Our Journey to Easter

In order to get our hearts and minds ready to fully celebrate the joys of Easter, we spent the forty+ days of Lent reminding ourselves of Jesus' love and journey to the cross through prayer, fasting, and almsgiving.

We made it our goal to not just pray in the car before we head somewhere, but we made a conscious choice to pray the rosary.  Xavier, especially, has been very good about reminding us to pray - oftentimes yelling "pray!" before we have even buckled our seatbelts and left the driveway.  We also spent extra time in the church after school to say hello to our friend, Jesus, and thank him for all the good and help us conquer the bad in our lives.

Fasting was a little tricky.  We tried extra hard to not have any treats, but we bent the rules a little due to birthdays and other special events that occurred during Lent.  We also tried extra hard to eat at home and not go out to eat, but sometimes we just had to make do - especially on road trips and when we lacked the planning.

Regarding almsgiving, Lissie has had a special devotion to the homeless, and we continued to keep and pass out blessing bags to the needy.  We also helped out at Nashville Rescue Mission one morning as we helped feed a Valentine's Day lunch to those who were there.

And, of course, the Catholic school teacher in me wanted to make sure my kids understood the way of the cross, so starting on Ash Wednesday, we did a few other things to help us be ready:

• On Mardi Gras, we colored "Alleluia" pictures and then on Ash Wednesday we stuffed them in an envelope that we weren't able to open until Easter morning.  We also made purple crosses to decorate our prayer corner.

• We began our Lenten Countdown and started our Good Deed Jar, where we kept track of all of our good deeds by putting dried beans in a jar.  

It evolved into coloring the entire paper purple - except for the squares!

• On Fridays, we either went to a Stations of the Cross or did our Montessori-esque Stations of the Cross kit that I made a few years ago.

Holy Week was, of course, a busy one for us, too, as we followed Jesus' journey through stories and activities.

• On Palm Sunday, the kids made paper palms to take to church to have in addition to the real palms.  We colored Palm Sunday pictures.  We also had Palm Sundaes for dessert (which was a treat, I know, but they were so good during the loooooong Mass that I needed to thank them - and what better excuse than this since it fit the theme of the day!

• Starting Tuesday night, we did the kids' versions of Resurrection Eggs that they made in school.  
• Holy Thursday we baked unleavened bread and read the story of the Last Supper before having our own special "last lunch."

• On Good Friday, we ate Hot Cross Buns for breakfast.  For lunch, we had a lenten meal where we told the story of Jesus' Passion through food.  

And, not particularly related to Jesus, but still very "Easter," we also dyed and decorated Easter eggs, saw the Easter bunny, and partook in a few egg hunts.

Needless to say, the kids were fully prepared and very excited to wake up on Easter morning to, not only see their filled Easter baskets, but to see their dried beans from their Good Deed jar turn into jelly beans, and to open up the "Alleluia!" out of the envelope.  We had special Easter waffles for breakfast before heading to Mass, where the kids noted all of the differences that they saw in the church - the incense, the flowers, the white color and banners, and the extra beautiful "Alleluia" music.  

Look at all of their good deeds!

At home, we made Resurrection Rolls, had our own Easter hunt in the backyard and enjoyed going through our Easter baskets before heading to a scrumptious meal at Maggiano's with the family.

He is risen!  Alleluia, alleluia!  Happy Easter!