Happy Feast Day St Juan Diego! We have never celebrated this feast day in our home before, but we love adding new saints to our liturgical living and celebrations and are having LOTS of fun with this one. First, we took time to read the Story of Our Lady of Guadalupe, who's feast day is actually December 12th. Because their stories intertwine we are learning about and celebrating them both throughout this week!
Yesterday we followed the message in our Saint Mail for this month and we went for a long walk to think about how Saint Juan Diego felt when he walked 15 miles each way to mass. We have a park 1 mi from our house that the kids love going to, but with three little kids under 5 years old I have to admit that we usually drive! Well, yesterday we decided to be in the spirit of Juan Diego and walk to the park, even in December. We bundled up, my sons grabbed their bike, scooter and our stroller and were on our way. I had called my husband to see if he would meet us at the park to drive us home on his way from work since I figured after a mile walk and playing at the park the kids would all be tired. Well, he said yes that he could meet us and then unfortunately he got held up at work.
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| On our walk to the park |
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Playing at the park
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I decided to take it as a moment to say "yes" to God and take it as a learning experience for me and a teaching moment for the kids and walk that mile back home. Well our 18month old was fine riding in the stroller, about 5 blocks in our 3 year old put his scooter into the stroller and rode the rest of the way singing Christmas songs for everyone in the neighborhood to hear, but our almost 5 year old had his bike. There was no way I was going to be able to push the stroller with all of the kids and all of their equipment so we had a talk that he was going to have to ride his bike home. He was such a superstar! It was getting close to dinner time, it was getting cold and dark, and he was definitely getting tired but he did it and rode his bike the entire way home! We talked about St Juan Diego and how he (and lots of people) had to walk a long way to get anywhere and that he would walk really far just to go to mass. Our oldest said "he must really love Jesus Mommy!"
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| On our walk |
We also said our daily decade of the rosary with the Toddler Rosary Kit of Roses from Veronika's Workshop that we keep in our little Oratory. We always enjoy using these, but it was a lot of fun today to talk about how when St Juan Diego opened his cloak that roses came out and the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was revealed. One of my husband's co-workers made home-made Tomales as a gift which we are going to have for dinner tonight to continue our celebration!
God you are so gracious to give us such wonderful examples such as Saint Juan Diego. We pray that we may be as devoted to the Mass as he was. We pray that when You ask anything of us we always say yes. Saint Juan Diego pray for us! Amen
*Prayer from Saint Mail
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