As our little two-year-old sponge grows, we are having more and more fun incorporating liturgical traditions in our home, in attempts to live out the domestic church.
"Marriage is an act of will that signifies and involves a mutual gift, which unites the spouses and binds them to their eventual souls, with whom they make up a sole family- a domestic church." -Pope John Paul II
The season of Lent is an important time of the year for us, in preparation of Easter. We chose a few activities to help Dominic participate in our lenten prayer, fasting and almsgiving.
Prayer
We made a little countdown calendar, offering up a prayer intention for each day of the week. We also prayed a family decade of the rosary for this intention. In addition, one storybook we really enjoyed was The Story of the Cross for Children, which we read together on Fridays while enjoying a Montessori style activity. I created a bag, filled with an object that represented each station of the cross (for example, a bandaid representing when Jesus fell, or in our terms "got a boo-boo"). Lastly, another story book that we enjoyed for lent was The Tale of Three Trees.
Fasting
To start teaching Dominic about fasting, we placed a big cardboard box in our dining room. Each day, Dominic picked out an item from the pantry to put in the box, to give to the poor, or those we did not have a meal that night. We also had a blast making delicious homemade pretzels, a traditional lenten food!
I am sure that over the years, we will encounter many more meaningful family lenten activities, but I thought it would be fun to document our first attempt!
Prayer
We made a little countdown calendar, offering up a prayer intention for each day of the week. We also prayed a family decade of the rosary for this intention. In addition, one storybook we really enjoyed was The Story of the Cross for Children, which we read together on Fridays while enjoying a Montessori style activity. I created a bag, filled with an object that represented each station of the cross (for example, a bandaid representing when Jesus fell, or in our terms "got a boo-boo"). Lastly, another story book that we enjoyed for lent was The Tale of Three Trees.
Fasting
To start teaching Dominic about fasting, we placed a big cardboard box in our dining room. Each day, Dominic picked out an item from the pantry to put in the box, to give to the poor, or those we did not have a meal that night. We also had a blast making delicious homemade pretzels, a traditional lenten food!
Almsgiving
We played a fun game together this year to represent almsgiving, by counting objects in our home (for example, the number of shoes in our closet). From there, we would place the same amount of coins in our coin box that was provided to us from our parish. So, if we counted 10 shoes, we placed ten coins in our box! We explained to Dominic that the money will go to the poor.
Another great almsgiving activity was our "bean jar". We got this idea from Holy Heroes Lenten Adventure. Whenever Dominic performed a good deed, we placed a bean in his jar. He worked hard to fill his jar, because he knew that on Easter, his beans would turn into jelly beans!
I am sure that over the years, we will encounter many more meaningful family lenten activities, but I thought it would be fun to document our first attempt!
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