It's Luke's nameday...Pray for Us Saint Luke the Evangelist

 

Today is the Feast of Saint Luke.  My little Luke's nameday.

I found this great printable coloring page over at Color The Bible.

We colored them with our Prismcolor colored pencils and when they hang on the back door they look just like stained glass.

Then Luke got to make his first cake, all by himself.

He made a Betty Crocker Cinnamon Bun cake. (Of course I didn't get the mix from Amazon...I spent $1.28 at Walmart)

Luke cracked all three eggs without allowing one piece of shell to fall.

The best part of baking.

Into the oven.

Frosted and decorated.

\

Saint Luke, pray for us.

St, Brigid's Feast Day-Repost (boy, my babies were little)

Thanks to Cay, and her book, Catholic Mosaic, today we learned the beautiful story of St. Brigid, whose feast day we celebrate on February 1st.

Brigid's Cloak-An Ancient Irish Story "is the tale of one of Ireland's beloved saints, who receives a wondrous blue cloak as a little girl. Years later, she is still wearing the now-ragged cloak as fate and wonder lead her to a crowded inn within the town of Bethlehem, where she meets the baby Jesus Christ and his family. Deftly written by Bruce Milligan, and beautifully illustrated by Helen Cann, Brigid's Cloak is highly recommended for young readers as a compassionate and charming story with mystical color illustrations. "Midwest Book Review

After reading the story (several times) I printed a picture of St. Brigid, and using some blue fleece I found in my fabric stash, we formed the fleece around the picture to resemble a cloak. I used a glue gun to secure it together because I wanted to hang it on our "learning wall". After it was together, we used star stickers to decorate it. This was certainly Kim and Luke's favorite part.

To finish, I printed the Irish blessing, "May God keep you safe under St. Brigid's cloak" and tucked it along side the cloak. It is a now a wonderful reminder of a wonderful saint.

National Shrine of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha

Today we spent a wonderful day at the National Shrine of Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha.

We attended Mass in the morning with some new friends and then toured the beautiful grounds of this lovely, peaceful shrine.

Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha lived most of her life at this location in NY along the Mohawk River.

Luke praying the Glory Be prayer.....it is the prayer we learned this past week and he prayed it so reverently, I know his prayers were heard.

Inside the chapel where we attended Mass.

It is a church restored in the Mohawk tradition and just beautiful. Although a bit cold this morning....the Chapel closes next week because it is unheated and our central New York winters are very harsh. In fact, this morning I believe we could see our breath during Mass.

Luke at the altar railing.

The log beams across the ceiling of the church were carved with scenes of the life of Blessed Kateri.

The carving depicting Blessed Kateri's baptism, which took place at this location.

The altar

A symbol of the Turtle Clan inside the chapel

This rosary is amazing. It is made out of slices of wood along with beads. It was very unique.

There is also a very nice Native American museum on the grounds.

This is an cornhusk doll made in 1938.

(This isn't how our cornhusk dolls look)

a dreamcatcher

Kimmy getting "into" history.

I love this crucifix

The painting below is decribe above.

Amazingly, this was painted in 1681, a year after Blessed Kateri died.

The day warmed a little on our walk. We headed to the Tekakwitha spring.

The leaves are all on the ground now, but it was still gorgeous.

The Tekakwitha Spring.

There have been many miracles associated with this spring.

This is where the water came from with which Blessed Kateri was baptised on April 5, 1676

The grotto at the spring

A tombstone and statue are at the site of the only fully excavated Iroquois village.

The Shrine and grounds are lovingly taken care of by the Conventual Franciscans.
Words to live by.....

Miracle of the sun spinner

This week we read about Our Lady of Fatima.

Today, October 13, is the anniversary of the Miracle of the Sun witnessed by 70,000 people.

Catholic Icing had this neat craft to commemorate the day.

All that you need is a circle of foam board, markers, and string or embroidery floss.
Simple color your "sun" on both sides of the circle.
Attached the string and make your "sun" dance.
All the information to make these is on the Catholic Icing site. (I wouldn't want to claim this is my own---because I would have never thought of anything like this)

Gracie making her "sun" spin....it takes a while to get the hang of it, but eventually, even the little kids were able to spin their suns.

Love is a Choice: The Life of St. Gianna Molla

As a Catholic Company Reviewer I was very pleased to receive the dvd: Love is a Choice-The Life of St. Gianna Molla. This is a very moving video that I enjoyed along with my husband and three of my teenagers. In fact, my 13 year old said that she may pick St. Gianna as her confirmation patron, she was so impressed with the story.

What makes this video extremely special is that is incorporates many old family movies, personal photos and love letters written between St. Gianna and her husband Pietro.

St. Gianna Molla was born the tenth of thirteen children in Milan Italy. She lost three siblings at a young age, and at 15, when her sister died, she learned the lessons of great love and great loss. She wrote, " As to the past, let us entrust it to Divine Mercy, the future to Divine Providence. Our task is to live holy the present moment."

We learn of her great love for her husband, Pietro, through love letters. St. Gianna sent Pietro 73 letters over 6 years when business took him away from the family.

When pregnant with her 4th child, it is discovered that Gianna has cancer and to save her life, she is told she should have an abortion. Gianna's only concern is for her unborn baby. St. Gianna makes the sacrifice of her own life, just days after giving birth to a healthy baby girl.

The scenes at the end of the video of St. Gianna's canonization, while her husband and children look on are priceless. The clip of Pietro, 92, as he stands to greet Pope John Paul II brought tears to our eyes.

One of Gianna Molla's girlhood friends say, "Gianna was not extraordinary, but she lived a saintly life as wife and mother."

In these times we live in, amidst the world's culture of death, we need this wonderful saint, a wife and mother, to show us that "Love is a Choice". And we can choose everyday to "live holy the present moment" as we all strive toward sainthood.

St. Gianna Molla, pray for us!

This review was written as part of the Catholic Book Reviewer program from the Catholic Company. Visit the Catholic Company to find more informations on Love is a Choice(DVD).

A Plug for Coloring

I hope everyone had a wonderful Saint Patrick's Day. I wanted to take this opportunity to tell everyone about my favorite resources for coloring pages of saints, especially fitting on this saint's day. The coloring book I used today is the

Fenestrae Fidei: A Coloring Companion for Catholic Mosaic
"This beautiful, original coloring book features a coloring page for every saint and feast day included in Catholic Mosaic, as well as about 20 others. There are four coloring pages per month. Click on the List of Illustrations link below to see all the saints and feasts included. All artwork is the original work of Sean Fitzpatrick and it is done in an iconic style. We thought that this style fit best with the "mosaic" theme. Each picture looks like a stained glass window. While older students will enjoy coloring intricate details of the drawings, this book could be enjoyed by a child as young as 6 years old." Hillside Education

I love the stained glass look of these pictures.

Our learning wall--Saint Patrick style.

My other favorite site to print pictures of saints for coloring is over at the Waltzing Matilda blog. Charlotte has blessed us all with her talent that she shares with everyone. You can find all her coloring pages along the right hand side of her blog.

Happy coloring!!

Religious Images-into-Christmas Ornaments

I have had this idea for combining Advent feast day images and Christmas decorations for quite a while and I am very excited at how they turned out. Of course, they are still very child friendly in their preparation-as it should be-when you live with so many children

I made a simple frame out of fun foam. I cut out two of these, and also printed two copies of the pictures I wanted to use. Today we made Juan Diego and the image of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception.

I also wanted to make sure to include a review for this new product I discovered at the store yesterday. Elmer's Shimmer and Shine art glaze. It has little confetti mixed into it and brushes on smoothly. We give it 2 thumbs up.

I didn't take pictures of the production of these, but they are pretty straight forward. I made these two so that they have the same picture on each side, but I won't do this again, it is not needed, I will just cover the back with a solid piece of foam. I also haven't added something to hang them with yet. I am going to use pretty ribbon, and using a needle will add this to the top for hanging.

The embellishments are just the glitter glue and stickers. You can't get any easier that that. Of course, there are many things you could add, like lace, small silk flowers and ribbon, but I wanted the kids to be able to do the decorating themselves, so stickers are what we used.

I have the pictures printed out for Our Lady of Guadalupe and St. Lucy. We will make these on their feast days. I also plan to do one of a picture of the Nativity, and maybe other Advent figures like John the Baptist and the Angel Gabriel--OK, this might continue to grow and grow.....