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On February 11, the Church celebrates another beautiful feast day, Our Lady of Lourdes.  This is one of my favorite Marian feast days because it commemorates the 18 apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Saint Bernadette Soubirous that occurred between February 11 and July 16, 1858 in Lourdes, France.  Our beautiful Lady eventually identified herself in an apparition on March 25 with the words, "I am the Immaculate Conception." If you aren't familiar with the story of St. Bernadette and Our Lady of Lourdes, you might be interested in reading 10 Things to Know About Our Lady of Lourdes and St. Bernadette. 


We celebrated Our Lady of Lourdes one day early with a simple craft due to a busy soccer tournament weekend for one of my daughters.  My three younger children did the craft while my two older children were attending their science and government co-op classes for the morning.

Last year we did a fun, simple craft as well so I wanted to find another activity that didn't take too much preparation due to our busy day.

I found free printables of Our Lady of Lourdes and the flowers at Rosary Mom.  After coloring and cutting the pictures, my daughters glued them to blue card stock and also glued the words "I am the Immaculate Conception" to the bottom of their paper that I printed out in a word document.


I then displayed their finished art work on our kitchen table along with a white statue of Mary that used to belong to my deceased grandparents, we read from the book Our Lady of Lourdes and from my favorite Saint book for children, Saints for Young Readers for Every Day, Vol. 1, and I put the Our Lady of Lourdes Shining Light Doll and St. Bernadette Tiny Saints charm in the tray.

We also enjoy watching a family favorite DVD from CCC of America called Bernadette: The Princess of Lourdes.  I'm amazed how well my children (and even myself) have remembered the facts about Our Lady of Lourdes from watching this animated movie over and over again through the years.




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Saint Blaise's feast day is celebrated on February 3rd.   In the morning I set up our St. Blaise peg doll and we read about St. Blaise during our Couch Catechism time from Saints for Young Readers for Every Day, Vol. 1.  The St. Blaise prayer card was given to my 3 year old during her Good Shepherd class that she takes at our parish.



St. Blaise lived in the 4th century and it's a tradition to have your throat blessed on his feast day, but why?

When Blaise was sent to prison to be beheaded because he was a persecuted Christian, a poor mother rushed up to him and begged him to save her child who was chocking to death on a fishbone.  The saint said a prayer quietly and blessed the child and the child's life was spared through this miracle.  So on St. Blaise's feast day throats are blessed by the priest as he crosses two candles because he is the patron of those with throat diseases.

We aren't able to get to Mass every year for this special feast day to have our throats blessed to ask God and St. Blaise to protect us from all sicknesses of the throat, but this year we were able to attend morning Mass.   I was able to snap a photo of our priest blessing the altar server with the two candles before each parishioner lined up to do the same.   While the candles are rested near the throat the priest says: 

"Through the intercession of Blessed Blaise, Bishop and Martyr, may you be delivered from all illnesses of the throat and any other ailments. In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen."


The Church is decorated with red linens and the priest wears red vestments because St. Blaise was a martyr for the faith.  His death was gruesome to say the least. From Franciscan Media: Agricolaus, governor of Cappadocia, tried to persuade Blaise to sacrifice to pagan idols. The first time Blaise refused, he was beaten. The next time he was suspended from a tree and his flesh torn with iron combs or rakes that are used to comb wool (and why he is the patron of not only those with throat ailments, but also English wool combers.)  Finally, he was beheaded. 

St. Blaise, pray for us! 

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On February 2nd, we celebrate the Presentation of our Lord, traditionally called Candlemas, which   commemorates the presentation of Christ in the temple and the ritual purification of the Virgin Mary. It falls exactly 40 days after Christmas.

On Candlemas candles are traditionally blessed. I didn't really know why candles were blessed until I saw this explanation on Jessica's blog at Catholic Cuisine: Candles are blessed on this day to help us remember the words of holy Simeon who called the babe in his arms, "A light to lighten the gentiles and the glory of your people, Israel."

This year we celebrated this feast day similar to last year, except this year we were able to attend the daily morning Mass and have some of our candles from our home blessed in our church's chapel. Then everyone processed into the main church with candles that were lit in the chapel.

Daily Mass attendees placed their candles onto the table so that our priest could bless them with holy water.  Then we everyone went into the church with a lit candle.

When we got home from Mass I set up our kitchen table with our blessed candles and opened the book Mary, the Mother of Jesus to the page about the Presentation of our Lord.



We also made our cookie candles with cookie drip plates like we did last year for this feast day.


On our table I also displayed the Joyful Mysteries and talked about how the 4th Joyful Mystery is the Presentation of Jesus in the temple.  The middle candle is the candle that was given to us at our wedding.  One of our relatives attached our wedding invitation to a candle and put a bead border around it.  The other candle in the photo below is my 9 year old daughter's candle she received at her First Holy Communion. 

Candlemas Cookies with cookie drip cake and lots of "wax" icing!




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February 1st is the feast day of Saint Brigid of Ireland.  There are so many interesting stories about her life! She was born around the year 450 A.D., just a few years before St. Patrick died.  Did you know that St. Patrick baptized St. Brigid and her parents? St. Brigid also once fell asleep during one of St. Patrick's sermons.  He found it humorous and forgave her with a smile. :) I recently wrote a post at EpicPew titled Here's 31 Things You Probably Didn't Know About St. Brigid of Ireland. Go check it out to find out a little bit more about one of Ireland's most beloved saints!

On her feast day we celebrated St. Brigid 3 simple ways that included reading the book, Brigid's Cloak, making a St. Brigid cross craft with colorful chenille sticks and making and eating homemade Irish soda bread that was delicious!


I got the easy and yummy homemade Irish soda bread recipe from Chris' blog at Campfires and Cleats.  This was the first time I made it and it was quick and came out so good!  Even my normally finicky eaters enjoyed the bread!

After eating some of the Irish soda bread warm with melted butter, we spent part of our daily Couch Catechism prayer time reading a little about her life from Saints for Young Readers for Every Day, Vol. 1 (My FAVORITE Saint books!!  There's also a Vol. 2 for July-December)


  We also read Brigid's Cloak which is a lovely story. 


A summary about this book from Amazon... Brigid's Cloak retells an ancient tale about one of Ireland's most beloved saints. On the day she is born Brigid receives a brilliant blue cloak from a mysterious Druid. Years later, the young girl still wears the now tattered but beloved cloak while she tends her sheep. Is it her imagination that suddenly takes her to an unfamiliar land? Or is it something far greater that leads Brigid to a crowded inn in a town called Bethlehem?

We then made St. Brigid's crosses with chenille sticks.  The story of her cross originated when St. Brigid was teaching a dying pagan chieftain about Christianity.  While her head was bowed she picked up the rushes (a common floor material in Irish homes) off the ground and began braiding them into a cross.  The chieftain asked Brigid about the cross and its meaning. He converted to Christianity and was baptized before his death.

The pattern for the cross is easy to follow.  We used the directions on Lacy's blog at Catholic Icing to make ours.



For more ideas on how our family has celebrated various feast days be sure to visit my A Slice of Liturgical Life page that I have compiled for ease of reference for others and myself! I hope readers will be inspired by some our family's liturgical celebrations that we have enjoyed doing in the past!



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We continued with our Pro-Life Prints activity booklet from Culture of Life Studies Program.  Yesterday my two youngest daughters completed Lesson 1: Preborn Babies.  Today we were really ambitious and finished Lessons 2, 3, and 4 mostly because of our family's busy Friday and weekend schedule.
Also, I wanted to have my posts published at the same time as the 44th annual March for Life on Friday, January 27, 2017 in Washington, DC. I won't be attending the March for Life this year, unfortunately, but I was blessed to attend in 2011, 2012 and 2015.  The marches that I have attended are also linked at the end of this post.

This afternoon my 2 youngest daughters and I got back to work again on their Pro-Life Prints.  Besides destroying my favorite laminator while laminating some of their prints that were still wet when I was in a hurry, it was a blessed day! (Uggghhh, I'm going to have to replace my laminator. :(  I was thinking about getting this one.)

Lesson 2: I Am Unique: "I praise you, because I am wonderfully made: wonderful are your works! My very self you know." -Psalm 139:14 (Psalm 139 is my favorite Psalm!)


In Lesson 2 we talked about how incredibly special each of us are and how there is no one else like you. How each of us have our own handprints and fingerprints, even identical twins have their own uniqueness!  So in this lesson my daughters painted a set of handprints, poppy flowers using their thumbs and bird prints because we discussed that if God takes care of the birds needs, surely he will never forsake us and He will take care of us.

Lesson 3: Helping Others: "Yet Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay and You our Potter: we are all the work of Your hand." -Isaiah 64:7

We talked about ways we can help our family and friends and they made a hand print of an elephant because in the book Horton Hears a Who, Horton understands that "A person's a person no matter how small."  One way to help others is to stand up for those who are smaller than us just as Horton guarded the precious flower that had the Whos in Who-ville living in the tiny speck on the flower.

In Lesson 3, my girls used cut celery to paint roses because roses are beautiful and delicate just like preborn babies!

Lesson 4: Praying for Others: "Yet Lord, You are our Father; we are the clay and You our Potter: we are all the work of Your hand."  -Isaiah 64:7 

Lesson 4 was a reminder that the world is a big place and each person on earth is the work of God's hand.  God loves us immeasurably and the hand prints were reminders of how we are to pray for everyone because all of us need prayers.

Here my daughters are painting their hand with different colors because we learned the five finger prayer as a way to remember who to pray for.

The thumb is closest to us on our bodies so we can pray for those closest to us: our family.

Then the index finger we can pray for teachers and those who instruct us.

The middle finger is the tallest and we can pray for those in authority which includes the president/vice-president, community leaders and even our Pope, Bishops and priests and religious.

The ring finger is the weakest finger so we can remember to pray for the weakest and most delicate in our society (preborn babies, elderly, those who are sick and disabled).

The pinkie finger reminds us to pray for ourselves last since we need prayers too!

Here are all the pages from Lessons 2, 3, and 4 to complete the Pro-Life Prints book.


After I get a new laminator and laminate the pages, I'll bind them together and each of my daughters will have a great keepsake book as a reminder to protect and pray for the culture of life.
 
Like I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I wanted to do this Pro-Life Prints book this week as a way to remember the annual March for Life that is today, Friday, January 27, 2017.  Since I won't be attending the March physically I will be there in spirit and prayers.

Here are the posts I wrote of the 3 March for Life marches I was able to attend so far...







I started a Pinterest Pro-Life board called "L.I.F.E. = Life Is For Everyone" awhile ago, where I have been collecting pro-life posts.  If you are interested in following the board go HERE and click on articles that interest you! 


 Have a blessed weekend!

   

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Today my two youngest daughters (ages 9 and 3) began another Culture of Life Studies Program called Pro-Life Prints. If you aren't familiar with Culture of Life Studies Program it's a fabulous, life-affirming resource that "strives to build a culture of life by helping students to understand the value of every human being and by inspiring a new generation of young people who will defend preborn children, respect all human beings from creation to death, and speak the truth with confidence in defense of the innocent."  Be sure to read more about the program, their reviews and program's components.

Pro-Life Prints comes as a digital download and includes everything you need (excluding art supplies) to make a beautiful and creative 12-page printable activity booklet.

• 4 lessons on the dignity of every person
• Instructor guide
• Discussion questions
• Complete handprint instructions
• Printable 13-page student book