I plan to read again the book, The Little Chapel That Stood, to my 5 children.  It has become our annual tradition to remember 9.11.  It is a beautifully written and illustrated book that I highly recommend for anyone with young children.  Here is the product description from Amazon:

Product Description

St. Paul's Chapel, dwarfed by the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center right across the street, stood strong after the "giants around it had come to a fall" in 9-11. Not a pane of glass had been broken. On 9-11 St.Pauls became a service dept immediately. Firemen hung their shoes on the old iron fence as they "pulled on their boots and raced to the Towers, climbing melting steel to flaming showers. Oh, what gallant men did we lose who never came back to get their shoes."
This historic chapel was built in 1766. When George Washington was inaugurated the first president in New York City, he walked down Broadway to St. Paul's to offer his prayers for the new nation. Alexander Hamilton lies buried in the churchyard nearby.

Inside the book cover I have these two pictures taped that were taken when my boyfriend, now husband, went to New York to visit my grandparents in August 1993.   My grandparents lived in Bronx, NY, but Anthony and I went into the city and made it up to the top of the Twin Towers.
   



How many of us have heard that question "Where was your GOD when the World Trade Center and the Pentagon was attacked?" Well I know where my GOD was the morning of September 11, 2001, and He was very busy!
He was trying to discourage anyone from taking these flights. Those four flights together held over 1000 passengers and there were only 266 aboard.
He was on 4 commercial flights giving terrified passengers the ability to stay calm. Not one of the family members who were called by a loved one on one of the hijacked planes said that passengers were screaming in the background. On one of the flights he was giving strength to passengers to try to overtake the hijackers.
He was busy trying to create obstacles for employees at the World Trade Center. After all, only around 20,000 were at the towers when the first jet hit. Since the buildings held over 50,000 workers, this was a Miracle in itself. How many of the people who were employed at the World Trade Center told the media that they were late for work or they had traffic delays.
He was holding up 2-110 story buildings so that 2/3 of the workers could get out. I was so amazed that the top of the towers didn't topple when the jets impacted. And when they did fall, they fell inward. GOD didn't allow them to topple over, as many more lives would have been lost.
And when the buildings went down, my GOD picked up almost 6,000 of his children and carried them home with him. Reassuring his frighten children that the worst was over and the best was yet to come.
He sat down and cried that 19 of His "misguided" children [terrorists] could have some much hate in their hearts. That they didn't choose Him, but another god that doesn't exist, and now they are lost forever.
He sent his children that are best trained for this disaster and had them save the few that were still alive, but unable to help themselves. And then sent many others to help in anyway they were needed.
He still isn't finished though, he held the love ones that were left behind in his arms. He comforts them daily. His other children are given the strength to reach out to them and help them in any way they can.
And I believe he will continue to help us in what is to come. He will give the people in charge of this great nation the strength and the wisdom to do the right thing. He would never leave us in our time of need.
So when anyone asks, "Where was your GOD on September 11", you can say "everywhere"! And yes, although this is without a doubt the worst thing I have seen in my life, I see God's miracles in every bit of it. I keep praying for those who don't believe in GOD, every chance I have. I can't imagine going through such a difficult time and not believing in GOD...
Life would be hopeless.
[Author Unknown]

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Sunday, September 4, 2016 Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta will be canonized a Saint! It's such an exciting and memorable day in our Church's history!  It's so exciting that I wanted to celebrate with a small family party to have my children remember not only the big day, but also to learn more about Mother Teresa and her saintly, beautiful ways she honored God. For our party, I used several of the 10 Simple Ways to Celebrate the Canonization of Mother Teresa with Your Family that I posted earlier this week.

We had our party yesterday, the Friday before the canonization, because it was such a rainy, cozy day with Tropical Storm Hermine dumping rain on us and we have a busy Labor Day weekend so Friday was the best day to get the party started!  Plus, celebrating early will hopefully make the Sunday canonization Mass more exciting for my family when we watch it on EWTN.

So how did we celebrate? Read on...

Decorations
I had very simple decorations.  On Thursday evening after my children went to bed I blew up some blue balloons, tied them with white curling ribbon to our dining room chandelier and then took two of my white candles and wrapped them each with blue paint tape. (I'll never look at blue paint tape the same again. :) )   Since Blessed Mother Teresa is known for wearing her three stripped blue and white sari as a Sister of the Missionaries of Charities, I went with the blue/white color theme.   While writing this post I learned about the Significance of Mother Teresa's Three Stripped Sari. 


I also added the Blessed Mother Teresa Tiny Saints charm to the white ribbons...


I wanted my children to add to the table decorations so they made marigolds out of orange and yellow tissue paper and pipe cleaners/chenille stems.  I found this craft idea at Crafty Chica through Elizabeth's blog at Coppertop Kitchen. Marigolds are used for celebrations in India, where Blessed Mother Teresa spent so much of her time and work to serve the poor.

Food
For food, we made homemade chocolate "canonization cupcakes" (I use the recipe on the back of the Hershey's unsweetened Cocoa can) with cream cheese icing that is a family favorite of ours for birthdays and special liturgical feast days!   For the cupcake decorations,  I downsized the Shining Light Dolls coloring page of St. Teresa of Calcutta that I saw on the Coppertop Kitchen post. I put 6 smaller images in a Word Document and my daughters and I colored them with coloring pencils.  I color copied the images to make multiple copies.  I then laminated the images with my favorite laminator, cut them out and taped a toothpick to each one. Finally, I sprinkled the cupcakes with blue Wilton sugar sprinkles.
Activities
I combined our celebration with our "Tea Time" we (try to) have on Thursday or Friday afternoons.  Tea Time is when we rarely have tea (this party was an exception with our Indian tea because my children prefer to drink milk/water), eat a sweet treat and read through and discuss the upcoming Sunday Mass readings.  Sometimes I print out the Gospel coloring pages for the upcoming Sunday Mass while we read through the scriptures.  But, this time I read out of the Sept. 4 MagnifiKid while my children colored Mother Teresa Quote Coloring Pages. It was great to see that the back cover had information about Blessed Mother Teresa in anticipation of her canonization so I read the information to my children.

 
After reading scripture, we listened to Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta Glory Stories CD from Holy Heroes.


On the CD about Saint Mother Teresa of Calcutta's life, it explains how Mother Teresa was taught as a young girl from her mother about remembering the Gospel on just 5 fingers. Then when Mother Teresa was a nun she taught her fellow Sisters the Gospel on 5 fingers.  The Gospel on 5 fingers is a tool used to remind you that when you love those around you and serve them, then you can be assured that you did it for God or "you did it for Me." 

So while we listened to the CD, I had my children trace one of their hands and then write the Gospel on 5 fingers that Mother Teresa learned and taught others. 

We also watched the video about  how the Catholic Church declares official Saints and a short short video on her life from my post 10 Simple Ways to Celebrate the Canonization of Mother Teresa with Your Family.  

I then read The Miracles Approved By the Church for the Canonization of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.  

The canonization of another Saint is worth celebrating for sure! I want my children to be excited about this historic day like the day that 2 Popes were canonized (Saint John XXII and Saint John Paul II) on Divine Mercy Sunday in 2014! One way we celebrated the canonization of the 2 Popes was by making a lapbook.  So this past week I prepared materials and information to have my children make a lapbook about Mother Teresa.

We all gathered at the dining room table again to make "The Canonization of Mother Teresa of Calcutta" lapbook that I designed by gathering information from several sources on Facebook and the internet. I saved the images and pasted them into a Word Document then printed the document out, one for each child.  Lapbooks can be as simple or as detailed as you want and the possibilities are endless! My goal was to create a lapbook that was simple and would be a great keepsake to remember this historic occasion.

I used one blue file folder and one tan file folder and stapled them together with each of their sides "back to back" to make a bigger lapbook.


Here is a close up of the graphic in the middle:



"We must not be surprised when we hear of murders, of killings, of wars, of hatred. If a mother can kill her own child, what is left but for us to kill each other." Mother Teresa