Michaelmas

I've been trying to incorporate Saints' Day celebrations at least once per month. Since Nathan has a devotion to St. Michael the Archangel, my husband is named Michael and each of the boys' middle names is Michael I thought this would be a good one to celebrate. Technically it is the feast of the Archangels. The archangels are Michael (fought the fallen angel, Satan, and sent him out of Heaven), Gabriel (Gave Mary the message that she was chosen to be the mother of our Saviour) and Rafael (helped Tobias find a wife and cured his father, Tobit, of blindness). I tried to keep it simple. I reminded the boys of the feast day this morning and that we would celebrate this evening. Just talking about it makes it real for them. I printed a copy of this for Nathan to keep in his room. We often talk about how St. Michael had strength from God to defeat Satan and that God will give him the strength to get through the hard times in his life.
Before supper I had the kids cut out pictures of the angels and we made this really simple mobile. They put the angels in the order that they like them: MIchael on top, Gabriel next and Rafael last as they didn't know anything about him. After supper I read a story about St. Rafael from this book. It was the first the boys heard this story. It was very simple and to the point. Nathan read the story of St. Michael from the same book while I prepared dessert. Dessert was angel food cake with three candles for each of the archangels. After lighting the candles Mike read about putting on the Armor of God in honor of St. Michael. We then cut the cake, added whipped cream to our pieces and some extra candy decoration that I had sitting around and enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. Happy Michaelmas!