A great way to meditate the Stations of the Cross with Children at home

Since last year Lent, I have been thinking of ways to incorporate Stations of the Cross to our Lenten journey.  I wanted it to be kid friendly so my children can follow along; in fact that was the main intention.  I as an adult can do Way of the Cross in many ways, but it is very important to me that our children understand why we do this and what is the significance of the Way of the Cross.  Besides, it is another way to closely journey with Jesus through his passion and to a child it makes more sense why he is doing all the sacrifices and penance during Lent. 

Last year I had desired to buy the Stations of the Cross audio cd from Holy Heroes, but I was not sure whether it would be worth the money for a 4 year old, who is a very active (hyperactive) boy.  So finally I skipped the idea and continued with the several other Lenten activities.

This year I didn’t think twice, I went ahead and bought the Stations of the Cross audio CD from Holy Heroes.  Last year the only reason I did not buy was because I thought my son wouldn’t follow along and won’t have the patience to sit through the 14 stations.  This year though I knew he was capable of understanding and listening to something so beautifully done by Holy Heroes.  I bought it before Lent started and was ready when the first Friday of lent arrived.  

Instead of me doing it alone with the kids, I thought it would be better to do it as a full family in the evening when dad gets home so that we all follow along and meditate upon each station.  I do have to admit that I was concerned about how it would go, but as always when you put it in the effort to bring Jesus into your family, it never becomes a failure. To my surprise George stayed for the whole 15 to 20 minutes without getting up or getting tired.  The audio CD is not just saying a bunch of prayers but it also consists of a very dramatic explanation of what happened in each station with music which I would say was not only interesting to the kids but was very professionally done that even me and Sony were so touched by it.  After that there is a short mediation which is catered for kids and the prayers continue and end with the song.  

It was also more interesting to the kids since I added the Way of the Cross activity I had done with them last year on Good Friday.  I took this idea from Catholic Icing.  Here the child puts a symbol for each station which helps them to remember and understand what happened in each station more thoroughly.  Also for little minds, it is not very easy to understand the pain and the suffering Jesus had to go through.  So when you put a band aid on the third station when Jesus falls to the ground, the child can relate to a band aid being applied to a wound much better and by understanding that he can also imagine Jesus falling and getting hurt and feel sorry for him. 

We started around 7pm, the time when we normally do our family prayer (rosary).  We first explained to them what we are going to do and what is Stations of the Cross.  Then I put out this activity from last year and the symbols that go with it.  I also had our children's bible written by Fr. Lovasik which also gives a separate description on the passion of Jesus.  The pictures are big and clear and due to that reason I also put out the bible on our little book holder.

Afterwards I started the CD and went through station by station.  At each station I gave them the symbol to put on and they did.  Of course I made sure they took turns so I could avoid fights in between.  This was explained ahead of time so that they would not have any confusion during the prayer time.  Anna feel asleep half way through but we still continued the stations.  We ended with a small prayer.

I got this bible when I ordered the preschool curriculum from Seton two years ago.  

I bought this book holder from Hobby Lobby.  Many have asked me where I got it from so if anyone is interested you can find it there.  I's sure you can find it in other places too.  But I really like this one.  

Anna peacefully sleeping in my arms during the prayer

Even for me and Sony, it was a great experience.  I wanted to write about this and post it as soon as I could so that someone else could take advantage of this idea.  When you do this together as a family there is a special grace we receive from Jesus.  I was able to do it for the past two Fridays and it was a great way to bring ourselves and our children closer to Jesus during this time of Lent.  It is sometimes not possible to take children to church for the Stations of the Cross but this is a better way to experience it at home and make it more kid friendly so that our children can also journey with Jesus through this beautiful season of Lent.  I hope this helps some of you in bringing this new tradition to your family.  Please improvise this to make it most suitable to you and your children.  

Advent Puzzle - Our Lady of Guadalupe

It has been a dream of mine to put a 1000 piece puzzle together as a family during the Advent season.  Last summer when I went to the Homeschooling Conference in Chicago, I was able to buy a beautiful used 1000 piece puzzle of our Lady of Guadalupe.  I was just very lucky to get this gorgeous puzzle for less than $5.  

This advent I brought out the puzzle.  For the first time me and Sony started working on putting it together.  George and Anna joined in whenever they could and helped out in their own little ways.  George actually helped pick out the pieces of our Lady’s crown as well as her chin.  He always says that so proudly and we are very proud of him for even finding those small pieces from the 100s of tiny pieces of puzzles.  

We had to be little careful with Anna since she also wanted to help out but she would sometimes break the pieces that we put together or mix up all the pieces together.  Poor little thing!!  But we of course did not scold her or isolated her rather always encouraged her to be a part of us and also tried not to focus on the puzzle while she was around. 

Our goal was to finish it by Christmas but it took us almost till mid January to complete it.  As you can tell we did not have much time in our hands.  So   we would put in very few minutes here are there and was finally able to accomplish the goal.  It was such a great experience to be able to do this together.  Even though we were so busy with work, feast day celebrations, Christmas shopping, family get-together, and travelling out of state, somehow I and Sony would find each other around our dining table completely in silence fully focusing on putting together this puzzle.  

It was beautiful when I would spend so much time looking for a particular piece and all of a sudden Sony would find it and complete my missing part and vice versa.

This reminds me of advice from Bishop Robert Barron on how to prepare for the coming of our King during Advent.  He gave three ways to prepare and one of the ways was to do a jigsaw puzzle together:

“As you assemble the puzzle think of each piece as some aspect of your life: a relationship, a loss, a failure, a great joy, an adventure, a place where you lived, something you shouldn't have said, an act of generosity. So often the events of our lives seem like the thousand pieces of a puzzle lying incoherently and disconnectedly before us. As you patiently put the puzzle together, meditate on the fact that God is slowly, according to his own plan and purpose, ordering the seemingly unrelated and incongruous events of our lives into a picture of great beauty”  

Isn’t that beautiful?  I am so glad Bishop came out and said something beautiful and profound as this about a jigsaw puzzle.  Instead of just working on a puzzle, it helps us to reflect upon the many aspects of life.  

Finally last month, there were only a handful of puzzles left to assemble to finish the final product and so one night after the kids went to bed we just spent an hour together and finished it around midnight. We had no plans to finish it that night but since the kids were not around asking for a million things and somehow we both did not want to leave the puzzle despite the fact that we were so tired and were yawning continuously. haha.  Isn't our Lady looking so beautiful and radiant!!  I loved this puzzle.

I hope in the future when the kids get older it will become their project more than ours and that was my vision when I dreamt about doing puzzles during the liturgical season.  It brings the family together.  It also brought our visitors to the table and there were many who contributed to this puzzle when they were just visiting us.  It also reminds me of the universal church were we all come together before the body of Christ as one family.

Only one puzzle was missing even though it was a used puzzle.  Whoever used this before took good care of it.

Since we had such a great time doing this together we decided to continue this during the Lenten season also.  And so we ordered another great 1000 piece puzzle of the Last Supper from Amazon. It was delivered to us today and I hope we will be able to put this together by Easter, not because we have any free time in our hands but because we know that we will never find time in our busy schedules to do something like this which actually brings us - FAMILY together.