O Radix Jesse

December 15, 2021 by Ned Ludd in Family, Wisdom

One of the fun family traditions we keep during Advent is the Jesse Tree. A couple of weeks prior to Advent (i.e. during St Martin’s Lent), the kids gather up a few branches, which I decorate with some cheap, battery powered star-shaped lights that I got from Amazon. Then for each day of Advent, we read a kid-friendly bible story and the kids take turns hanging an ornament on the thee, which depicts that story. This is a great way to anticipate Christmas by counting the days of Advent (actual Advent, which starts four Sundays before Christmas and has 22 to 28 days, not the secular Advent, which always has 24). The children really look forward to this each evening after supper and it has the added bonus of introducing them to the Christian narrative in scripture, despite much of society’s reservations about imposing a belief structure upon a child…

St Martin's Lent and Advent (Part 1 of 2)

November 15, 2021 by Ned Ludd in Family, Asceticism

If you’re uneasy about the rampant excess of the pre-Christmas season, consider re-introducing the ancient Tradition of St Martin’s Lent: 43 days of fasting, abstinence, and prayer prior to Christmas, similar to the 46 days of Lent prior to Easter. Standing in contrast to the excesses of the pre-Christmas season, St Martin’s Lent refocuses the season on spiritual development… and has the added bonus of shedding the Christmas binge-eating weight before it even happens…

Sanctifying "Ordinary Time"

July 21, 2021 by Ned Ludd in Family

The blog posts are a little less frequent now that it’s Ordinary Time. There are actually two periods of Ordinary time, but the post-Christmas / pre-Lenten period is so short, our family really only marks this extended Ordinal period after Pentecost with green trappings around the house, less emphasis on devotions, and more emphasis on getting outdoors (which apparently precludes frequent blog posting). Even though we’re not contemplating the mysteries of the incarnation or the resurrection, there are still ways we sanctify this time as a family…

Whitsunday Traditions

May 23, 2021 by Ned Ludd in Family

Pentecost, or Whitsunday as it’s known in the Anglo Catholic tradition deserves some recognition, if not for its theological importance, then for being the last day of Eastertide. Here’s how our family acknowledges the day through symbolism, and a touch of ritual…

Pentecost and the Divine Discourse

May 21, 2021 by Ned Ludd in Family, Wisdom

Pentecost is this Sunday, 23 May, 2021 and is the last day of Eastertide. There’s actually a pretty profound relationship between the feasts of Easter, and The Ascension and Pentecost, so it’s worth celebrating them all. I’ll provide some suggestions to acknowledge the sacredness of the day based on our family’s Pentecost celebrations later, but first let me explain what Pentecost is and how it relates to the Easter story…

Ascension Day Traditions

May 09, 2021 by Ned Ludd in Family

Ascension Day is coming up this Thursday, 13 May 2021. The feast of the Ascension is one of the Ecumenical feasts of Christianity (according to Wikipedia), one of the oldest (celebrated for eighteen centuries give or take), and also one of the hardest to wrap one’s head around.

The Feast of the Ascension of Jesus Christ celebrates the end of Christ’s ministry on earth after his resurrection. It’s always a Thursday, but since it’s 40 days after Easter Sunday, the calendar date changes from year to year (i.e. 13 May 2021, 26 May 2022, etc). If you can accept that Christ conquered death, or if that’s hard for you to swallow, that Christ gave us faith that death is an illusion, then the end of his earthly life couldn’t have ended in death… again. The Ascension story is the end of that beginning.

The Sleeping Lifehack

April 29, 2021 by Ned Ludd in Family, Asceticism

I don’t have trouble sleeping anymore. Maybe that’s not a very novel statement, but it seems to me that there are a lot of people that could benefit from a good, sound night’s sleep — parents with young children I’m talking to you — so I’ll let you in on the secret of how. In the history of Christianity, and especially amongst the Desert Fathers, it seems that the ascetic practice was to deprive oneself of sleep, which does have its merits as a practice of self-discipline, but I’ve found that for me, 8½ hours of sleep (7 if I’m really active) makes me more focused, more motivated, and less prone to irritation, which are all qualities I’m trying to cultivate on my spiritual journey. That’s not to say that I never deprive myself of sleep, I just try to do so deliberately — more on that next Advent or Lent…

A 50-day Feast

April 18, 2021 by Ned Ludd in Family

Did you know that Easter is actually fifty days? No? It starts on Easter day, and lasts until Pentecost which is 49 days later. Here are a few ways our family makes the entire “season” special:

No abstinence or fasting on Fridays. Just as every Sunday in the year is meant to recall the Pascal feast, for our family every Friday throughout the year recalls the death and passion of Jesus. So most of the time we have some of the same customs on Fridays as we do on Good Friday: Not eating three full meals, not eating meat, not having dessert, no whisky (for me). During Easter however we have a curry feast every Friday instead of fish, and there’s lots of Easter cookies and candy — even on Fridays. Plus, Wisedad can have Scotch and a cigar…