The feast of St. Lucy or St. Lucia is this weekend, on December 13th, which is also Gaudete Sunday.  It’s hard to believe that we’re already to the rose-colored candle, halfway through Advent!  I feel like it’s just begun…

St. Lucia’s Day

St. Lucy’s story is an awesome tale of fierce dedication to the Lord, purity, bravery, and martyrdom.  It’s definitely one to tell your kiddos, filled with fire, blood and incredible courage, but I don’t know that I’d tell it well right now.

Read the very basic St. Lucy story at EWTN and more detailed one, as well as the Swedish tradition and the St. Lucy’s wheat tradition here.  If you plant wheat seeds on St. Lucia’s Day, you’ll have a little bed of wheat grass for baby Jesus by Christmas.  I also noticed that the wheat porridge recipe at this site included traditional “soaking”…how interesting!

It is a Swedish tradition to have the oldest daughter wear a crown with candles on it and serve breakfast to the family.  You can do some nifty crafts with crowns and (fake) candles.

This is the braided bread we made last year.  Yum.

Gaudete Sunday: A Celebration of Joy

Gaudete Sunday, the rose-colored candle, is also called “Rejoice Sunday”.  We celebrate that we are getting oh so close to the coming of the King, both as an infant at Christmas, and, God willing, at the end of days.

Quick quiz:  what’s the semantic difference between “joy” and “happiness”?  I think many of us would use the words interchangeably as synonyms, but especially in the spiritual life, they are not.

Happiness is an emotion based on your happenings.  How you feel on a given day is determined by what happens to you that day (hour, minute).  Your happiness comes and goes.

Joy on the other hand, is more of a state of being caused by a conscious choice to live joyfully.  Joy is the knowledge of our eternal salvation and love from our Lord that allows us to remain joyful even when our “happenings” aren’t going so well.

It’s really easy and common for me to pray for “a good day” or “things to go well” with a certain situation.  I like to be happy.

This Gaudete Sunday, let us pray for an increase of our joy, a renewed sense of the capacity to love others and remain joyful, no matter what happens in our lives these last two weeks of Advent.  May the Christmas joy of the Christ Child rest in your hearts this season!

Find all the Advent Daily Dose reflections here.

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