Pumpkin Spice and Liturgical Living

I love the crisp evening air, especially for high school football games, and that’s not a big part of my life right now, but I have fond memories of it. And, you know, I’m just such a huge sucker for the changing colors of the leaves. It’s so beautiful. And here we have a really lovely fall. I’ve been really enjoying it and it’s just a special time.

So these three months are my favorite and I enjoy every single day of the fall time season. So now, you know, as I’ve gotten older, I have also come to expect pumpkin spice latte advertisements everywhere. Pumpkin Spice Lattes, Pumpkin Spice Everything, and I’ll be honest, I mean, I like Pumpkin Spice Lattes.

I don’t order many of them because they’re completely full of sugar, more than a candy bar. So, public service announcement if you didn’t know that, but I’ll get a couple throughout the season. I usually get one on my birthday, and I don’t really like pumpkin flavored things either. I have a pumpkin bread recipe that I make, that I make out of almond flour, and it’s pretty yummy, although to be honest, I really just make it for other people.

I don’t eat it that much myself, and So, you know, pumpkin spice lattes are okay, pumpkin flavored everything is a little annoying, and I think it’s certainly gotten out of hand, there have been plenty of articles about that, but with the pumpkin season, and as we’ve seen it kind of explode over the last five years, I think what we’re really seeing here is a longing In our hearts for liturgical living and you know, as humans, God designed us to both desire constancy and change.

And it’s a very interesting thing and it sounds like a contradiction, but it’s not. God put the desire for both of these things in our hearts for permanence and for change. And I think C. S. Lewis really describes this beautifully in the Screwtip Letters. He says, Humans live in time and experience reality successively.

To experience much of it, therefore, they must experience many different things. In other words, they must experience change. But since God does not wish them to make change and end in itself, He has balanced the love of change in them by a love of permanence. God has contrived to gratify both tastes together in the very world that God has made by that union of change and permanence, which we call rhythm.

And I think that’s so lovely. And it explains why we have this longing for both changing seasons, but also knowing that the seasons themselves never change. And I think that’s why when we do embrace the Catholic liturgical calendar, it’s so deeply satisfying. We love the changing seasons, and they never last too long, and yet we find comfort knowing that those very same seasons will come again.

And I think Starbucks has really capitalized on this because both non Christians and Christians alike respond with great joy over these pumpkin spice lattes. I mean, people lose their minds when they see those red cups come out in December. I think this company has really tapped into this idea that we crave rhythm.

And, you know, Starbucks is proudly serving us up this idea. But without Jesus. Now, I actually find great hope in this, because I see God’s thumbprint in the world, even when people are trying so desperately to keep him out. And secondly, I think this is a really good lesson for Catholic women, because I’m planting the seed in your heart right now that when you get excited about pumpkin spice lattes and red Starbucks cups and when you hear your friends getting excited about this, I want you to take a moment and stop and say, Am I excited about celebrating feast days?

And the liturgical season in my own home with the same level of enthusiasm. Let us just take a step back and think about that. You know, am I more excited about the rhythms of the Nordstrom anniversary sale than I am about Lent and Advent? You know, our great Catholic Church, because we know What God wants from us.

I mean, that’s, what’s so amazing about having a central church that’s led by people who are led by a Pope, who is led by God himself. It’s that we have this system that knows that God created us to crave rhythm. And so we’ve created this calendar to satisfy both our desire for permanence and for change.

But I think few of us are really tapping into that. And I think part of the problem is it can feel really, really overwhelming. liturgical living or celebrating feast days, you’ll get this onslaught of Pinterest pictures and beautiful articles and You know, Lord help you if you land on Shower of Roses and think that is the standard for liturgical living.

I mean, God bless Jessica Gordon because she has an amazing talent for celebrating feast days with beautifully decorated, you know, cupcakes and printouts and crafts and, and I’m just in awe of her. But you don’t have to do that. I go to Shower of Roses and I look for all the ideas and I’ll pick one thing I think I can handle.

You know, in our house. A lot of times, because my kids are so young, all I do is print out a picture. I’ll just print out a picture of St. Francis and say, Here you go kids, it’s St. Francis Day, yay! And, you know, I’ll give them that and then maybe I’ll add some, you know, chocolate chips to their lunch. I’m serious.

Sometimes that’s all I do. And now the other day, um, we happened to have some apples in our backyard. So we made an apple crisp and that was really special for them. And, but even in that, right? Like I can’t handle making pie with the dough and everything. That’s too much for me. I can’t do that. But I can handle taking apples and mixing in some cinnamon and syrup and then putting some almond flour on top and popping that in the oven.

That’s kind of my level of liturgical living. But my children think it’s wonderful and I want them to feel these rhythms in my home and I want to do the same thing every year so that they begin to look forward to celebrating these saints in the same way that our world is celebrating Pumpkin Spice Lots.

And there are so many liturgical living resources now, um, I really love, oh, Into the Deep just came out with a Hallowtide resource that was really cool, I love Shower of Roses, she’s still one of my big go tos, um, Catholic Icing, Catholic All Year, Lazy Liturgical, I also really love Catholic Family Crate, and they started out as a subscription box, And we did it for a whole year.

I really loved it. And everything that she had in those boxes was flat. That was my favorite thing about it. And now you can just buy one off things. You don’t have to do the subscription. So you can just go and find things that you want. Um, I bet Nancy at Catholic Sprouts has a ton. And so there’s so many things.

But just be calm about it. We’re gonna keep the bar low. You could just print out a coloring worksheet for free somewhere. Make it something that doesn’t add stress to your life, that you are actually interested in. Because being liturgical living moms but losing our minds is definitely not what we’re trying to accomplish.

Keep the bar low so that you actually do it. And I just want you to take heart. You know, while we may feel depressed about seeing this over commercialization that’s happening in our world, realize that it’s not. The God’s fingerprints are all over this, even when they’re trying so hard to leave him in the background.

He’s right there. So when you see your friends get really excited over Starbucks coffee, I want you to gently mention this idea to them. Don’t say, Oh, you’re a terrible person because you’re not celebrating feasts. Just go, Yeah, I love pumpkin spice lattes. And you know what? I heard this talk the other day about And then just introduce to them this idea of bringing liturgical living back into our lives and see if you can be accountable to each other for, for adding one feast day in October to do with your family.

And I wanted to remind you that I wrote a pretty fantastic book, you guys. I’ve written five books, but always whatever the latest book is, is usually my favorite because it has the most recent. Things that I’ve learned and ideas that I teach, and if you have not read CatholicMom. com, go to Amazon. Please read it.

The Kindle version is 99 cents. The physical version is 20, which is a lot for a book, but it’s a full color book. When you receive it, you’ll totally understand why. It’s beautiful, and you can see pictures in the Amazon listing. A lot of people have taken pictures of it, so you can see what I mean. It’s gorgeous.

And just read the reviews. I have had 96 people leave reviews, which, in the self publishing world, is a lot. And what they say is so nice. Just over and over and over again, people are saying, this book will help you. This will make you happier. This is a book that actually makes sense. This is a life changing book.

I’m reading, one person said she was reading it with her husband, which I thought was fantastic. And they were just slowly going through it together. Um, a lot of people have bought this book for their friends and done this book as a like study with their mom’s group. And I have a free leader’s guide for that.

If you’re interested in doing it anyway, it’s so funny that I tend to have a book inside of me. That’s how it feels. It feels like God puts this book inside of me and he wants to come out. It wants to fly like a bird. And I write it, and it’s so exciting, and then I kind of move on, and I forget to keep talking about it.

And so I had this moment today where I thought, oh, I should remind them. I wrote a really great book. I’m very proud of it. It is so helpful. Like, if I could just get every Catholic mom to read this book, I know that we would be way less stressed. And I teach you how to calm down. You have to calm down first.

That’s why I use the word calm in everything. Gotta calm your nervous system down. So that you can problem solve, because listen, you’re a really good problem solver, I promise. But when you are fritzed out, you are not a good problem solver. Last night my daughter, Poppy, my 11 year old, she has a problem with one of her ankles.

Um, she twisted it, and maybe her foot is shaped a little funny. Anyway, she goes to physical therapy for it, then she has to do these exercises. She comes into my room last night, and she is just crying. I’m like, oh, what, what happened? And she was like, I just didn’t do my foot exercise today, and I just can’t, and she’s just like crying.

So I think, I, I get the gist is, she hasn’t done her foot exercises. Maybe she couldn’t find her band. And anyway, I’m looking at this little darling, and she’s just so tired. She’s in a stress state. She cannot think clearly. The whole world is ending. I’m not sure why she thought the whole world was going to end if she didn’t do her foot exercises last night.

And so I just, I just held her little face and said, Hey, I love you and you are just, you know, out of your mind right now. You’re not in your mind. You’re out of it. You’re tired. You’re stressed. And so you’re not thinking clearly. And I said, this isn’t a big deal. And it’s okay that you don’t see that right now.

Feels like a big deal to you. Because. You’re so stressed. And so I said, go to bed. I love you, little dove. Go to bed. We’ll do it tomorrow. And then she’s my sunshine child. So she woke up this morning like, hi mom, how are you doing? I’m like, yeah, see now we can make a plan for when to do your foot exercises.

And we also made a plan to not leave them to the very end of the day when maybe we’re very tired. And that isn’t the best time to do something that is difficult and unpleasant. So, tip for you too, don’t leave the difficult and unpleasant things to the end of the day because when you are tired and stressed, it is harder to get things done.

So, liturgical living, keep it simple, don’t put a lot of pressure on yourself. Okay, there’s already plenty of pressure on moms to do a million things, but I really like this idea that The rhythms that we see in the world kind of echo these beautiful rhythms that God has for us. And if you have not read Catholic Mom Calm, go to Amazon, pick up a copy. It is a life changing book, and please tell your friends about it because I want all the moms to not be stressed. I want them all to learn how to calm down so they can problem solve from peace. Because, you guys, really, the Holy Spirit lives inside of you and you do know, you do know what needs to be done.

But, when we’re out of our minds, we just don’t see it clearly. Alright my friends, I am praying for you! Please pray for me, and have a blessed day