Liturgical Year

Divine Mercy Sunday!

by jen.

The Painting of Divine Mercy by Adolf Hyla. The phrase at the bottom is Polish for "Jesus I trust in you." (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today is Divine Mercy Sunday! If a church near you is having a special Divine Mercy service, please consider attending! Our area is having theirs at 2:30p today and I hope to be there!

From the Divine Mercy Sunday website:

Yes, the first Sunday after Easter is the Feast of Mercy, but there must also be acts of mercy … I demand from you deeds of mercy, which are to arise out of love for Me. You are to show mercy to your neighbors always and everywhere. You must not shrink from this or try to excuse or absolve yourself from it” (742).

Thus, to fittingly observe the Feast of Mercy, we should:

1.    Celebrate the Feast on the Sunday after Easter;

2.    Sincerely repent of all our sins;

3.    Place our complete trust in Jesus;

4.    Go to Confession, preferably before that Sunday;

5.    Receive Holy Communion on the day of the Feast;

6.    Venerate* the Image of The Divine Mercy;

7.    Be merciful to others, through our actions, words, and prayers on their behalf.

Please visit The Divine Mercy for more information on Divine Mercy Sunday and St. Maria Faustina Kowalska. Last year, I attended a conference on Divine Mercy and shared the Chaplet of Our Lady of Divine Mercy.

Have mercy on us and on the whole world!

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Ten Clutter-Free Easter Basket Ideas

Mar 20th, 2012

by jen.

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Easter Surprise 2007 (Photo credit: otzberg)

The longer I have kids, the more I’m a fan of making presents of things I’d buy them anyway. And even more so, I like to get them things that can be used up or go outdoors. This is especially true of Easter. That being said, here are my top 10 clutter-free Easter basket themes.

Outside play (little kids)
- no tip bubble buckets
- chalk
- play balls
- umbrella
- raincoat
- galoshes

Outside play (big kids)
- hula hoop
- kickballs
- jump rope
- baseball & bat
- Velcro catch game
- any other summer sport gear

Gardening
- garden tote
- tools
- seeds/plants
- gardening gloves
- pots for plants

Exploring Your World
- bug jar
- butterfly net
- magnifying glass
- field guides (trees, insect, birds)
- bird feeder

Beach
- inflatable beach toys/rafts
- sand tools/bucket
- googles
- swimsuit
- dive rings
- squirt guns
- water balloons
- water balls

Art Supplies
- coloring books
- crayons
- markers
- activity books
- good drawing paper
- paints
- watercolors
- oil pastels
- chalk pastels
- how to draw books

Dental items
- yummy toothpaste
- cool toothbrushes
- fancy new electric toothbrush
- kid flossers

Food Gear
- new plate/silverware/bowl/cup sets
- new sippy/travel cup or water bottle
- personalized lunch bag

Food
Or you can go literal like my step mother did one year. She packed an Easter basket full of treats like juice boxes, single serve goldfish, and single serve Teddy grahams.

It was perfect to take down to Florida. You could customize this for all age kids and include foods that normally never grace your doorstep, but that they really like.

Socks
I bought all the girls socks/tights for the year this time. I add this on to another theme to make it look like they are getting a lot .

What kinds of things do you put in Easter baskets?

This post will be linked to Top 10 Tuesday @ Many Little Blessings.

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Lent 2012

Feb 21st, 2012

by jen.

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Image via Wikipedia

First,for the girls (age 1 & 4). We will be using the following resources for Lent this year:

Lent/Catholic Resurrection Eggs @ Catholic Icing

Stations of the Cross on Fridays

Bring Lent To Life by Kathleen M Basi (see my review @ Catholic Mothers Online) and Welcome Risen Jesus by Sarah Reinhard.

Lenten Countdown Calendar @ Catholic Icing

Holy Heroes Lenten Adventure

It sounds like a lot and I’m sure that we will remove some things as we determine what catches her interest.

As far as Lent for ME goes, I have several things in mind.

Prayer

I’m going to continue my daily Rosary as that is one of my new habits for the month. I’m going to add in Stations of the Cross on Friday’s. I also have a daily mediation book for Lent from the Magnificat folks that I will read.

Penance

This one is the hardest because it’s so subjective. As always, we will eat very simply every day (less dessert, no pop, fewer sides, etc), no meat on fridays, probably less on Wednesdays, renewed effort to eat out as little as possible. Friday Fish Fry’s are not included in this of course .

If you are interested, Katie @ Kitchen Stewardship (who I’ve known since kindergarten), is having a sale on her Everything Beans Book until Midnight tonight. If you enter code NOTAFISHFRY at checkout, you will only pay $3! If you are looking for new meatless meals or want to get to know beans better, this is a great resource that I will be using this Lent myself.

Due to the fact that I still nurse frequently (mostly at night!), I’m not going to be officially fasting according to the normal definition of fasting. I will, however, be fasting from certain frequently used items (especially junky ones) in my diet as a form of penance. Even though Sunday’s are not included in Lent, we don’t take Sunday’s off.

I may watch The Passion of the Christ. I haven’t seen it yet. I think I have a shot at watching little pieces of it while kiddo’s are asleep. I’ve never had that before. And I’m scared to death. Hopefully hubby will hold my hand and watch it with me.

Almsgiving

We will be doing the Rice Bowl thing this year, I think. Now that Lil Bit is into counting the calendar with money associated with numbers of items will be concrete for her.

What kind of things have you done during Lent?

This post will be linked to Catholic Blog Day.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links.

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Bring Lent to Life {Book Review @ Catholic Mothers Online}

Feb 19th, 2012

by jen.

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I had the opportunity to review Bring Lent to Life for Catholic Mothers Online.

I’ve got a huge list of someday items for Lent. Why someday? Because they just don’t work in my current life. My children are young (4 and 1) and many activities are either over their heads or over their tolerance level. When I read Bring Lent to Life by Kathleen M Basi, however, I was stoked to find activities that my 4 year old would get!

To read the rest of my review about this awesome resource, go to Catholic Mothers Online!

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Hang Your Stockings on the Feast of St. Nicholas {Catholic Mothers Online}

Nov 28th, 2011

by jen.

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Image via Wikipedia

I recently wrote an article about hanging stockings on the Feast of St. Nicholas @ Catholic Mothers Online.

Last year, I felt that it was important for our family to be a little more authentic in how we celebrate the Christmas season. Because I feel that baby steps are important, we started with the Feast of St. Nicholas. St. Nicholas was a bishop in Turkey who was known for assisting the needy, sick and suffering people. There are several stories of St. Nicholas providing money and help to those in need and he became widely popular in Europe.

Go to Catholic Mothers Online and read the rest!!