Lent Is Here....

And we have a few plans for the family and specifically for the children in the hopes that at minimum Ben will understand that this is an important part of the liturgical year and to bring it to life a little. And if none of that happens this year at least we are starting some family traditions :)

I must be honest and say that I don't have a creative bone in my body and all of my plans comes from other bloggers or from posts at the 4Real forums. One of the beautiful things about the internet.....I don't NEED to have a creative bone in my body. And that makes me very happy!!

Below are 14 small votive candles to be used while praying the Stations of the Cross on Friday. As each station is completed Benjamin can blow out the corresponding candle. Hopefully keeping his attention and bringing a little mystery to the prayer as the room gets dimmer and dimmer as we progress.

Our rice bowl jar....which basically just means Mommy forgot to grab a rice bowl at church....twice....and so had to make her own LOL! Ahhh, whatever it all works the same.

The rice bowl will go with the Lent calendar below. Thank you so much Jessica for this wonderful idea.

The calendar helps us to focus on the three main Lenten practices to PRAY, FAST, and GIVE ALMS.

Each day of the week has a special area to focus on in prayer such as for an end to abortion, for our families, for Pope Benedict and priests. Under prayer we will also be praying a decade of the rosary each evening and stations of the cross on Fridays of Lent.

Instead of fasting for the little children who are too young to be obligated to fast and to young to understand what fasting is or means we will be focusing on giving food to the poor daily. I set up a shelf in the pantry with foods that Ben and Anna can pick each day to put into a special box we made up and when Lent is over we will donate the food to St. Vincent de Paul society.


The rice bowl will be our focus for giving alms. On the calendar there is something listed each day that Benjamin can count. Such as number of chairs in the house, number of shoes, number of pillows. Each day he will have something to count and he will receive a pennies for each thing counted to put in his rice bowl. At the end of Lent this money will be donated.

The calendar will be marked off each day so we can see the time passing as we get closer to Easter. It also has special feastdays we will be celebrating such as St. Patrick and St. Joseph.

WE hope you all have a fruitful Lent.