Feasts, Seasons, Sacraments

Faith on vacation

Here are two ways to celebrate your faith this summer.

1) Take a vacation from your parish. It’s always good to mix things up a bit to keep them fresh. Why not pick a Sunday this summer and attend Mass at another parish? Follow that up with brunch as a family. You could attend the cathedral in your diocese or another parish that’s unlike yours in terms of racial and ethnic makeup. If your parish is heavy on organ music, think how refreshing it would be to have Mass accompanied by a marimba choir. Ours is a great, big, wonderful church. Why not experience more of it with your family?

2) Practice a daily saint reminder. Butler’s Lives of the Saints (Harper San Francisco, 1991) is a good one to keep on the kitchen table all summer. Either you or one of your children who is old enough can take magnetic letters or a piece of cardboard and spell out the name of the day’s saint and post it on the refrigerator. At breakfast or dinner each day have someone read the story of the saint. Theologian Rosemary Haughton says what ultimately led to her conversion to Catholicism was reading the lives of the saints as a young girl. The stories fired her imagination and fed her desire to take the words of Christ seriously. Let these stories of the heroes of our faith heat up your child’s religious imagination this summer.

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