Merry Christmas! First Set of Presents: Types of Rosaries, Icon-Makers, and More Catholic Stuff
Putting the ho-ho-holy in the holidays
Howdy all — welcome to the 4th Day of Christmas!
Yesterday was Stu’s 60th birthday, so I needed to take time to prep, etc. You will see the aftermath at the bottom of this post.
But now that the festivities are over, I have some goodies planned for you, my readers, for the 12 Days of Christmas!
No, I will not be matching the items in the songs, and obviously, I’m not posting for each day (not even starting after today). That’s a bit much. I have a few themed items I will be “gifting” to you, and I’ve decided to start with the Reason for the Season: Christ’s Mass.
If you’re not Catholic, just scroll way down to the bottom of the post, I have a picture of me with the birthday boy from last night and a few comments on coming “gifts”.
Yes, what a surprise, somebody named Mary Pat is Catholic. My first set of Christmas-themed “gifts” are different kinds of rosaries you can use (if you like saying rosaries):
Video and links of rosaries
By the way, earlier today, Stu and I said the rosary to the recording of Mother Angelica and the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration, which is from 2003. I prayed for my readers and their intentions.
Mother Angelica died in 2016, at the ripe old age of 92. EWTN radio essentials runs the rosary daily at 11:30am ET, I believe. But you can play the recording of any of the set of mysteries at this link: THE ROSARY WITH MOTHER ANGELICA AND THE NUNS
There is this program The Holy Land Rosary, which we also enjoy, as it has some interesting visuals to accompany the mysteries. My favorite has got to be what they show for Mary, Queen of Heaven, as part of the Glorious Mysteries. They have some very good artwork to accompany them.
Iron Lace Design’s Memento Mori Fidget Rosary, and her entire rosary category. As mentioned in the video, I had gotten the Dominican one for Stu.
Credit Card Rosary at Catholic Supply of St. Louis
Scriptural Rosary at Catholic Gifts and More
Laudate app: Apple link and Google play link
I demonstrated the app on an iPod Touch, but I’ve also used it on iPads, iPhones, and Kindle Fire. It works fine on all platforms. The main issue is the distraction of too many things to dig into.
Icon-makers
I mean this in the sense of creating sacred images, in particular paintings of holy people.
First, Michel Rabbah, who is a sub-deacon in my parish church, paints icons and other religious art. You can see his art at his website
From earlier this year:
Appropriate for Christmas:
He has a St. Joseph the Worker icon that is in a similar traditional style. It’s interesting to see the mix. As well, St. Charbel.
And another religious artist, Daniel Mitsui, but he is in the midwest, I believe. I like his style of artwork:
Mitsui’s style reminds me of illuminated manuscripts… and for good reason.
And here we go… a Memento Mori.
Go to his website — Danielmitsui.com — it’s got a variety of artwork, at all sorts of price points. One of my favorite drawings is Mary, Undoer of Knots.
Catholic Memes
It can’t all be seriousness (well, it could be, but with me, it’s not).
My favorite subreddit is /r/CatholicMemes — you will probably learn something about Catholicism, no matter how much you think you already know. You will likely learn more than in the “serious” religious subreddits, and much less likely to get trolls because the moderators just plain got tired of the brigading and clamped down on it.
Only serious memers, thanks.
Just a quick selection, appropriate to the season:
Enjoy!
Coming attractions
So that’s it for the Catholic content for today…. though some literary Catholic content (think: Dante) may be coming yet.
In posts to come, between now and the 12th day of Christmas, aka Epiphany (Jan. 6, 2022), I plan on pulling together a few things that touch on various interests, such as Excel, dataviz, literature, opera, and more. “Fun” things that I haven’t had much time to write about, as I’ve been spending so much time looking at mortality and public finance (and mainly mortality at that.)
So here are me and Mr. Birthday Boy:
That’s the face of a man who is humoring his wife, and thinking she won’t put it online because she put on her night cream treatment. And then realizing that of course she’s gonna put it online and he’s just going to put up with it anyway. I think we were about to watch Welcome to Sweden at the time. Or maybe Black Books.
(And, of course, I was wearing my favorite “TRUST ME… I’m an actuary” shirt)
Either way, a fun time was had.
Enjoy!