Today is the feast day of St Stephen, the first martyr of the church (stoned to death) and patron saint of both myself and my father, Steve. It's kind of a tough thing, finding a way to celebrate our feast day after eating our weekly allotment of calories in the matter of a few hours just the day before. I'm not even kidding you, we have gone through three dozen eggs and two pounds of butter in the past two days. The last thing I am in the mood for is more dessert. In the past we have sometimes done brunch, but alas, I am nearly out of eggs and it just wouldn't feel celebratory dragging five Christmased up kids to a restaurant. Still, we wanted to make it special and it is, after all, still the 12 days of Christmas.
Dad came up with a plan. He and a friend of ours went to visit our friends at the Queen of Peace Friary and brought home the Bethlehem Peace Light.
The Bethlehem Peace Light is lit from the grotto in Bethlehem where Jesus was born and carried in a blast-proof miners lamp, first to Europe, then to North America, with a message of peace. It travels to various churches and from there, people can bring it to their homes. The Franciscan Brothers of Peace have it available in their chapel along with an oil lantern to transport it (which you have to bring back to the friary).
Dad bought an entire case of 6 day candles to put in our lantern at home. We're going to see if we can keep the flame burning until next year. It was a lovely, simple way of celebrating our feast day. Much nicer than Dad's original suggestion of making rock candy. :)
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