I just love our faith.
Well, if you frequent the same sort of blogs I do, this will not be a strange statement to hear!
One reason I love it is that it is just ever unfolding... so much to explore, so many charisms, learning about our traditions and Traditions, saints, catechism. So rich and never-ending, because Christ is the Alpha and Omega.
In reviewing what my boys have been doing for faith formation the past few years (I have to submit to our RE director in preparation for their Confirmation registration) I am reminded of so many resources we have found over the years. Also as I am watching the The Teen Timeline with Mark Hart (aka The Bible Geek) I see how beautiful and timely our faith is, too. I am looking forward to learning more about the faith as my boys go through prep.
I looked at the 50 Confirmation questions given to us by the parish... I have a lot to learn, too!
But, another aspect that has come to us is learning about saints. I never really took saints very seriously and they were a stumbling block to me before I converted and even after. Once I got over the myth that Catholics worshipped them ( you know, the statue thing- us Protestants don't like that a bit!)--- then I relaxed a little. Now I love statues.
But then when I would read bios of saints, they were always dry. And sometimes, often, morbid. I could not relate. Two people in particular helped me get past this.
First was Mother Angelica. I just love her. She took to task the authors of these dry biographies and shamed them for pushing people away from our beloved saints with such cardboard representations. And you know how she can take someone to task!
Second was a priest (I have forgotton his name) who did a lecture series on family relations, dyfunctionality, etc. He said he never really began to know his faith in a deep way until he 'took the saints seriously.'
So on and off over the years I have dabbled, and read aloud some vignettes to the boys during feast days and they read some select saint biographies. Our favorites have become St. Francis of Assisi, St. Augustine and saints to be :)--- JPII and Blessed Mother Teresa.
My friend Leonie has inspired me with how she and a couple of friend all get together once a month to celebrate a saint's feast day.
So our plan for St. Maximilian Kolbe's feast day:
I found a couple of friends here who have this interest, too and we are off!
I wanted to share our plans so far in case it might inspire you.
We all three decided this is not something to stress over, but just do what we are inspired at the moment to do.
We have 11 participating kids from the ages of 1 to 17. So here is our plan for St. Max so far:
- Polish food. I am going to reserach a recipe as is the dd of my friend who loves to cook. Maybe Polish sausage? Gotta have a dessert! We are meeting over lunch, so I plan to set a table for 14 and we can all eat and celebrate St. Maximillian's day!
- Research. I enjoy researching so will Google and find some good articles on the life of St. Max. Four of our dc are 12 and up so will forward this to the others ahead of time so the older kids can read about St. Max. Also send some articles that youngers might like so my friends can read aloud to the littler ones if they want.
- My friends with youngers can read some picture or other books on St. Max. Also since we have a week in advance until the feast day, anyone can do whatever prep work they want, or no, such as looking into where he is from, his story, etc.
- We decided no mandantory craft for the younger/middle kids, but if one time one of us gets inspired we can do something for them. Instead we will have crossword puzzles and wordsearchs from this sitePuzzlemaker. I have LOVED this site over the years! Great for classes I taught and just fun to make up puzzles for any subject. I may ask my boys to make them up, as you have to learn about the subject to find the words for the puzzle.
-Then we will just eat and talk, maybe bring out a timeline and stick a marker with St. Max on it for his place in time. I have a large board with a map of the world so we can pinpoint Poland and where he went in his travels.
Oh and Maria posted this Novena to St. Maximilan which starts today. Thanks Maria!
So that is our plan for the day! We will see what actually happens, but I wanted to post ahead of time incase anyone else wanted to celebrate St. Maximlian Kolbe's feast day with us.
God Bless all our wonderful saints.
4 comments:
Oh - this sounds so wonderful! I wish we could come, too!
St. Max is my oldest son's patron saint (only my oldest son doesn't really know this or understand it - but I know that it is St. Max's intercession that helped him overcome his addiction and make major changes in his life).
He is a beloved Saint of mine. I wish there was someone here that I could do something like this with - it would be fun!
I hope you all have a wonderful luncheon!
Lots of plans - good luck with cooking your Polish food!
We are meeting next week and talking about the Transfiguration, the Assumption and Blessed Mary Mackillop. I am thinking of providing an Aussie afternoon tea for Mary Mackillop - maybe pikelets? Or maybe something more creative and related to the Transfiguration or Assumption?
Donna-
Wish you were here, too!
Keep your eye out... maybe there is a friend lurking who would like to do this with you. If your kids are all older then just the two of you could have tea and food from the saint's country.. :)
Leonie, that sounds neat- oh an Aussie afternoon tea! Do you all still have tea a lot like the English?
Hope you post on what you end up doing.
Tea is just a sometime thing here - no time! ...Last night, there was not even time for dinner after work, newspaper delivery and CAFe at church. So I had ice cream birthday cake and a vodka cruiser after for, for Anny's birthday!!
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