St. Benedict of Nursia

Today is the feast day of St. Benedict!

Taking a cue from my friend Leonie a friend and I are going to get our kids together and celebrate today.

Actually Leonie gave me more than a cue, she gave me a how to, as I always try to overplan everything!

KISS! (keep it simple, sillygoose!) lol

Ok, so here are our plans:

I found some info on the internet (excuse me while I give my dear computer a big juicy hug!) about St. Benedict. I learned so much. I mean, I really had no clue about this saint. One reason this idea appealed to me was to learn more about the liturgical year and saints.

Some things I learned-
-He was Italian and died in 537 AD

-He was a monk.

-He wrote the Rule of Life. Until that time monks had no formation or set of guidelines and from what I learned there were some pretty wild monks out there! And some not so wild.

-He also spent time discerning HOW to live like Christ, but also relate to ourselves and people. So as not to get so strict and autocratic with rules that we don't see our humaness, in ourselves and others. Something I think all faithful people struggle with at some point.

There is much more to this saint... go google him! If I can do this, anyone can. :)

I found the following websites and suggested the teens and olders read yesterday in preparation for today:
Biography of St. Benedict

Rule of St. Benedict
This is very long and involved. I just printed out the table of contents for the kids to read- that in itself is very enlightening. If you want to read the actual rule, it is all hyperlinked in this text. Very interesting reading!
How to Write your Own Rule of Life This site is interesting as it is one person's suggestion of how to apply the rule to your own life and write a personal Rule of Life

For the little kids (my friend has several youngers) I printed out this coloring sheet:
Coloring saints

And did a word search puzzle for them on Puzzlemaker
(this is one of my all time favorite sites.. used it a lot when kids where younger- took 3 min to make the puzzle..easy!)

So today we are meeting at Fazoli's, a fast food Italian place to celebrate St. Bendict's day with an Italian feast! We will talk with the olders a bit about his life and where he lived and how he lived, and encourage them to think about their own Rule of Life. Littlies will color and search for words.

Also, for futher reading, here are a couple of interesting sites...
Father's Rule of Life and this one...Online Guide to St. Benedict

Thanks again to my friend Leonie who patiently helped me get going on this! Hugs!!

***REAL LIFE UPDATE***

The resturant was closed down, so we ate pizza (Italian food..) at Costco. The teens talked and olders talked while babies and toddler and my friend and I did some shopping. We ate in the food court and I talked with the three teen boys about St. B.. though they already knew it all... lol

Youngers did fine... next time no project for teens... more fun crafts for youngers and I will get to have fun with the littlies which I miss!

But, we knew St. Benedict was smiling down on us as we walked out into the Costco parking lot and we went to Mass tonight, which of course was all about St. Benedict. And now the olders have a benchmark.

Nice day, though not as planned. Ah... homeschooling! Ah... life!