I’ve written about trying to be more intentional about building and strengthening our domestic church. One of the ways we try to do that is by paying more attention to the feast days of the Church. It’s a great way to introduce ourselves and our children to knew saints and new traditions.
Disclusure: this post contains affiliate links. Read more here.
Okay, you say, this living liturgically sounds great and all, buuuuuut I have little people running around my house, that’s not realistic until they’re older. I can absolutely sympathize with that sentiment, and it was mine until a short time ago. But God has been laying the idea of the domestic church heavy on my heart for months now, and it has to start with me. The reality is that there will probably be little people running around our house for a long time yet (no, this is not an announcement, no new baby P is in the plans or works!), so if we keep putting this off, it’s just not going to happen. So I started figuring out baby steps I can to live liturgically in the present.
The first step I took was to acknowledge what I am and what I’m not. I am getting better at meal planning, but I definitely don’t consistently do it well enough to pay attention to the coming feast days and plan festive meals in keeping with a saint’s life. It’s just not me, and if I set it as a goal, it wouldn’t be something I would keep up. But I am a former teacher, so arts and crafts and books are in my wheelhouse. So that’s where I start when I want to celebrate a saint’s feast with my kids.
One of the easiest ways to introduce children to the saints is via picture books. There are amazing books out there on saints from all over the world. We are blessed to have a dear, dear friend who is a librarian, and gifts our kids wonderful saints books. And I’m always on the lookout for more, so if you have suggestions, send them my way! Today we reread one of our favorites about St. Martin. In addition to being beautifully written, the illustrations are stunning, almost lyrical.
There are a ton of great craft ideas out there on the internet, and a lot of them can be easily altered to make use of whatever supplies you have on hand. During naptime (because I’m not always on my A-game and don’t prep ahead), I did a search for St. Martin craft ideas online. I found a variation of this one using felt, which I absolutely don’t have, and simplified it for use with a 2 and 3 year old using construction paper and glue sticks.
My kids LOVE glue sticks. Any chance they can get they glue stuff together. It’s not always productive or constructive, so I jump at the chance to give them ways to use glue appropriately. They also love prayer cards. My kids happily collect piles and piles of cards that they regularly sift through, order, and organize to their hearts content. So when I was looking at a craft for a felt ornament, it was a pretty easy switch to make a construction paper prayer card.
The shapes are pretty simple and I cut them out free hand. Even William was able to glue them in the correct order, and I think they came out pretty cute.
After they finished making their prayer cards, they ran off to show Gram their work. They were so proud and loved being able to share something they had made with her. Gianna chose to give Gram her prayer card and hung it on the mirror above the dresser.
William took his to their prayer corner, and proudly showed it to Mary, leaving it with her.
All in all, this was about a 20 minute craft project, which is totally doable with the attention spans of my littles. And re-reading the book gave us more opportunities to snuggle and pray and think about the saints.