Feast Days from Monday 9th November to Sunday 15th

The main feast days are this week:

10th November - St Leo the Great

11th November - St Martin of Tours (Martinmas Day)

13th November - St Frances Xavier Cabrini

13th November - St Stanislaus Kostka

15th November - St Albert the Great

10th of November - ST LEO THE GREAT

A biography of St Leo the Great for children. HT: Intercessories Family Ministry

A link to the letters written by St Leo the Great. HT: Crossroads Initiative

Here is a lovely youtube video on the life of St Leo the Great.

When we think of the name 'Leo' we think of lion! So here is some lovely lion cupcakes at Catholic Cuisine that would be fun for the children.

11th of November - ST MARTIN OF TOURS

A biography of St Martin of Tours for children. HT: Intercessories Family Ministry

A biography of St Martin of Tours for older children HT: Magnificat

Jenn GM from Family in Feast and Feria has linked a few lovely online read-alouds on the life of St Martin.

Here is my blog posting about how these two things are connected to St Martin's cloak ~ chaplains and a capella singing. Also I relate many interesting facts about St Martin and the raising of three people back to life.

St Martin's friend Sulpicius Severus, a Roman nobleman in his Bialogues, wrote about a famous biography of St Martin's life, you can read it here online.

The feast day of St Martin of Tours is a big feast day known as Martinmas Day. Evelyn Birge Vitz in her book, A Continual Feast has this to say:

"His feast, called Martinmas, became a major one in Europe, largely no doubt because it took on the character of an in-gathering festival: a thanksgiving celebration. On this day it has been traditonal to eat young goose and to taste the new wine of the season."

Our family plans for celebrating this feast will be a lovely roast chicken dinner (don't have a goose unfortunately) and making a cake with St Martin's cloak being cut with a sword. We hope to set up a fire in our brazier in our back yard and eating our meal around that. After our meal we will light our St Martin lanterns and circle our yard, singing a St Martin lantern song.

In Australia it is also Rememberance Day. It is one of our traditions from our British heritage. But there is obviously a connection between this day when we remember our fallen heros who went to war and St Martin was himself, a solider. We remember our fallen heros, on the 11th of November at 11am for a minute with our heads bowed. Wikipedia has this to say:

"For Anglican and Roman Catholics, there is a coincidental but appropriate overlap of Remembrance Day with the feast of St Martin of Tours, a saint famous for putting aside his life as a soldier and turning to the peace-filled life of a monk. Statues or images associated with St. Martin are for this reason sometimes used as symbols of Remembrance Day in religious contexts (e.g. the Anglican Cathedral of Montreal)."

For some great plans/links for St Martin's Day pop over to Pinewood Castle for some ideas.

Here is a colouring picture of St Martin of Tours. HT: Charlotte from Waltzing Matilda

A great stained glass image of St Martin cutting his cloak for the children to colour in. HT: Kinderschule

An image of St Martin cutting his cloak for the children to colour in. HT: Johnson Ancestory

Another nice image to print up and allow the children to colour in. HT: Wilson's Almanac

Geese are often associated with St Martin due to this lovely legend mentioned at Wikipedia:

"According to legend, Martin was reluctant to become bishop, which is why he hid in a stable filled with geese. The noise made by the geese betrayed his location to the people who were looking for him."

Here is some great, free colouring pages of geese. HT: 123Coloring.com

There are lots of lovely recipes for St Martin's day, here are some from Catholic Cuisine:

Goose with Apple stuffing for Martinmas

Martinshornchecn for St Martin's Day

Horseshoe Cookies for Martinmas

Also a recipe for St Martin Crossiants. HT: About.com

Here is another cake at Catholic Cuisine, our Cloak of St Martin Cake! Pop on over to see how we made it.

.

.

.

A wonderful European tradition (particularly France and Germany) on Martinmas Day is the parading of lanterns and singing through the streets by children. Such a lovely idea that we hope to keep alive in our family!

To see how to make our St Martin lanterns, pop over to my blog to read how, also in that posting there is the lyrics to a lovely St Martin lantern song as well as youtube rendition of it being sung in English. (I also have the youtube song imbedding further below)



Here is another St Martin lantern we made, out of paper mache, to see how go over for details.

...

Left lantern making to the last moment? Don't panic, for the quickest lanterns you'll ever make, pop over to Charlotte's Waltzing Matilda for her beautiful lanterns. We still have a couple of lanterns left to make ourselves, so we will be making the last couple using Charlotte's great ideas.

.

.

.

Dawn over at By Sun and Candlelight has some great St Martin Lanterns using old jars and coloured tissue paper.

Here is another lady's Martinmas Laterns. HT: In These Hills

Here is a sweet little video of German children doing their St Martin lantern walk and singing. HT: YouTube

We are now working on learning one of the traditional St Martin lantern songs, I found this music sheet here with the lyrics. HT: Pinewood Castle

If you would like to have the St Martin song background music without the singing, click here. HT: YouTube

If you would like to hear the St Martin song with music and singing, click here. HT: YouTube

13th of November - ST FRANCES XAVIER CABRINI

A biography of St Frances Xavier Cabrini for children. HT: Intercessories Family Ministry

A colouring page of St Frances Cabrini HT: Charlotte from Waltzing Matilda

St Frances Cabrini founded the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart, so some of these Sacred Heart recipes would be an appropriate for her feast. HT: Catholic Cuisine

St Frances was Italian, an Italian meal would be in order for the day as well!

Reciting The Little Rosary of St Frances Xavier Cabrini would also be a suitable family devotional today.

One of the lovely Vision books for older children, Mother Cabrini: Missionary to the World.

13th of November - ST STANISLAUS KOSTKA

A biography of St Stanislaus Kostka for older children. HT: Magnificat

A biography for St Albert the Great for children. HT: Intercessories Family Ministry

A biography for St Albert the Great for older children. HT: Magnificat