#KeepRemembrance #KeepItLit
That’s been our mission since we’ve started and that is the inspiration behind our newest Gift Set.
Our Fall Feasts #KeepItLit Kit features 4 Candles, each representing the four feasts that have been a part of the liturgical tradition since the 4th century.
Kit includes:
4 – 100% pure organic beeswax candles with essential oils (Chrism, Good Samaritan, French Pontifical Incense, and Rose & Sage) and our signature hemp wick handpoured right here in the USA into beautiful colored mantilla glass jars representing the liturgical colors of each feast day (orange, purple, black, white), along with an insert that explains the significance of each day and offers some prayers to include (see excerpt below).
• Approximately 20-40 hours burn time depending on size. It’s recommended you only burn candles for 1-2 hours at a time to enjoy maximum burn time. Your nose hairs literally need a break in order to keep smelling or they go on silent mode after 2 hours. That’s why you will often stop smelling a scent in a room after a few hours of exposure but when you get up and leave the room only to return a few minutes later you can smell the scent again!
• Our candle scents are curated with particular care so that you can burn all four candles at once without a headache. Subtle notes of frankincense, myrrh, cassia, nutmeg, clove, rosemary, lemon, eucalyptus, cinnamon, chrism, lily, rose and sage blend beautifully like the prayers of incense before the saints! Burn them together or on their own.
• Made in small batches by our talented ministry team with much love and lots of prayerful attention for the blessing of the recipient. Come Holy Spirit!
These candles are a wonderful way to add beauty and sacredness to your traditions. They make a beautiful gift too! Stock up before we sell out for the hallow-days. More stock is also available at: SheerahMinistries.com/shop Contact Us for bulk and wholesale pricing.
Excerpt from included insert:
Ember Days
Each of the four seasons has three days, representing the Ember Days. The Church sets them aside to mark the passage of seasons through prayer and fasting. In September, the Ember Days fall the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday after the Feast of the Holy Cross (September 14), to give thanks for the grape harvest. Embertides are spent fasting and partially abstaining (voluntary since the new Code of Canon Law) in penance and with the intentions of thanking God for the gifts He gives us in nature and asking Him for the discipline to use them in moderation. The fasts, known as “Jejunia quatuor temporum,” or “the fast of the four seasons,” are rooted in Old Testament practices of fasting four times a year:
Zacharias 8:19
Thus saith the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, and the fast of the fifth, and the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be to the house of Juda, joy, and gladness, and great solemnities: only love ye truth and peace.
Hallowtide – Triduum of Death
Oct. 31 – Before the day became associated with pumpkins and trick or treating, Halloween—or All Hallows Eve—was a liturgical event in the life of the Church. While there are certainly analogies between the way Halloween is celebrated now and more ancient rituals, the term actually comes from the Church’s liturgy. The solemnity of All Saints was also known as All Hallows (hallow simply means ‘holy’). Prior to the 1955 liturgical reforms, there was such a thing as Hallowtide, a kind of ‘triduum’ that began with All Hallows Eve (or Halloween). On the vigil, it was common to sing the ‘Vespers of the Dead’, or the ‘Black Vespers’ (since the liturgical vestments for it were black, or purple). The antiphon for the Black Vespers was ‘I will walk in the presence of the Lord in the land of the living’ (Psalm 116:9).
Nov. 1 – The first major solemnity, as we keep it today, is All Saints, and the purpose of this great feast is to direct us to the glory of the saints in heaven. Appropriately, the gospel reading of the day is the Beatitudes from Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount. At the heart of this feast is a reminder of our ultimate calling to eternal happiness in God, a happiness that lies beyond the vale of tears and beyond this world marked by death. It is also a chance to remember the ‘great cloud of witnesses around us’ (Hebrews 12:1), praying for us on this journey.
Nov. 2 – The second major solemnity is All Souls’ Day. While All Saints has often been celebrated by both Catholic and Protestant traditions, All Souls’ Day has proven a bit more ecumenically controversial, not least because of its focus on the souls in purgatory, traditionally referred to as the Church Suffering. The Catechism of the Catholic Church says of purgatory:
All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven (§1030).
The practice of praying for the dead has been a staple of Catholicism since the earliest centuries of the Church, rooted both in the witness of Scripture (2 Maccabees 12:38–46) and the apostolic tradition. St John Chrysostom said, ‘Let us help and commemorate them. If Job’s sons were purified by their father’s sacrifice, why would we doubt that our offerings for the dead bring them some consolation? Let us not hesitate to help those who have died and to offer our prayers for them.’
In fact, to this day, according to the 1999 Enchiridion of Indulgences, on any day from 1 to 8 November (the traditional octave), the faithful who devoutly visit a cemetery and pray for the dead can receive a plenary indulgence for the souls in purgatory (so long as the usual conditions are fulfilled). The colors we associate today with Halloween also come from the liturgical vestments worn during the triduum, purple, white/gold, and black, with orange for the autumn harvest.
While the Easter triduum revolves around the death and resurrection of Christ, this triduum was centered around the eternal destiny of our own souls, turned people’s minds towards the dead—not only to the saints in heaven but also to the suffering souls in purgatory.
A ‘churchyard prayer’ associated with Pope St John XXIII is well worth reciting during this season:
Hail, all you faithful souls whose bodies rest here and elsewhere in dust; may Our Lord Jesus Christ, who redeemed you and us with His most precious Blood, vouchsafe to release you from your pains to unite you to the hosts of the angels; and there do you be mindful of us and suppliantly pray for us that we may join your company and be crowned along with you in heaven. Amen.
For more Treasures from the Saints visit our online store at
http://www.SheerahMinistries.com/shop
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