When my husband and I were first married, we had no money. He was no longer in his band, and the only job he could get was stocking shelves at Camelot Music. I was an art student with no income. We lived in an old apartment, packed our lunches, and watched every penny that we spent. Children were definitely not part of the picture. We were barely keeping our heads above water.

And then my husband got a full-time job as a programmer at a life insurance company, and suddenly everything changed.

We felt like we were rich - we definitely weren’t - but it is amazing what the move from an hourly wage to a salary makes in a young couple’s life with no children. We went to the movies, we ate out, and we explored the city. In the evenings, I would read while he played guitar. Life was easy, life was simple, we were free, and we were in no hurry to change any of it.

During that time, nobody challenged us. The choices we were making, waiting, enjoying our lives, building financial stability before adding the complication of children, were so very sensible, so responsible. Everyone around us was making the same kinds of choices for the same kinds of reasons, and there was not a single voice in our lives asking us to examine whether sensible and responsible were the same thing as faithful.

My husband and I had begun reading a lot of theology during that season. One of the gifts of that quieter, simpler life was the time it gave us for reading, and somewhere during that period, we came across a book that changed things for us. The funny thing is, it was not a book either of us had wanted to read for the reasons it ended up mattering to us. But in it, we discovered a theology of marriage and children and what the Christian tradition has always said about the meaning of the two together that shocked us.

Neither my husband nor I had ever seriously thought about the theology of marriage and children. We were simply swimming in the cultural waters - that children were a choice, that timing was a matter of personal preference and financial readiness, that waiting until we felt ready was not only reasonable but wise. We had never examined those assumptions. We had never asked whether they were consistent with what we actually believed about God, about marriage, about the shape of a faithful life.

The more we thought about what we had read, the more uneasy we became. Not because anyone was accusing us of anything. But because we were beginning to see something we had not seen before - that the life we had been living so contentedly, the life that felt so free and so easy and so entirely sensible, was organized primarily around our own comfort. And that comfort, left unexamined and unchallenged, has a way of becoming its own kind of captivity.

We were not avoiding children for any compelling theological reason. We were avoiding them because everything was going well, and we did not want to disrupt that. Sacrifice felt optional when so little was being asked of us. And the longer we waited, the more settled we became in the life we had, and the harder it was to imagine choosing anything else.

We knew we were at a crossroads, and we knew we needed to choose, not just about children, but about something larger than that - about which direction we were walking. We had to decide whether we were walking toward the life God was calling us into, or whether we were going to keep protecting the comfortable life we had already built.

We chose to walk toward holiness - to stop arranging our lives around ease and open ourselves to the costly gift God was placing before us. It was one of the best and hardest decisions we have ever made.

I tell that story not because the specific question we were wrestling with -children, timing, what faithfulness looks like in a marriage - is the subject of this series. It is one example among many of a pattern I have come to believe is one of the defining spiritual challenges of our moment.

Because my husband and I were not alone in our complacency. We were surrounded by people in the same place - good people, faithful people, people who loved God and went to church and read their Bibles - who were nevertheless making the same quiet, reasonable, sensible choices in the direction of comfort and away from the harder, more costly, and more formative things that faithfulness requires.

As I have grown older, I have watched that pattern only deepen. The comfort is more readily available, the expectations are even lower, the cultural pressure to choose ease over sacrifice has become more relentless, and the voice within the Church calling people toward holiness - toward the hard, beautiful life the New Testament actually describes - has grown quieter and quieter.

I think about that crossroads moment all the time. Not just what we decided but what it took to get us there — the fact that it required a book, a lot of uncomfortable conversations, and a moment of honest reckoning with ourselves. Without any of that, we would have simply kept walking in the direction we were already going, never questioning it, never quite realizing that comfort and contentment are not the same thing as faithfulness, and that the life we were living, however pleasant, was not the life we were made for.

That is what frightens me about the moment we are living in now.

It is not only that we may be making wrong choices, but that we have lost the inclination to ask what our choices are forming us to become. So many of us are making choices - about marriage, about children, about church, about prayer, about how we spend our time and order our days and give ourselves to things larger than our own preferences - with no one asking us to examine them, no voice in our lives naming what is actually at stake, no moment of honest reckoning with the question put into words on that ordinary evening so many years ago.

Which direction are we walking?

Here is what I have come to believe after years of thinking about that question and watching the people around me navigate it in their own ways. Comfort is not the enemy of the Christian life, but comfort unchallenged, comfort unexamined, comfort that has quietly become the organizing principle of our days and our decisions - that is something entirely different. That is something the New Testament has a great deal to say about, and what it says is not what our culture wants to hear.

I often wonder if our deepest problem is not that we sometimes choose comfort over holiness, but that we have forgotten to want holiness at all. It’s innate in us to want happiness, security, success, and ease. But how many of us find ourselves wanting, above everything else, to become holy? How many of us examine our choices not by asking, “Will this make my life better?” but “Will this make me more like Christ?” I certainly don’t!

Christianity has never promised that the good life is the easy life. It teaches us to take up our cross, to die to ourselves, to practice steadfastness and faithfulness and sacrifice and self-denial - not because suffering is good in itself, but because holiness is worth pursuing, and becoming holy will sometimes be hard. I think this is the strong conviction we have most failed to pass on to the next generation - that hard things are not obstacles to a joyful life - sometimes they are the very means God uses to lead us into one.

There is a joy on the other side of faithfulness that comfort alone can never give us. My husband and I found that joy when we chose the harder thing on that ordinary evening in our apartment. And in the years since, through the children who arrived and the sacrifices they required and the people they have made us into - we have found more of that joy than we could ever have imagined from where we were standing then.

I want to spend the next several weeks exploring what that conviction looks like lived out - in marriage, in celibacy, in the decision to have children, in the faithful weekly practice of showing up to church, in eating together, in daily prayer, in the rhythms of the liturgical year, in care for the poor, and in the ancient practice of self-denial that our own age finds so baffling and so unnecessary.

Not because I have mastered any of these things - I most certainly have not! But because I think we need to hear again - clearly, honestly, and without apology - that a life spent becoming holy is worth the cost.

On August 24th, the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Bartholomew, one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke each mention him by name (Matt. 10:3, Mark 3:18, Luke 6:14), and in the Gospel of John he appears under the name Nathanael, giving us one of the most honest first encounters with Jesus in all of the Gospels.

When Philip finds Nathanael and tells him they have found the one Moses and the prophets wrote about, Jesus of Nazareth, Nathanael responds with the kind of refreshing honesty that must have made him immediately likeable: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46). Philip simply says, “Come and see.” And when Jesus meets him, He greets him with words that tell us something important about who Bartholomew was: “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no guile.” When Bartholomew asks how Jesus knows him, Jesus tells him He saw him under the fig tree, and that is enough. Bartholomew’s response is immediate and wholehearted: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!”

It is a brief encounter, but it reveals a man of genuine faith and transparent heart, exactly the kind of person Jesus gathered around Him.

The Life of St. Bartholomew

Unlike some of the other disciples, the New Testament does not give us a detailed account of Bartholomew’s life and ministry. What we know is that he traveled everywhere with Jesus, learning from Him and participating in His mission throughout those years of public ministry. He was present with the other disciples after the resurrection and ascension and was in the upper room when the Holy Spirit fell at Pentecost (Acts 1:13, Acts 2).

From that point, tradition takes up the story. After the descent of the Holy Spirit, Bartholomew is said to have traveled widely in service of the Gospel, to India, to Armenia, and possibly to parts of Africa, bringing the Christian faith to regions far beyond the borders of the Jewish world he had known. He is credited in various traditions with establishing the Church in these places, a missionary whose reach extended further than almost any of the other apostles.

The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew

St. Bartholomew’s martyrdom is one of the most vivid and enduring parts of his tradition. He is believed to have been martyred in Albanopolis in ancient Armenia, though the accounts of exactly how he died vary. Some traditions say he was crucified upside down. Others say he was beheaded. But the account that has captured the Christian imagination most powerfully and that appears again and again in art and iconography across the centuries is that he was flayed alive.

Perhaps the most famous depiction of St. Bartholomew in all of Western art is found in Michelangelo’s Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel, where the apostle stands holding his own flayed skin, a haunting and unforgettable image of martyrdom and faith. Scholars have long suggested that the face on the skin is a self-portrait of Michelangelo himself, which gives the image yet another layer of meaning.

Though the details of his life remain sparse, St. Bartholomew has been widely commemorated in art, architecture, and tradition. Churches, cathedrals, and monuments throughout the world bear his name, and the feast day associated with him has given rise to some of the most distinctive and enjoyable folk traditions in the Christian calendar.

How to Celebrate St. Bartholomew’s Day at Home

Make gingerbread.
During the Middle Ages in England, gingerbread was among the most traditional foods served on feast days, often stamped with the image of the saint being honored. At the famous Bartholomew Fairs held across England, gingerbread marked with the image of St. Bartholomew was one of the signature treats of the celebration. We are making Gingerbread Cake from one of my favorite seasonal cookbooks, Honey and Jam by Hannah Queen, whose recipe captures the warmth and spice of this old tradition beautifully. The recipe is included at the end of this post.

Have a race and eat a currant bun.
In the village of Sandwich in Kent, England, children still observe a St. Bartholomew’s Bun Race, running around the chapel of St. Bartholomew’s Hospital and receiving a currant bun as their reward. It is the kind of simple, joyful local tradition that has survived for centuries because children love it, and it translates beautifully to a backyard or neighborhood on the feast day.

Make Bartlemas Beef.
St. Bartholomew has long been considered the patron saint of butchers, for what are perhaps obvious reasons, given the manner of his martyrdom. Traditionally, the beef served on his feast day was known as Bartlemas Beef, a name derived from “Bartlemas,” meaning the Mass of St. Bartholomew. The Cook’s Guide from 1664 offers this remarkable recipe, which we share here in its original form:

“Take a fat Brisket piece of beef and bone it, put it into so much water as will cover it, shifting it three times a day for three dayes together, then put it into as much white wine and vinegar as will cover it, and when it hath lyen twenty-four hours take it out and drye it in a cloth, then take nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and mace, of each a like quantity, beaten small and mingled with a good handful of salt, strew both sides of the Beef with this, and roul it up as you do Brawn, tye it as close as you can; then put it into an earthen pot, and cover it with some paste; set it in the Oven with household bread, and when it is cold, eat it with mustard and sugar.”

Please let me know if you make this, and particularly what you decide to use as “some paste!”

Eat watermelon and make watermelon lanterns.
In Italy and Spain, watermelon has long been the traditional food of St. Bartholomew’s Day, arriving as it does at the very height of watermelon season in late August. On the feast day, communities would gather for watermelon festivals, attending Mass, eating the fruit, and celebrating the saint together. At the Cathedral of San Bartolomeo all’Isola, which stands on the Tiber Island in the middle of the Tiber River in Rome, a market would be held with vendors displaying whole and sliced watermelons for the crowds gathered to celebrate. And on the Spanish island of Majorca, children carried on a tradition that sounds like pure delight, hollowing out watermelons, carving them into lanterns, and parading through the village with them glowing in the summer evening.

It is hard to imagine a more festive or more seasonally perfect way to honor a feast day in late August!

the recipe -

St. Bartholomew's Gingerbread Cake

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Gingerbread Cake

• 1 cup strong brewed coffee

• 1 cup dark unsulfured molasses

• ½ teaspoon baking soda

• 2-¼ cups all-purpose flour

• ½ teaspoon salt

• 1-½ teaspoons baking powder

• 1 Tablespoon ground ginger

• 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon

• ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg

• ¼ teaspoon ground cloves

• ¾ cup vegetable oil

• 3 large eggs

• 2 cups packed dark brown sugar

• Powdered sugar for dusting

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 10-inch Bundt pan.

In a large saucepan, combine the coffee and molasses, bring the mixture to a boil over medium-high heat, then remove the pan from the heat. Whisk in the baking soda (the mixture will foam). Allow the syrup to cool.

Whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves in a medium bowl.

Whisk together the oil, eggs, sugar, and molasses mixture in a large bowl. Add the flour mixture and stir until just combined.

Pour the batter into the pan. Bake until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean, about 50 minutes. Allow the cake to cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then invert it on a wire rack and cool completely. Dust the cake with powdered sugar.

On August 15th, Christians around the world celebrate the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin, Mother of Our Lord. It’s a beautiful time to pause to honor the remarkable life of the woman God chose to bear His Son into the world. It is a feast day filled with reverence, gratitude, and deep reflection on the extraordinary role Mary played in the story of our salvation.

The Life of St. Mary the Virgin

Of all the women in all of human history, God chose Mary. He chose her to be the vessel through which His eternal Son would take on human flesh and enter the world as one of us. Her obedience, her faith, and her wholehearted surrender to God’s purposes were not incidental to the story of our redemption - they were woven into its very fabric.

God’s Plan for Mary

To fully appreciate Mary’s role in the story of salvation, we have to go back to the very beginning, to the moment when everything went wrong and God’s response to that brokenness contained, hidden within it, the first whisper of hope.

In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve disobey God and eat the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God does not destroy them but issues a series of consequences for their sin and speaks a curse over the serpent who tempted them. And then, in Genesis 3:15, something extraordinary is embedded in that curse - a prophecy that Christians have recognized from the earliest centuries of the Church as the first proclamation of the Gospel:

“And I will cause hostility between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will strike your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

This prophecy is known as the Protoevangelium, a Latin word meaning “first gospel” or “first good news.” It is understood to be a prophetic announcement of the coming Messiah and His ultimate victory over sin and death. Mary is the woman. Her offspring is Jesus. Satan will temporarily strike at Christ’s heel through the crucifixion, but Christ’s death and resurrection will crush the serpent’s head forever.

From the very moment sin entered the world, God was already at work preparing the way for Mary and the Son she would bear.

Mary’s Fiat

When the fullness of time had come (Galatians 4:4), God sent the angel Gabriel to a young girl in Nazareth named Mary (Luke 1:26). She listened in wonder as Gabriel told her that she would conceive a son by the Holy Spirit, that He would be called the Son of the Most High, and that His kingdom would have no end.

Mary’s response has echoed through the centuries as one of the most beautiful and courageous acts of faith in all of Scripture:

“Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be unto me according to your word.”
— Luke 1:38

This response is known as Mary’s Fiat from the Latin word meaning “let it be” or “so be it.” It was a profound act of faith, obedience, and surrender to God’s will, spoken by a young woman who could not have fully understood what she was saying yes to and said yes anyway. Her willingness stands in deliberate contrast to Eve’s disobedience in the Garden, making Mary’s fiat one of the pivotal moments in the entire history of salvation.

This event, the Annunciation, is also the moment of the Incarnation, when the eternal Word of God took on human flesh in Mary’s womb. At this moment, Mary became what the Church has called since the Council of Ephesus in 431 AD the Theotokos, a Greek word meaning God-bearer, often translated as Mother of God. The title is not primarily about Mary but about Jesus. By calling Mary the Theotokos, the Church affirms that the child she carried was not merely a holy man or a great prophet but God Himself, fully divine from the moment of His conception.

Shortly after the Annunciation, Mary travels to visit her elderly cousin Elizabeth, who is also miraculously pregnant. The moment Mary arrives and speaks, Elizabeth and her unborn child are filled with the Holy Spirit. Elizabeth cries out:

“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!”

Mary responds with the Magnificat, one of the most beautiful songs of praise in all of Scripture, a hymn of gratitude and joy that has been sung by the Church in evening prayer for centuries (Luke 1:46-55).

“My soul magnifies the Lord,
and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant.
For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed;
for he who is mighty has done great things for me,
and holy is his name.
And his mercy is for those who fear him
from generation to generation.
He has shown strength with his arm;
he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts;
he has brought down the mighty from their thrones
and exalted those of humble estate;
he has filled the hungry with good things,
and the rich he has sent away empty.
He has helped his servant Israel,
in remembrance of his mercy,
as he spoke to our fathers,
to Abraham and to his offspring forever.”

Mary and Jesus

Months later, Mary travels with Joseph to Bethlehem for the census, gives birth to Jesus in a stable, and watches as shepherds arrive that night with astonishing stories of angels and heavenly proclamations. Luke tells us simply that Mary kept all these things and pondered them in her heart.

That phrase captures something essential about who Mary was. She did not always understand. She was not always given explanations. She held the mystery, turned it over, and kept faith through what she could not yet see.

The Gospel accounts give us a series of remarkable moments in Mary’s life alongside Jesus - meeting Simeon and Anna in the Temple, receiving the Wise Men from the East, fleeing to Egypt with the Holy Family, finding the twelve-year-old Jesus among the teachers of the law, witnessing His first miracle at the wedding in Cana, and standing at the foot of the cross as He died. Each of these moments reveals something of Mary’s faith, her willingness to follow, to trust, to remain present even when presence cost her everything.

After the resurrection and ascension, Mary is found in the upper room with the disciples, praying and waiting for the promised Holy Spirit (Acts 1:14). She was there at the birth of the Church just as she had been there at the birth of her Son.

The Faith of Mary

Mary’s appearances in Scripture are relatively few but deeply significant. Again and again she is portrayed as a woman of faith, obedience, and humility, deeply connected to her Son’s mission and to the broader movement of God’s compassion and justice in the world. Her life bridges the Old and New Testaments. She embodies the ideal response to God’s call. And her unique role as Theotokos establishes one of the most important theological foundations of the Christian faith - that in Jesus Christ, God truly became one of us.

Lesser Feasts and Fasts expresses something of her significance beautifully:

“What we can believe is that one who stood in so intimate a relationship with the incarnate Son of God on earth must, of all the human race, have the place of highest honor in the eternal life of God. A paraphrase of an ancient Greek hymn expresses this belief in very familiar words: ‘O higher than the cherubim, more glorious than the seraphim, lead their praises, alleluia.’”

Mary’s Remaining Days

According to tradition, Mary spent her remaining years in the care of the Apostle John, as Jesus had asked from the cross (John 19:26-27). The early Christian writer Hippolytus of Rome records that John took Mary to Ephesus, in what is now modern Turkey, where she lived until her death. Tradition tells us that she spent those years in prayer and in service to the early Christian community, a mother to the Church as she had been a mother to its Lord.

How to Celebrate the Feast of St. Mary the Virgin

The Feast of St. Mary the Virgin offers some of the most beautiful and accessible traditions for celebrating at home. Here are a few ideas for honoring August 15th with your family:

Read Luke 1:26-38 and recite the Magnificat together. The Annunciation and the Magnificat together tell the essential story of Mary’s faith. Reading them aloud as a family on her feast day is the simplest and most meaningful way to mark the occasion.

Display or eat something with rosemary. An old legend says that the blossoms of the rosemary plant were originally white until Mary stopped to do laundry during the Holy Family’s flight to Egypt and threw her blue cloak over a rosemary bush to dry. From that day, the story goes, the flowers turned blue. Whether legend or not, rosemary has been associated with Mary for centuries and a sprig or small bouquet on the table is a lovely and fragrant way to honor her feast.

Display marigolds. The name marigold is itself a tribute to Mary, combining “Mary” and “gold.” The golden color of the marigold has traditionally symbolized her virtues of purity, love, humility, and obedience. A bouquet of marigolds on the dining table is both beautiful and deeply connected to the tradition of her feast day.

Use something blue. Blue is the color most associated with Mary throughout Christian art and tradition, symbolizing purity, humility, and fidelity. Lay a blue tablecloth on the table, use blue dishes, or make something with blueberries - a blueberry lemon tart is a beautiful and delicious option for the feast day table.

the recipe -

Blueberry Lemon Tart

Pastry:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

• 2 tablespoons sugar

• Pinch kosher salt

• 1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, cold, in chunks

• 1 large egg, separated

• 2 tablespoons ice water, plus 1 teaspoon

Filling:

• 4 large eggs

• 1 cup sugar

• 1 cup fresh lemon juice (about 5 lemons)

• 1/4 cup heavy cream

• 1 lemon, zested

• Pinch kosher salt

• 1 pint blueberries

To make the pastry, pulse the flour, sugar, and salt together in a food processor. Add the butter and pulse until the dough resembles cornmeal. Add the egg yolk and two tablespoons of ice water and pulse again until the dough pulls together. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and let it rest in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface into a 12-inch circle. Roll the dough onto the pin and lay it inside a 10-inch tart pan with a removable bottom. Press the dough into the edges of the pan and fold the excess dough inside to reinforce the rim. Cover the tart pan with plastic wrap and put it into the refrigerator for another 30 minutes to rest.

To bake the shell, heat the oven to 350 degrees F. Put the tart pan on a baking sheet and prick the bottom of the dough with a fork. Cover the shell with a piece of parchment paper and fill it with pie weights or dry beans. Bake for 25 minutes. Remove the parchment and weights. Lightly beat the egg white with one teaspoon of water and brush it onto the bottom and sides of the tart shell; set aside to cool.

Whisk the eggs, sugar, lemon juice, cream, zest, and salt together. Add the blueberries to the cooled tart shell and pour the filling over the blueberries. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes. The curd should jiggle slightly when done. Cool to room temperature, remove from the tart ring, and serve.

Recipe from The Food Network.

The Feast of the Transfiguration, celebrated on August 6th, is one of the most profound and breathtaking moments in the entire life of Christ. All three synoptic Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, recount it, and each account invites us to stop, look, and take in the full weight of what happened on that mountain.

Unfortunately, the Transfiguration is one of those events that so often becomes a victim of reductionism. There is so much that occurs in such a short span of time, so much meaning, so much symbolism, so much beauty, so much that defies ordinary categories, that we struggle to hold it all together. And so we reach for bulleted lists.

But the Transfiguration cannot be reduced to a bulleted list.

The Transfiguration in Scripture

The Transfiguration is a remarkable moment where the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Man converge. It is a moment where a man is not only a man but God Himself, where heroes from the distant past suddenly appear alive and present, and where the voice of God rings out from the clouds.

In the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up to a high mountain. There, He undergoes a transfiguration before them. His face shines like the sun and His garments become as white as light - a vision that calls to mind Ezekiel’s description of the glory of God:

“I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire, and brilliant light surrounded him.”
— Ezekiel 1:27

In this single extraordinary moment, the disciples witness the divine nature of Jesus, confirming that He is not merely a prophet or a rabbi but the very Son of God.

Moses and Elijah

Then, suddenly, Moses and Elijah appear on the mountain, engaging in conversation with Jesus. The significance of their presence is almost impossible to overstate. These great heroes of the faith, long thought to be beyond the reach of the living, are suddenly very much alive and present before the disciples. Moses, the great lawgiver, and Elijah, the great prophet, had both pointed throughout their lives toward the coming of the Messiah. Here, on this mountain, they witness the fulfillment of everything their lives and labors had anticipated. It is worth noting that this encounter takes place on a mountain, the very kind of place where both Moses and Elijah so often met with God.

Luke 9:31 adds a detail that is easy to overlook but remarkable in its depth. We are told that Moses and Elijah are speaking with Jesus about His departure, the thing He is about to accomplish in Jerusalem. The Greek word Luke uses for departure is exodus. Moses, who led God’s people out of slavery in Egypt in the original Exodus, and Elijah, who led a spiritual exodus by calling the people of Israel back from idolatry and toward faithfulness to God, are now conversing with Jesus about the ultimate Exodus, the deliverance that will free God’s people once and for all from the slavery of sin and death through His death and resurrection. It is an extraordinary convergence of the whole sweep of salvation history in a single conversation on a mountaintop.

My Beloved Son

As Moses and Elijah depart, Peter, recognizing that something of immense significance is happening, suggests putting up three tents to mark the moment. While he is still speaking, a bright cloud overshadows them all, and a voice speaks from within it:

“This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

This moment reaches back deep into the Old Testament, where God so often made His presence known to His people through a cloud, to Moses on Sinai, to Elijah at Horeb, to the people in the wilderness. It also echoes the voice that spoke at Jesus’ baptism: “You are my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). The Father is not saying something new here. He is saying something confirmed, reaffirming before these three witnesses the identity and authority of His Son at the precise moment when the road to Jerusalem and the cross is beginning to come into view.

The divine voice is not only a declaration. It is also a commission for every Christian who has heard it since: Listen to Him. Jesus speaks not merely as a wise teacher or a gifted prophet but with the full authority of God Himself. His words are worth ordering our lives around.

The Transfiguration and First Fruits

In many Christian traditions, the Feast of the Transfiguration is associated with the blessing and eating of fruit, particularly grapes. The timing of the feast in early August corresponds to the grape harvest and the season of first fruits in the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern regions where these traditions first developed.

With the gathering of the harvest, God’s people remembered His goodness and celebrated His abundant generosity. Fruit was brought to the church for a blessing and then shared together in communal celebration. This practice of blessing fruit on the Feast of the Transfiguration continues to this day in many Byzantine Christian communities.

The connection is ancient. As early as 220 AD, the theologian St. Hippolytus records a prayer of thanksgiving for the new fruits of the season. He mentions by name the blessing of grapes, figs, pomegranates, pears, mulberries, peaches, and almonds, a harvest table that sounds as beautiful as it must have been to share.

Ways to Celebrate at Home

The Feast of the Transfiguration offers some genuinely beautiful opportunities for celebration at home. Here are a few ideas for marking August 6th with your family:

Read the Transfiguration accounts together. Matthew 17:1-8, Mark 9:2-8, and Luke 9:28-36 each offer their own angle on the same extraordinary event. Reading them together and noticing what each one emphasizes is a rich and rewarding way to spend time on the feast day.

Light a candle. Throughout Christian history, candles have symbolized the light of Christ. On the Feast of the Transfiguration, when His face shone like the sun and His garments became as white as light, that symbolism is especially fitting.

Take a walk or hike. If you are able, take a nature walk or hike to a nearby hill or high point, as Jesus did with Peter, James, and John. Even a modest hill or an elevated overlook can become a small act of remembrance on this feast day.

Eat fruit. In keeping with the ancient tradition of the first fruits, eat grapes or any other fruit that is in season, or bake something with fruit, a fruit pie or a simple fruit tart is a beautiful and delicious way to honor the harvest tradition associated with this feast.

Make a Chocolate Silk Pie. This has become one of my favorite ways to celebrate the Transfiguration at home, and the reason is simple, when you place a slice on the plate, you can see it clearly. The rich, dark chocolate custard below and the billowing whipped cream above, meeting together in a single slice, are a beautiful and delicious picture of the earthly and the heavenly converging, which is exactly what happened on that mountain. It is the kind of a truth that everyone can taste.

The Transfiguration is not a theological concept to be outlined or a doctrine to be defended. It is a moment, blazing, astonishing, and alive, in which the veil between heaven and earth was pulled back and three ordinary men from Galilee saw, for a few breathtaking moments, exactly who it was they had been following.

His face shone like the sun. His garments became as white as light.

That is worth celebrating.

the recipe -

French Silk Pie

Crust:

12 graham crackers (the 4-section large pieces)

1/3 cup butter, melted

1/3 cup sugar

Filling:

1 cup heavy whipping cream

8-ounces bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate chocolate, finely chopped

4 large eggs

1 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened to room temperature

1 and 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Topping:

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

1/4 cup powdered sugar

Instructions:

For the crust:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Crush the crackers in a food processor or resealable bag. Pour them into a bowl and stir in the melted butter and sugar. Press into a pie pan and bake until golden and set, 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and set aside to cool slightly.

For the filling:

Using a hand mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, whip the heavy cream on medium-high speed until stiff peaks form, about 4 minutes. Set whipped cream in the refrigerator until step 8.

Melt the semi-sweet chocolate. You can melt it in a double boiler or the microwave. If using the microwave: place the chopped chocolate in a medium microwave-safe bowl. Microwave in 20-second increments, stopping and stirring after each increment until completely melted and smooth. Set aside until the end of the next step.

Whisk eggs and sugar together in a heatproof bowl or the top piece of a double boiler. Place over a pot of simmering water (or the bottom part of your double boiler) on medium heat. Do not let the surface of the simmering water touch the bottom of the heatproof bowl. Whisking constantly, cook the egg mixture until it reaches 160°F on an instant-read thermometer, about 10–11 minutes. Do not stop whisking or the eggs may solidify. Carefully remove from heat and allow to cool for 10 minutes. After cooling, slowly stir in the melted chocolate. Cool for another 10 minutes.

Using a handheld or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment beat the butter on medium-high speed until creamy, about 1–2 minutes. Add the vanilla and beat on medium-high speed for 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides and up the bottom of the bowl. With the mixer running on low speed, pour in the chocolate/egg mixture and then increase to medium-high speed and beat for 3 minutes. With a silicone spatula, fold in the whipped cream until combined.

Spread filling into pie crust. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 4–6 hours or overnight, until chilled and thickened. Pie may be refrigerated for up to 2 days before serving.

Using a handheld or a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, whip the heavy cream, sugar, and vanilla extract on medium-high speed until medium peaks form, about 3–4 minutes. Spread the whipped cream on top of the chilled pie.

If you have been following along here for any length of time, you know that one of the things closest to my heart is helping people bring the rhythms of the Church calendar into their homes in ways that are beautiful, accessible, and genuinely formative.

That is why I started writing about the liturgical year. It is why I created The Liturgical Home. And it is why, for the past two years, I have put together the Liturgical Home Calendar and Planner, because I wanted to give families a single, beautiful resource that made the feast days, seasons, and sacred rhythms of the Church year easy to plan for and joyful to celebrate.

The response over the past two years has genuinely moved me. Families have written to tell me about feast days they celebrated for the first time, about children who now know the saints by name, about tables set with candles and special foods for days they had never heard of before. Homes that are being slowly, faithfully shaped by the story of the Gospel told through the turning of the Church year.

That is everything I hoped this resource would do. And it has kept me coming back to make it better every year.

So I am happy to tell you that the 2026-27 Liturgical Home Calendar and Planner is coming in August.

If you used last year’s calendar, you already know what it does. You know what it feels like to look ahead at the month and see the feast days marked, to have everything you need to plan a simple celebration already gathered in one place, to feel the rhythm of the Church year shaping the rhythm of your home rather than the other way around.

If you have been curious but haven’t yet tried it, this is your year. I would love for you to have it in your hands before the new liturgical year begins.

I will share all of the details - including what is new in this year’s edition and where to purchase it - as we get closer to the launch date. In the meantime, if you have questions or want to be notified the moment it goes live, simply reply to this post and I will make sure you are the first to know.

And if you have been using the calendar and planner and it has made a difference in your home, I would genuinely love to hear about it. Those stories mean more to me than I can say, and they remind me why this work is worth doing year after year.

The 2026-27 calendar launches in August. I cannot wait to share it with you!

Every year on July 25th, the Church pauses to honor the life and legacy of one of Christ’s most beloved apostles. Two apostles and three total New Testament saints bear the name James, so the Church uses the title Saint James the Elder, or Saint James the Great, to distinguish this James, the son of Zebedee and brother of John, from the others. James and John were ordinary fishermen from Galilee who left everything to follow Jesus and became two of His closest and most trusted disciples. Their journey alongside Him was marked by extraordinary moments of devotion, intimacy, and transformation. On this feast day, we have the opportunity to celebrate St. James in our homes and to embrace the rich traditions and significance that have grown up around his life and witness over two thousand years.

Who Was St. James the Elder?

James enters the Gospel story near the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry. After His baptism and temptation in the wilderness, Jesus began preaching a message of repentance throughout Galilee. Walking along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, He calls the brothers Peter and Andrew to follow Him. They leave their nets immediately and follow. A little further along the shore, Jesus finds James and John with their father Zebedee, mending their nets and preparing for the next day’s work. He calls them, too, and without hesitation, they leave the boat and their father behind and begin following Him.

From that moment, James is part of Jesus’ inner circle. He and his brother John, along with Peter, are present at some of the most significant and intimate moments of Jesus’ ministry. When Jesus raises the daughter of Jairus from the dead, only these three are permitted to enter with Him. When Jesus is transfigured on the mountain in a moment of blinding glory, it is James, John, and Peter who witness it. And on the night of His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, when Jesus withdraws to pray in the darkest hour of His earthly life, it is these same three He asks to stay close and keep watch with Him.

James and John were not always quiet or gentle in their discipleship. The Gospel of Luke records a moment when the brothers wanted to call down fire from heaven on a Samaritan village that had refused to welcome Jesus, an impulse Jesus quickly rebuked. It is this kind of passionate, impetuous zeal that likely led Jesus to give the brothers their memorable nickname: the Sons of Thunder. And in Matthew 20, their mother Salome approaches Jesus with a bold request - that her sons be given places of honor at His right and left hand in His kingdom. Jesus responds by asking whether they can drink from the cup He is about to drink. They say they are. Jesus tells them they will indeed drink from His cup, but that the granting of positions of honor is not His to give.

It is a remarkable exchange - a mother’s love, a pair of ambitious sons, and a Savior who redirects their longing toward something deeper than honor. James would indeed drink from that cup.

The Ministry of St. James

After the death and resurrection of Jesus, James was among the disciples who received forty days of teaching from the Risen Lord, watched Him ascend to the Father, and then waited together in the upper room for the promised gift of the Holy Spirit. Filled with the Spirit at Pentecost, he gave the rest of his life to sharing the Gospel and helping lead the early Church.

Tradition holds that James felt called to carry the Gospel to Spain, where he preached for seven years before returning to Jerusalem. It was there, around 42 AD, that King Herod had him arrested and executed by the sword, making James the first of the twelve apostles to be martyred for his faith in the Risen Christ.

The Legacy of St. James

Because James was martyred in Jerusalem, his followers carried his remains back to Spain for burial. Over the centuries, as wars and invasions swept through the region, the location of his tomb was lost and forgotten.

Then, in the ninth century, a hermit named Pelayo reported seeing an extraordinary light in the night sky, a cluster of stars hovering over a particular field, which he understood to be a sign from God. He brought his bishop to the site, and when they investigated, they discovered what was believed to be the lost tomb of St. James and his two disciples. The area was named Compostela, meaning field of stars, and the king ordered a cathedral built to mark the sacred site. That cathedral, the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, became one of the great pilgrimage destinations of the medieval world and remains so to this day.

The ancient pilgrim route to the cathedral is known as the Camino de Santiago, the Way of St. James, a network of paths stretching across France and Spain that converges on Compostela. Pilgrims have been walking the Camino for over a thousand years, and it continues to draw thousands of walkers every year from every background and tradition. Upon completing the journey, pilgrims traditionally attach a scallop shell to their hat or clothing as a pilgrim badge, a symbol that has become inseparable from the figure of St. James himself.

The Feast of St. James Around the World

In Spain, the feast of St. James is celebrated with a two-week festival that culminates on July 25th. The festivities include dramatic performances, traditional costumes, Galician bagpipe music, dancing, and an abundance of special foods. Among the most beloved is the scallop-filled empanada, a nod to the scallop shell that has symbolized St. James for centuries.

On the eve of the feast day, one of the most breathtaking fireworks displays in all of Spain lights up the sky at midnight. Crowds gather at the Praza do Obradoiro, the great square in front of the cathedral, and watch as fireworks are projected across the facade of Santiago de Compostela, illuminating the night in a cascade of light and color that calls to mind the stars that once guided Pelayo to the lost tomb of the apostle.

On the feast day itself, the cathedral hosts a solemn High Mass attended by the Spanish Royal Family. The highlight of the liturgy is the swinging of the Botafumeiro, an enormous six-foot censer suspended from the cathedral ceiling, which is set in motion by a team of attendants and sweeps in great arcs across the transept, filling the air with clouds of fragrant incense and creating a sense of wonder and spiritual awe that visitors describe as unforgettable.

How to Celebrate the Feast of St. James at Home

Make madeleines or scallop-shaped cookies. The scallop shell is the symbol most closely associated with St. James and the Camino. Madeleines, baked in their distinctive shell-shaped molds, are a beautiful and delicious way to honor that tradition. You can bake them at home or purchase them from a bakery. Get my favorite madeleine molds HERE, and here is my favorite RECIPE.

Cook a Spanish dish. Paella, empanadas, or another traditional Spanish dish evokes the culture and landscape so closely associated with St. James. It is a simple and enjoyable way to bring the geography of his legacy to your table.

Go on a pilgrimage walk. Dress like pilgrims, lace up your shoes, and set out on a walking adventure together, whether through your neighborhood, a local park, or a nearby trail. When you return, make paper scallop shells and pin them to your clothing to mark the completion of your own small Camino.

Eat oysters or scallops. An old saying associated with this feast day declares, “Who eats oysters on Saint James’ Day will never want!” In France, scallops are the traditional choice, known there as coquilles Saint-Jacques, or shells of Saint James.

Bake a Tarta de Santiago. This classic almond cake from the Galicia region of Spain is one of the most traditional foods associated with the feast. Made with ground almonds, sugar, eggs, and lemon zest, it is moist, fragrant, and deeply satisfying. It is traditionally dusted with powdered sugar and decorated with the image of the Cross of Saint James stenciled on top, making it as beautiful to look at as it is to eat. (Recipe at the end of the post)

St. James left his nets by the sea and followed Jesus into a life he could never have imagined. He stood on the mountain of Transfiguration, knelt in the garden of Gethsemane, and drank from the cup his Lord had promised him, becoming the first of the twelve to give his life for the Gospel he had spent his life proclaiming.

His feast day is worth celebrating.

the recipe -

Tarta De Santiago (Spanish Almond Cake)

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Tarta De Santiago Cross

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Spanish Almond Cake (Tarta de Santiago) Recipe

• 2 cups ground almonds or almond flour. If using almonds, use raw, peeled almonds for the best results. You can optionally toast them in the oven for a deeper almond flavor.

• 1 ¼ cups sugar

• 5 eggs

• lemon zest from half a lemon

• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

• 1 tablespoon liquor (You can use vodka, Cointreau, Amaretto, or Grappa. (Vanilla or almond extract can be substituted if you don’t want to include alcohol)

• Powdered sugar to dust

Preheat the oven to 350°. Pulse the almonds in a food processor until finely ground. However, be careful not to turn the mixture into almond butter by over-processing. Beat the egg and sugar until the mixture is pale and creamy. Add the lemon zest, liquor, and cinnamon. Fold in the ground almonds using a rubber spatula. Grease a 10-inch springform pan with butter and pour in the almond cake batter. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the cake is golden brown. Test with a toothpick; if it doesn’t come out clean, cover the cake with aluminum foil and bake for five more minutes, then test again. Do this one more time if necessary (for 40 minutes total).

Allow the cake to cool in the pan, and then transfer it to a serving dish. Decorate with powdered sugar. If you wish, you can download a printout of the emblematic cross of Saint James.

Recipe from Spanish Sabores.

On July 22nd, the Church celebrates the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene, one of the most beloved and significant figures in all of the Gospels. Known throughout Christian history as the “Apostle to the Apostles,” Mary Magdalene holds a place of remarkable honor in the story of our faith. Her wholehearted love for Jesus, her faithfulness at the cross, and her role as the first witness to the resurrection have made her an enduring example of devoted discipleship. All four Gospels mention her by name, and her presence at the most pivotal moments of Jesus’ ministry, crucifixion, and resurrection speaks to the depth of her commitment to Him.

On her feast day, we remember her profound witness and give thanks for the courage with which she carried the Good News of the Risen Christ to the world.

About Mary Magdalene

As her name suggests, Mary Magdalene most likely came from Magdala, a small fishing village on the western shore of the Sea of Galilee. We first encounter her in the opening verses of Luke 8, where she is listed among the women who traveled with Jesus and his twelve disciples as they moved through nearby towns and villages, preaching and proclaiming the Good News of the Kingdom of God. Luke tells us that Jesus had cast seven demons out of Mary Magdalene, and that she, along with the other women in the group, supported Jesus and his disciples out of her own resources (Luke 8:1-3).

From that point forward, Mary Magdalene appears at the most significant moments of Jesus’ life and death. She was among the small group of faithful women who remained at the foot of the cross as Jesus died. She was present as Joseph of Arimathea wrapped Jesus’ body in clean linen and placed it in his own new tomb, rolling a great stone across the entrance. As evening fell, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary sat across from the tomb and watched.

Early on Sunday morning, as the Sabbath ended and the new day began, Mary Magdalene and the other women went to the tomb carrying spices they had prepared to anoint Jesus’ body. Finding the tomb empty, they were met by angels who told them of the resurrection and instructed them to share the good news with the disciples. In Matthew’s account, the women encountered the risen Lord Himself on their way to find the disciples. He reassured them and sent them on their way.

John’s Gospel focuses the resurrection morning account entirely on Mary Magdalene. Lingering near the empty tomb, she encounters the risen Christ but does not immediately recognize Him, thinking He is the gardener. It is only when Jesus speaks her name that she knows Him. She turns and cries out, “Rabboni!” - Teacher. Jesus then sends her to His brothers with a message, and Mary Magdalene goes to find the disciples with the most extraordinary announcement in human history: “I have seen the Lord.”

It is for this reason that the Church has called her the Apostle to the Apostles. She was the first to see the Risen Christ and the first to proclaim His resurrection. As Pope John Paul II wrote in his apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem, this event, in a sense, crowns all that has been said previously about Christ entrusting divine truths to women as well as men.

Finally, in Acts 1:14, after Jesus ascends to the Father, the apostles return to the upper room in Jerusalem to await the promised Holy Spirit. Luke mentions that they, along with the women, Mary (the mother of Jesus), and his brothers, were constantly praying. Mary Magdalene was among those present when the Holy Spirit descended.

Confusion Around Mary Magdalene

Over the centuries, various interpretations and legends have developed around Mary Magdalene that are not supported by biblical evidence. Much of the confusion in the Western Church can be traced to a sermon preached in 591 AD by Pope Gregory I, in which he merged Mary Magdalene with Mary of Bethany and the unnamed “sinful woman” who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears. Despite the Bible never identifying the nature of this woman’s sin, Pope Gregory asserted it to be prostitution - a claim that had no scriptural foundation and that shaped Western perceptions of Mary Magdalene for centuries.

The Eastern Church never made this identification and continued to honor Mary Magdalene as the faithful and virtuous woman the Gospels actually describe.

Thankfully, a growing movement to restore Mary Magdalene’s image as a faithful disciple in the Western Church has arisen. It emphasizes her significance within early Christian communities. Even Pope John Paul II issued a corrective statement on Mary Magdalene to right the wrongs done to her reputation. In his apostolic letter Mulieris Dignitatem (“On the Dignity and Vocation of Women”), dated August 15th, 1988, he said,

The Gospel of John emphasizes the special role of Mary Magdalene. She is the first to meet the Risen Christ, hence she came to be called “the apostle of the Apostles.” Mary Magdalene was the first eyewitness of the Risen Christ, and for this reason, she was also the first to bear witness to him before the Apostles. This event, in a sense, crowns all that has been said previously about Christ entrusting divine truths to women as well as men.

The Gospels themselves are clear. Mary Magdalene was a woman from whom Jesus cast out seven demons, who supported His ministry financially, who stood faithfully at the cross, and who was among the first to see the Risen Lord. That is her story, and it is extraordinary enough on its own.

What Happened to Mary Magdalene?

There is some disagreement about Mary Magdalene’s life after the early Church was established. The Eastern tradition holds that she traveled to Ephesus with Mary, the mother of Jesus, where they lived out the remainder of their lives. In Western Europe, a different set of legends developed, including the popular medieval tradition that she traveled to the south of France and spent her later years as a contemplative in a cave in Provence. Various churches throughout Europe have claimed at different times to possess relics associated with her, reflecting the deep affection the Church has always held for this remarkable woman.

Traditions of Mary Magdalene

Over time, both the Eastern and Western churches have developed beautiful practices and traditions surrounding Mary Magdalene. While some of these are rooted directly in Scripture, others emerge from later legends and local customs. Each has shaped in its own way how the Church remembers and honors her.

The Myrrh Bearers and the Three Marys

The Church has always revered Mary Magdalene as one of the faithful women present at the crucifixion, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, and Christian art has depicted these women since at least the third century.

The Eastern Church refers to them as the Myrrh-Bearers, because they carried myrrh to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body on the morning of the resurrection. Their celebration falls on the third Sunday of Pascha, known as the Sunday of the Myrrh-Bearing Women, when hymns and readings focus on their encounter with the Risen Christ and their role in proclaiming the Good News. Icons of the myrrh-bearing women at the empty tomb are prominently displayed in Eastern churches on this occasion.

The Western Church has often referred to them as the Three Marys. In a number of Catholic countries, particularly Spain, the Philippines, and throughout Latin America, Good Friday processions include images of the three Marys. Some regions of France and Italy also observe the Feast of the Three Marys in their local traditions.

The Miracle of the Red Egg

One of the most beloved traditions associated with Mary Magdalene in the Eastern Orthodox Church is the legend of the red egg. According to this tradition, after the resurrection, Mary Magdalene traveled to Rome to share the Gospel with Emperor Tiberius. She presented him with an egg as a symbol of the resurrection of Jesus, explaining that just as new life emerges from within the egg, so Christ had risen from the tomb. The emperor was skeptical, declaring that a person rising from the dead was as impossible as the egg in her hand turning red. At that moment, the egg miraculously turned red, astonishing all who witnessed it. This event is said to have opened the door for Mary Magdalene to continue her missionary work, and it is the reason Eastern Orthodox Christians dye their Easter eggs red to this day.

How to Celebrate the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene

Feast days are most meaningful when we mark them in simple, tangible ways that bring the story of the saint into the life of the home. Here are a few ideas for celebrating July 22nd with your family:

Read the Gospel accounts together. Begin with John 20:1-18, where Mary Magdalene encounters the risen Jesus at the tomb. Read it slowly and let the details of the story sink in - her grief, her confusion, the moment He speaks her name.

Dye red eggs in honor of the miracle of the red egg. This is a particularly beautiful tradition to share with children. You can find instructions for naturally dyed eggs here. Set them out on the table as a reminder of Mary Magdalene’s courage in proclaiming the resurrection. Here’s my favorite children’s book on the Miracle of the Red Egg.

Light a myrrh-scented candle or myrrh incense. In honor of the myrrh the women carried to the tomb that morning, filling your home with that fragrance is a simple and evocative way to mark the day. My favorite myrrh candle, incense burner, and myrrh incense.

Bake something spiced. In keeping with the tradition of the myrrh-bearers and Mary’s act of bringing spices to anoint Jesus’ body, prepare something fragrant and spiced for the family, like my favorites - Chai or spiced cupcakes. (See below for the Spiced Cupcakes recipe.)

Pray together and give thanks. Take a moment on July 22nd to thank God for Mary Magdalene - for her faithfulness, her courage, and her witness. She stood at the cross when others fled. She came to the tomb before dawn. She was the first to hear her name spoken by the Risen Lord. Her example continues to inspire and encourage the Church two thousand years later.

“I have seen the Lord.”
— John 20:18

the recipe -

St. Mary Magdalene's Spiced Cupcakes

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Spiced Cupcakes

Cupcakes

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon ground cinnamon

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

¼ teaspoon ground allspice

¼ teaspoon ground cloves

¼ teaspoon nutmeg

1 cup unsalted butter, softened

½ cup granulated sugar

½ cup light brown sugar, packed

½ cup sour cream

2 large eggs – room temp

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Cream Cheese Frosting

½ cup unsalted butter, room temp

8 oz cream cheese, room temp

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon salt

4 cups confectioner’s sugar

1-2 tablespoons of milk, as needed

Dust with cinnamon

Cupcakes

To begin, preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line a muffin tin with 12 cupcake liners. In a bowl, sift together the all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, and allspice. Once sifted, proceed to beat the softened butter and sugars in a large bowl until creamy.

Next, beat in the eggs and vanilla until the mixture becomes light and fluffy. Next, add half of the dry mixture and incorporate it into the batter, along with the sour cream. Then, mix the remaining dry mixture until just combined, being careful not to over-mix.

Place the batter into the preheated oven and bake for 23-25 minutes. To check if they are done, use a toothpick to test the center of the cupcakes. The toothpick should come out dry. Afterward, let the cupcakes cool on a wire rack until they are completely cooled, then frost them.

Cream Cheese Frosting

For the Cream Cheese Frosting, begin by beating the room-temperature butter until creamy, then add the cream cheese and beat until well combined and smooth. Mix in the vanilla and salt. Gradually add the confectioner’s sugar and continue to beat until the frosting is smooth. If necessary, you can thin the frosting by adding one to two tablespoons of milk.

Recipe from www.mamaneedscake.com

There are moments in parenting that stay with you long after they happen, moments that are difficult to put into words but that you find yourself returning to again and again because something in them feels important and true.

This is one of those moments for us.

Our oldest son has autism and a seizure disorder, which means his world has real limits that shape nearly every part of his daily life. Over the years, we have learned to navigate those limits as gracefully as we can, to find genuine joy within them and to be honest with ourselves about what they have cost him and us. He is a precious young man and we love him dearly, and we have also learned that loving him well means paying attention to the things that make him come alive.

For a very long time, that thing has been Transformers. He has loved them with the kind of deep, wholehearted devotion that most of us lose somewhere along the way to adulthood. He knows the characters, storylines, voice actors and history in extraordinary detail. This is not a casual, fleeting interest! It is the language through which he understands and engages the world, and it always has been.

So this year, we flew from Florida to Chicago to take him to BotCon, the Transformers fan convention, because we wanted to give him something we had never quite been able to give him before. We wanted to put him in a room full of people who loved the same thing he loves as passionately as he does.

From the moment we arrived, he was overtaken with excitement. He ran down the convention hall and moved through it with wonder and joy that was beautiful to watch. He stopped at displays and talked at vendors and examined figures with genuine expertise, and the people around him received all of that naturally and without any awkwardness because they understood exactly what he was talking about. He was among his people, and he knew it, and it showed in every part of how he carried himself.

But the moment we will carry with us longest came one evening when they showed the original 1986 Transformers animated film. The audience was encouraged to yell the lines along with the characters, to sing the songs, to laugh and groan and cheer at all the right moments. And our son, who has spent so much of his life being the person in the room who laughs a little too loudly or recites lines that the people around him don’t quite understand, found himself in a place where all of that was not only acceptable but was exactly what everyone around him was doing too.

He sang. He recited lines. He laughed freely and loudly and with his whole self. And the people around him did the same, and nobody looked at him twice, and he knew it, and we could see him knowing it.

We sat there watching him and found it very difficult to speak.

There is something that parents of children with disabilities carry quietly, a hope that they rarely say out loud because it feels almost too large to name. It is the hope that their child will find a place where they belong, where the things that make them different become the very things that make them welcome. We have carried that hope for a long time, and on that evening in a convention room in Chicago, we got to watch it come true in a way that was more simple and more profound than we could have anticipated.

He got to be fully himself, totally in his element, surrounded by people who understood him, and it was one of the most meaningful things we have ever witnessed as his parents.

We are so grateful we went. We are grateful to everyone at BotCon who created a space where that kind of belonging was possible. And we are grateful, as we always are, for who our son is and for everything he has taught us about loving something wholeheartedly and without apology, simply because it brings you joy.

Much of our daily attention is devoted to the practical work of caring for a home. Meals need to be prepared, laundry folded, children cared for, and countless other responsibilities compete for our time. In the midst of these necessary tasks, beauty can begin to feel optional - a luxury reserved for people with artistic talent, beautifully decorated homes, or more free time than most of us have.

Historically, Christians understood beauty quite differently.

Beauty was never viewed as unnecessary or merely decorative. It was understood to be one of God’s good gifts - something that reflects His character and helps lift our hearts toward Him. This is one reason beauty has always occupied an important place within the life of the Church. Churches were adorned with stained glass, carved woodwork, illuminated manuscripts, sacred music, and architecture designed to inspire wonder. These things were not created simply because Christians appreciated beautiful objects. They were created because beauty was understood to reveal something true about the God who made the world.

God Made a Beautiful World

This understanding begins in the opening chapters of Genesis. Before God entrusted humanity with the work of cultivating the earth, He first created a world filled with beauty. Trees were “pleasant to the sight and good for food.” Flowers covered the fields. Birds filled the air with song. Again and again, God looked upon His creation and declared that it was good.

As people made in God’s image, we have also been given the ability to create. We cannot create from nothing as God does, but we can shape, cultivate, arrange, compose, and make. Christians have long understood this creativity as one of the ways we reflect the Creator - that in making beautiful things with our hands, we participate in a small way in the work God Himself delighted in first.

Beauty in the Christian Home

For much of Christian history, beauty was not something reserved for museums or concert halls. It was woven into the ordinary work of the home.

Families baked bread not only because it was necessary but because the work itself was meaningful. Gardens were planted to provide both nourishment and beauty. Mothers embroidered household linens that were carefully used and passed from one generation to the next. Fathers carved furniture, built homes, and repaired well-loved objects rather than replacing them. Music filled homes as families sang hymns together while working, celebrating, and worshiping.

These activities were not separate from Christian life. They were part of it.

Many of them also required patience and careful attention. A loaf of bread could not be hurried. A quilt was pieced together one stitch at a time. Gardens followed the rhythms of the seasons rather than the demands of the clock. Learning an instrument required years of steady practice. These activities shaped not only beautiful homes but also patient and attentive people.

In many ways, our culture has become disconnected from these rhythms. Convenience often replaces craftsmanship, and many of the objects that fill our homes are designed to be used briefly and discarded. Recovering these older practices does not require us to reject modern life or become experts in every traditional craft. It simply invites us to remember that beauty has always had an important place in the Christian home - and that place is still available to us.

Forming Our Children Through Beauty

One of the quiet gifts of making beautiful things is what it does for our children.

When children learn to bake, sew, paint, garden, or play music, they discover that not everything valuable can be purchased. They learn patience, perseverance, and care for creation. They begin to understand that making something beautiful - slowly, carefully, with their own hands - is one of the ways we respond to the God who first filled the world with beauty. These shared activities often become some of the most meaningful memories of family life while passing on skills that can be carried into adulthood.

Beginning a Rhythm of Beauty

Like many of the practices we have explored throughout this series, cultivating beauty begins with small and ordinary choices.

• Plant something. Herbs, flowers, or vegetables - in a garden, a raised bed, or a simple pot on the windowsill. Caring for growing things helps us appreciate both the beauty of creation and our role as its stewards.

• Choose one creative skill to practice. Baking bread, embroidery, knitting, watercolor painting, woodworking, candle making, or flower arranging have all been part of Christian homes for generations. The goal is not mastery but the quiet enjoyment of making something with your hands.

• Fill your home with good music. Play sacred music while preparing meals, sing hymns together during the seasons of the Church year, or simply make music a regular part of family life.

• Create beauty with the seasons. Gather wildflowers in spring, display branches and greenery throughout the year, or decorate your table with fruit, herbs, or flowers from your own garden. These simple practices help us notice the goodness of God’s creation and the rhythms of the year.

• Invite your children to create alongside you. Bake together, tend the garden, sew simple projects, paint, draw, or make gifts for others. Let them see that making something beautiful is worth the time it takes.

Creating a sacred home is not about achieving a particular aesthetic or filling our rooms with expensive things. It is about cultivating an appreciation for the goodness God has woven into His creation and learning to reflect that beauty in the ordinary work of our own hands.

As we bake, sew, garden, sing, and create, we participate in a tradition as old as the Church itself - and we offer that work back to the One who made beauty first.

Much of modern life encourages us to separate the sacred from the ordinary.

We think of worship as something that happens in church on Sunday morning. Prayer belongs to our devotional life, scripture belongs to Bible study, and service belongs to organized ministries. Meanwhile, the rest of the week is spent preparing meals, washing dishes, folding laundry, tending gardens, and caring for children, responsibilities that can easily begin to feel like interruptions to the things that really matter.

Historically, however, Christians understood the work of the home very differently.

Work Was Part of God’s Good Creation

This understanding begins in the opening pages of Scripture. Before sin entered the world, God placed Adam in the Garden of Eden “to work it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Work was not a consequence of the Fall. It was part of God’s good creation. Humanity was made to cultivate, tend, and care for the world as participants in God’s ongoing creative work.

Although the Fall brought hardship into human labor, it did not remove its dignity. Throughout Scripture, God’s people serve Him through ordinary occupations. Shepherds care for flocks. Farmers cultivate their fields. Craftsmen build the Tabernacle. Fishermen cast their nets. Women prepare meals and extend hospitality. Even our Lord spent most of His earthly life working quietly as a carpenter in Nazareth before beginning His public ministry.

The ordinary work of daily life has always mattered to God.

Vocation and the Work of the Home

For centuries, Christians understood that every person has a vocation, a calling from God. Today, we often use that word to describe a career, but historically it referred to something much broader. Some were called to ordained ministry. Others were called to marriage, parenthood, farming, craftsmanship, or the countless responsibilities of caring for a household. Each vocation was understood as a means of loving God and serving one’s neighbor.

This shaped the daily lives of Christian families in practical ways. Meals were prepared not merely because people were hungry but because feeding others was an act of love. Homes were cared for because they provided shelter and hospitality. Children were taught that diligence and faithfulness were formed not in moments of extraordinary devotion but in the steady, ordinary work of daily life.

The monastic tradition reflected the same instinct. The Rule of St. Benedict gave the Church the phrase ora et labora, pray and work. Prayer and labor were never viewed as competing activities. Both were ways of honoring God. Time spent working in the garden, baking bread, or copying manuscripts was offered to God just as surely as the prayers prayed in the chapel.

Seeing Our Work Differently

Many of us spend a significant portion of our days caring for our homes, yet it is easy to view these responsibilities as repetitive or unimportant. Laundry will always need to be folded. Meals will need to be prepared again tomorrow. Floors that were cleaned today will soon need cleaning again.

Yet these ordinary tasks serve real people whom God has entrusted to our care. When we begin to see them that way, the tasks themselves may not change, but our understanding of them does.

One of the simplest ways to cultivate this perspective is by connecting our work with prayer. As we prepare a meal, we can thank God for His provision and pray for those who will gather around the table. As we fold laundry, we can pray for the family member who will wear each garment. As we tend the garden, we can give thanks for the beauty of God’s creation. These prayers need not be lengthy or elaborate. They simply remind us that God is present not only in moments set aside for worship but in the work that fills our ordinary days.

Forming the Next Generation Through Work

One of the most important things we can do for our children is invite them into the work of the home.

For most of Christian history, children did not simply observe household work; they participated in it. They learned to knead bread, tend gardens, care for younger siblings, and welcome guests. These tasks were not viewed as ways to keep children busy. They were understood as opportunities to cultivate diligence, responsibility, and love for one’s neighbor.

When children help prepare dinner, set the table, or sweep the floor, they are learning something deeper than household management. They are learning that caring for a home is one of the ways we care for the people God has placed in our lives, that work is not simply about accomplishing tasks but about serving others with love.

Beginning a Rhythm of Holy Work

The goal is not to add more to your day but to begin seeing the work you are already doing through a different lens.

• Offer your work to God at the start of each day. Before the responsibilities begin, take a moment to pray that everything you do, whether preparing meals, caring for children, or cleaning your home, would be done in love and for His glory.

• Connect prayer to one ordinary task. Choose a single household chore and pair it with prayer. Fold laundry and pray for the person who will wear each garment. Prepare dinner and pray for those who will gather around the table. Water the garden and thank God for His provision. These simple habits gradually train our attention toward God throughout the day.

• Invite your children to participate. Allow them to help prepare meals, set the table, tend the garden, and care for the home, and help them understand that these are practical ways we love and serve one another.

• Place Scripture where you work. A verse near the kitchen sink, laundry room, or garden shed can gently draw your attention back to God in the midst of ordinary tasks. Colossians 3:17 is especially fitting: “Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

• Practice gratitude instead of resentment. Laundry means there are people to clothe. Dirty dishes mean a meal was shared. A garden that needs tending means something is growing. Choosing gratitude does not make the work disappear, but it changes how we carry it.

Creating a sacred home is not only about setting aside time for prayer or celebrating the seasons of the Church year. It is also about recognizing that the ordinary work of caring for a home has lasting spiritual significance.

Every meal prepared, every room cleaned, every garden tended, every act of care offered to another person, these become opportunities to love God by faithfully serving those He has entrusted to us.

The Christian life has always been lived in the ordinary. When our work is offered to God with gratitude and love, the everyday tasks of the home become part of the slow and steady work of spiritual formation.

I created a free two-page guide called Chores as Worship. It pairs simple Scriptures and prayers with everyday tasks, helping us remember that our homes themselves can be places of worship. I hope that it’s a blessing!

Chores As Worship Letter

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There are few days on the liturgical calendar that bring together two figures as different from one another as Peter and Paul. One was a fisherman from Galilee, impulsive, passionate, and deeply familiar with Jesus from the very beginning of his ministry. The other was a Pharisee from Tarsus, educated, zealous, and so committed to opposing the early Church that he held the coats of the men who stoned Stephen to death.

And yet here they are, celebrated together on the same day. Two men who could not have been more different, both transformed beyond recognition by their encounter with the risen Christ, both giving their lives for the Gospel they could not stop proclaiming.

The Church has celebrated this feast together since at least the fourth century. We honor both apostles on June 29th because they were martyred in Rome around the same time, approximately 67 AD. Their shared feast is itself a kind of theology, a reminder that God builds his Church not on a particular type of person but on the transforming power of Jesus Christ.

Simon Peter: The Rock Who Crumbled and Was Rebuilt

St. Peter is one of the most important figures in the history of Christianity and one of the most prominent apostles in the New Testament. Originally a fisherman on the Sea of Galilee, Peter was among the first disciples called by Jesus. Along with his brother Andrew, he left behind his nets to follow Christ and became part of Jesus’ closest circle of followers.

His story throughout the Gospels is both inspiring and deeply human. Bold, passionate, and quick to act, he was the disciple who stepped out of the boat and walked on water. He was also the first to openly proclaim Jesus as the Messiah, declaring:

Click HERE to continue reading about this special day + meaningful ways to celebrate it in your home.

On June 24, the Church celebrates one of its most fascinating and often overlooked feast days: the Nativity of St. John the Baptist.

Also known as the Summer Christmas, Nativity of the Forerunner, or Johnmas (I love that one!), the Nativity of John the Baptist is the special day that we celebrate the birth of the man chosen to prepare the way for Christ.

Most Christians are familiar with John the Baptist as the fiery preacher in the wilderness who called people to repentance and baptized Jesus in the Jordan. Yet long before his public ministry began, his birth was already a sign that God’s plan of redemption was unfolding.

The story is told in the first chapter of Luke’s Gospel.

John’s parents, Zechariah, a Jewish priest, and Elizabeth, were old and without children. While Zechariah was in the temple offering incense, the Angel Gabriel appeared to him and told him that he and Elizabeth were to have a son and that they were to name him “John.” Zechariah, initially filled with disbelief, was struck mute until the day of John’s birth. Meanwhile, his wife Elizabeth, previously barren, conceived and rejoiced in God’s favor.

The focus then shifted to Mary, the mother of Jesus, as Gabriel appeared to her with the news of her miraculous conception. Upon learning that her relative Elizabeth was also expecting, Mary visited her. In an awe-inspiring moment, the unborn John leaped in Elizabeth’s womb, filled with the Holy Spirit, acknowledging the presence of the unborn Savior within Mary.

Later, Elizabeth gave birth to a son. When it was time to name the child, Elizabeth said that his name was John. The neighbors and relatives moved to name him after Zechariah, but Zechariah was given a tablet to write upon and agreed with Elizabeth that his name is to be John. At that moment, Zechariah’s speech was restored, and he began to praise God and prophesy his son’s significant role in preparing the way for the Messiah.

It is a beautiful story, one that reveals how carefully God was preparing the world for the coming of Christ.

The Church has always held John the Baptist in extraordinary honor. In fact, there are only three birthdays celebrated on the Church calendar: the birth of Jesus, the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and the birth of John the Baptist.

Jesus Himself said of John:

“Among those born of women there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist.” (Matthew 11:11)

John stands at the meeting point of the Old and New Covenants. He is the last of the prophets and the one chosen to announce the arrival of the Messiah.

One of the most beautiful aspects of this feast is its placement on the calendar.

When Gabriel announced Christ’s conception to Mary, he told her that Elizabeth was already six months pregnant. For this reason, the Church celebrates John’s birth six months before Christmas.

The feast also falls immediately after the summer solstice, when the days begin to grow shorter. Christians have long seen this as a reflection of John’s own words:

“He must increase, but I must decrease.” (John 3:30)

As the light of the sun slowly begins to diminish, John reminds us to turn our attention toward Christ.

Ways to Celebrate:

Read Luke 1:5–25, 39–45, and 57–80.
Read the story of John’s birth together as a family and reflect on his role in preparing the way for Jesus.

Light a St. John’s Fire. Tradition has it that Elizabeth lit a bonfire to announce the birth of her son. All over the world, Christians light “St. John’s Fires” on mountains, hilltops, beaches, and backyards on the eve of his feast. In Ireland, the blessed ashes from the St. John’s Fires are sprinkled over the fields to ensure a good harvest.

Eat something made with honey. Since John the Baptist is known to have eaten locusts and wild honey, make something with honey, locusts, or both! We choose honey! See the recipe for an easy-to-make and delicious Honey Cake. Or you could make things even easier by making s’mores using honey graham crackers.

Have a water fight. Since John the Baptist is known for baptizing those who repented, include water in your celebrations. In Mexico and the American Southwest, it’s traditional for Christians to attend morning church and then dip fully clothed in the nearest body of water. They would also playfully throw buckets of water at each other. Throw water balloons, set up a sprinkler, or have a water war with your kids.

The Nativity of John the Baptist may no longer be widely celebrated, but it remains one of the Church’s most meaningful summer feasts. It reminds us that before Christ’s public ministry began, God raised up a prophet to prepare the way.

And perhaps that is John’s enduring lesson for us as well.

His entire life pointed away from himself and toward Christ.

May ours do the same!

the recipe -

Honey Cake

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Honey Cake

• 1/2 cup butter, softened

• 1 cup honey

• 2 large eggs, room temperature

• 1/2 cup plain yogurt

• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

• 2 cups all-purpose flour

• 2 teaspoons baking powder

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Preheat the oven to 350°. Grease a 9-inch cast-iron skillet or cake pan.

In a large bowl, beat butter and honey until blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in yogurt and vanilla. In another bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, and salt; add to the butter mixture. Transfer batter to the prepared skillet.

Bake until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 30-35 minutes. Cool completely in a pan on a wire rack. Serve with fruit, and additional honey if desired.

There is a particular kind of home that most of us can distinctly remember.

It belonged to a grandparent, a neighbor, or a family from church. You knew right when you walked through the door that you were welcome. Not because the house was perfectly clean or the meal was fancy, but because something about the place and the people communicated that there was room for you. That your presence was not an inconvenience but a gift.

Most of us carry that memory like a treasure. And most of us, if we really think about it, long to create that kind of home ourselves.

The good news is that this longing is not accidental. It is, in fact, deeply Christian. And the Church has a great deal to say about where it comes from and how to cultivate it.

God, the First Host

To understand Christian hospitality, we have to begin where all things begin, with God Himself.

Throughout Scripture, God is revealed as a host. In the Garden, He creates a place of beauty and abundance and places His people within it. In the wilderness, He feeds His people with manna from heaven and water from the rock. In the Psalms, David writes with astonishment:

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil. My cup overflows.
— Psalm 23:5

This is not the language of a God who merely tolerates His people. It is the language of a generous host who delights in providing for those He loves.

This pattern continues throughout the story of Scripture. God welcomes His people, provides for them, and makes room for them. In turn, He calls them to extend that same welcome to others.

Christian hospitality does not begin with our generosity. It begins with His.

The Hospitality of Jesus

By the time we reach the Gospels, this theme takes on flesh in the person of Christ.

Jesus does not simply teach about hospitality. He embodies it. He welcomes children when others dismiss them. He shares meals with tax collectors and sinners. He continually makes room for those whom society pushes aside.

In one of the most searching passages in Scripture, Jesus says:

For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me.
— Matthew 25:35

When His listeners ask when they had done these things, He replies:

As you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.
— Matthew 25:40

The stranger at our door is not simply a person in need. Christ identifies Himself with those who need welcome, care, and mercy. To receive them is to receive Him.

The Early Church and the Radical Welcome

The early Church took these words seriously.

In a Roman world deeply divided by class and status, Christians became known for their care for one another and their openness toward others. Rich and poor, slave and free, Jew and Gentile gathered together as members of one family in Christ.

The Apostle Paul writes to the church in Rome:

Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.
— Romans 15:7

Hospitality was not viewed as a special ministry for a few gifted people. It was understood to be an ordinary expression of Christian love and one of the ways believers reflected the welcome they themselves had received from God.

Hospitality Is Not Entertaining

Before we talk about what hospitality looks like in the home, we need to clear away one of the most persistent misunderstandings about it: hospitality is not entertaining.

Entertaining is all about the host. It is about the quality of the meal, the appearance of the house, and the impression made on the guests. Entertaining looks inward, at what we have to offer, whether it is good enough, and whether we will be judged.

Hospitality is all about the guest. It is about making room, creating welcome, and communicating to another person that their presence matters. Hospitality looks outward, at the need of the person standing at the door, not at the condition of the house they are entering.

This distinction is not merely semantic. It is liberating.

If hospitality requires a clean house, an impressive meal, and a perfectly orchestrated evening, then most of us will practice it rarely if at all. But if hospitality is simply the extension of welcome, a place at the table, a cup of tea, an open door, then all of us can practice it today, in whatever home we have, with whatever we have in the kitchen.

The writer and theologian Christine Pohl, in her landmark study of Christian hospitality, notes that throughout Church history, the most transformative acts of welcome were rarely performed by people with large homes and impressive resources. They were performed by ordinary people who had decided that their home, however modest, belonged to God and was therefore available to others.

Beginning a Practice of Hospitality

If this all feels intimidating, here are a few practical helps:

• Protect one meal a month for guests. It does not need to be elaborate. Soup, bread, and a candle on the table are enough. The point is the practice of regularly making room for others.

• Keep your threshold low. One of the most beautiful things about the tradition of Christian hospitality is that it begins before anyone knocks on the door. Edna Lewis, in her memoir of growing up in a small Virginia farming community, describes how her family always kept a smoked ham ready in the kitchen and her aunt always kept a pound cake on hand — not for any planned occasion, but simply because a guest might come. That spirit of quiet readiness is itself a form of hospitality. In our own kitchens, it might look like keeping a good coffee on hand, a loaf of banana bread in the freezer, or a simple soup that can be stretched to feed one more. The point is not the specific food but the posture it represents, a home that is already leaning toward welcome before anyone arrives.

• Notice who is on the margins. In your church, your neighborhood, your child’s school. The new family that doesn’t know anyone yet. The elderly neighbor who rarely has visitors. The single parent who is quietly exhausted. Hospitality begins with seeing.

• Let mercy be concrete. When you become aware of a need, respond to it specifically. Don’t ask if you can do something, just do it. A meal delivered. An afternoon of childcare is offered. A ride to a medical appointment. These are not grand gestures. They are the ordinary currency of Christian love.

• Involve your children. Let them help set the table for guests, answer the door, serve food, and learn from an early age that your home is a place of welcome. These lessons are among the most formative you can give them.

The Witness of the Open Door

There is one more thing worth considering before we close.

Many people today find themselves longing for deeper connection and community. Though our lives are more connected technologically than at any point in history, genuine relationships often feel increasingly difficult to cultivate. Loneliness and isolation have become common experiences for many people, and it is not uncommon to encounter neighbors, coworkers, or even fellow church members who are quietly carrying that burden.

In such a moment, the practice of Christian hospitality becomes a powerful witness.

Historically, Christians have not been known primarily for impressive homes or elaborate entertaining. Rather, they have been known for their willingness to make room for others. The open table, the shared meal, the extra chair pulled up for a guest, these simple acts have long been among the ordinary ways Christians have demonstrated the love of God in the world.

This is, after all, one of the central themes of the Gospel itself. God saw us in our need and did not leave us to ourselves. He welcomed us, provided for us, and invited us into fellowship with Him. The hospitality we extend to others is ultimately a reflection of the hospitality we have first received.

Every shared meal, every guest welcomed, every act of kindness offered within the home becomes a small reminder of that larger reality. Through these ordinary practices, our homes can become places where people experience not only our welcome but something of God’s welcome as well.

As Peter reminds us:

Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. Show hospitality to one another without grumbling.
— 1 Peter 4:8–9

Next in the series: Beauty and Creation — how gardens, candles, music, and the beauty of the seasons help lift our hearts toward God.

There is a moment that happens in many Christian homes, usually sometime in early December, when a child looks up from whatever they are doing and asks a question that stops you cold.

Why do we do this?

Why do we light these candles? Why do we fast before Easter? Why are we baking saffron buns and talking about a girl who lived sixteen hundred years ago?

If you have ever been asked that question, or if you hope someday to be, then the liturgical year is one of the most powerful gifts the Church has to offer your home.

God Has Always Sanctified Time

Before we talk about Advent wreaths and Easter feasts, we need to go back to something we touched on in the last post in this series.

In Exodus 13, God gives His people instructions that go far beyond a single meal. He is not simply telling Israel to eat unleavened bread and remember Egypt. He is doing something far more profound. He is teaching His people how to inhabit time.

He could have said simply, “Remember that I saved you.” Instead He said, “Every year, on this day, stop what you are doing. Gather your family. Eat this meal. Tell the story.”

This is the difference between two ways of experiencing time that the ancient Greeks understood well. Chronos is ordinary, measurable time, the simple passing of days and weeks and years. Kairos is something altogether different. It is time not measured by its duration but by its meaning. It is time that has been filled with significance, set apart, made holy.

What God gave Israel through the feast days and festivals was not just a religious calendar. He was teaching them to transform chronos into kairos, to move through the year in a way that continuously reminded them who they were, whose they were, and what He had done for them.

And when the long-awaited Messiah finally came, the Church did the same thing.

An Ancient and Beautiful Response

The liturgical year did not emerge from a committee meeting or a theological debate. It emerged from the overwhelming significance of what had actually happened in history.

Christ had died. Christ had risen. And that reality was so earth-shattering, so utterly transformative, that from the very beginning Christians began marking it with deep reverence and structured celebration.

One of the earliest witnesses to this is Polycarp, a disciple of the Apostle John, who lived from approximately 69 to 155 AD. He records making annual pilgrimages to honor the mystery of Christ’s passion and resurrection, not because anyone required it of him, but because the event demanded it.

A few centuries later, a remarkable Spanish woman named Egeria made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and recorded what she found there in extraordinary detail. In her Itinerarium, written around 381 AD, she describes Holy Week services, Easter celebrations, Ascension, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time, all observed with what she calls sensory-rich liturgies: processions, Scripture readings, hymns, fasts, feasts, and communal meals.

Her description of Palm Sunday is worth pausing over:

“After the Eucharist, at which the story of our Lord’s entry into Jerusalem had been read, the people hurried home to eat. At one o’clock, they met the bishop near the top of the Mount of Olives… at five o’clock they processed down the Mount with branches of palm or olive trees, singing psalms including Psalm 118 with all shouting ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’ The procession went to the site of our Lord’s tomb, a prayer was held at the site of the cross, and the people were dismissed.”

What strikes me about this account is how familiar it feels. Sixteen centuries later, Christians are still processing with palm branches, still singing Psalm 118, still gathering to hear the story of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. The liturgical year is not a modern invention or a denominational preference. It is the Church’s ancient, embodied response to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, and it has been shaping Christian homes and communities for over two thousand years.

The Seasons of the Story

Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, Easter, Pentecost, and Ordinary Time are not random traditions layered onto the Christian calendar. They are a gift. They are the way the Church has walked through the story of Jesus together, season after season, century after century.

Through these seasons, we move through the full arc of the Gospel in a single year:

The longing and anticipation of Advent. The joy and wonder of Christmas. The revelation of Christ to the nations at Epiphany. The repentance and self-examination of Lent. The sorrow and silence of Holy Week. The overwhelming joy of Easter. The coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. And then the long green season of Ordinary Time, where the work of growth, discipleship, and faithful living takes place.

Year after year, we walk through the same story. And year after year, we find that we are different people receiving it.

This is one of the profound gifts of the liturgical year. It does not assume that we come to it the same way twice. A child encounters the manger differently at four than at fourteen. A parent hears the words of Holy Week differently after a year of grief. Ordinary Time feels different in a season of flourishing than in a season of waiting. The story remains constant. We are the ones being formed by it.

Bringing the Story Home

Here is what I want you to hear clearly: celebrating the liturgical year at home does not require elaborate programs or perfectly executed traditions.

One of my favorite examples comes from the Feast of St. Lucy, observed on December 13th. Her story is one of extraordinary courage, a young woman who gave her life rather than renounce her faith in Christ. After dinner, we read her story together. Earlier in the day, we bake the traditional Swedish saffron buns that have been associated with her feast for centuries.

The smell of those buns as they come out of the oven. The golden color. The act of making them together. Tasting them as we remember her life. All of it reinforces the memory in a way that words alone never could. And the raisins pressed into the center of the S-shaped buns? They represent her eyes, which were blinded before her martyrdom. It is a detail that no child ever forgets — and that is precisely the point.

This is what the liturgical year does in a home. It makes the faith sensory, embodied, and memorable. Children do not just hear about the courage of the saints. They smell it. They taste it. They carry it.

Maria von Trapp, whose family’s story of faith and beauty has inspired generations, once wrote that visitors to her home would often ask about the celebrations and traditions they encountered there. It gave her a natural opportunity to share about her faith, not through pressure or argument, but through beauty, hospitality, and story.

The liturgical year has always worked this way. It is, among many other things, one of the most natural forms of witness available to a Christian home.

A Word About Ordinary Time

We should say something about the season we find ourselves in right now, because it is easy to overlook.

Ordinary Time, the long green season that follows Pentecost and stretches through late autumn, is not a placeholder between the more dramatic seasons of the year. Its name does not mean unimportant. It comes from the Latin ordinalis, meaning numbered or ordered. These are the counted weeks, the weeks of growth.

If Advent and Lent are seasons of preparation, and Christmas and Easter are seasons of celebration, then Ordinary Time is the season of formation. It is where discipleship actually happens, in the daily rhythms, the ordinary meals, the quiet practices that accumulate over weeks and months into something we could not have planned or manufactured.

Summer Ordinary Time, in particular, carries its own particular grace. The long evenings, the slower pace, the natural rhythms of garden and table, all of it creates conditions that are genuinely hospitable to the kind of formation we have been exploring throughout this series.

This is not a season to wait out until Advent arrives. It is a season to inhabit.

Where to Begin

If the liturgical year is new to your family, you don’t have to try to observe everything at once. Choose one season or one feast day and begin there.

A few simple ways to enter the liturgical year at home:

• Light a candle in the color of the season. Purple for Advent and Lent, white for Christmas and Easter, red for Pentecost, green for Ordinary Time. This single practice connects your home visually to the rhythm of the Church year.

• Read the collect for the day or the feast during dinner or evening prayer. These ancient prayers distill the meaning of each day into a single, beautiful sentence.

• Tell the story of a saint on their feast day. You do not need to cook a special meal or plan an activity. Simply knowing the name and story of the saint the Church is remembering that day is enough to begin.

• Mark the season with something sensory. A particular scent, a special food, a piece of music that belongs to that time of year. These sensory anchors become some of the most durable memories of childhood.

• Add the major feast days to your family calendar at the beginning of each season so they do not catch you by surprise. Or buy my liturgical wall calendar HERE and my liturgical planner HERE.

• Follow along here. One of the simplest things you can do is let me help. Each week I share what is coming up on the liturgical calendar, the season, the feast day, its history and significance, and simple ways to mark it in your home. You do not have to plan ahead or research on your own. Just show up and I will meet you there.

And when your children ask — why do we do this? — you will be ready.

Because God has been faithful to us. Because Jesus has redeemed us. And because His story is worth celebrating.

Next in the series: Beauty and Creation — how gardens, candles, music, and the beauty of the seasons help lift our hearts toward God.

The Feast of St. Barnabas is coming up on June 11th. St. Barnabas was a true pioneer of the early church. Although St. Barnabas is not as well known as Peter or Paul, his faithfulness, generosity, and encouragement changed the course of the church. He reminds us that sometimes the most powerful witness comes not from preaching but from believing in others, walking beside them, and helping them grow in Christ.

St. Barnabas in Scripture

We first meet Barnabas in the Book of Acts. His name was originally Joseph, but the apostles gave him the name Barnabas, meaning “son of encouragement” (Acts 4:36). He was from the tribe of Levi and was born in Cyprus. Barnabas sold a field he owned and gave the proceeds to the apostles to support the early Christian community in Jerusalem. From the very beginning, his life was marked by generosity, self-giving, and a willingness to put himself at the service of others.

That spirit of encouragement would become one of the defining features of his ministry. He played a key role in the life of St. Paul. After Paul’s dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus, the other disciples were understandably hesitant to trust him. It was Barnabas who stepped in, believing Paul’s story, standing beside him, and introducing him to the apostles (Acts 9:27). His willingness to believe in someone others feared helped launch one of the greatest missionary journeys in the Church’s history.

Barnabas was later sent to Antioch to encourage the new Christian community there, and he brought Paul with him. Together, they taught the believers and strengthened the Church. The Church in Antioch would eventually send them with famine relief to Jerusalem and later commission them for their first missionary journey. Barnabas and Paul traveled together through Cyprus and Asia Minor, preaching the Gospel and planting churches.

Eventually, Paul and Barnabas disagreed over whether to bring John Mark on their next journey. Because Mark had previously left them during their work, Paul was reluctant to entrust him with another mission. But Barnabas, true to his name, wanted to give Mark a second chance. The disagreement was strong enough that they parted ways: Paul went one direction with Silas, and Barnabas took Mark back to Cyprus (Acts 15:36–39).

Though this may seem like a sad ending, it led to the expansion of the mission, and we know that Paul and Mark eventually reconciled. Paul even asks for Mark in his letters (2 Timothy 4:11), a quiet testament to Barnabas’ faithful influence.

Tradition holds that Barnabas continued preaching and was eventually martyred in his native Cyprus. He is remembered as a foundational figure in the early Church, one who encouraged the discouraged, stood up for the misunderstood, and built up the body of Christ.

Ways to Celebrate

Read Acts 4:36–37; 9:26–27; and 11:22–30. Spend time reflecting on the life and legacy of Barnabas. Consider reading these passages aloud with your family or during personal prayer, noticing the quiet faithfulness of Barnabas and the ways God used him to encourage others.

Make Haystacks In England, St. Barnabas’ Day fell around the summer solstice, the traditional beginning of the haymaking season. Because of this, he is often depicted holding a hay rake! Farmers would begin cutting and drying hay, and after a hard day’s labor, they’d feast together with joy and music. A sweet way to remember this tradition is to make haystacks, no-bake treats made from butterscotch chips and chow mein noodles that resemble small bundles of hay.

Decorate with Woodruff and Roses. English churches were often decorated with woodruff and roses for St. Barnabas’ Day. Woodruff is a delicate, white flowering herb that grows in the forest, beautiful, fragrant, and easy to dry. If you can find it or a similar small white flower, add it to your kitchen table along with some roses in honor of the day.

Make Walnut Streusel Coffee Cake. There’s a charming tradition from Glastonbury, England, that a walnut tree in the abbey churchyard would only bud on St. Barnabas’ Day. Celebrate with a simple Walnut Streusel Coffee Cake, perfect for breakfast or afternoon tea as you remember this faithful saint.

the recipe -

St. Barnabas' Day Walnut Streusel Coffee Cake

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Walnut Streusel Coffee Cake

1 1⁄2 cups all-purpose flour

3⁄4 cup sugar

2 1⁄2 teaspoons baking powder

1⁄2 teaspoon salt

1⁄4 cup butter

3⁄4 cup milk

1 egg

1⁄2 cup brown sugar, packed

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1⁄2 cup finely chopped walnuts

2 tablespoons butter, melted

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease and flour a round layer cake pan or a square 8”x 8” or 9”x 9” pan. Blend the first seven ingredients; beat vigorously for 30 seconds. Mix brown sugar, cinnamon, nuts, and melted butter in a small bowl. Pour half of the cake batter into the pan. Sprinkle half of the brown sugar mixture over the batter. Pour the remaining cake batter into the pan. Top with the remaining brown sugar mixture.

Bake for 25-30 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Welcome to Part Two in the Series Creating a Sacred Home!

One of the most overlooked aspects of Christian life is the role of the table.

We live in a culture that treats food as fuel and meals as one more task to accomplish. We eat in the car, at our desks, in front of screens, rushing from one thing to the next. Yet when we turn to Scripture, we discover that meals occupy a surprisingly important place in the story of God’s people.

God has always been a generous host. He creates, He provides, He sets a table. The hunger He built into us is not a lack but an invitation, an opening through which His generosity continuously flows.

From the very beginning, food is presented as one of God’s gifts to humanity. In Genesis, Adam and Eve are placed in a garden filled with trees that are good for food and pleasing to the eye. Food is not merely a necessity. It is part of the goodness of creation itself, a sign that God provides abundantly for His people.

This theme runs throughout all of Scripture. The Psalms describe God as the One who opens His hand and satisfies every living thing. Israel’s story is marked by meals that help God’s people remember His faithfulness. And in one of the clearest examples of how God uses the table to form His people, He gives Israel the Passover.

After delivering His people from slavery in Egypt, God instructs them to observe a yearly meal of remembrance. In Exodus 13, He tells them:

“When the Lord brings you into the land of the Canaanites...you shall keep this service in this month. Seven days you shall eat unleavened bread, and on the seventh day there shall be a feast to the Lord... And when in time to come your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ you shall say to him, ‘By a strong hand the Lord brought us out of Egypt.’”

Notice how faith formation happens here. God does not simply tell His people to remember His faithfulness in their hearts. He gives them a meal. He creates a shared experience that naturally leads to questions, conversations, and storytelling. Children ask what the meal means, and parents tell the story of God’s salvation.

The table becomes the place where faith is remembered, practiced, and passed from one generation to the next.

By the time we reach the Gospels, meals have become one of the primary settings of Christ’s ministry. Jesus shares meals with tax collectors and sinners. He feeds hungry crowds in the wilderness. He attends wedding feasts. He institutes the Eucharist at a shared table with His disciples. After His resurrection, He is recognized in the breaking of bread and prepares breakfast for His disciples along the shore.

These are not incidental details. They reveal something essential about the Kingdom of God.

Again and again, Christ uses the table as a place of welcome, teaching, reconciliation, and communion. Through meals, He demonstrates the hospitality of God and invites people into relationship with Him and with one another.

The early Church continued this pattern. In Acts 2, the first Christians devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer, and these were not separate activities. Believers gathered in one another’s homes, shared meals, worshiped together, and cared for one another’s needs. The table was one of the primary places where the Christian community was formed and sustained.

Long before formal church programs existed, much of Christian formation happened around the table. Families prayed together before meals. Scripture was told and retold. Children learned gratitude by giving thanks for God’s provision. Hospitality was extended to neighbors, travelers, and those in need.

The table was not simply a place where food was consumed. It was a place where faith was lived.

This has direct implications for our homes today.

Many of us long for deeper connection within our families, yet shared meals are often among the first things sacrificed when life becomes busy. Yet the table remains one of the most natural places for the kind of formation that cannot be programmed or scheduled, the kind that happens in ordinary conversation, in the passing of bread, in the simple act of giving thanks together.

Beginning a Rhythm of Shared Meals

None of this requires elaborate cooking or a beautifully styled table. Christian families throughout history did not gather around perfect meals. They gathered around ordinary meals offered with gratitude. The significance was never in the menu but in the practice of coming together and recognizing God’s provision.

• Begin by protecting one shared meal each day. For some families that will be breakfast. For others, dinner. The specific meal matters less than the commitment to gather regularly.

• Light a candle. As we explored in the first post in this series, candlelight signals that a moment has been set apart. At the table, that simple act changes the atmosphere, for children and adults alike, from merely consuming food into holy time. (inexpensive taper candles, thrift store candlesticks or these wooden ones, kid friendly candle lighter, candle snuffer)

• Put away phones and devices. This is not a small thing! Presence is the precondition for everything else the table can offer.

• Begin with a simple blessing. Thank God for His provision. Ask one another about the day. Share joys, concerns, and prayer requests.

Prayers Before A Meal

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• Allow children to help set the table, serve food, or offer the blessing. These practices may seem small, but repeated faithfully over time they become powerful habits of connection and formation.

On Hospitality

The table also opens naturally into one of the essential practices of Christian life, hospitality.

Throughout Scripture, God’s people are called to welcome the stranger, care for the needy, and make room for others. In the early Church, hospitality was not a special ministry reserved for gifted individuals. It was an ordinary expression of Christian love.

For many of us, hospitality feels intimidating because we imagine it requires perfect homes and elaborate meals. It does not. Christian hospitality has never been about entertaining. It is about making room.

Sometimes that looks like inviting another family for dinner. Sometimes it means sharing coffee with a neighbor, bringing a meal to someone who is sick, or welcoming a new family from church. Start small. The practice will grow.

Every day, we eat. Every day, we have opportunities to give thanks, gather together, and extend welcome to others.

These ordinary moments, repeated faithfully, offered to God, become part of the spiritual formation of a family. The sacred home is not built only through prayers and devotions. It is built around the table as well, in shared meals, grateful hearts, meaningful conversations, and open doors.

God has given us this gift. We need only receive it.

Next in the series: Formation Through the Liturgical Year

Welcome to Part One in the Series “Creating a Sacred Home.”

One of the things that has struck me as I have studied Christian history is how seriously Christians have always taken the formation of the home.

Today, we often think of spiritual formation as something that happens primarily at church. We attend worship on Sunday, participate in Bible studies, and enroll our children in Sunday School or youth programs. These things are good and important, but for most of Christian history, the home was understood to be one of the primary places where faith was formed and nurtured.

This understanding is deeply rooted in Scripture.

In Deuteronomy 6, Moses instructs the people of Israel:

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.”

Notice how ordinary these instructions are. Sitting in the house. Walking along the road. Lying down. Rising up. The assumption is that faith is woven into the fabric of everyday life — not reserved for the sanctuary, but present in the most unremarkable moments of an ordinary day.

The early Church took this same vision seriously. Christians gathered for prayer in the morning, at midday, and in the evening. They read the Psalms, listened to Scripture, and shaped their days around regular encounters with God’s Word. This was not considered extraordinary devotion. It was simply how Christian households lived.

What strikes me about this history is how available it makes faith formation feel. These were not elaborate programs or carefully designed curricula. They were families returning to Scripture and prayer at regular intervals throughout the day, trusting that faithfulness in small moments accumulates into something profound over time.

That same simplicity is available to your family today.

But before we talk about structure, let’s talk about how you begin.

One of the simplest and most beautiful ways to mark the transition into prayer is to light a candle.

Throughout Christian history, candles have served as symbols of Christ, the Light of the World. But they also do something practical: they help us mark a moment as different from the rest of the day. In a home filled with noise, screens, and competing demands, the simple act of lighting a candle signals that something is about to happen that matters.

Children respond deeply to this kind of tangible practice. It creates a sense of anticipation. It draws their attention without a word being spoken.

If your children are old enough, give them roles. One child lights the candle. Another reads the Scripture passage. Another extinguishes the candle when you are finished, and if you want to make it memorable, purchase a candle snuffer and let them use it. These small rituals often become the moments children carry with them longest, precisely because they are invited to participate rather than simply observe.

(inexpensive taper candles, thrift store candlesticks or these wooden ones, kid friendly candle lighter, candle snuffer)

Beginning a Rhythm of Prayer and Scripture

If the idea of daily prayer and Scripture reading feels overwhelming, start small.

One of the most common mistakes families make is trying to do too much too quickly. We imagine an ideal routine and then become discouraged when real life interrupts. But the Christians who shaped these practices across centuries were not living in monasteries. They were ordinary people with work and children and interruptions and tired evenings. The rhythms they developed were designed to survive real life, not ideal conditions.

Choose one moment in your day that already exists and attach your practice to it. Breakfast, the start of homeschooling, dinner, or bedtime — find what your family already does and let prayer grow from there rather than trying to carve out entirely new space.

A simple rhythm might look like this:

• Light a candle

• Read a Psalm or a short passage of Scripture

• Share prayer requests

• Pray the Lord’s Prayer together

The entire practice can take five minutes. And five faithful minutes, day after day, will do more for your family than an elaborate routine practiced sporadically.

If you have young children, adapt freely. Let older children help read or lead. Give younger children something quiet for their hands while they listen. Keep your expectations realistic and remember that participation looks different at every age.

Where to Begin

You don’t need a special book or a formal program to begin. A Bible and a willingness to show up are enough. But if you find it helpful to have some structure as you start, here are a few accessible resources I created:

Morning Prayer Pocket Cards

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Midday Prayer

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Compline (at The Close Of Day Prayer)

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Compline (at The Close Of Day Prayer)

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Most importantly, do not wait for the perfect season.

The great insight of Deuteronomy 6 is that faith formation does not require ideal circumstances. It requires only faithfulness in the ordinary moments, when you sit, when you walk, when you lie down, when you rise.

The Church across the centuries has shown us that this is enough. Your home provides the moments. What remains is simply to begin.

Light a candle. Open your Bible. Gather your family. That is enough.

This is the first in a series on creating a sacred home. Next: The Table: Shared Meals and Hospitality.

Summer has arrived once again with its long days, warm evenings, and slower rhythms. School books are tucked away, gardens are beginning to flourish, and many of us find ourselves spending a little more time at home. There is a gentleness to this season, an invitation to linger a little longer at the table, take evening walks, and embrace a pace of life that often feels elusive during the rest of the year.

And in the Church, we find ourselves once again in the season of Ordinary Time.

This long green season has become one of my favorite times of the year. Without the anticipation of Advent or the solemn preparations of Lent, Ordinary Time gives us the opportunity to focus on the quiet work of growth. It reminds us that much of the Christian life is not lived in extraordinary moments but in the ordinary rhythms of everyday faithfulness.

It is in the ordinary that habits are formed, relationships are nurtured, and discipleship takes root.

As I have reflected on Ordinary Time this year, I have found myself thinking about the places where most of that formation happens. For many of us, it happens at home. Around the dinner table. During bedtime prayers. While folding laundry, tending gardens, welcoming friends, or reading aloud to our children.

Historically, Christians understood the home as more than a place to eat and sleep. It was a place where the faith was practiced and passed down, where hospitality was offered, where daily work became an offering to God, and where the rhythms of the Church shaped the rhythms of family life.

So this summer, I want to invite you into a new series:

Creating a Sacred Home

Over the next several weeks, we will explore what it means to cultivate a home that is intentionally ordered toward the presence of God. Not through perfection or elaborate projects, but through simple practices and faithful rhythms that help us live our faith in the midst of everyday life.

Here’s what’s coming:

Prayer: Ordering Time Around God
How can we weave prayer naturally into the rhythms of our homes and create spaces that remind us of God’s presence throughout the day?

The Table: Shared Meals & Hospitality
Why have Christians always placed such importance on gathering around the table, and how can shared meals shape our families and communities?

Rhythms & Rituals
From Friday fasts to feast day traditions, we will explore how repeated practices form our hearts and anchor us in the life of the Church.

Beauty & Creation
Gardens, candles, music, handmade objects, and the beauty of the seasons all have a place in the Christian home. We will consider how beauty helps lift our hearts toward God.

Presence & Attention
In a distracted age, how do we cultivate homes marked by listening, conversation, quiet, and genuine connection?

Hospitality & Mercy
Christian homes have always been places of welcome. We will explore simple ways to practice generosity, hospitality, and care for others.

Formation Through the Liturgical Year
How does the Church calendar shape our homes and help us tell the story of Christ throughout the year?

Work as Holy
Cooking, cleaning, gardening, sewing, parenting, and all the ordinary tasks that fill our days can become opportunities for faithfulness and gratitude.

As always, each post will include practical ideas, historical insights, and simple ways to begin incorporating these practices into your own home, regardless of your season of life or experience with liturgical living.

Creating a sacred home is not about achieving a particular aesthetic or getting everything right. It is about cultivating a place where faith can flourish, where Christ is welcomed into the ordinary moments of daily life, and where the slow work of spiritual formation can take root.

So join me this Ordinary Time as we explore together what it means to create a sacred home.

After all, the home has always been one of the most important places where the Christian life is lived.

The Feast of the Visitation, celebrated on May 31st, commemorates the joyful meeting between the Virgin Mary and her cousin Elizabeth as recorded in the Gospel of Luke.

Following the Annunciation, Mary journeyed to the hill country of Judea to visit Elizabeth, who was miraculously expecting John the Baptist in her old age. What unfolds is one of the most beautiful encounters in all of Scripture—a moment filled with joy, recognition, prophecy, and praise.

The Visitation reveals God’s faithfulness at work through two faithful women. It is a feast that celebrates the fulfillment of God’s promises, the work of the Holy Spirit, and the recognition of Christ even before his birth. It is also a reminder of the beauty of Christian fellowship as Mary and Elizabeth rejoice together in the marvelous works of God.

At the center of this feast are Elizabeth’s prophetic greeting and Mary’s Magnificat, a hymn of praise that has been prayed by Christians for centuries.

The Visitation in Scripture

After the angel Gabriel announced that she would conceive by the Holy Spirit and bear the Son of God, Mary set out “with haste” to the hill country of Judea to visit her cousin Elizabeth, who was six months pregnant with John the Baptist. Luke tells us that Mary remained with Elizabeth for three months.

Upon Mary’s arrival, something extraordinary occurred. Elizabeth’s unborn child leaped within her womb, recognizing the presence of Christ. Filled with the Holy Spirit, Elizabeth proclaimed:

“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! But why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”

— Luke 1:42–45

These words are remarkable. Before Jesus was born, Elizabeth recognized him as Lord and Messiah. Through the illumination of the Holy Spirit, she perceives what no human eye could yet see.

Her greeting also forms part of the prayer Christians have prayed for centuries in the Hail Mary:

“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.”

The Visitation is therefore both a deeply personal family encounter and a profound theological revelation.

The Magnificat

Mary responds to Elizabeth’s greeting with one of the most beloved hymns in all of Scripture, the Magnificat.

Named from the opening word of the Latin translation, Magnificat anima mea Dominum (”My soul magnifies the Lord”), this canticle is Mary’s joyful response to God’s grace and faithfulness.

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior; For he has regarded the lowliness of his handmaiden. For behold, from now on, all generations will call me blessed; For he that is mighty has magnified me, and holy is his Name. And his mercy is on those who fear him, throughout all generations. He has shown the strength of his arm; he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has brought down the mighty from their thrones,and has exalted the humble and meek. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away. He, remembering his mercy, has helped his servant Israel, as he promised to our fathers, Abraham and his seed for ever.

- Luke 1:46-55

The Magnificat is both intensely personal and profoundly universal. Mary praises God for what he has done in her own life, but she also proclaims his faithfulness throughout salvation history. Her song celebrates God’s mercy, justice, and unwavering commitment to his covenant promises.

The themes of reversal that appear throughout the canticle, the humble being exalted, the hungry being filled, and the proud being scattered, point to the coming kingdom of God inaugurated through Christ.

Canticles of Faithfulness

The Magnificat is one of the Church’s most treasured canticles. A canticle is a psalm-like hymn drawn directly from Scripture, and the Magnificat has been prayed by Christians since the earliest centuries of the Church. It is also known as the Song of Mary, the Canticle of Mary, and in the Byzantine tradition, the Ode of the Theotokos.

It is one of four great hymns found within the infancy narratives of Luke’s Gospel:

• The Magnificat (Luke 1:46–55)

• The Benedictus, or Song of Zechariah (Luke 1:67–79)

• The Gloria in Excelsis Deo, sung by the angels (Luke 2:13–14)

• The Nunc Dimittis, or Song of Simeon (Luke 2:28–32)

These ancient hymns became central to Christian worship and eventually found a permanent place within the Liturgy of the Hours and later within the Daily Office of the Book of Common Prayer.

Patterned after the hymns of praise found throughout the Psalms, they proclaim God’s mercy, justice, faithfulness, and the fulfillment of his promises to Israel.

For nearly two thousand years, Christians have joined their voices with Mary, Zechariah, the angels, and Simeon in praising God through these sacred songs.

The Magnificat as Thanksgiving

Because of its themes of praise and thanksgiving, the Magnificat became closely associated with Evening Prayer and Vespers.

As the day draws to a close, Christians have traditionally prayed Mary’s song in gratitude for God’s faithfulness and providential care.

Today it continues to be sung and prayed throughout the world, especially during Advent when the Church reflects upon the events surrounding Christ’s incarnation.

The Magnificat serves a rich catechetical purpose. It teaches believers about God’s holiness, mercy, justice, and covenant faithfulness. It reminds us that God lifts up the humble, remembers his promises, and works throughout history to accomplish his purposes.

As Christians pray these words repeatedly, they are formed by them. Mary’s song becomes our song.

The Meaning of the Visitation

The Visitation is far more than a family reunion. It is a passage filled with rich theological significance that reveals God’s redemptive plan unfolding before our eyes.

Recognition of Jesus as the Messiah

Elizabeth’s greeting is one of the earliest confessions of Jesus as Lord. Before his birth, Jesus was recognized as the promised Messiah. Elizabeth’s declaration, “the mother of my Lord,” affirms both Christ’s identity and Mary’s unique role within salvation history.

The Church has long seen in this passage a confirmation of Mary’s title as Theotokos, the God-bearer or Mother of God, not because Mary is the source of Christ’s divinity, but because the child she carries is fully God and fully man.

The Role of the Holy Spirit

Luke emphasizes the active work of the Holy Spirit throughout this encounter:

• Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit upon hearing Mary’s greeting and is given divine insight into the identity of Mary’s child.

• John the Baptist responds to Christ’s presence by leaping within the womb.

• Mary herself responds with a Spirit-inspired hymn of praise that magnifies God’s greatness and faithfulness.

The Visitation reminds us that the Holy Spirit opens our eyes to recognize Christ and empowers us to proclaim God’s mighty works.

Mary as the New Ark of the Covenant

One of the most beautiful theological themes within the Visitation is the connection between Mary and the Ark of the Covenant.

In the Old Testament, the Ark was the sacred dwelling place of God’s presence among his people. It contained the tablets of the Law, the jar of manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded.

The Church has long seen these items as foreshadowing Christ:

• The Tablets of the Law: Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law.

• The Jar of Manna: Jesus is the Bread of Life.

• Aaron’s Rod: Jesus is our eternal High Priest.

Just as the Ark carried God’s presence, Mary carries Christ himself within her womb.

Luke’s account contains striking parallels to 2 Samuel 6. When David encounters the Ark, he exclaims:

“How can the ark of the Lord come to me?”

Elizabeth echoes these words when she asks:

“Why is this granted to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?”

The parallels continue. The Ark remained in the house of Obed-Edom for three months, bringing blessing to the household. Likewise, Mary remains with Elizabeth for three months, and her presence brings blessing and joy.

Both accounts are marked by rejoicing, divine presence, and God’s blessing upon his people.

The Importance of Community

The Visitation also reminds us of the importance of Christian community. Mary and Elizabeth are united by God’s calling and favor. Together they marvel at what God is doing and encourage one another in faith. The Holy Spirit brings them together not for competition or comparison, but for mutual joy and support.

In a culture that often prizes individualism, the Visitation reminds us that God frequently works through relationships and community. We are called to rejoice together, pray together, and bear witness together to God’s faithfulness.

A Foretaste of the Church’s Mission

The Visitation also foreshadows the mission of the Church. Elizabeth’s prophetic greeting and Mary’s Magnificat both proclaim God’s saving work in Christ. Together they bear witness to the coming Messiah before his birth.

In this way, the Visitation anticipates the Church’s ongoing mission to recognize, celebrate, and proclaim God’s presence in the world.

• Like Mary, we are called to carry Christ into the world.

• Like Elizabeth, we are called to recognize and rejoice in God’s work.

• And like both women, we are called to proclaim his faithfulness with joy.

Ways to Celebrate:

Read Luke 1:39–56

Spend time reading and meditating on the account of the Visitation. Pay special attention to Elizabeth’s greeting and Mary’s Magnificat.

Pray the Magnificat

Incorporate the Magnificat into your prayer life by praying it during Evening Prayer or as part of your personal devotions.

Gather with Friends

Because the Visitation celebrates fellowship and shared joy in God’s goodness, consider inviting friends or family to gather together and celebrate the day.

Listen to Sacred Music

Listen to The Magnificat by John Michael Talbot or another musical setting of Mary’s canticle.

Bake a Blueberry Galette

Since blue is traditionally associated with the Virgin Mary, a blueberry galette makes a fitting and festive treat for the feast. Galettes are simple rustic pastries filled with fruit, sugar, and butter, a beautiful way to celebrate the day with family and friends.

As we celebrate the Feast of the Visitation, may we join Mary and Elizabeth in recognizing God’s presence, rejoicing in his faithfulness, and proclaiming his mighty works. May their example encourage us to magnify the Lord with our lives and trust in the fulfillment of his promises.

the recipe -

Blueberry Galette

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Blueberry Galette

Crust:

• 2 ½ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling

• 1/4 cup granulated sugar

• 1/2 teaspoon salt

• 1 cup unsalted butter, frozen

• ¼ cup ice water

Filling:

• 4 cups blueberries

• 1/4 cup sugar

• 2 tbsp all-purpose flour

• 1 tbsp lemon zest

• 2 tbsp lemon juice

Egg wash:

• 1 egg

• 1 tbsp milk

For the pastry:

1. Add the 2 1/2 cups of flour, sugar, and salt into a food processor. Give it a few pulses.

2. Cut COLD butter into tbsp-sized pieces. Transfer to a food processor and pulse until the butter is cut into small lentil-sized clumps.

3. Slowly drizzle in about 1/4 cup of the ice water while pulsing the processor. If the mixture doesn’t hold together when you squeeze a clump in your hand, add a bit more water and pulse.

4. Transfer the dough onto a pastry mat or sheet of plastic wrap and knead 2-3 times to help it come together a bit. Gently flatten into a one-inch-thick disk, cover with plastic wrap, and chill for an hour.

5. Once your pie crust is chilled, preheat the oven to 425 F. Remove the dough from the fridge and let it warm up on the counter for a few minutes; this will prevent cracking. Roll the pie crust to about 1/4 of an inch and transfer it to a baking sheet.

For the filling:

1. In a bowl, gently stir together the berries, lemon juice, zest, sugar, and flour.

For the assembly:

1. In a small bowl, lightly beat the egg with a tablespoon of cream.

2. Spoon the filling onto the dough, leaving a 2-3 inch border uncovered around the edge. Fold the edge up and over the filling, forming loose pleats. Brush pastry with egg wash and sprinkle with sugar if desired.

3. Bake at 425 F until the filling is bubbling and the pastry is golden brown (about 25 minutes).

Recipe from Preppy Kitchen.

This Sunday, we entered a new liturgical season: Ordinary Time.

And yet, there is nothing “ordinary” about it.

After the great feasts and celebrations of Eastertide and Pentecost, the Church now invites us into a long green season of growth, a season not marked by spectacle, but by steady faithfulness. Ordinary Time, sometimes called the season after Pentecost or Trinitytide, is where the Christian life takes root and begins to flourish in the daily rhythms of ordinary life.

The word “ordinary” comes from the Latin ordinalis, meaning ordered or numbered time. It is the ordered unfolding of the life of Christ within us. This is the season where we learn what it means not only to celebrate the mysteries of the faith, but to live them.

And perhaps this is why Ordinary Time is such a gift.

Because most of life is not lived in mountaintop moments. Most of life is lived in kitchens and carpools, at dinner tables and in quiet prayers before bed, in daily work, hidden sacrifices, acts of mercy, repentance, forgiveness, and perseverance. It is here, in the steady and often unseen places of life, that God forms his people.

Throughout Scripture, we see that God works not only through miraculous moments but through long seasons of faithfulness. Israel wandered in the wilderness. The disciples learned to follow Christ day by day. The early Church was built through ordinary believers living lives of quiet devotion in the midst of the world.

This is the invitation of Ordinary Time: to become faithful disciples in the everyday.

The liturgical color for this season is green, symbolizing life, growth, and fruitfulness. Just as the earth flourishes under the warmth of the sun, so too our souls are meant to flourish in the light of Christ. Week by week, we hear the teachings of Jesus proclaimed in the Gospels, his parables, miracles, commands, and call to discipleship, and we are gradually shaped into his likeness.

Ordinary Time teaches us that holiness is not found only in extraordinary moments, but in the continual offering of our lives to God.

In a culture constantly seeking distraction, novelty, and excitement, this season reminds us of something deeply countercultural: spiritual growth is often quiet, slow, and hidden. The Christian life is not sustained by emotional highs alone, but by abiding in Christ day after day.

St. Augustine once wrote:

“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”

Ordinary Time is where we learn that rest, not only in moments of celebration, but in the faithful rhythms of daily prayer, worship, repentance, and love.

So as we begin this long green season together, let us embrace its beauty. Let us reclaim the sacredness of ordinary life. Let us seek Christ not only in feast days and celebrations, but also in the quiet moments that make up our days.

For even here, especially here, God is at work.

And so with the Church throughout the ages, we pray:

“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!”

— Psalm 103:1

May this season be one of deep growth, renewed faith, and abiding joy as we walk faithfully with Christ in the everyday moments of life.

Ways to Celebrate

Read Acts 1 and 2 about the early church flourishing after the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Pray for the Holy Spirit to fill you anew and help you to flourish and grow.

Buy my latest liturgical guidebook, The Liturgical Home: Ordinary Time! It gives you everything you need to celebrate the season of Ordinary Time in your home. All of the feast days, their significance and meaning, traditional recipes and ways to celebrate from around the world, and devotions for the special days. You are going to love it!

Decorate your home with all things green! I love this beautiful, muted green tablecloth with cream flowers. These adorable striped napkins, or linen napkins. You could also add a throw pillow like this.

Fill a jar or vase with green herbs or branches from the backyard.

May God bless you and your family during this season of Ordinary Time!