Celebrate Today- ceremonies and celebrations to make your days count

On New Year's Eve each year, we take a family picture writing the numbers of the new year on our hands, and I put this picture inside a mason jar. Then through the year, we put things in the jar like movie stubs, business cards from favorite restaurants visited, ribbons and medals from races, and other memorabilia that will fit in the jar.   We now have 6 of these jars, but we had never gone through these to look at the contents of the jars. The other night, I pulled these out and we emptied them during dinnertime.   It was well worth the time to look at old pictures and relive some memories.  Good times indeed.

On Epiphany (last week on January 6th), we pulled out the chalk and marked the door for the new year.   When we shared a meal with our sweet friends the Murrays last weekend, we extended our Epiphany celebration and read together the liturgy  that we use each year.  This liturgy is one of my favorites as it is a time to remember what  St. Benedict said over 1500 years ago that "all people who present themselves should be welcomed as Christ."  Heidi Haverkamp writes, "Receive every person who comes through your door as though  they  were bringing Jesus to you. Receive every person you meet as though you were encountering the face of Christ......Part of what makes a monastery a healthy place is to receive guests, so that the monks or sisters don’t get turned in on themselves, or imagine that they’re the center of the world, or that only they are good Christians. Part of what makes a church a healthy place is to receive guests, so that we don’t imagine we’re a clu