Lent and Easter
Easter is central to our faith! Here are some ideas for taking the journey of Lent and then celebrating Easter with your family:
~ change the colour of your prayer space to purple ~On Ash Wednesday, plant a bean seed as an outward sign of growing to be more like Jesus throughout our Lenten observances. Look after it and ask Jesus to help you grow. You might even like to talk to your children about the link between ashes and how they help things to grow. ~ talk as a family about what you might give up for Lent, and what you might take up. Can you skip icecream and give your icecream money to the needy? Will you go to a weekday Mass together? ~ Participate in as many of the Holy Week liturgies and activites as you can. ~ Make a Bible dress up box so that little ones can ‘play’ stories like Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. ~ Bring home the palm from Mass on Passion Sunday and place it on your family's prayer space. ~ Carve and paint a family Paschal Candle, and light it each night of the 50 days of the Easter season (ideas on Catholic Icing here). You might even get a priest to bless it, or bring it to the Vigil Mass, and light it from the new Paschal Candle there! On Holy Thursday...~ re-enact the last supper by sharing a meal around a low table, sharing bread and wine and telling the story.
~ Wash each other's feet on Holy Thursday and read the story from the bible. ~ Read or tell your children the Easter Story On Good Friday...~ Take a journey through the Stations of the Cross with your family. Prehaps
light a candle for each station and pray a small reflection. Or use small symbols to meditation on Christ's Passion. You can download a list of symbols you could use here:
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Holy Week activity booklet
Here is the Holy Week Activity Booklet we have put together for our kids, based around the daily readings of Holy Week for 2014. We hope you enjoy it!
Telling the Story...You can make a 'tomb' out of an empty box, and on Good Friday, place a figurine of Jesus, wrapped in a cloth (or tissue) inside. Seal the entrace with a 'rock' (or scrunched up paper bag). Post soldiers (duplo or leggo men will do!) to guard the tomb. On Easter morning, the kids wake to see Jesus alive, the solidiers fallen over, the rock rolled away and an angel. If you like, you can hide eggs in the empty tomb.
Ressurection CookiesResurrection Cookies are great 'object lesson' about the Jesus' suffering, and ressurection!! A definite keeper this one! Read scriptures as you make them, and on Easter morning, the 'tomb' is empty!! Tastes great too.
Celebrating EasterChange your prayer space to white! What symbols can you add to remind you of the new life Jesus gives?
As well as hunting for chocolate eggs, why not hunt for 'Resurrection Eggs' too? Empty eggs remind us of the empty tomb Easter morning. You can remind your kids about this as they eat their treats! |