Our Family's Jesse Tree: A Review

I am back again with another review. Because right now this is all I am able to manage on the blogging front. And I'm sure any faithful readers here (all 3 or 4 of you?) forgive me for that.

But, but, but ...

I am so excited to share something new with you! Don't be fooled by the post title, I'm not sharing MY family's Jesse Tree, but a review of a new ebook called Our Family's Jesse Tree by Jen Frost with Melinda Murphy. We have never done a Jesse Tree in my family, but with the help of this cool little book, I believe we will be diving in this year.

Just look at that cute tree on the cover of the book! I'm not sure mine is going to be as cute, but I feel like I can't go wrong following Jen's directions. It'll at least look decent. Let me explain why.

First of all, just recently in one of my Facebook groups someone asked about what sort of trees people use for their Jesse Tree ornaments. She complained that she sees all these different activities for making cute little ornaments but no where has she found anyone who made their own tree. Well ... this is the book! That tree you see on the cover of the book, you can make one just like it. Guess what is under all that cute felt. You'll never guess ... it's a traffic cone! Now, I have no idea where you get a traffic cone, but if you have access to one, more points for you. I was brainstorming and I think I may look for one of those white Styrofoam cones (I think they're Styrofoam, but even if not, I'm 99% sure I've seen something like that in a craft store) would work just as well. Anyway, my point, this book helps you make your own tree, complete with little buttons to hang your ornaments on.

I tell you what, that is one of the main reasons why I can envision using this book this year. Or at least sometime in the near future (if not this year, maybe next year ... for making the tree).

Regardless of whether we do the tree or not, we will definitely do the ornaments. [For a tree, we still have the small tree I had from my single days living in an apartment and later a townhouse, so I could use that for the time being.] The ornaments are cute as a button! And the best part is that Jen gives you 6 different ways for making them. Since my kids are little (4 year old twins and an almost 2 year old) I may print out the black and white coloring versions for the kids to color, cut them out, paste on card stock, and hang them up. Because this is an ebook, next year we can print them out and do the same thing or try something new (depending on how brave this non-crafty mom gets).

Here are four possibilities for making the ornaments

So, #1, this book helps you to make your own Jesse Tree. #2, you have a ton of flexibility on how to make the ornaments. (And did you also notice my subtle hint that even non-crafty people (Yoohoo!) can use this, too?) But wait, there's more ...

The third cool thing about this book is that the Bible readings and prayers are all included as well. Jen and her co-writer Melinda have provided an activity, Scripture reference, summary, a Jesus connection, and a prayer for each day. Since Jen and Melinda come from different faith backgrounds they also worked to make the stories and connections relevant to all Christian believers. In the intro pages she recommends that parents review the materials ahead of time and should feel free to diverge from the printed text as is appropriate for your family's faith background. I read through a few of the days and found them to be good information and very Biblical. I plan on going through it more, but from what I see so far, it all looks great and very flexible depending on the ages of your children.

All that being said, I know you all want to know the details. How can you get your hands on this nifty book? I'm glad you asked. You can get the book for $7.50 as a downloadable PDF. Now, I'm the first person to tell you that I'm not super crazy about ebooks. I like them for quick fiction reads, but not usually for much else. However, I love that this is an ebook, because you can print certain pages and have kids color these each year. Or do the ornaments one way one year and another way the next. So it works great as an ebook. Head on over to the Faith and Fabric Etsy shop HERE to get your copy today. Or, you can get it on the Faith and Fabric Craftsy shop HERE.

Look for more from me on this product soon. I am planning a second review for Catholic Sistas later in the month plus at some point you'll hopefully see an "action shot" of my kids working on their Jesse Tree ornaments. Stay tuned!

Disclaimer: I was sent a free copy of this book for review and no other compensation. My opinions are entirely my own.

What Every Catholic Should Know: 7 Quick Takes

Today I have a post up over at Catholic Sistas as part of the 7 Quick Takes series. In this installment I list (with the help of the other sistas) 7 things that every Catholic should know.

I tried to keep the list brief and added links and references to the Catechism. In many ways it should be a review or a way to build a bit more knowledge on something you already know as a Catholic. The intent was not to address things that Protestants don't understand about our faith or to provide Catholics with answers to questions from their Protestant friends or family members.

Quite simply, what should you as a Catholic really know? That's the goal of this post.

The list could be a lot longer, but I only had 7 spots. So it is what it is. But that doesn't mean you can't add to the list. Come on over and check out today's 7 Quick Takes post, Catholic Catechesis installment and leave us comments with what else you would add to the list. Add any references too if you can easily find them.

This, hopefully, is a great post to file away somewhere to refer back to when you might need it. Especially with additional comments added on.

Enjoy and have a great weekend!

A Tuesday Ten Book Review

I finished my first book of the year!! Most years (in recent memory) I read one maybe two books the whole year. I'm on a mission to read more this year. My first book was Matthew Kelly's The Four Signs of a Dynamic Catholic.

I was hesitant about this book because I find Matthew Kelly very repetitive. I'm sure it's a technique in his speaking that helps to drive home a point but I find it hard to read his writing when he is constantly repeating the same thing. I found this book to be much less repetitive than my previous experiences with him. Not that it didn't still have some repetitiveness, it was just less so.

This book was given away at my parish on Christmas weekend. We weren't around then, but I was able to pick it up the next weekend when we were back in town. I started reading it out of curiosity (since I was a bit hesitant at first) and ended up being drawn in. And I ended up liking the book a lot and I believe I got something out of it.

I was surprised to find out that his research showed that only about 7% of Catholics are the ones that are the most likely to be the volunteers, primary financial contributors, and most dedicated Catholics in a parish. Only 7%! He was expecting to find that number to be 20% to correlate with the 80/20 principle (80 percent of the work is done by 20 percent of the people--usually a business principle, but I've seen it applied in many other areas as well). Instead only 7% of the people do about 80% of the work in a Catholic Church.

As I continued reading I realized that I probably do not fall into that 7%. Few of us do. That was a bit eye-opening, to say the least! With this book Kelly was trying to make the case that we as Catholics could change the world just by increasing that number by 1%. But how?? That's where the four signs came in.

In short, he broke down the four signs to prayer, study, generosity, and evangelization. Anyone who has ever  done a Cursillo retreat will recognize three of these signs and honestly I think generosity can be folded into evangelization. But what I like is that he broke these four signs down and made them seem simple.

I'm almost out of time (wow ten minutes isn't very long!), but I wanted to say that I sort of disagree with him on one small point (and I'm out of time, but I'm going to finish this one thought anyway). In his last chapter he summarizes the points of the book and speaks a little to the erosion of the Church in our modern time. He is pushing for a revival of sorts and mentions that the Church could crumble without it. I understand what he is getting at and why he goes this direction, but we shouldn't forget that Jesus Himself told us that His Church would never fall. Yes, it may deteriorate a lot due to negligence on the part of the people and outside forces trying to break us apart, but I think there will always be a Church until the day Jesus comes back and there is no longer need for a human Church. What I think Kelly was trying to emphasize here was that we need to work on building the Church up and being unapologetic in our Catholic faith. I can agree with that. But I was just struck by his mention that the Church could disappear.

And that's all I got. Overall, a very good book and I recommend it. Sorry I ran over my ten minutes! If you're interested in this book you can find out more about it at www.dynamiccatholic.com.

The Holy Spirit is in Control

I mentioned in a post last week (Putting God in Charge of my Priorities) that I had a talk to give on Saturday. Luckily I did manage to get the talk written and was prepared by the time Saturday morning rolled around.

Phew!

I was actually very calm about it too. I expected to be nervous because I'm always nervous before I have to be in front of a group. But I wasn't. Very uncharacteristic for me. Very!

My talk that morning was the second of two talks. Usually, in a situation like this, I don't get much out of anything before my own talk. Not true on Saturday morning. And I'm grateful, because the talk before mine was great and I got a lot out of it. So glad I was able to focus and listen and absorb the information. Especially since both talks (this one and my own) may be repeated by us for a different group of people in a few months!

Despite my calmness, I did still get that familiar sudden feeling of terror in the pit of my stomach just before I got up to speak. But it went away once I was at the podium and from there things went smoothly. I remember thinking how completely uncharacteristic this was for me.

I attribute my calmness to the Holy Spirit. Only the Holy Spirit could have accomplished something as great as calming the nerves of a very shy person about to speak to a group of people.

Thank you, Holy Spirit, for your presence that morning.

Image source

Who is Liturgy For?

Tonight my husband and I went to the first talk of four on the Liturgy. Through these four talks we’ll get a good history of the Liturgy in Christian worship that will lead up to a discussion on why the texts will be changing starting in Advent 2011. Next week the speaker will be discussing the changes that took place with the Council of Trent in the 16th century followed by a discussion the following week on Vatican II, and ending the final week with a discussion on some of the upcoming changes.

But to start things off, the Bishop gave an overview tonight of Liturgy from Judaic times to today. As always, he gave a great talk with a ton of information!! His vast knowledge is always so evident on any given topic. I always learn something.

He broke the talk down into seven parts, but I won’t reiterate all of those here. There were plenty of interesting points I could share (aren’t you glad I wasn’t taking notes!), but one really struck me. It had to do with why we participate in Liturgy and who the Liturgy is for. Are we there to “get something out of it?” Are we there to just rejoice and give praise? Or is there more to it?

So often when you talk to someone who is unhappy with the Catholic Church, one of the familiar lines you get is that they don’t feel they “get anything” out of Mass. But that’s totally missing the point.

In Exodus chapter 32 the Hebrew people are worshipping the golden calf while dancing and feasting and being merry. This section is often used to teach against idolatry. However, the Bishop pointed out tonight that it is much more than that. The Hebrew people had forgotten what God had asked of them and were trying to create a more tangible god, something visible and concrete. But they were only thinking of themselves and what they needed, or actually, wanted, out of that relationship with God.

They had also forgotten that what God asks of His people is non-negotiable. Go back to where Moses is asking Pharaoh to let God’s people go out of the land to worship Him. Pharaoh tries to negotiate, but Moses won’t. God gave specific instructions and it wasn’t up to Moses to negotiate, those instructions had to be followed.

The passage about the golden calf is a good example of what happens when we forget that God wants to be worshipped in a certain way. When we start making it about how we feel and try to turn Sunday worship services into entertainment, we forget what God has asked of us.

So what has he asked of us? He wants us to come together as community to worship Him in how He has instructed us. And those instructions aren’t up for debate. It is why the Catholic Church has celebrated the Mass in basically the same way for almost 2000 years. The Holy Spirit led the Apostles in the right form of worship and we continue that tradition today. Even with the changes that have occurred over the centuries, the basics of the mass have always been the same. (Check out St. Justin Martyr's description of how the Christian people worshipped: it’s the Mass!! And he wrote that in ca. 155 A.D.!)

Are we at Mass to “get something” out of it? Well, hopefully, yes. But ultimately it’s not about us. It’s about God and God alone.

Another quick point: the Bishop also talked about how our earthly liturgy may be imperfect, but it is a foretaste of the heavenly liturgy which we hope to participate in one day. He said that we are rehearsing here for what awaits us there. As a musician, that makes perfect sense! You can’t go to the performance without first doing the rehearsal!