Love of God Petal Meeting & Shrine 12/27/20

Wreath 1: Lesson 5

Virtue: Love of God  Saint: St. Agnes  Flower: Peony

Verse: Whoever does not love does not know God for God is love. -1 John 4:8

With money we earned from Advent candle and candy sales, we went on a pilgrimage to the Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, Il. It was built by Oblate missionaries in honor of a miracle that happened in Rome. It snowed there on August 5th to show the outline of a church that Mary wanted built. 

We imagined what it might have been like for Jesus or Mary to ride on a donkey, or the Wise Men to ride on camels.  We warmed up with hot cocoa and kettle corn and celebrated the birthday of a Little Flower born on the feast day of The Holy Family and John the Evangelist. 

St. Agnes, a martyr of Rome loved God very much. She was very beautiful and many wanted to marry her. But she had made a promise to God to love only Him. She was killed because she refused to break her promise to God. The name Agnes means lamb, so she is often shown holding a sheep. She also followed Jesus, the Good Shepherd, like a sheep. 

Her feast day is January 21. On her feast day two lambs are presented to the pope for a blessing. The sheep are shorn on Holy Thursday and their wool is woven into the pallium the pope gives to a newly consecrated archbishop as a sign of his power and union with the pope. St. Agnes  is the patron saint of young girls and chastity. We remembered St. Agnes as we pet live sheep. St Agnes, help us to love God more!

Archbishop's Pallium

We learned about the virtue of Love of God. We are to love God with all our hearts, all our minds, all our souls, and all our might. The more we get to know God, the more we love Him. 

Act of Love: O my God, because you are all good, I love you with my whole heart and soul.

The flower for Love of God is the Peony. The peony means honor and riches and reminds us to give our best to God. We used our peony pencils to write prayers to God about how much we loved Him and about what "riches" we have to give.

We saw the way of lights and followed the star of Bethlehem to the manger scene at the grotto dedicated to Our Lady of Lourdes. At the grotto, we read aloud or prayed silently our intentions. We learned about the original grotto of Lourdes and St Bernadette. Then, we followed the path up the hill through the forest of lights. We found a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. He loves us so much, His heart is on fire for us. 

We earned the Love of God petal. May God bless us and help us fall more in Love with Him. 

We collected our Jesse Tree worksheets. If you didn't get yours to me, you can mail in to the address on the worksheet and the badge will come to you. We will put these badges on the back of our sash or vest. 

This petal meeting served as our January meeting since the Way of Lights is ending early this year. Our next petal meeting is not scheduled but sketched out to be about Love of Neighbor, the rose, and St. Jane Frances de Chantel. I thought that would coincide well with the theme of Valentine. We'd also hoped to earn our coding badge for St Isadore. Let's pray about how best to do this in the winter of a pandemic. St Jane, St Isadore, and St Thérèse, Pray for Us!