And we all laughed about how ridiculous it was to suggest that Southern Californians have any, like, magical superstitions associated with Santa Ana* winds. I was born and raised here and everyone just thinks they’re weird hot winds. I said, “Yeah, the thing that happens because of the Santa Ana winds is wildfires. I hope she likes wildfires.”

The Evacuation

A couple hours later, just after dinner, I went upstairs to check on the sick-in-bed husband and spotted fast-moving flames on the San Gabriel Mountains out our bedroom window. About a half an hour after that, he and I and twelve kids were piling into four cars with overnight bags and a few irreplaceable possessions, fleeing the approaching flames as flashing fire trucks raced past us towards them.

Gus had come to me from our home chapel with our first class relics of Saint Junipero Serra and Saint María de las Maravillas and our borrowed Saint Gerard. I asked him, “Hmm, should we leave them here to look after the house while we’re gone?” Gus replied, “Mom. You said to get the irreplaceable things.” I agreed.

The kids grabbed a few old photos, things that belonged to their late father, and their school backpacks. We had time to pack medications and laptops and important paperwork, but that was it. I stood in the dining room and looked at all the beautiful engraved silver serving pieces and antique cut glass I inherited from my grandmothers and thanked God in that moment for the gift of detachment. Those things fill me with memories of loved ones every time I use them, but in that moment they would have been an encumbrance, and I knew I would be okay if we lost them. 

We ran out without doing the dinner dishes.

If you want the long version, God bless ya, keep on reading, it’s all there. Writers gonna write, ya know?

But the short version is that our historic 1920 Altadena home has survived with minimal damage to the exterior, an unburned but very sooty, smoky interior (wait until you get to the Instant Pot part), and significant damage to the property and outbuildings. Our home is accessible as of yesterday, but still uninhabitable and will be without water, power, and gas for weeks. Our neighborhood and town are destroyed, and many families in our Catholic community have lost everything.

In our small school (seven miles away and not in the path of the fire), with just three hundred students in grades 1-12, seven families have lost their homes and all their possessions and about that same number were displaced by the fires and are still unable to live in their homes.  

Among those families are the Halpins, who stood in the ashes of their house and sang the Regina Caeli. My friends Sarah and Fatima, both widowed mothers of four children. Another friend, a single mother of six, lost the home they were renting and all their possessions. The Bulgarini family lost their home and access to their restaurant, a true jewel of a place, and the family’s only source of income. One of the homes on our block belonged to another family at the school. Nothing remains of it but a few flower pots and the burned out shell of their Dodge Charger. We have friends who lost their home in the Eaton Fire, after losing everything in a house fire two years ago. Read more about the families here.

There were so many offers of help, but in many cases it was overwhelming to the families who most needed assistance, and often came too soon to be useful. Some families still don’t have long-term temporary housing, and so weren’t able to take donations when they were available.

Beauty from Ashes (Isaiah 61:3)

My friend and Fiat Conference co-founder Micaela, along with the CAY and Fiat teams wanted to come up with a way to help our community with prayer, direct financial assistance, and connect affected families with families who want to help. Beauty from Ashes: a Los Angeles Wildfire Relief Effort by Catholic All Year is our four pronged response.

1. PRAY: We are grateful to be teaming with Annie at PrayMoreNovenas and Kristin at Novena Cards in a beautiful novena, to be prayed from January 24 to February 2, the feast of Candlemas, for those affected by this crisis. We are asking for the intercession of Our Lady of Champion and Saint Florian. It begins NOW! Sign up to get daily email reminders here. Learn more about Our Lady of Champion here, an American apparition of Mary in Champion, WI in 1859, whose intercession saved her shrine and the people in it from the most devastating wildfire in American history: The Great Peshtigo Fire.
2. DONATE: Get to know some of the Catholic families affected by the fire here, and consider making a donation to help them rebuild their lives.
3. CONNECT: Do you have housing, transportation, a job opportunity, or special products or skills you can offer to affected families? Could your school, parish, or business adopt a family to help with their needs? Fill out this form and our team will work to connect offers of help with families who need them.
4. SHOP: C’mon. You know you want to. Our Catholic All Year family of artists, including Tricia (Providential Co.) and Jamie (Marigold Catholic Goods), have teamed up on a darling array of apparel and home goods. 100% of the profits will be donated to affected families. See the whole collection here, featuring Our Lady of Champion, Saint Florian, and the California poppy, symbol of hope and resilience!

Have you signed up for the Novena? Yes? Okay, then, back to the story.

We grabbed some stuff and evacuated.

In San Diego

Fortunately, we had a place to go. My parents live a couple hours south in San Diego, and when we showed up at 10 pm, they had beds and air mattresses ready for ten of us. (Jack and Bobby decided to stay up at their apartment near USC, an area of LA not threatened by the fires.)

We spent Wednesday feeling like we were existing in two timelines at once. We were in sunny San Diego, sitting by the pool in my parents’ yard. We were also getting a near constant stream of texts from friends who had evacuated and friends still in LA, full of information and rumors about whose homes had burned, and texts from far-flung friends and loved ones asking how we and our home were doing. We could tell them that we were together and in good spirits, but we had no way of knowing whether our home was burning.

The thing is, California has always had wildfires. Other places have blizzards and thunderstorms and hurricanes and tornadoes. We have earthquakes and wildfires. The former really isn’t worth worrying about. Everyone in LA the day after an earthquake: “Hey, did you guys feel that earthquake?” The big urban ones seem to happen about every hundred years, and the last one was 1994, so . . . <shrug>. 

Wildfires happen often. They come with signs and warnings so it’s easier to worry about them, but also we’re pretty used to it. There’s a fire season. We get “fire weather” alerts on our phones. Each year, we’ll usually know a family who has had to evacuate. During the Thomas Fire, which burned 1067 structures in 2017, we took in a group of displaced TAC students. Our family was under an evacuation warning once before, in the 2020 Bobcat fire which burned 87 homes. But we didn’t have to leave. The firefighters got it under control.

So that’s what we expect. And that’s what was so different about the Palisades and Eaton Fires: Giant. Out of control. Blazing through neighborhoods. Over 17,000 structures lost. That’s not how this is supposed to go.

Finally, at 11:15 am, the producer of my TV show (and other, more important things as well) who is also a friend and neighbor, braved the winds and embers to send us a quick proof of life video, showing that the house had survived the night. But clearly the fire had raged right up to the brick wall in front of our property and it wasn’t out yet.

We went to In-N-Out for lunch . . .

and met three UCSD students who had just found out that their homes and church had burned down, all just blocks from our home. 

An hour after the first, we received a second video. Another friend/neighbor jumped the wall and recorded a speed tour of the exterior of the house and the property. It was WILD.**

Good news: The house and garage were still standing and appeared to have sustained exterior damage to the walls and windows of the south side only. Bad news: The house behind the neighbor to the south of us was still entirely engulfed in flames. Bad news: Our backyard fence and outbuildings had burned. Bad news: Of the twelve houses on our block, only three were still standing. Bad news: There was no running water, the hoses were dry, and there were no firefighters fighting fires on our block. 

When Jack (22) and Bobby (19) saw the video, they dodged the evacuation barricades to get back to the house to cut branches that were near the house. Friends joined them to spend the afternoon dumping buckets of water from our pool on the burning house adjacent to ours. They stood in the ashes of one of the burned homes behind us, and watched the house across the street from it ignite. A fire truck was there and the firemen watched it too. But there was no water, and they got back in their truck and drove away.

Getting Back Home

On Thursday morning, Gus (17) and the husband headed back up to LA. Gus was scheduled to head out of town. They stopped at the house to survey the damage. The fire next door was out except for a little “eternal flame” at the gas valve. The husband shut the gas valve off there and at other houses on our block. Our cats and all the chickens were doing well. Gus fed and watered them. The plan was for me to get them once we had stable housing.

(Our Guardian Angel Prayer Cling is here.)

I was still with the rest of the kids in San Diego, and we realized that this was not going to be resolved quickly. I was contacted by our insurance adjuster. I told him we didn’t want to stay in San Diego, separated. The husband needed to work. The older kids’ school was set to open again on Monday. He asked me how many hotel rooms we’d want. And, I was like, oooh, THAT is not going to be great for us. Fortunately, I had found the last family-sized Airbnb on the 210 freeway corridor, and they were able to approve that for us for a month, it will likely be more. The remaining eight kids and I headed back up to LA on Friday.

Our first stop was going to be the house, but by Friday the National Guard had arrived in Altadena. To keep looters (and home-owners) at bay, they were stationed at every single intersection, complete with weapons and tactical vehicles. The first couple days after the fire started, the main roads were all blocked, but it was possible to get in by back ways. That was no longer possible. We gave up and went to get settled at the Airbnb.

Early Saturday morning, the husband and I went back to Altadena. We tried to find an opening to drive in, tried to talk our way in at a dozen check points, tried to find a place we could sneak past on foot and walk the mile and a half, planning to hike the animals out in packs, but nothing doin’. Every single intersection was manned. It was really something. I am genuinely grateful that they were keeping looters out (and not sure how we’ll defend the house now that they’re gone), but wow, there were so many people who couldn’t get to their pets and medicine and who didn’t even know whether their home made it.

Then I called an old homeschool group friend, whose husband is employed in a city job. I woke her up at 8am on a Saturday, and she said give me five minutes, I’ll get in touch with him and call you back.

He’d been working twenty-four-hours-on-eight-hours-off for three days, but she got ahold of him and said he’d be in touch within an hour or two. The husband and I ran a couple errands and then he called and we met up. Our friend only had one seat in his city van, and there was some concern that they’d be checking IDs, but I went with him and we were waved right through. It was surreal driving up our long street, past all the businesses we have used for a decade. It really looks more like a bombing zone. Some places are fine, some are just GONE. Since the fire department ran out of water and left, there really aren’t any partially consumed buildings. They’re either pretty much intact, or a heap of smoldering rubble.

We had to be quick, because there were lots of other official vehicles around, and I didn’t want to make trouble. But we were able to put the hens four-each into lidded plastic storage tubs and the cats into their carriers. I grabbed the animal food and feeders and put the lid on the dirty Instant Pot still partially full of rice and picked that up, because it was right there, and a few toys and shoes from the yard, but that was it. 

Then we came back to the rental, and got the animals settled. Our backyard at this place is about the size of the chicken coop at home, so the chickens have the run of it. We arranged stuff in the closets and kitchen. The husband opened the Instant Pot to clean it, and a little puff of smoke came wafting out. It hadn’t seemed all that smoky in the house, compared to outside, but, turns out, it was pretty smoky in the house. 

Then we went to our first charity distribution place. That was hectic but really amazing. We got toiletries, snacks, books and a few toys, and some clothes. May God bless the people who rallied so quickly to provide basic necessities to reeling families. We still needed socks and underwear and school uniforms and alarm clocks and a bunch of random stuff I hadn’t even thought of yet, but we were really grateful to be doing it all together, and in a wonderful supportive community.

I know this has not been the experience of all affected families, but I really can say that my kids have seemed entirely unfazed throughout. Maybe they’ve just become accustomed to a certain level of upheaval? I have to say, I was not expecting to add “wildfire refugee” to the squares I’ve already got on my internet sympathy bingo card, but there you have it. God’s will, not mine. I’d like to think that the resilience that they learned from Jim, and the eternal outlook of our Catholic faith, has allowed them to find joy in choosing what possessions to take from the house, in an unexpected visit to Nana and Grandad’s house, in picking rooms in the rental house, in finding something cute in the enormous piles of donated clothing at the Santa Anita race track. We got this.

One tries one’s best not to be attached to things. But I do have a great appreciation for our 1920 built home, and for its beauty and functionality, its lovingly hand-painted home chapel, and that, ten years after we moved in and started fixing it up, it still doesn’t have door knobs on all the doors. It’s a work in progress. I am so so grateful that we will have it to go back to. When everyone I run into tells me how happy they are for me and my first reaction is, ummm . . . are you?, it is a good reminder of what we still have, although life otherwise feels rather upside down.

Praise God, our interactions with our insurance company have, so far, been positive. They were willing to be flexible on housing and approve an option that would save them money and be better for us. As soon as the checkpoints began allowing owners with ID to enter, we met with our insurance adjuster at the house. He came with a team of six, including an industrial hygienist who was taking air samples from all the rooms and the HVAC system, a guy who evaluated what it would take to clean the house and its sooty window sills and smoke-infused clothing and furniture, and multiple VERY disgusting refrigerators which were chock-full of food and hadn’t had power for weeks. For the exterior of the house, two adjusters went around with a contractor and us to determine what the burned up outbuildings and property had been, and what it would cost to replace or rebuild them.

Our tennis court has hosted years of Fiat Conferences and high school dances and senior dinners and scooter races and games of H-O-R-S-E and funeral and wedding receptions. It angered a subsection of internet commenters when the fire video of our property went viral (“Oh no, not the tennis court!”). But, hey, you can’t please everyone. It has, unfortunately, suffered quite a bit of damage to the surface and the retaining wall alongside it at the property line.

The insurance policy we have is split into multiple sections, each with its own coverage and payout limits. For better and worse, the damage to the property was concentrated on the section with the least coverage: exterior structures. The little pool house structures (“cabanas”) burned, as did the wooden fence around the whole property, the pool pump and irrigation equipment, the wooden deck and stairs to the tennis court, the tennis court wall and surface, and all of that counts as exterior structures. So we have significantly less coverage than the amount that the adjuster would have approved for the damage. And that’s a bummer. But we do have some coverage and we’ll be able to make repairs slow-and-steady, as we always have.

The damage to the house and to our possessions and the cleaning required to make the home habitable again should be covered in full.

Amid the visits to donation centers for wardrobe and home and hygiene items, phone calls to friends and the insurance company, and trying to get kids to and from school and sporting events as if life wasn’t one big question mark, we started taking stock of the devastation around us. Our neighborhood is rubble, as far behind us as we can see. Eighty percent of our town has been destroyed. The post office, the grocery store, our two favorite pizza places, our favorite coffee shop, the brunch place, the hardware store, the office of the hundred-year-old company that had installed our (now burned up) fence two years ago, are ALL gone. It was a quirky, historic town with unique homes and unique charm. It’s a town that embraced its identity as “Unincorporated LA County.” Mom and pop stores, vintage cars, crowing roosters, and guys on horseback were part of our every day.

It’s hard to imagine what it will be like when we can go back. Will anyone else be there? Will they rebuild? Will a developer come in and build a bunch of cookie cutter Santa Clarita tract homes? Will the local businesses survive?

But then I remember about waiting to worry, and TODAY, we are okay. Blessed be the name of the Lord.

Thank you for your prayers!

AMDG,

Kendra

*Note for Catholic nerds like me who wonder why Saint Anne is getting dragged into this wind situation: The name Santa Ana winds comes from the canyon, river, and town of Santa Ana in Orange County. All are so named because the Portolá expedition entered the river valley on Saint Anne’s feast day in 1769. Newspaper references to the name Santa Ana winds appear as far back as the 1870s and 1880s.

** The video has about 3 million views on social media and thousands of comments. Those went, in chronological order:

1. Oh no, Kendra, we are praying for you!
2. That statue of Mary saved your house!
3. That’s what you get for living in a blue state.
4. That’s what you get for having a tennis court.
5. Gaza stuff.

Intermittently, people opined that if they were us, they’d have had a pool fire pump. 

Here is our pool fire pump. It lived in the cabana. The cabana burned up.

The post We Survived The California Wildfires appeared first on Catholic All Year.

Dear Family and Friends,

Season’s greetings, and—yes, you’re not wrong—things are looking a bit different this Christmas! For those of you who have yet to hear the good news, we are now Tierney + Norton around here. Kendra and John Norton were married this summer and are counting their blessings (and their kids). They were introduced by mutual friends at a Halloween party in 2023, started dating in February 2024, got engaged in April, and the wedding was in July (in a heat wave). Kendra baked the cake. John brought the swamp coolers. We are so grateful for God’s goodness in bringing our families together.

John’s four kids were already friendly with the older Tierney kids, as they all attended St. Monica Academy. Fun fact: In 2015, a few months after making the transition from homeschooler to “real-school” eighth-grader, Jack came home with a black eye. Kendra was able to extract from him that the shiner was the result of a projectile carrot at lunchtime but he was unwilling to turn stool pigeon on the carrot flinger. UNTIL NOW. Shortly before the wedding, the culprit was revealed to have been his now-stepsister Maeve. No one can remember why she threw it, but we all agree he very likely deserved it.

Jack (22) and Bobby (19) have been roommates at USC for a couple years, and will keep it up though Jack is, as of December, a graduate with a degree in Aerospace Engineering. He plans to accept a full-time offer from Fenix Space and get to work shooting stuff into space. His newest obsession is Brazilian no gi jiu jitsu, or, as the rest of us call it: cuddle fighting. Bobby is working on game design and animation at the USC film school and reading obscure Tolkien and listening to obscure vinyl in his spare time. He went on a two-week pilgrimage to Poland over the summer and sent his mom one text: a photo of the lamb butter mold used by Pope JPII’s family when he was a child. So, he knows his audience.

Betty (20), Anita (15), and Mom embarked on a ten-day “hen do” and pilgrimage to England the week before the wedding, like ya do. The visits to Catholic holy sites happened to coincide with Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour stop at Wembley, so that was number two of an eventual four Eras concerts for Betty (also Los Angeles, Indianapolis, and Toronto). She will continue her nursing studies at St. Xavier University while living with Jim’s parents in Chicago. She helps them around the house, they keep her on schedule, and Gramma is teaching her how to cook. Anita wowed as the lead in the school musical, South Pacific, and is playing volleyball and basketball. A sophomore this year, she’s searching for a university with a world domination major.

Gus (17) is a senior at St. Monica Academy. He bought a fixer-upper Mustang convertible last summer and has been working on getting it running ever since, both with the help of Grandad. He was in the chorus in South Pacific, Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, plays volleyball and basketball and won the school-wide Poetry Out Loud competition. He was accepted to Benedictine College in Atchison, KS where Maeve (21) and Livia (20) are studying graphic design and nursing, respectively. Maeve spends her free time answering customer service emails for Catholic All Year. Gus is waiting to hear back from Embry‑Riddle Aeronautical University, and plans to follow in Grandad’s footsteps and become an airline pilot.

George (7) has taken over for Frankie (13) as the unofficial mascot of Boy Scout Troop 140, and Frankie is aiming for Patrol Leader. Frankie talked John into going along on the campouts, just like he used to do back when Jack and Liam (24) were scouts.

When not sidelined with a fractured wrist, Frankie was on the flag football and basketball teams and just might break the all-time St. Monica record for red slips. He is directing a series of action shorts in which George stars as the nefarious Gerb Granson, sweet potato and clownfish thief.

Lulu (11) spent two years running forced-labor lemonade stands and confiscating birthday money from her siblings to put into a backyard hot tub fund. When she announced to Grandad that she had saved up $283, he told her he was pretty sure that’s exactly what hot tubs cost and brought one home. She lets us use it.

Midge (9) is head girl of our homeschool again and working hard to keep fellow students George and Barbara (5) in line. She has found a penpal in her eldest stepsister Mairead (26)—rhymes with parade—who lives in Nashville and is a professional baker. Midge’s favorite homeschool event of the year was the St. Nicholas Advent Market, where she sold out of her selection of liturgical-themed crafts. Barbara’s appendectomy was the year’s (second) biggest surprise so far, and now, just like her Madeline doll, “on her stomach is a scar”. While hospitalized, she drew a picture of a unicorn on one side of a paper and of “the inside of the unicorn” on the other side, prompting her to announce that she had “a GREAT idea for when I’m a grownup.” New life plan: start a museum of the insides of animals.

John and Kendra did a twenty-one mile walk to the Shrine of Our Lady of Champion in WI to celebrate their engagement, and spent their honeymoon in Santa Barbara. We got thirteen of the fourteen kids on a Disneyland trip, and seven of them on an RV trip to the Grand Canyon, then picked up two more plus grandparents at a campsite for Thanksgiving weekend. For those of you keeping track of our annual Thanksgiving murder mysteries, this year Nana did it. We’re looking forward to our biggest ever family Christmas dinner! Keep us in your prayers; you’ll be in ours.

May your Christmas be joyful and your 2025 be filled with wonder.

With love, from the Tierneys & Nortons

The post Merry Christmas from the Tierneys & Nortons appeared first on Catholic All Year.

For your home –

Art –

St. Francis Print from Eternal Artisan

Holy Family Icons from Kozak Workshop

Botanical Rosary Prints from Rose Harrington

Candles –

Holy Family Beeswax Candle and Emmanuel Scented Candle from Live Your Faith

• Use the code HOLIDAY20 for 20% off your entire order from Live Your Faith!

Venite Adoremus Scented Beeswax Candle from Stacey Sumereau

Travel-Sized Nativity Candles (Set of three) from Theology of Home

• Use the code THEOLOGYOFHOME15 for 15% off in the Theology of Home Shop! It can be used only once and cannot be combined with other offers.

Table –

Daily Bread Vegetable Bowl from Feed on the Word

Ave Maria Cloth Napkins from Our Holy Home

Christmas Cookie Stencils from Catholic All Year

Happy Birthday Jesus Cake Topper from Catholic All Year

Cards –

Custom Christmas Cards from Our Holy Home

Gloria Angel Christmas Cards from Keller Cards

For the kids –

Books –

Mary Mother of All from Providential

Seek and You Will Find: Treasures of Our Faith from Studio Senn

The Catholic Kids’ Cookbook from Word on Fire

The Lady of Guadalupe from Ignatius Press

• Everything from Ignatius Press is 20% or more off through December 3^rd

For Little Hands –

Guardian Angel Dolls from Heaven Blessed

Fuzzy Posters from Studio Senn

Silicone Rosaries from Roses and Pearls

Apparel –

Princess Saints Tee from Marigold Catholic Goods Co.

St. George Tee from Marigold Catholic Goods Co.

St. Michael Tee from Marigold Catholic Goods Co.

Annunciation Tee from Marigold Catholic Goods Co.

Joan Up Tee from Catholic All Year

For women –

Apparel and Accessories –

Adore Him Necklace from Give Love + Blessings

Undoer of Knots Sweatshirt from Marigold Catholic Goods Co.

Guadalupe Tee from Brick House in the City

Rosary Bracelet from Chews Life

• Every Friday-Sunday now through November Chews Life is running BOGO35 sales in their Holiday Shop.

Stella Maris Cuff Bracelet from Art Angel by Raphael

For her Quiet Time –

Theology of Home V: Arranging the Seasons from Theology of Home

• Use the code THEOLOGYOFHOME15 for 15% off in the Theology of Home Shop! It can be used only once and cannot be combined with other offers.

Mary’s Garden Mug from Gather + Pray

St. Nicholas and Our Lady of Guadalupe Tea from Sacred Heart Tea

Brideshead Revisited from Word on Fire

The Gospel of Mark Bible Study from Blessed Is She

For men –

Patris Corde Tee from Blessed Be God Boutique

St. Joseph Socks from Sock Religious

Queen of Angels Rosary and St. Francis Home Altar from The Catholic Woodworker

Drinking with the Saints by Michael P. Foley

After Humanity Bundle from Word on Fire

Wooden Coasters from Catholic All Year

The post The 2024 Catholic All Year Christmas Gift Guide! appeared first on Catholic All Year.

First Prize

Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus

Second Prize

Venerable Fulton Sheen, Servant of God Chaplain Emil Kapaun, Blessed Stanley Rother , and Servant of God Michelle Duppong

Third Prize

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Honorable Mentions:

Note to honorable mention winners: We decided that you all were so amazing that we couldn’t let you go without a prize too! We’re gifting you three months of our Venerable Level membership to try if you aren’t a current member already! Please contact us at helpdesk@catholicallyear.com to collect your prize.

Ss. Thomas Becket, Sebastian, and Jude

St. Emma of Regensburg

Mother Teresa

St. George, St. Lucia, and St. Faustina

St. Clare of Assisi, Bl. Carlo, and St. Teresa of Calcutta

St. Denis

St.  Rose, St. John the Evangelist, and St. Denis

St. Margaret of Cortona, St. Rose of Lima, St. Padre Pio, and St. Catherine of Siena

Our contest winners each receive A Free month of our Blessed Membership Tier plus a box of goodies from the CAY Marketplace!

The CAY Membership starts at $12/month and includes access to hundreds of feast day-inspired recipes, and activities, FREE shipping on all Marketplace orders, and a FREE Liturgical Wall Calendar! Check out all of the membership options below!

• Blessed
• Venerable

Wondering what to do with your family for the rest of the month of the Poor Souls in Purgatory? We’ve got you covered!

Visit a cemetery to pray for the dead from November 1st-8th to receive a plenary indulgence that can be applied to the Poor Souls! You can find the prayers for your visit in our Visiting a Cemetery Printable Booklet. Learn more about the requirements for gaining an indulgence for the Poor Souls here.

Decorate for the month of November with this All Saints Banner or this Requiescant in Pace Banner!

Find everything Memento Mori, including our new sweatshirt and T-shirt here!

The post 2024 Costume Contest: Winners and Honorable Mentions appeared first on Catholic All Year.

Here are some of our favorite costumes from past years!

The prizes are as follows:

This year we’ll be giving three winners a free month of the Blessed Tier of our Catholic All Year Membership, plus extra goodies from the CAY Marketplace as prizes–$100 in goods for first prize, $50 in goods for second place, and $25 in goods for third place!

Here’s how to enter . . .

If your kids are dressing up in a Catholic costume for Halloween or All Saints Day share a photo on Instagram and Facebook using #catholiccostume tag @catholicallyear and @kendra_tierney. (If you have a private account, you’ll need to set it to public for the day so I can see your tag.) If you are not a social media type, you can email your photo to me at helpdesk@catholicallyear.com.

We’ll do a round-up post following the close of the contest, which is November 1, 2022 at 11:59PM. By entering you give us permission to share photos on the Catholic All Year blog and social media channels.  Three winners will be selected & announced on November 5! Open worldwide, international winners will win a digital pize.

P.S. The 2025 Liturgical Wall Calendar just dropped in the CAY Marketplace and, you guys, it’s the most beautiful one yet! It has artwork featuring a different liturgical living tradition from each month and we can’t stop looking at it 

Grab one for your home here!

P.S. If you’re a CAY Member your FREE Liturgical Wall Calendar is on the way already! And if you aren’t a member you can learn more and join us here, and we’ll send you a FREE calendar too!

The post 2024 All Saints’ Day Costume Contest appeared first on Catholic All Year.

Here’s the text of the talk!

Okay, Fiat 2024, you guys. Thank you so much for being here for the conference today. It’s been my great pleasure to host this event at my home for the last ten years. (This is the ninth one, but we had to skip one year. I can’t remember why . . . ) I love the talks. I love the sacraments. I love the artisan fair. I love the food. I love that it makes internet friends into IRL friends. I really love that it gives me a deadline for getting home improvement projects finished and a reason to get the house and yard and various random outbuildings cleaned up.

My kids will tell you how much I love this. Are any of my kids around? Let’s ask them. Did I prep you for this question? What’s my favorite week of the year? That’s right: dumpster week. All last week there was a giant red 40-yard dumpster in our driveway. Like, the big construction one. It’s crazy how things accumulate, right? Especially in trying times. When you’re in survival mode, cleaning out the garage is probably not going to happen.

But this year, my life, while not . . . uncomplicated, is feeling stable for the first time in a long time. So we got the BIG dumpster. And John and I et al. filled that baby up together.

 I’ll bet you guys want to talk about that. And we will, we will, but in the context of some bigger concepts too. 

I know some of you have been following our family saga for over . . . twelve years now. And praying for us for a lot of that time. So, I think you’ve earned the right to feel a little nosy. I’ll allow it.

So, yes, I am married. To John Norton. Tomorrow will be three months that we’ve been married and eight months that we’ve been together. We’re going to talk about that today. About how it happened at all. I had a running joke with my friends over the past few years about how I was “unmarriageable.” But, as it turns out, all things are possible with God. Shocking, right? I’m going to talk about how I determined that I still had a vocation to marriage, or, rather, that I had ANOTHER vocation to marriage, and how I used prayer and the sacraments, a radical trust in divine providence, and a not-all-that-well-known devotion called holy enslavement to discern that marriage to John was God’s will for us and our children. That’s right, holy enslavement. You’re intrigued. And troubled. I know. Stay with me.

But FIRST, for those of you who might be new around here, we’ll start with a little recap of how we got here, and we’ll do a quick review of my talks here the two previous years, because this has turned into a trilogy of sorts.

The hinge, as it were, of all of this is that in the summer of 2022, at the age of 46, I became a widow and the single mother of ten children. 

But let’s start a bit further back. I met my late husband Jim at an informational meeting for young adult volunteers for my high school youth group. I was 23. He was 26. We got married a little less than a year after meeting, and when we went out to dinner for our first anniversary, we brought a baby with us. In February of 2007, six and a half years after we were married, Jim was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma. I found out I was expecting baby number four two days later. Jim had medications and surgeries and radiation treatments. Baby Gus was born in November. The three of us visited the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France that spring. After his course of treatments and our pilgrimage, Jim spent ten years in remission. We had five more children in those ten years. We were happy. Jim had a job he cared about. I homeschooled and started Catholic All Year. We bought our fixer-upper dream house and settled into life in a community we loved.

In 2018, during a routine follow up scan, it was discovered that Jim’s cancer was back, or—more likely—had never really been gone. 

He started a new treatment plan. The melanoma tumors spread to his lungs and, eventually, his brain. Our youngest daughter, Barbara, was born in 2019. When she was two months old, Jim started having occasional grand mal seizures. Over the next two and a half years, Jim continued to be—as he always had been—a conscientious professional, a dedicated father, a devoted husband, a good friend, and a man of great personal faith.

He died at our home on July 9, 2022 at the age of 49, surrounded by family and friends, having received last rites and viaticum. It was the kind of “happy death” that Catholics pray to Saint Joseph that they might get to have.

My children and I had the consolation of strong support from our family and our community, material stability, and—most importantly—each other.  

But I had to admit that my life was all of a sudden decidedly NOT what I would have wished it was; it wasn’t what I imagined it would be. My husband was a good man. Our marriage felt easy, despite the challenges we faced. And then it was gone. We thought we would grow old together, but instead I was a single mother. Losing a husband is more than losing a person. It’s also losing an imagined future, and having to face decisions and hardships and circumstances that my marriage would have shielded me from.

I was a person trying to figure out a new and different life. A life that did not look the way I expected it would. But, I knew that it WAS still an authentically Catholic life. It WAS still my faith that was the animating principle of my existence. I knew, I know, that while few people will have gone through exactly the same hardships I’ve faced, we ALL suffer, we all face times of crisis. And that means we all face that decision point: will this crisis bring me closer to God, or will it make me turn away from him? As I began to reflect on it, as I began to talk with friends who had also experienced hardship and sorrow, three aspects of that process kept coming to mind, of living through different stages of crisis, and learning to cope with ever changing realities.

I talked about two of those in my Fiat talk in 2022, in my “VSW” or “Very Sad Widow” talk. That talk was about what had helped me cope as I lived for sixteen years with the challenges and uncertainties of Jim’s illness. How I was inspired, 1. To wait to worry, to recognize that even though I had this thing looming over me, on THAT PARTICULAR DAY, I was okay, we were okay, and, 2. To rely on intercessory prayer in a deep way, especially when it was hard to pray for myself, to allow me to keep from falling into despair. Those two strategies worked very well for me as I navigated the world as a person facing potential tragedy. It was really important for me NOT to live life trying to anticipate all the bad things that might happen. After all, we aren’t given the graces to bear challenges we haven’t been given.

The third coping strategy is a deep reliance on prayer and the sacraments, which I spoke about in my talk last year, but I’d like to add a related topic this year. This year, I’d like to add the concept of radical acceptance of God’s will in one’s life. 

As hard as it was at first to hear and recognize, losing my husband was God’s will for me. Throughout Jim’s illness, when people would ask how they could pray for me, I would ask them to pray that I would have “radical acceptance of God’s will for my life.” It was my prayer for sixteen years. Of course, the quiet part of that was that I hoped that the will of God that I would be radically accepting was aligned with what *I* wanted. Now, I do believe those prayers were effective. I believe that praying that way helped keep my heart open in a way that it might not have been otherwise. But even all those prayers didn’t stop me from rebelling if someone would attempt to comfort me by saying that Jim’s death was God’s will.

In fact, here’s an example of the perils of Catholic influencing by living people like myself: I did a series of videos for Ascension Presents about a year after Jim died, and in one of them I talk about just this concept. I say that there is death in the world and suffering, but that all that is just a side effect of the fall, that God hadn’t wanted us to suffer, that wasn’t the original plan. That God doesn’t WILL our suffering, but that he allows it, because of free will and whatnot. And all of that is somewhat true, and it was comforting to me at that time. So if you’re in the trenches, feel free to blame Adam and Eve if you want, but eventually, I came to see it differently.

For Christmas last year our fabulous emcee and my Fiat partner in crime and best friend Micaela gave me a tiny book with an intriguing title. It’s called Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence: The Secret of Peace and Happiness. You guys, reading this book made me SO MAD. It did not, upon my first reading, seem like it could possibly live up to the claims of its name. Certainly not the subtitle anyway. The first time through, it did not make me feel peace and happiness. It mostly made me feel triggered.

The authors are a sixteenth-century priest and a seventeenth-century saint and they make a compelling case based on Scripture that everything that happens in our lives, good or bad, is specifically willed by God for our own good, and will sanctify us if we will let it. In the case of the bad, we are to see every circumstance—from inclement weather to illness to persecution to crimes committed against us—as exactly what God wishes us to be experiencing in that moment. He does not will the sins committed by us or by others, but He does will the consequences of those actions in our lives in order that we would benefit from them in eternity.

It was, as Christians before me have grumbled, a “hard saying.”

But then I started thinking. My track coach at USC, did he will my suffering? He absolutely did will it. It wasn’t some accidental byproduct. He willed my suffering and he orchestrated it, and it was specifically to get the best I was capable of out of me.

I came to see the idea that my suffering could be the active will of God as . . . certainly possible, and not unreasonable, and fitting to the perfections of God, and supported by Scripture. That vision of God that I thought I had wanted, of him holding me in his arms and weeping with me, because isn’t life so unfair, and darn that free will that caused the fall and introduced death and disease and decay into the world, and here was God just as powerless as I to stop it. That was what I thought I wanted, but with time, I came to see that it didn’t fit at all with what I actually believe about God.

I believe in a God of miracles. I believe in a God who intervenes in big human events and little private moments. I believe in a God who is all-powerful. I believe in a God who loves like a father and disciplines like a father. Am I to see myself as above Saint Paul who suffered imprisonments, and beatings, and MULTIPLE SHIPWRECKS? Am I above Jesus, who tells Peter to put away his sword and not try to prevent the suffering that is to come?

That was just the philosophical piece, though. Even if I could resign myself to this new way of seeing, how could it be anything other than a hopeless drudgery in practice?

But, as I began to try to experience the circumstances of not just the loss of my husband, but all the little events of my day as willed by God and for my own good, I was shocked at how . . . liberating it was. All of a sudden, everything felt different: the carefully sorted craft supplies that my four-year-old inexplicably decided to dump into one giant pile, the night on which three different children barfed all over three different rooms, a person who had misled and mistreated me, grief and loss, last minute changes to my careful plans—I could experience it all not as chaos and failure, but as what God wanted for me in that moment. 

I think it might be the secret of peace and happiness, after all.

We have to remember that there must be a caveat attached to every prayer, spoken or unspoken, and that is, “Lord, if it is your will . . . dot dot dot.” Any time we ask God for something that we think we want we must remember that we only want it if God wants it. We must remember that God is not bound by our prayers. The goal of prayer isn’t to change God, the goal of prayer is to change US.  

And for me, it really did. The challenges I faced as a widow and a single mother were the most difficult of my life. I really had NOWHERE to turn but to God. I threw myself into prayer. I had always meant to say a daily rosary. I had always recommended it. But it was widowhood and heartbreak that made me actually commit myself to it. I became a daily Mass-goer again, after years of that not being possible. I started making daily visits to the Blessed Sacrament, not to sit in quiet peaceful reflection, no. To tell God: I don’t like this. Fix it.

Don’t worry, you guys. The “meet cute” is coming. The romance is on its way. But first we’re going to talk about the final piece of the spiritual outlook that I believe prepared me to be open to God’s will and able to do my best to discern it when it came. Aaannnnndddd . . . you guys know I like the weird Catholic stuff, right? Well, get ready to get a little bit uncomfortable, because now we’re going to talk about holy enslavement.

The roots of this devotion in me were planted a long time ago, at the very beginning of our liturgical living in the home journey, and, in fact, THROUGH our family’s favorite liturgical living in the home tradition. And I’ll bet you guys wouldn’t be able to guess what it is. Of all the crazy practices we do throughout the year, including the devil piñata we hit with swords last weekend for Michaelmas, and eating spaghetti with our hands on the feast of Saint Joseph, and making boeuf gras sundaes out of all the treats in the house for Fat Tuesday . . . my kids will pretty consistently tell you that their favorite tradition of the year is the novena we do over the nine days before Christmas.

It uses prayers and call and response from the liturgy of the hours, plus readings from the Old and New Testament that trace salvation history and are fulfilled in one another. Except, it seemed, for the readings of December 19th. 

Imagine, if you will, couches and various overflow seating filled with Tierney youngsters and invited friends and neighborhood guests and for MANY years, on that date, someone would be tasked with reading the following, from the book of Deuteronomy:

When you release a male from your service, as a free person, you shall not send him away empty-handed, but shall weigh him down with gifts from your flock and threshing floor and wine press; as the Lord, your God, has blessed you, so you shall give to him. For remember that you too were slaves in the land of Egypt, and the Lord, your God, redeemed you. That is why I am giving you this command today. But if he says to you, “I do not wish to leave you,” because he loves you and your household, since he is well off with you, you shall take an awl and put it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your slave forever. Your female slave, also, you shall treat in the same way. 

Merry Christmas! Am I right? The kids would be like, “Mommy? What’s an awl?”

The novena was originally compiled by an Italian priest in 1721, but I found it around 2008 on a website that was sharing the content of a 1982 book that was in turn quoting from a 1955 book. Somewhere in that game of telephone one of the readings was misnumbered. As I was editing the Catholic All Year Prayer Companion and noting how well all the daily readings went together, all except THAT ONE, it occurred to me that, hey there might be a mistake, and I discovered that, while Deuteronomy 15:13-20 made everyone uncomfortable, Deuteronomy 18:15-22 contains the Old Testament quote that is referenced in the New Testament reading for the day, so I went ahead and switched to that.

But, obviously, that other reading stayed with me . . . and all of us, forever, I assume. Later, I came across the concept of voluntary slavery—or holy enslavement—again, in the writings of Saint Louis de Montfort. It wasn’t until I was living as a widow and a single mother that the devotion really made sense to me. 

The slavery to which the Old Testament reading is referring is, obviously, different from the race-based chattel slavery of the Americas with which we are all unfortunately familiar. In other versions, it’s translated as “bondsman,” which is probably more accurate. It’s my understanding that these slaves in the ancient world would be sold to someone for a period of time, sold either by themselves or their families or as spoils of war. They would then regain their freedom at the end of the appointed time.

What would have induced a person who had earned her freedom to choose to get an awl through the ear and stay enslaved? It could only be that she had become part of the household, or even part of the family. That she was cared for and treated with respect, and that she trusted the judgment and leadership of her owner. That she would rather live under the authority, but also the protection, of a master. Thousands of years later, amidst the political and religious upheaval of seventeenth-century France, Saint Louis de Montfort asked his followers to acknowledge that they were slaves of the love of Jesus Christ through Mary, and even suggested that they wear small chains as an external sign of this condition. Of course, all those conditions of a perfect enslavement would be fulfilled by Our Lord and his mother, Mary.

As I mentioned earlier, as a widow, I was in an enviable position in many ways. I had the consolation of the happy death of my husband, I had the support of my community and extended family, I had financial security, I had (have) wonderful children with whom to weather the storm, but I also had SO MUCH responsibility. I was on the hook for all of it: the care of the children and our home, parenting and school and financial decisions, decisions in my personal life, and no one, really, who could even be a sounding board. And THAT, day to day was what I found the most difficult.

I kept thinking back to that bondswoman in Deuteronomy and how much I’d love to get a quick awl through the ear and be able to abdicate all this responsibility. Because that wasn’t going to be possible in the literal sense, I felt really drawn to the devotion of holy enslavement. I could, in prayer, say to God, “I don’t know what I’m doing, and you know that. So I give myself to you as your slave. You make the decisions. This is all your responsibility now.” It was an extreme way to pray, I know. But it gave me great comfort at the time, and helped me to feel comfortable later when I faced big decisions. 

I didn’t know what God’s plan was for me, but I couldn’t get it off my heart that I had a vocation to marriage. I knew that wasn’t the case for all widows, that in theory I might have a vocation to single life, or religious life, but I felt that I still had a vocation to marriage. If I was right, that meant that it was through marriage that I was supposed to continue to grow in personal holiness and try to gain heaven. But, you know, the middle-aged widows with ten children aren’t exactly flying off the shelves you guys. It felt . . . unlikely. All I could find to say to God was, “God, I am yours. I want what you want, and only what you want. I have this desire to be married, and *I* can’t make this happen. So, either YOU make it happen, or take the desire away.” That was my pretty constant prayer for a year.

Then some mutual friends, all of whom are under this tent right now, introduced me to a handsome Catholic man named John, with four almost all grown kids. They conspired to introduce us at a hastily thrown together Halloween party. Those of you who used to read my blog might remember that I threw my own fake Halloween party when I wanted to get to know Jim. So, I don’t know who needs to hear this, but it is October: fake Halloween party you guys. Maybe try it. 

Anyway, I met John and he absolutely WAS overwhelmed by the idea of a widow with ten kids the youngest of whom was four and who not infrequently gets recognized by friendly strangers in public places. He did not call me. 

Okay. Let’s back up a minute to my little throwaway mention before, in the trustful surrender to divine providence part, of three different kids barfing all over three different rooms. That happened in the middle of the night and required a lot of cleaning up, obviously, and the driving home of a couple of Micaela’s kids who had been sleeping over, because, yeah, they didn’t want to stay in Barf-town, USA. But she’s the one who gave me the book, remember? And I was, by this time, committed to the concept. Her daughter even mentioned to her how weirdly unfazed I seemed in the moment, how I was just rolling with it. And that’s how it felt to me too. 

I decided I’d better get up and go to the early Sunday Mass the next morning, because who knew when the next wave of barfing was going to occur. So I was at Sunday Mass alone, which never happens. And John was there, even though he usually goes to the later Mass as well. I didn’t see him, but he saw me, and God put it on his heart to call me and see where things might go.

So three months after the fake Halloween party, he asked me out. We really enjoyed each other’s company right from the get-go, but we both had some preconceived notions to get past. We both had questions to ask each other, and to ask God. We started hanging out right as Lent was beginning, and my kids and I don’t use screens for entertainment during Lent, so he’d come by and we’d all be sitting by the fire, playing cards or reading aloud, and we might have allowed him to think that that calm idyl was our usual MO. 

Our first meet up was Saturday morning Mass and then coffee. Our second was Saturday morning Mass then a hike, and a lot of hard questions and good answers. Our third was a visit to the LA Cathedral to venerate their tiny piece of the tilma of our Lady of Guadalupe. Then our parish Lenten mission started and he offered to pick me up each evening so we could go together. On one of the drives home, he mentioned that he had told his daughters that we were dating, and I was like, “ARE we dating? Or do we just go to church a lot?” And he took the hint and took me out to dinner.

But, of course, going to church a lot is the best possible start to a relationship. He had faced hardship and heartbreak of a different kind, but both of us had thrown ourselves into prayer and the sacraments. Both of us had read Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence. I think I was kind of on my own on the voluntary slavery thing, but it’s probably best if both parties don’t enter into a relationship with the goal of relinquishing responsibility. Both of us had discerned that we had a vocation to marriage, and it pretty quickly felt like God had had a hand in our friends’ schemes to introduce us. We felt strongly that, however complicated this all might seem in the short term, in the long term, it could only work for good for us and all the people we love.

John is a cool guy and he drives a red Jeep Wrangler, stick shift and everything. During covid, jeep people started giving each other little attaboys in the form of what they called “ducking” other jeeps. This meant leaving a rubber duck on or in a fellow jeep-driver’s car. John had received a duck, which he kept on his dashboard. My kids saw it and decided that his little duck looked lonely, so they grabbed a duck from their bathtub collection and snuck it onto his dashboard. So now he had a John duck and a Kendra duck. For the record the John duck is a duck duck. The Kendra duck is lavender, one-eyed, and has, like, cow horns.

One evening, John came to pick me up for a date, to a restaurant, not to church. We went out to the car and there was the John duck and the Kendra “duck” sitting on the passenger seat, and they were surrounded by fourteen little baby rubber ducks, and in the middle of it all was an engagement ring. It was pretty cute. I said yes.

We got married five months to the day after our first date—well, Mass—together, and now, instead of being an empty-nester, with, like, hobbies and whatnot, he’s been doing math homework with little kids and heaving things into a giant dumpster all week, because you just never know what’s going to happen when you let God take over.

Thanks for being here today!

P.S. The 2025 Liturgical Wall Calendar just dropped in the CAY Marketplace and, you guys, it’s the most beautiful one yet! It has artwork featuring a different liturgical living tradition from each month and we can’t stop looking at it

Grab one for your home here!

P.S. If you’re a CAY Member your FREE Liturgical Wall Calendar is on the way already! And if you aren’t a member you can learn more and join us here, and we’ll send you a FREE calendar too!

The post Deciding to Get Married Again (after being widowed): My Talk at the 2024 Fiat Conference appeared first on Catholic All Year.

Gifts for Kids

Basket Stuffers –

Custom Easter Basket Initial Tag | Custom Easter Egg Painting Kit | Scavenger Hunt Tool | Stocked Pencil Case with Scripture Keychain | Lamb Lacing from Catholic All Year

Silicone Rosaries from Roses & Pearls

Decade Pop-Its | Sacraments Pop-Its from Gather and Pray

Toys & Puzzles from Kingdom Come Co.

“Kid Saint” Girls Stickers | “Kid Saint” Boys Stickers | Saint Memory Game from Just Love Prints

Marian Spinners from Studio Senn

Saint Dolls from The Little Rose Shop

Books –

God’s Glorious Girl | God’s Brave Boy by Emily Wilson Hussem

Jesus and the Miracle of the Mass | The Holy Spirit and the Greatest Adventure by Gracie Jagla

I Wonder About the Good Shepherd by Jenny Luetkemeyer

Petook: The Rooster Who Met Jesus by Tomie DePaola

Ten Keys to Good Manners by Claire Boutrolle d’Estaimbuc

Breeze and Flames: The Story of Pentecost by Madeleine Carroll

The Catholic Kids’ Cookbook by Haley Stewart and Clare Sheaf

Apparel –

Holy Outdoorsmen | Princess Saints | St. Michael | Interior Castle Youth Tees from Marigold Catholic Goods Co.

Kid Socks from Sock Religious

Bracelets from My Saint My Hero

Gifts for Women

Apparel –

Ad Jesum per Mariam Tee | Eucharist Bandana Scarf from Marigold Catholic Goods Co.

Adult Socks from Sock Religious

Jewelry –

Jewelry from The Little Catholic

Stella Maris Cuff Bracelet | Vintage Holy Card Pendants from Art Angel by Raphael

LifeStyle –

Easter Rosary from Lux Via

Heavenly Joy Beeswax Candle| Magnificat Beeswax Candle from Stacey Sumereau

Divine Intimacy sold by Blessed Is She

Three Hearts Water Bottle | Holy Family Hearts Tealight Holders | Wooden Phone Stand from Liz Long

Wall Decor from House of Joppa

Lavender Bath Soak | Comfort & Joy Essential Oil Blend | Renew Face & Body Cream from Rooted for Good

Gifts for Men

Adult Socks from Sock Religious

Drinking with the Saints by Michael P. Foley

Wooden Coasters from Catholic All Year

Cologne from Salt & Light by Sami

Rosaries from Rugged Rosaries

Catholic Trucker Style Cap from Liz Long

Prepare your home for the Easter season!

Paschal Candle from Catholic All Year

Easter Candle Holder from Catholic All Year

He Is Risen Banner from Catholic All Year

DIY Pysanky Easter Eggs | Lamb Butter Mold | Wooden Resurrection Tomb from Catholic All Year

White Garland from SmallThingsGr8LoveCo

The team at CAY is wishing you a holy rest of your Lent and a joyful Easter season!

The post The 2025 Catholic All Year Easter Gift Guide: Everything you need for baskets, gifts, and your home! appeared first on Catholic All Year.

If you haven’t seen it yet, I’m going on a pilgrimage to England with Fr. Tim Grumbach! Our friends at Select International Tours have planned the whole thing, and I worked with them to pick the BEST of the best stops for the ultimate Catholic trip.

I would love for you to come too! We can bond over our favorite English saints and writers, pray together, and drink tea together. You can find the whole pilgrimage itinerary (and trip details) in this PDF, but it’s all words and no pictures which is a bummer because we’re going to see some amazing sites.

Enter this blog post; your pilgrimage preview, or photo itinerary as it were . . .

 

 

So without further ado, I present our pilgrimage!

 

 

Day 1: Leave the USA

 

 

The pilgrimage includes airfare from the USA to London Heathrow Airport. If you’re already in England and want to join just choose the “land only” option when you’re signing up and you won’t be charged for airfare from the USA!

 

 

Us on the airplane leaving for the pilgrimage ⌄⌄⌄⌄

 

 

via GIPHY

 

 

Just kidding we’ll hopefully all be sleeping because the flight is an overnight flight with breakfast and dinner served on board.

 

 

Day 2: Arrive in London

 

 

We’ll say hi to our tour manager, and head to Mass at the magnificent Church of St. Etheldreda! This is the oldest Roman Catholic Church in England. We’ll also take a panoramic tour of London, seeing Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Then we can explore a bit on our own before checking into the hotel, grabbing some Yorkshire pudding and roast beef, and then hitting the hay.

 

 

Church of St. Etheldreda

 

 

 

 

The first two images come from the St. Etheldreda website. The second two show the full interior of the church! Image 3: Source. Image 4: Source. The statues on the walls are of English Martyrs during the Elizabethan era.

Check out the fascinating history of St. Etheldreda’s here. And take a virtual 3D tour here!

 

 

Our other Day Two stops!

 

 

 

 

Image 1: Buckingham Palace, Image 2: Trafalgar Square, Image 3: Trafalgar Square, Image 4: St. Paul’s Cathedral

 

 

Day 3: The Feast of Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher

 

 

Can I just say how cool it is that we’ll be in London for these fellows’ feast day!? Day three of our pilgrimage is ALL about the English martyrs. We’ll start with Mass at Brompton Oratory which was founded by Cardinal Newman.

 

 

 

 

Images from The London Oratory website!

 

 

Then it’s off to have a tour of Tyburn, the home of the infamous Tyburn Tree (aka. The Elms, the Elms near Tyburne, Tyburn Tree, the Deadly Never Green Tyburn Tree, the Triple Tree) the gallows in the town of Tyburn, a favorite spot for executions in the 15 and 16 hundreds, and home now to the shrine of the English Martyrs.

 

 

 

 

Images 1 and 2: Source, Image 3: Source.

 

 

We’ll also visit: the cell of St. Thomas More in the Tower of London, Tower Hill, the site of his execution, St. Peter ad Vincula, to pray before his remains, and visit All Hallows Chapel, where his daughter, Margaret, prayed for her father during his execution.

 

 

 

 

Images above: 1. St. Thomas More’s Cell, 2. The Bell Tower where his cell is, 3. Tower Hill Memorial, 4&5. St. Peter ad Vincula, and 6. All Hallows Church

 

 

Day 4: Thames Dinner Cruise

 

 

First, Mass, of course, ! Today we’ll be celebrating Mass at the Westminster Cathedral. Then a visit to Westminster Abbey, St. Edward the Confessor, the Poets Corner, and the 17 British monarchs who are buried there. Afterward, we’ll head to Westminster Hall where St. Thomas More’s trial was held. And then in the evening a cruise on the Thames River! Food, wine, entertainment (the classy kind), and some sweet views of the Tower of London, the London Eye, Tower Bridge, and others all lit up for the night!

 

 

 

 

These are all of the Westminster Cathedral. As you can see it’s quite glorious . Images 1, 4, and 5 are from the cathedral website. Image 2: Source. Image 3: Source.

 

 

 

 

St. Edward the Confessor’s Tomb, The Oldest Door in Britain (conveniently located at the Abbey for our viewing pleasure), The Nave of the Abbey, the Poet’s Corner, and Westminster Hall. All images of the Abbey are from the Westminster Abbey website.

 

 

 

 

The London Eye, Tower Bridge, and The Tower of London.

 

 

Day 5: Canterbury and Aylesford

 

 

Today we’ll be visiting the Canterbury Cathedral, The Friars – Aylesford Priory, and the Shrine of the Glorious Assumption and St. Simon Stock

 

 

 

 

The first three images are of the Canterbury Cathedral (Image 1: source, Image 2: source, Image 3: source), and the second three images are from the Aylesford Priory and Shrine of the Glorious Assumption and St. Simon Stock. The images of the Priory are from their website.

 

 

Day 6: Norwich and Walsingham

 

 

Today’s all about the mystic St. Julian of Norwich and Our Lady of Walsingham! First we’ll visit the shrine of St. Julain of Norwich in . . . Norwich . Then we’ll visit the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist before hitting the road to Walsingham to celebrate Mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham !

 

 

 

 

The first two images are of the shrine of St. Julian of Norwich. Image 1: Source, Image 2: Source. The second two are of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. Image 3: Source. Image 4: Source.

 

 

 

 

The images above are of the beautiful grounds at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham!

 

 

Image 1: Source. Images 2, 3, and 4: Source.

 

 

Day 7: A Day to explore in London

 

 

Today’s a free day!

Is there anything in London that you’ve been dying to do?! I need some ideas so drop them in the comments! Here are a few ideas to get you started Stop by the Natural History Museum or the Tate Britain to see classics by English artists. Enjoy high tea at one of the many tea houses in the city. Or see what’s playing at one of the many theaters in the West End! You could see The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Hamilton or bunches of others!

 

 

 

 

Image 1: Source, Image 2: Source, Image 3: Source, Image 4: Source, Image 5: Source, Image 6: Source

 

 

Day 8: Oxford and our literary heroes!

 

 

Today we’ll be heading to Oxford to visit the favorites spots of some of our favorite authors, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis We’ll start with a visit to the graves of Tolkien and Lewis, then stop by Lewis’ home “the Kilns” before visiting and celebrating Mass at the Christ Church Cathedral. We’ll also spend the night in Oxford

 

 

 

 

Image 1: C.S. Lewis’ grave, Image 2: J.R.R. Tolkien’s grave, Image 3: The Kilns, Image 4: Christ Cathedral Choir and Organ, Image 5: Christ Cathedral Nave and Alter, Image 6: Christ Cathedral Quad

 

 

Day 9: Oxford again!

 

 

First, we’ll take a jaunt (literal walking through quaint Oxford) to Littlemore, home of St. John Henry Newman. Then we’ll attend Mass in the chapel where he converted, and visit Bermingham Oratory where both St. John Henry Newman and J.R.R. Tolkien lived! We’ll top it all off with dinner at a local restaurant!

 

 

 

 

Image 1: The College At Littlemore, Image 2: The Bermingham Oratory, Image 3: The Bermingham Oratory, Image 4: The Bermingham Oratory

 

 

Day 10: Oford, then Stratford, then London

 

 

Today will be the last full day of our trip . First, Mass at St. Aloysius Catholic Church. Then it’s off to Stratford Upon Avon to visit the home of Shakespear, there will be time to walk around and explore before heading to London for dinner and our last overnight before hitting the road back to the U.S.!

 

 

 

 

Image 1: St. Aloysius Catholic Church, Image 2: St. Aloysius Catholic Church, Image 3: St. Aloysius Catholic Church, Image 4: Anne Hathaway’s Cottage (Shakspears future wife, not the actress!), Image 5: Chedham’s Yard in Stratford, Image 6: Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park in Stratford, Image 7: Shakspears Home, Image 8: Shakspears Home

 

 

Day 11: Goodbye to dear old England!

 

 

And today we’ll say goodbye to our new friends, and head for home!

 

 

As you can see this trip is PACKED, but not hectic.

 

 

We’re going to visit so many beautiful churches, and be able to pray in the hallowed halls where so many saints and martyrs have prayed over thousands of years. We’ll get a taste of the city, AND get to enjoy the English countryside. It really is going to be a marvelous trip.

 

 

I hope I’ll see you there, and if you have any questions you can send an email to helpdesk@catholicallyear.com or reach out to Select International Tours directly!

 

 

Join me in England!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read more about the pilgrimage in this blog post! Or go directly to sign up here!

 

The post Kendra’s Pilgrimage to England: All the Details appeared first on Catholic All Year.

Dear Family and Friends,

Here we go on Christmas letters again. Let’s see if we’ve still got it! We were all working on getting our bearings again in 2023, and settling back into the comfortable normalcy of being just bonkers busy all the time. 

Lulu, Midge, and George joined Gus, Anita, and Frankie at Saint Monica Academy, so, basically, we are taking that place over. There’s a Tierney in every odd grade from 1st to 11th. The kids love it and are getting an excellent education, but Mom suspects it’s exactly as much school work for her as when they were homeschooled, except now she does it while trying to make dinner. And there’s more driving. And, like, ninety more birthday parties. So, we’ll see what next year brings on the schooling front. For now, we are focused on how grateful we are for the SMA community, and all the help with rides and the last-minute texting of spelling lists, without which we would have drowned long ago.

We visited Chicago over the summer to celebrate Gramma & Papa’s fiftieth anniversary, and will head down to San Diego later this month to celebrate the same for Nana & Grandad. What a blessing to our family to have such beautiful examples of the sacrament of marriage!

We took a road trip to visit Catholic sites and National Parks in Arizona and New Mexico . . . in July. The local meteorologist was hanging out at our hotel pool in Tucson wielding his infrared thermometer and reporting a record high temperature of 112 degrees F. But, you know, it was a dry heat. That was followed by an eerie pinky-orange thunder-sandstorm that chased everyone inside. The trip was really amazing. Two thumbs up for the Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, Montezuma Castle National Monument, all the historic churches in Santa Fe (and the miraculous staircase!), the Benedictine Monastery of Christ in the Desert, and Mission San Xavier del Bac.

Our “camping” Thanksgiving this year was at an Airbnb in Temecula, CA. We had all ten Tierney kids, plus Dosé extended family. We ate turkey, swam in the pool, dressed up for a western saloon-themed murder mystery party, had these photos taken by the very sweet and talented Cher of Cher Marie Photography, and managed to keep Barbara from “kid”-napping the baby goats (you get it). 

Kendra is happy and sad and grateful and heartsick and swamped and lackadaisical all at the same time, always. 2023 has been trying to find her footing, failing, and going again. She is acutely conscious of how lucky she is to be surrounded by her truly and deeply wonderful children, her generous and self-sacrificing parents and in-laws, her amazing community of friends at CTK, SMA, and CAY, and the worldwide network of people who loved Jim. Professionally, this year was mostly speaking engagements and video projects. She gave a talk at the Napa Conference, appeared on the Lila Rose podcast, and the whole family filmed four more episodes of Catholic All Year at Home for FORMED. She’s got four episodes of Ascension Presents that will air in the spring. She hopes to get back to any number of unfinished book manuscripts . . . someday.

Jack (21) is a senior at USC in aerospace engineering, but is going to go ahead and hang out for one more semester. As Teen Talk Barbie prophesied in 1992, “Math class is tough.” Since last summer, he has also been gainfully employed part time at Fenix Space, working on RF systems, satellites, and, um, something about parabolas? His hobbies include poker, chess, and Smash Bros, and he comes home on weekends to do laundry, teach little kids how to ride bikes, and tell his mother that dishwasher repair is, unfortunately, not part of the engineering school curriculum, but he will take a look. He’s a good young man. 

Betty (19) is a sophomore studying nursing at UMary in Bismarck, North Dakota. So far she gives it a thumbs up for roommates, classes, professors, and administrators, and a thumbs down for the ND record low temperature of 13 below on March 29. She’s a member of the intramural Musical Theater Troupe and has performed in three shows. In a move she expects to be the crowning achievement of her life, she secured tickets for the L.A. Taylor Swift concert, attended with Anita, and then got to watch the same concert again as a movie. 

Bobby (18) graduated from Saint Monica Academy after closing out his high school theater career with memorable roles as Caleb in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Richard III in Richard III (see the whole performance here). As a graduation gift, he and Jack got to see their dad’s favorite band, U2, at the Sphere in Las Vegas. No one was more surprised than Bob when he was accepted into the prestigious USC film school. So, Jack’s got a new old roommate and Bobby is making cool board games and very cute faux claymation animations. He gave the two most celebrated gifts of 2023: an old timey record player for mom (that the whole family loves) and a dead monarch butterfly cherished by Barbara.

Gus (16) keeps himself busy at SMA, appearing in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Richard III, and Much Ado About Nothing, altar serving, and participating on the varsity swim and basketball teams. He won 2nd place in the schoolwide Poetry Out Loud competition with his recitations of “Surprised by Joy” by Wordsworth and “The Hyenas” by Kipling. Over the summer he attended the Napa Institute Conference as his mom’s assistant, having read How to Win Friends and Influence People . . . twice. To be more specific, he listened to it as an audiobook on triple speed, which is how he listens to everything. This makes his mother want to interrupt him to ask listening comprehension questions (which he can answer). In related news, he bought himself some air pods.

Anita (14) continues to be an MVP at home: keeping track of schedules, packing lunches, and organizing day-after-Thanksgiving murder mystery parties, and at school: captain and setter on the JV volleyball team, voted to be 8th grade graduation speaker by her teachers and classmates, as well as voted to be Mary in the living stations and freshman representative to student council. She earned First Honors and a music award, and was in two school plays. She has expanded her wardrobe quite a bit this year by learning to sew and discovering that she now fits in mom’s clothes.  

Frankie (12) has taken over the role of “guy with a broken arm” from George, and is on his second cast of the year. When not on the DL, he plays flag football and basketball. He is an altar server at SMA and Saint  Andrew, and—when accompanying mom on a “work trip” cruise down the Rhine River—also in Switzerland, Holland, France, and Germany. His favorite parts of the trip were climbing the tower of Strasbourg Cathedral and then having nutella crepes for lunch, and being pressed into service by the maitre’d, who put him to work all over the ship. In Boy Scouts, he is working diligently on his second class rank and his pine cone-throwing skills. Over Thanksgiving, he was determined to have murdered Mitch Maverick (Bobby) in an act of vigilante justice.

Lulu (10) sang “Maybe” from Annie in the CTK homeschool group musical showcase and was an evil unicorn in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. She attended her first sleepover camp over the summer, with Anita there as a junior counselor. On our family road trip she convinced the group to swim/hike up the Chama River against the current to a tiny island which she claimed for her own. In her first year at “real” school, she played volleyball, earned First Honors and the Citizenship Award, and claims to be doing a LOT of “gold slip” worthy good deeds that have, so far, gone unnoticed by the powers that be.

Midge (8) also sang “Maybe” from Annie in the CTK homeschool group musical showcase and was a fellow evil unicorn in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. She and Lulu also do pretty much everything else together: biking and scootering, sewing and bracelet-making, baking and leaving the kitchen a mess to go out scootering again. She was Joan of Arc in the SMA All Saints’ Day pageant, likes recess and school field trips, and has a cowlick and dimples that just won’t quit.

George (6) chose a beaver plush as a road trip souvenir after a stop at Beaver Creek in AZ, and named it Justin Beaver. On his first week in the 1st grade, he proudly announced that everyone in his class had cried except him and one girl. He turned six this year, and so got his official family trip to Disneyland, where he liked Space Mountain and was definitely not afraid of the Haunted Mansion.

Barbara (4) experienced every ride at Disneyland as a challenge to be accepted and overcome. Not against her own fears, but rather against the characters in the ride. She thoroughly enjoyed her day personally vanquishing pirates, ghosts, and Mr. Toad / hell. Being the only kid at home and entertaining herself while mom works at home does NOT particularly suit her tastes, so she’s talked herself into a regular playdate rotation with local friends. On days that she is home with mom, she likes to hang out and offer running commentary and suggestions for how mom could improve her work habits and home management. 

Thank you again to all of you who have kept us in your prayers for all these months. Please keep it up! And come by to visit.

May your Christmas be merry and bright and your 2024 be filled with joy and hope for the future.

With love from the Tierneys,

Kendra, Jack, Betty, Bobby, Gus, Anita, Frankie, Lulu, Midge, George, and Barbara

P.S. In case you haven’t heard, I’m leading a pilgrimage to England, and I’d really love to have you join me! All ages are welcome, I’ll be bringing a couple kids with me, and my parents would be coming if they hadn’t offered to stay home with the rest of the kids!

Get more details here. It would make a great Christmas gift. #justsayin

The post Merry Christmas from the Tierneys appeared first on Catholic All Year.

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Sign up to join me here!

We’ll be spending time in London, visiting the sites of St. Thomas More’s imprisonment and martyrdom ON HIS FEAST DAY. We’ll have a dinner cruise on the Thames, and visit the shrines of St. Simon Stock, St. Julian of Norwich, and Our Lady of Walsingham. We’ll go to Oxford where the great St. John Henry Newman, J.R.R Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis spent much of their lives. Lastly, we’ll swing by Shakespeare’s house before we head on home.

We’ll see amazing sites and share fun experiences together. Fr. Tim Grumbach will be saying Masses for us in beautiful places. He’ll be available to hear confessions. We’ll both be giving talks on the history and inspiration of the places we’ll be visiting. 

We’ll also have time to hang out and chat!

FAQs

Is this a girls’ trip? No! All are welcome. Women, men, wives, husbands, friends, singles, etc.

Can I bring babies or kids along? Yes! I’ll be bringing at least one kid with me. We love kids.

Can I bring my parents along? Yes! The trip is intended for all ages. My parents would be coming if I didn’t need them to babysit. If you have specific questions about accessibility, please get in touch.

Are we to be friends, then? Yes! I hope so!

I can’t wait to raise a glass to some great saints and literary giants with you! Drop a comment below and let me know what you’re most excited about!

I know you might want a few more details, so you can find our entire itinerary in this PDF. And you can find all of the fine print and sign up to join me in Merrie Olde England here!

The post Come to England with me! appeared first on Catholic All Year.