Our First Week of Lent -2016

 

 

Lent is here!  I feel like it always comes up so quickly after Christmas and a short few weeks of celebrating Ordinary Time.  Here is what we were up to this week preparing ourselves and our home for Lent!

 

Also, to see what we are doing for Lent this year read about Our Lenten Plans and My Lenten Reading!

 

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Collop Monday

Celebrating the last opportunity to eat meat before Ash Wednesday with the tradition of thick cut bacon!  Yum!

 

 

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Shrove Tuesday 

Our kids LOVE "pancake day" and the treat of eating pancakes during a different meal other than breakfast.  We had pancakes for lunch and also celebrated with a Kings Cake!  They loved learning the history of the kings cake being from the Three Wisemen Caspar, Melichoir and Balthasar, being in an oval shape a crown and decorated with the colors of green for FAITH, yellow for POWER, and purple for JUSTICE.  Luke found the Baby Jesus hidden in his piece of Kings Cake today and was so thrilled to be the lucky one!

 

 

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Lent in Our Home

I am so thrilled to be adding the Cradle to Cross wreath as a part of our Lenten and Advent traditions in our home.  It is a beautiful hand made wooden wreath also includes wooden cutouts of Mary riding a donkey for Advent and Jesus carrying the cross for Lent.  There are extensions to create it different amounts of days to celebrate the different seasons! 

 

 

Also, right when you walk in our home we set up our front hall table with items to remind us of Lent.  We included the beautiful printable from Kendra at Catholic All Year, which says:

 

We can think of Lent as a time to eradicate evil or cultivate virtue; a time to pull up weeds or plant good seeds.  Which is better is clear for the Christian ideal is always positive rather than negative.  -Venerable Fulton J. Sheen

 

We also have our Sacrifice Beans with the printable from Lacy at Catholic Icing.  Along with those we also have a purple candle, a crown of thorns and an image of the Last Supper.  All beautiful items to remind us of Lent.

One of our favorite Lenten activities continues to be the Lent Calendar from Catholic Icing!  It is such a simple and basic activity but our kids love the visual of Easter approaching!  We have it laminated and on our magnetic board right by our kitchen table.  Our children love to move the magnet each day as we approach Easter Sunday.

Finally we set up our Stations of the Cross in our Little Oratory!  Find all about how we set this up HERE! 

 

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Burying the Alleluia

We do not say or sing the word Alleluia (Praise God) all throughout the season of Lent.  To remind of us of this change we "bury" Alleluia!  We got wooden letters spelling Alleluia and a wooden box that we keep them in throughout Lent.  Then on Easter morning and during the 50 days of Easter we will display them in our home!

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Ash Wednesday

Our little guys LOVE Ash Wednesday mass because they feel like they can really participate by receiving the sacramental of the ashes!  It was another solo mass for me with 4 little ones, but they did well.  I need to remind myself that little ones have the wiggles sometimes and that I need to give myself (and them) some grace.  After mass I had a handful of people come up to me and comment how well my boys did, tell stories of when they were taking their little ones to mass years ago (one lovely lady was telling me of her days of 6 boys all within 8 years!), and even one woman who said she teared up when our 4 year old said "I love you Jesus" during the Eucharistic prayer!  I need to remember how nice and comforting it is to hear those kind words and always pass on words of encouragement to other parents!

 

 

The ashes should not be a badge of holiness, but a way to admit our weaknesses and our need for God's grace in our lives. - Archbishop Joseph Kurtz
 

I also LOVED this video from Ascension Press, especially the quote that:

"The ashes mean that I am a sinner,

the cross means that I have a Savior!" 

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St. Scholastica

I feel like I can say it again and again, but Catholic Mosaic is truly a favorite resource in our house.  It has introduced us to such wonderful literature, fantastic Saints and lots of hours cuddling together reading and having fun!  February 10th is the feast of St. Scholastica so we read The Holy Twins by Kathleen Norris and Tomie dePaola.  We loved this great story and the fun discussion questions that followed!  Such a perfect way to spend 20 minutes after school/nap time together with the kids!

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Our Lady of Lourdes

On February 11th, we celebrated the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes.  We used Seton's Art 1 book to make a fun Grotto with Mary and then watched the CCC movie Bernadette the Princess of Lourdes!