Saturday, September 3, 2016

How Our Family Celebrated the Canonization of Mother Teresa!


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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.

We made Organic India Tulsi Sweet Rose tea to remember how Mother Teresa did her missionary work in Calcutta in India.

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.

When stapled together and folded, the front looks like this. 

We spent alot of time on these lapbooks because there was a lot of cutting and pasting involved. (I think I got carried away finding so many great images/quotes to use in the lapbook and Mother Teresa has said so many beautiful, inspiring and profound words! 

(For a wonderful list of graphics with quotes by Mother Teresa, be sure to read Seven Quick Takes No. 123: Celebrating Mother Teresa's Canonization from Emily M. DeArdo and Mother Teresa Quotes from Homeschool with Love. )  

Here are the finished lapbooks!
  
And here is what was included in them.  (Besides the cover and one image on the blue folder on the inside, my children were free to glue down the other images anywhere they liked.) 

Cover: I typed out "The Canonization of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta" on my computer and on the left side, my daughter glued 2 of the Mother Teresa Quote Coloring Pages.  The image of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta was found HERE

Inside blue folder:  More Mother Teresa Quote Coloring Pages on the sides and in the center I found this timeline graphic on Roaming Catholics page.  So I shared it on my blog Facebook wall and copied and pasted it into a Word Document, then printed it.

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


Inside tan folder: Love Like Mother Teresa coloring page, Prayer of Mother Teresa, the beautiful images came from Emily's blog post Seven Quick Takes No. 123: Celebrating Mother Teresa's Canonization, and then I copied the details of the 2 miracles that allowed Mother Teresa to be declared a Saint.  I found the miracles information at The Miracles Approved By the Church for the Canonization of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta.


Outside flap: The image of Mother Teresa jump roping with an orphan (I love this one by the way!) was found on my Facebook news feed that was shared by several friends of mine.  The image below that I found on Seven Quick Takes No. 123: Celebrating Mother Teresa's Canonization and states:

"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 



Back of lapbook:  The handprint showing Mother Teresa's Gospel in 5 Fingers, "You did it to Me" and an image found on Word on Fire Facebook page:



Some of my children also pasted this image onto their lapbook which is so beautiful also: 



Just after we finished making our lapbooks and wrapping things up, we received the St. Teresa of Calcutta Shining Light Doll in the mail that I ordered at the beginning of the week! We love these dolls and are happy to add St. Teresa of Calcutta to the Shining Light Dolls we already own:  St. Nicholas, Our Lady of Guadalupe and Our Lady of Fatima.
We had a great afternoon and though it was a long celebration (according to my children), they admitted it was a fun time. :)   We can't wait for the actual canonization Mass on Sunday, September 4, 2016 on EWTN to make our celebration weekend even better! 

For more ideas on how to celebrate the canonization of Mother Teresa on Sept. 4, 2016 and her feast day on Sept. 5, visit Jessica's post Commemorating the Canonization of Mother Teresa {and "Works of Love Are Works of Peace" Giveaway!}

St. Teresa of Calcutta, pray for us!

 
*Linked this post to #WorthRevisit at Reconciled to You and Theology is a Verb

8 comments:

Martianne said...

I have had a trying summer and it did not let up this past week at all, so I have done NOTHING for the canonization save read some to my children about Mother Teresa. SOOOOO glad you had such a BEUATIFUL and MEANINGFUL celebration and even happier that you shared about it in such detail so that if I can manage to rally for tomorrow, I can borrow ideas. THANK YOU! <3

Martianne,
I'm sorry to hear about your tough summer. Reading books about Mother Teresa is a perfect way to commemorate this special occasion! Thanks for stopping in and have a wonderful day celebrating this special Saint however is best for your family! :)

Chris said...

Amazing wealth of ideas...but not only that, I'm so impressed with how you orchestrated the food, decor and lap books, plus stories about St Teresa of Calcutta ( how strange and how amazing not to just say "Mother Teresa" but to call her a saint now!!)

Your kids are so blessed to have you as their mom and their religion teacher. .... ANd how inspiring that they learned SO much and sat for so long to put those beautiful keepsake books together with the ics, quotes...wow. What a fantastic day! Another successful celebration around our faith and church at the Smith household!

Thx so much for sharing! I will def be reading the links with my own fam today, esp the significance of the stripes...and a few others...... And we're making those cupcakes too!

xoxoxo

anonymous said...

Love this. Thank you! Better late than never so we try implement some of these ideas tomorrow! God bless from UK

Thank you Chris for stopping in and as always, for your kind comments! I hope you enjoyed the links! I'm learning so much about St. Teresa of Calcutta (and yes, it is strange to not call her Mother Teresa any longer) everyday! She is such a beautiful light in our darkened world!

Thank you "Anonymous" for stopping in to visit and comment! I'd say it's never too late to celebrate this great Saint! May you continue to celebrate her and be inspired by her today, tomorrow and always!

Absolutely beautiful. It makes me wish that my children were young again or that I had grandkids. My hubby and I celebrate in small ways. this year a local school with Mother Teresa's namesake had a big celebration which we were lucky enough to attend. Mass was celebrated by the Archbishop, a simple "soup kitchen" lunch was served and we painted pottery bowls for the local Empty Bowls Program.

Hi Candy!

Thanks so much for your visit and comment! What a wonderful way to celebrate St. Teresa's canonization! I'm sure the Mass was beautiful and what a great idea to serve lunch and donate bowls! Love these ideas! I'm glad you had such a memorable and meaningful celebration! God bless! St. Teresa of Calcutta pray for us!

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