There are SO MANY amazing feast days in October, friends! Multiple favorite saints of mine, and I’m sure yours as well, are honored throughout this month, so I’m excited to share these ideas for simple ways to celebrate them. Since there are so many, I’m splitting this post into two parts…full disclosure: I’m writing this post on September 30 and really want to post it first thing tomorrow so we can kick off the month in a big way for St. Therese :)

Remember, don’t feel you need to do something for each of these days–choose the ones that are most meaningful to you and your family and focus on those. For the rest, simply call that saint to mind and ask for their intercession that day, and maybe click on one of the links about them in this post to learn a thing or two. I’ve come to think of the saints a lot like the people here on earth. There are my closest, dearest friends. There are people I really like and hope to get to know better. People I’ve met but don’t know very well. People I recognize from afar. And plenty, plenty of people I don’t know now, but will meet in the future…and plenty I won’t, and that’s okay. Thinking of the saints that way helps take the pressure off to me a little, and I hope it does to you too!

Before diving in, one thing I want to mention that I’ll be doing this month is the 33 Days to Merciful Love consecration. I LOVED 33 Days to Morning Glory in the spring, and since the former draws on on the spiritualities and teachings of St. Therese and St. Faustina, both of whom we celebrate in October, I thought it would be a perfect devotional for the month. Pick up a copy here if you’d like to join me (and let me know so I can pray for you!).

October 1: St. Therese of Lisieux
Keep it simple: Start your day with the beautiful morning offering prayer she prayed daily.
Go all out: Intentionally live out her Little Way today. Make small sacrifices, look for opportunities to quietly serve the people around you, choose the worst seat or the last place in line, genuinely pray for anyone who frustrates you. Ask for St. Therese’s intercession if this is hard–it was for her too, but her perseverance in it made her a saint!
Bonus: Buy roses to remind you of her, and enter the giveaway my friend Emily are hosting on Instagram :) I’ll add the link here as soon as we post it!

October 2: Holy Guardian Angels
Keep it simple: Pray the traditional Guardian Angel prayer.
Go all out: Feast on angel food cake or angel hair pasta :)
Bonus: Read and reflect on this meditation for the Feast of Guardian Angels by Pope John XXIII.

October 4: St. Francis of Assisi
Keep it simple: Many parishes offer a blessing of pets on this day, since St. Francis is well-known for his love for all God’s creatures. If you have a pet, check your church bulletin to see about having it blessed!
Go all out: One of the biggest transformations in St. Francis’ life following his conversion was his denial of wealth and worldly goods to embrace extreme poverty. Is there something God is calling you to sacrifice or let go of? Take a step in that direction, with St. Francis’ intercession, today.

October 5: St. Faustina
Keep it simple: Pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet, which Jesus revealed to St. Faustina, at 3:00 P.M. if possible.
Go all out: I think every Catholic should have a copy of St. Faustina’s diary in their home. Yes, it is a massively long book, but it’s a perfect one to digest paragraph by paragraph over months (even years), to reflect on in Adoration, or to crack open in the many, many moments of our lives when mercy feels impossible to give (hand raised–I have felt that so much lately). Bring it to adoration today, or carve out some time in your day to read a few paragraphs, slowly and intentionally.
Bonus: Watch The Original Image of Divine Mercy, a relatively new documentary that investigated what happened to the original painting of Jesus that St. Faustina commissioned at His command. So fascinating!

October 7: Our Lady of the Rosary
Keep it simple: This should be an obvious one ;) Pray the rosary! (P.S. I have a post going up on the Blessed Is She blog next week about ways to make praying the rosary a daily habit, so keep an eye out for the link to that on Instagram.)
Go all out: Read and study a few pages of St. Louis de Montfort’s The Secret of the Rosary. You can buy it for $7 on Amazon here, or find the full text here. It’s a little dense, but beautiful and SO worth the effort.

Coming up in part 2: St. Teresa of Avila (10/15), St. Luke (10/18), St. Paul of the Cross (10/20), St. John Paul II (10/22), and St. Jude (10/28)!