Family Corner: Invitation and Prayer

Isn’t it fun to get an invitation?  We love to be included in celebrations and special events. We Catholics know the joy of gathering; we join a special feast every week at the Mass! This month, the Archdiocese Reclaiming Sundays theme is Invitation and Prayer. We are invited to refresh our celebrations with a new awareness. We are prompted to share our joy with those around us. We are encouraged to not only answer the Church’s invitation to fellowship, but also to extend it to others. Our joy and our faith will blossom when we do.

Here are the Reclaiming Sundays Sample Activities for January, along with some ideas for us here at Nativity:

• Invite someone outside of your family to share an aspect of your “reclaimed
Sunday” (e.g., invite a neighbor for dinner, ask family friends to go on a walk with
you). Here at Nativity, invite another family to join you for the January 11 Emmaus Night, for prayer, fellowship, and fun. Or invite that person alone in the pew to join you for a sprinkle donut after Mass!
 
• Liturgical Living: Intentionally celebrate the Solemnity of the Epiphany of the Lord. (E.g., light candles and have a little procession to place the Magi in your Nativity scene, use blessed chalk to bless your doorways, eat a meal of middle Eastern food, sing “We Three Kings,” etc.) Invite someone to share your celebration. This year, we celebrate Epiphany on Sunday, January 4.  It is a solemnity; we are encouraged to celebrate on Sunday.  But why not make one more special memory? Invite your family or household for an Epiphany prayer, song, or dessert (!) on Tuesday, January 6.
 
• Liturgical Living: Celebrate the Baptism of the Lord (Sunday, January 11) by remembering your own family baptisms. Light your candles, look at photos and videos from the sacramental celebration, invite godparents to share your celebration, bless eachother with holy water, pray for your godparents, pray for the priests who baptized you all, etc. After Mass at Nativity, ask a fellow parishioner how she got her beautiful saint’s name. Visit the relic room at the Northeast corner of the church to venerate a relic of a saint meaningful in your life. And our January 11 Emmaus Night is a lovely way to recall that Baptism brings us all together as the Body of Christ.
 
Invitations can be very grand or very simple. If it is intimidating to reach out to someone you don’t know well (yet!), start small: Ask a sibling to share a family task, ask your spouse to read the day’s Gospel together, ask yourself for whom you could pray right now. Pope Francis encouraged us to invite others as the saints do: “The saints were not superhuman. They were people who loved God in their hearts, and who shared this joy with others.”