Happy St. Luke’s Day, Notes on Our St. Luke Liturgical Name Day Tea

A Simple St. Luke's Day Tea

Life has been full and fast here this week, so I didn’t get around to preparing as much as I had wanted to for our St. Luke Name Day celebration today.  However, we enjoyed an easy tea followed by some themed handwriting efforts to kick off the lesson portion of our day anyway.

Our Made Up GFCF Lace Cookie Recipe

First, in honor of lace makers (to whom St. Luke is a patron), the kids helped me make batter for a GFCF Lace Cookie recipe that I made up this morning based upon the ingredients we had on hand in the house and a variety of lace cookie recipes that I found online an in a gluten-full cookbook that we have.   To ensure even turns at stirring the batter, we stirred while spelling S-a-i-n-t L-u-k-e.

Spelling and Stirring

Once the cookies were in the oven, we set the table with a lace table cloth (in honor of lace makers again), a Mary candle (in honor of St. Luke’s relationship with Mother Mary), a print out of a painting of St. Luke (the same one I used for our St. Luke’s Day planning post), some coloring pages (with thanks to Waltzing Matilda) and a box of art materials (in honor of artists, to whom St. Luke is a patron).  We also made chocolate-maple-coconut milk shakes (because w had no tea or kiddo favorite drinks on hand) and put these in some fancy glasses (in honor of the glass makers, to whom St. Luke is a patron).  Finally, we read a bit about St. Luke from Holy Spirit Interactive as we waited for the cookies to be ready.

Simple Centerpiece

Cookies plated, we said some prayers and dug in, not even minding that our lace cookies weren't all that lacy!

GFCF "Lace" Cookies (They tasted better than they look!)

 Then, we colored and posted the St. Luke’s pages before going out in the sunshine to write thank you letters to our awesome family physician.  (We had said prayers for all physicians and surgeon before our “tea” and decided that writing letters would be a great way to start the day’s formal lessons.)

Nina started making the beard gray-black, but then decided St. Luke was not that old and changed to brown.

Now, we are enjoying a rare treat that has little to do with St. Luke:  an unexpected period of relaxation!  

Lesson in the Sunshine

Jack’s Early Intervention specialist had to cancel his appointment today, and Nina’s Speech Therapist called to move Nina’s appointment to tomorrow.  We finished up our Core Four lessons already, and as tempted as I am to fill the rest of our day with things that have been beckoning from our “school” to-do list and from my personal task lists, I am resisting doing so.  

Luke's Letter to Our Physician

The sun is shining.  The temps are ideal.  The kids are playing together perfectly in the yard as I sit on the stoop breathing in a calm that I have sorely needed all week.  Life IS good.

Cheers, Love and Healing to All from Our Luke and Us Today

Praying that your day is blessed with exactly what you need, too.  And, also asking for you to join me in two prayers that I found online.

One, for physicians and all who are in their care.  (I have just learned over the past week of two more friends of mine facing cancer):

Prayer to St. Luke

Most charming and saintly Physician, you were animated by the heavenly Spirit of love. In faithfully detailing the humanity of Jesus, you also showed his divinity and his genuine compassion for all human beings. Inspire our physicians with your professionalism and with the divine compassion for their patients. Enable them to cure the ills of both body and spirit that afflict so many in our day.
Amen.

And, two, for all who need an extra special dose of love and healing, including a homeschooling friend of mine who I have been lifting up all day:

Prayer of the Order of Saint Luke
Almighty God, who inspired Your servant Luke the Physician to set forth in the Gospel the love and healing power of Your Son: Graciously continue in Your Church the love and power to heal, to the praise and glory of Your Name, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.
Amen.

SPD Connection

I realized that I neglected to make an obvious SPD connection in honor of SPD Awareness Month in my last post on planning for this feast day.  So, I have just gone back and added one to the end of the post.  Feel free to click on over and, then, scan down, to read it.  Much of what I say it in relates to our feast day celebration today.

In addition, I would like to add WHY we eat GFCF on feast days and every day.

After much reading about SPD and related disorders, my husband and I decided that we would try dietary-based solutions before medications for our son's SPD/ADHD and related symptoms.  First, we got stricter than we had always been about limiting preservatives, additives and dyes in all of our children's diets, changing "limit" to "avoid".  Then, we went casein free.  Finally, right around the same time that a neurologist told us that is was not a matter of if  we medicate our on, but which medication we would use and at what dosage, we went gluten free.  It has been less than a year since taking the gluten-free step and we could not be happier that we chose to do so.

Although eating a diet like we do here does not help all children with SPD and related disorders, it has certainly made a HUGE difference here.  Many of our son's symptoms have dramatically decreased.  Thus, I encourage parents and physicians everywhere to at least consider dietary interventions alongside more typical medical ones.  I cannot see how it can hurt, but can absolutely see how it can help.  Since making dietary changes, our son has been freed of some things that held him back while still remaining very much himself -- a gift to us!

With that in mind, I would like to add one final prayer:

SPD Moms Prayer to St. Luke

Saint Luke, it was with great love that you detailed the humanity of Jesus and his compassion for all humans.  It  is with great love that each parent of a child with SPD lives daily, blessed by the gift of that child to family, and, indeed, to the world.  Yet, it can be with great challenge, too.  Thus, today I ask for your intercession.  Please inspire parents, professionals and physicians everywhere to embrace all children with a heart for healing, even when a particular child's healing might include strategies that hitherto have been less mainstream.  Likewise, please help each of us to see that not all things need healing.  Some children, though different, may be exactly as our Father wants them to be.  Help us to know what approaches to take to unwrap the gift of each and every child without, haphazardly, destroying a part  of that gift.  Let us discern the difference between affliction and unique beauty, and encourage to do all we can to see what is beautiful and true.