As Lent Begins...

We've all decided what we're going to sacrifice - each child came up with their own. And what family and personal prayer we're going to add into our days plus Lenten Adventure...

I'm a little sad. I love Lent. But the schedule of prayer and fasting will preclude me from doing any crafty, cool activities for Lent that we've done to describe it to the little kids in the past. They mostly understand and don't need the crafty activities. Then, I know, that just doing life and adding these times of prayer and sacrifice will take God's grace to get me through. I know--that's the point--relying on God alone. But I also know how much of a struggle it is to do and how much I fail. Today is busy with activities and checking each other's foreheads to see whose ashes have wiped off -- but I'm very reflective, considering the burden that sacrifice brings...and hoping for the strenth of God to carry me.

Holy Thursday, Good Friday, Holy Saturday

I think we'll ditch formal school for the rest of this Holy Week.
Holy Thursday
This morning we'll clean the house so we can move on to more important things.
I've been having the kids make clothes pin apostles and we'll finish those (God willing). (another pic)
After lunch I'll have the kids make an Easter Triptych. I think we'll try folding and sealing them with glue.
We'll also work on making our own Stations of the Cross. All my efforts at crafts this Lent have been in vain. Babies really get in the way of spending time on such things. We'll see how much we can do today.
I may go to Holy Thursday Mass, either by myself or with kids who want to go. Dave will stay home with the baby and non-participating kids.

Good Friday
Dave is home that day. In the morning we'll finish up the Stations of the Cross (or start them as the case may be). I like the idea of blowing out candles with each station so the room is dark by the time you get to Jesus' death. I think the boys in particular will like doing it that way.
Dave will take various children to Good Friday service. I'll stay home with the baby and maybe some kids. I'm hoping to pray this Stations of the Cross sometime this Triduum. It sounds silly, even to my own ears, that I have doubts about even getting such a fundamental prayer accomplished, but recent history has let me know that my plans barely factor in to how our hours will be spent. I love the idea of silence during the hours of 12-3 on Good Friday, but I can't even get the kids to keep things down to a low roar while the baby is obviously asleep -- I'm not sure how I'd get silence, or even whispers accomplished.

I may have the boys use the apostle dolls we finished above to act out the crucifixion.

Holy Saturday
If we have time and Dave doesn't have another agenda, I'd like to make a paper mache tomb from a tissue box. Then we'll prepare our clothes and ourselves for the coming CELEBRATION!

Stations of the Cross Booklets

Stations of the Cross Booklets for Kids

• I really liked the pictures in this free online coloring book.
• I click the "Print" button in the PDF file.
• Then the "Properties" button within the print box.
• Then the "Finishing" tab.
• Half-way down the page on the left-hand side, I choose the "Pages per sheet" pull-down menu and select "4".
• Then I hit "OK"
• I chose to only print pages 1-16 since 17 is blank and it prints out pages we can cut, color & staple for a Stations of the Cross booklet the kids can take to Stations with them.

I'll follow the advice from the Remain in Me book I just got from CHC. It suggests having the kids put their own meditations on the page opposite the picture they colored for each station. I love the sisters that run those schools: Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist. The kids call them "Mama's Nuns", because I pray for them and love them so much. They host a married women's Catholic retreat in Advent that is sooo wonderful!!

The RHYTHM of our school year

We usually start school Aug 1st (or the Monday of that).

• My allergies and one of my kid's allergies start right about then, so we prefer to be in air conditioning then, anyway.
• The kids have had a full summer and are getting bored with the park, etc. and are in need of structure (and behave better with a school schedule than without one).
• Indiana is HOT in August.

We go full speek ahead all August, September, October & November.

• A new school year is relatively exciting and so many of us are eager to begin a fresh new year.
• We get into a much better groove in Autumn than we do in winter and we get sooo much school done, that I'm pleased to have our autumn session last 4 months rather than 3.

We take about 6-8 weeks off school for Advent & Christmas and don't start back until after Epiphany.

• The stress (mine) of trying to have a wonderful Christmas with crafts to celebrate the liturgical season, helping the kids make presents & cards, keeping the house clean while we redecorate (which is what it feels like we do every Christmas) baking, watching our budget.... it would overwhelm me if I tried to do all that with the full-time job of teaching.
• I don't want to rush Advent & Christmas, I want to treasure and savor them as special family times. If I'm a maniac...not going to be so special around here. I know my limitations -- and this is one of them.
• I also want the kids to feel the rhythm of living the liturgical year and taking time off our regular books really feels special to all of us after working as hard as we did all autumn long.
• Many times taking that time off allows us to do more intimate learning than we normally do with our classical curriculum - a unit study, more in depth saint studies, memorizing all the verses to treasured hymns, more read alouds... Summer has too many pool party & park invitations to get more than a subject or two (if that) accomplished, so this is our chance to try on a completely different learning lifestyle than we normally feel comfortable with.
• I don't think I'd feel comfortable taking that time off if we didn't have almost 1/2 a year under our belt by that time.

We school from Epiphany (around January 6th) until around the end of April.

• Our school work never reaches the finely-tuned schedule & as effortless teamwork that happened in the fall. We try and have fun, but we're often bored with school, bored with housework, bored with lighting fires and baking cookies, sometimes bored with each other. It's hard work and we just have to do it. Many times we're stuck in the house due to weather or illness of one or more children for one or more weeks. Our hope is all pinned on spring during those dark, often sick, sometimes dreary days of winter.
• As the hard work of Lent becomes Easter and we celebrate new life, we work hard to finish up for the year while spring touches the air (and quickens our hearts).
• As we get subjects completed for the year (often a child, then two, then more will complete their Grammar program, then spelling, possibly math) I fill them in with alternate curriculum, but don't stress it at all. The kids have done of full year of that subject and it's really just to keep them busy while I focus on completing things with their siblings or have them spend more time in an uncompleted subject.
• Completing subjects makes for each week of spring having a lighter and lighter work load and all of us getting outside earlier in the day.
• I get REALLY antsy about April and can hardly stand to be in the house when my garden is calling to me. So, we really like getting done earlier - which ties into why we start earlier...

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust

It's so comforting in an odd reflective way. I can only expect so much of myself, because compared to His glory, I'm only ashes. Yet, it's these ashes that He has done so much for and is willing to continue to shower his love upon.

Wearing them around town is stating my brokenness - in a healthy, whole way.

Today, we've been preparing our minds for Lent. We've been preparing our bodies (with abstinance and fast) for Lent. We've been preparing our home (with purple) for Lent. We've been preparing our spirits (with reflections on our own sinfulness and what we need to do to be in unity with Christ) again.

Yes, we've been doing a lot of preparing our spirits. The children each asked if they could make a prayer book for their lenten prayer time. Yes, my loves, you can approach the King of kings with quiet and reverence.

And preparing our home. We'll redo the children's alter and allow them to make it their own. We have a set of melaware purple plates & bowls we use for every meal time during Lent (it was really cheap end of summer @ Meijer). I often hang a poster that has a large crown of thorns drawn on it and each child can make a flower out of their color of napkin for each act of love (you know those cheap ones with 4 colors in a pkg of 500 for $2.50) and tape it on the crown of thorns giving Jesus a crown of flowers by the end of Lent. We cover many of our statues with purple cloth (my husband hates that part - thinks it looks dumb). It's a painful exercise because seeing the emptiness where our beloved Mother should be is jarring for the children and me. It really reminds us on a moment-to-moment basis that this is a special time to strive for reconciliation.

Schoolwork will continue...with the hardship of trying to peacefilled and loving in our interactions with eachother - hard in the middle of daily stress, but oh, so important. It bears beautiful fruit in our lives.

Knowing that when Daddy comes home, we'll go to Mass to receive the outward sign of ashes to show the world what we've been preparing our spirits for. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust...it really is a comforting time of knowing where we're headed (tword Christ in Easter, but through his pain and suffering) and knowing He'll be there to help us every step and fall we make.

It happens without noticing

It happens every year. In January or February, I want to start planning for next year's school and my garden and my summer. But I feel so burdened by the stuff around me holding me down. I feel inefficient and ineffective. I start reorganizing, cleaning and reprioritizing. It's a labor of love and it feels so freeing. For several years I looked at this occurance as a pattern of failure. I'm not good at keeping up on my house and let it get out of control. I'm more materialistic than I realize and allow us to collect too much stuff. I'm not focussed enough on hommaking and making our home a reflection of Christ. Then I started seeing more to the pattern.

This pattern of seeing all the things in my home that need thrown away and working on my un-organized school happens to me year after year in January & February. I don't do resolutions for the New Year, so why the push in January? I've decided that it has so much more to do with Lent than with January being a new year.

By the time Lent comes, I've usually gotten things to a place where I can ignore my surroundings (because it's not in my way) and focus on the interior things holding me back. The sacrifices of Lent aren't so hard, because the exterior of my life has more order. The exterior chaos in my life has quieted, so I can listen to the interior chaos and allow Him to give me rest & peace. After just going through the pattern of seeing the dis-ordered places in my life and making them ordered, it isn't as difficult to look at the sin in my life, the dis-ordered parts of me, and allowing God to put them in His order through the help of the Holy Spirit and coming to Him in Reconciliation. I don't see my sin as a monster I can't control, but an opportunity to come home to Him. Not a seperation I can never breach, but His hand held out to me to draw me close and give me His peace, His order.

I'm AMAZED that God uses this same pattern in other people's lives, too! A sister on the Oro Et Laboro board noticed this January pattern, too. The fact that we can see these patterns says to me that God is faithful in our lives and is really allowing us to live out, even in our interiror lives, the ebb and flow of His liturgical year. I had wanted to live by His order, but didn't know how. I made an effort, but didn't know how to internalize it. So many people looked so much more faithful than I felt. All I could do was try and live out the liturgical year externally - and try to give my children the chance to internalize God's order. All I can do is all I can do and that is to continue to try, even in the face of my failings. In the face of my not being a good enough house keeper, he has cleared the way to make my path straight - straight to Him and who He made me to be. The ebb and flow of the liturgical year is a beautiful thing to live out. He is the "order" in electron patterns. He is the "order" in the change of seasons and He is the "order" in our lives. (Like, we say it -- but it's so cool to see it!)