Feast Day: Conversion of St. Paul

Today is another feast day (don't you just love living the Liturgical Year?). Today is the feast that celebrates Saul's conversion. This is the time described in Acts 9, where God knocks Saul off his horse, he goes blind, spends the next three days fasting and praying and then Ananias comes and helps him to see -- both literally and figuratively. From then on, Paul evangelizes to the Gentiles and fulfills the Lord's words to Ananias -- that Paul is destined to preach Jesus' name "before Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel."

So this is a big deal feast!

Even more so here as Bam-Bam has St. Paul as one of his patron saints. And, boy have we been having fun today. First, we worked out a skit that we'll perform tonight for Granmere, Dad and Kotch with Bam-Bam playing St. Paul and the other two having multiple roles (and I get to be narrator). In the photo to the left, String Bean is dressed as a law-breaking Jew, Bam-Bam is a smiling, Christian persecuting Saul, and Lego Maniac is getting ready to help Saul find Damascus after his meeting with God.

Then we built a tent in the living room (Paul made his living as a tent-maker) so that we could learn in there today -- we did reading and geography and science all in the comfort of our jerry-rigged tent.

To finish the celebration, we made two different kind of Jewish cookies to have with a movie tonight. The cookies, Mandel Brot (biscotti-like cookie with chopped up almonds) and another one that is like a 3-layer bar (a cocoa cake-like bottom, coconut and sweetened condensed milk middle, and bittersweet chocolate "frosting"), will go really well with our movie feature. Tonight in honor of JP2, we watched The Jeweller's Shop. This is a great movie -- I must confess I haven't yet read the original -- but the movie is fabulous with Ben Cross, Olivia Hussey and Burt Lancaster as some of the main stars. It really is a good view of how marriage is and that you never give up. I had to get my copy through ILL -- all the way from Fort Smith, Arkansas!

St. Paul the Apostle, pray for us!