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kristinannie
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| Posted: May 30 2013 at 7:01pm | IP Logged
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My biggest failure in my homeschool has been following the church calendar. This is not from a lack of resources. I have bought many picture books of saints; I have tons of saints books; I have cookbooks; I have my planner with saints' days included. I even have a volume of a description of the saint and piece of art for each day. I am just not doing this!!!
We talk a lot about saints. We also discuss feast days on the way to Mass. However, I would really like our family to follow the calendar of the church and help us in our devotions. I feel like it is the lifeblood of the church and it should be more of a part of our life.
Any suggestions you could give me would be greatly appreciated!
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stellamaris
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I would begin with a focus on Sundays. Make Sunday a special day--not in a complicated way, but with little easy-to-do traditions. One thing we do is use a white table cloth on Sundays, which leads in to a discussion of how Sunday is a "little Easter". We try not to do servile work such as laundry or housecleaning on Sundays. Instead, we try to enjoy ourselves as a family, possibly entertain another family, or go for a walk or some other nature-centered activity. Even if you don't pray the Rosary every day, Sunday is a great day to pray all or part of a Rosary.
Then, I would add in some little penance or distinctive on Friday to help the children understand that it was on this day of the week that our Lord died for us. Something like no meat is great; also, maybe a decade or two of the Chaplet of Divine Mercy around 3 p.m. or the first decade of the Sorrowful Mysteries (adding more decades later as your children get used to it). One thing we will try to implement in the fall is a period of silence and prayer for about 15 mins. at 3 p.m. on Fridays. The boys suggested this one themselves!
The next easiest thing to do, which is great with little ones, is to set up a "liturgical candle". We have a simple candlestick and each day an assigned child chooses a green, purple, pink, white, or red candle (we also use blue for Marian feasts, even though that is not a liturgical color) according to the liturgical color for the day. Given the ages of your children, you could light the candle yourself(my children take turns lighting it). If it is a feast day of a martyr, I would say a few words or read a short story about that martyr (when my children were younger---now I might read some writings of that martyr, an ancient account of their martyrdom, or other related reading).
The next step would be to choose 1 or 2 feasts/solemnities a month to focus on. These are wonderful days to attend daily Mass if you don't regularly already do so. Then, at home, do something very easy--a picture book or just a brief story you tell them yourself about that saint or event in the lives of Jesus or Mary. Maybe hand out holy cards and say the prayer from the Office of that saint (if there is one). Or, just say a prayer from your heart to that saint, asking especially for those virtues that saint most manifested. The biggest stumbling block is to make this all too complicated and get bogged down with a lot of craft preparation and cooking. You will never continue with the focus if it creates too much additional work for you! So focus instead on the story and a few prayers. We occasionally will pray a novena together (e.g., Pentecost or the Sacred Heart of Jesus, or for a day/devotion we are highlighting such as the Our Lady of Mt. Carmel on the year we enrolled the younger children in the brown scapular). If you want to add in food traditions, remember to keep it simple! We have a lovely little altar to St. Joseph each year with a few gold-wrapped Amazon boxes and a basic tasty Italian dinner--and the children get so excited for it! Every year we say a beautiful prayer to St. Joseph--and that's it! So simple and easy to make a part of our day.
Little by little you will build up simple traditions that are naturally incorporated into your family life. It is such a joy to have these faith traditions and your children will begin to look forward to the feasts of their favorite saints (the top favorites here are St. John Bosco, St. Joseph, and St. Nicholas!) and to those feasts that celebrate special moments in the lives of Jesus and Mary.
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Caroline
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MaryM
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| Posted: May 31 2013 at 2:32am | IP Logged
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I think Caroline's advice is right on target. And it is very fitting that the Sundays as Priority thread was bumped this week.
I think that awareness and following the calendar doesn't have to take a lot of time. Discussing feast days on the way to Mass is great. You mentioned having a planner with the saints days and feasts so you have that resource but something visual for the kids might be helpful. There are several liturgical year calendars available - to buy or make. We need to track down some of those old threads to bump... If you have something like that, then the kids can see the progression through the year in a visible way in a simple/visual way.
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pumpkinmom
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I have the same problem. I am making the learning about the liturgical calendar as our main priority for our religious study for our next school year. I'm hoping this helps and actually having it in our school planner will help to make it a priority.
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Cassie
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MichelleW
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What about starting with the patterns of the liturgical year? Right now we are in Ordinary Time, just modeling seeing God in the ordinary is sufficient to change the heart. During this season I mention it each morning and evening. "Keep your eyes open for God in the ordinary today!" and at the dinner table "Did anyone see God today?" Last week we had a BIG one when we broke down on the freeway and a very nice man towed us to a safer location to wait for dh. My daughter kept saying, "God is taking care of us, I see Him in this man, we are not alone." It was true and beautiful to see her in awe of the Lord. But anything is acceptable, one of my kids noticed how the trillium flowers around our house point to God. That we walk by them so in some ways they are ordinary, but they have 3 petals like the trinity, they start out white and as the season changes they become pink and then red, like our Lord who came pure and blameless and then suffered and died. Sometimes God in the ordinary is a word spoken on time, or a help given or received, or a detail appreciated. The Church gives us this time to open our eyes to His ever-presence.
Then will come the fastings and feastings. Just acknowledging this is a time of fasting, and setting aside self in a simple way is enough. Just acknowledging this is a time of feasting and truly using the entire season to feast (not just Christmas Day or Easter Day, but the entire season) is enough. We do things we might not normally do, like go to a movie, buy the chocolate milk, go out to eat. Simple things that remind us there is a time to feast. Fasting is so very important, but often we don't allow ourselves to feast during the entire feast. God has much to teach us by feasting during the feast in addition to fasting during the fast.
By focusing on the broad patterns of the year, my heart is changed and turned to the rhythm of the Church. There is so much wisdom in this rhythm! The particular days fall in more easily later, then they make sense without stress.
Just my opinion, but I hope it is an encouragement. The calendar shouldn't just be about doing more. It should be about resting in the rhythm. The doing comes from a place of rest. Does that make sense?
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Trill
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I agree with starting with the patterns of the year. My daughter (almost 5) has been in a Catechesis of the Good Shepherd atrium for the past two years and I am a trained catechist, so we are well aware of the liturgical season. We keep a prayer table at home with an appropriately colored tablecloth (hunk of fabric from my stash) although I'll admit that we just changed to green yesterday. I find that the fasts and feasts are easier to observe at home than ordinary time - looking for God in the ordinary is a great tip. I also try to do something for holy days of obligation. Reading the appropriate passage from the Bible after Mass is enough, really. Crafts and special foods are fun and memorable, but the meat is scripture and the Mass.
Michelle
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JennGM
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Great advice given here. Attending Mass and discussing the readings and the feasts are the highest ways to participate in the life of the Church.
For our family, we seem to go through ebb and flows. Sometimes we can see more externally or prominently that we are celebrating the liturgical year, other times it's more in the background.
Some visual reminders that have been mentioned above are easy to do...not individual feast days, but liturgical seasons, like the White and Purple cloths for Lent, Advent, Easter, and Christmas. I keep up displays for the longer seasons.
And like Michelle said, CGS atrium does have a very good emphasis on the liturgical year and I try to incorporate some of that at my home.
And this year we have enjoyed using the Holy Heroes for Advent and Lent.
For saints days, much of our discussions and activities are my children's work. We hang our Liturgical Calendar in the kitchen, and we check what feast day it is, or what is coming up. At first I would ask, but now my sons plan their upcoming week by the feasts.
After finding out the saint, my oldest "hits the books" and reads a short biography and sees a picture of the saint. But I let him look it up, and since we have several sources, he chooses which ones to use.
We also incorporate the saint of the day in our family prayers, Saint ____, pray for us. It's become a challenge for the boys to remember who is the saint of the day.
And then, coloring pages. For my oldest son, this was a flop and never happened. Now my youngest Absolutely Loves Coloring and wants a page to color for every day. I have found many free ones, and this year I splurged on Mary Macarthur's Coloring Pages -- and he just loves them. And my oldest is getting inspired to color once in a while, also!
For bigger feasts or seasons we want to attend daily Mass (or a few extra times a week). When I wake the boys up for Mass, the question often comes "What feast day is it today?".
I also play the USCCB podcasts of the Mass readings of the day at breakfast and discuss the feast day. At times I also play the Divine Office App in the background. They do absorb it all!
And like mentioned above, I pick only a feast day or two to do the special foods. We do make a special dinner or dessert for the big feasts...they aren't always reflective of the feast day (i.e., liturgical cooking), but reflective of the festivity.
Plan only one or two feasts to do crafts...make it a Friday of the week or something. I loved Dawn's Thursday Liturgical Teas which would cover the feast days of the week -- upcoming Sunday readings and one or two big feasts of the week (there are some times of the year when we get hit with many in a row!) and a craft and snack to do together.
This way it was planned for one day of the week, but covered much!
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At_His_Feet
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| Posted: June 08 2013 at 8:51pm | IP Logged
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These suggestions are so helpful! Sometimes I forget that small is good. May I ask what Dawn's Thursday Liturgical Tea is? Is there something more to it than the title suggests?
Tricia
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Tricia
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JennGM
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Dawn was an active member here for some time and blogs here. Her blog cannot be found by "Googling".
She and I co-spoke a few years back and this is her transcript which talks about her Tea and Crafts Thursdays.
Here are all her posts for Tea and Crafts.
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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JennGM
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The reason why I mention Dawn is that she rolled up the focus on the Liturgy on day of the week. She would do Sunday prep and feast day discussions all on the same day.
There are other examples of Liturgical Teas, which were originally from Alice Gunther one of the founding members here.
You will also find other examples elsewhere on the internet, particularly through Catholic Cuisine.
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Jennifer G. Miller
Wife to & ds1 '03 & ds2 '07
Family in Feast and Feria
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4Real Forums : Domestic Church
Topic: Following the church calendar
