of the Long Table

Eleven of us live here at beautiful Schamelot, and we have a small 20 acre farm of chickens, emus, two dogs, 13 or so cats and a cockateil named Sassafrass.

Saturday, December 19, 2009

Befriend a Saint


From "Around the Year with the Trapp Family"

"After our first gathering around the Advent light, and the singing of the first Advent hymn, an air of expectancy spreads over the family group; now comes the moment when the mother goes around with a bowl in which are the little cards with the names of the new saints. Everybody draws a card and puts it in his missal. This saint will be invoked every morning after morning prayer. Everyone is supposed to look up and study the life story of his new friend, and some time during the coming year he will tell the family all about it. As there are so many of us, we come to know about different saints every year. Sometimes this calls for considerable research on the part of the unfortunate one who has drawn St. Eustachius, for instance, or St. Bibiana. But the custom has become very dear to us, and every year it seems as if the family circle were enlarged by all those new brothers and sisters entering in and becoming known and loved by all."

Using this list of Companion Saints, we're each going to draw a new saint every First Sunday of the month and keep a picture of and a prayer to that saint in an album. I've made a document with different pictures of All Saints to use as the covers for each of our albums. I think we'll try to celebrate each saint's feast day as well, having the family member who's saint friend it is tell us a little about each saint. In this way we hope to increase our familiarity and deepen our intimacy with many of our lesser known spiritual family members.


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