Pentecost is here!  Praising God today for the gift of His Spirit.  Today we will be having a more low key celebration in our home.  Brian worked at the shelter overnight so the boys and I will have a special breakfast of homemade coffee cake and a big omelet.  This afternoon we will be going to the cathedral downtown for the Confirmation celebration for our diocese.  We led the RCIA classes for our parish this year and we would like to be there to witness the Confirmation of the young man we taught.  So it's a lazy morning here and that doesn't happen often so we will enjoy.  Of course, the most important part of celebrating the Liturgical Year is celebrating it with the Church.  The Church herself has provided THE way to celebrate.  Anything else we do must be an extension of that, lest it be fruitless. In our desire to make the liturgical year come alive for our children and be experienced in a real way, we must always be sure to make the Liturgy the central player in all of the celebration.  I love Leila's post on this topic...go read it, so very wise.

With that said, it is wonderful to make the celebration real in the home as well.  This can be done in such simple ways.  Last year, we had family over for dinner to celebrate Pentecost and as part of our celebration I made a "Seven Fruits Salad" which was fun and the kids all loved.  I got the original idea for this from Catholic Cuisine, such a wonderful resource that site is and I'm so grateful for the creativity of all the lovelyladies who contribute there.  Let's see if I can remember what I put into it...apple, grapes, blueberry, cantaloupe, kiwi, strawberry, and hmmm...orange? Something like that.  This is a fun little way to celebrate since it's so versatile and easy, though admittedly, fruit salad can get expensive to make and it is always eaten so quickly.

The other treat I made was a Pentecost birthday cake.  It seemed appropriate to celebrate the birthday of the Church with a birthday cake.  I used white frosting to represent the Holy Spirit and sliced up strawberries so that they resemble tongues of fire (sort of...).  I put 12 candles standing up around the outside rim of the top of the cake to represent the 12 Apostles in the upper room and one blue in the center for the Virgin Mary.  Candles are perfect, too, because then there is a REAL flame dancing above them just like the first Pentecost.  They are then blown out by all the kids present who are all members of His Body, the Church so it's partly their birthday celebration, too!  Creative, huh?  I needed to make a dessert anyway and this is what came out!

This year will be more relaxed as we'll be at the Cathedral and won't be home in time for me to make anything elaborate for dinner. I do plan on making some homemade icecream and I have some leftover cake pieces in the refrigerator from a time when I turned over a birthday cake too quickly and it fell apart before my eyes.  So maybe I'll do something similar with the red and white and birthday theme...

May the Spirit be welcome in our homes this day and forever and may He change our hearts to be more and more like that of our Lord.