Lent has already begun for us Eastern Catholics

We are Syro Malabar Catholics who originated from a small place called Kerala, in India.  St Thomas the apostle came to India in 52AD and after hearing his preaching and seeing his good deeds, many came into the Christian faith.  For us Lent started on Ash Monday.  

I sometimes cannot thank the Lord enough for my catholic faith because my faith brings a lot of color into our day to day life.  We as a family had just ended Advent and Christmas season and within a short period of break we enter into the next liturgical season, Lent.  What a beautiful way to keep track of ourselves and also keep us accountable.  Here we have begun our 50 days of Lenten sacrifices and penances leading up to Easter Sunday. 

In our family, we follow the liturgical season very strictly.  For all the Catholics, Lent is a time to look into ourselves and make changes by doing small and big  sacrifices. Yesterday, we went to our church for the Ash Monday service.  We all received our ashes as you can tell in the pictures.  I always take the pictures right away because the ashes don't stay on our kids by the time mass ends.  So because I really love their cute little faces with the ashes on them, I make sure to take these shots.  

My Anna fell asleep on our way to church and woke up just for this moment when I was taking the picture and she went back to sleep lol

 Like the previous years, we always put up our Jesus Tree which helps us to journey along Jesus's life here on earth, as we read each bible passage starting with the Presentation of our Lord in the temple all the way to Resurrection.  I made these little felt tree and ornaments almost 4 years ago.  We have been continuing this ever since.  As the kids have grown older, I am seeing how much they cherish these customs, and they grasp the bible passages much better because they have something visible which connects to the bible passage that they hang on the Jesus Tree.  So yesterdays was the ornament of two pigeons which represents the offering St Joseph made to God while Him and Mary took baby Jesus to the temple to present him to the Lord.

We always make sure to color the sheet which goes with the feast day or the special occasion the church is celebrating.  So yesterday the children enjoyed this coloring sheet from Holy Heroes, which they colored yesterday on Ash Monday.  Now my Mary has also joined the older two in doing every little activity.  I have to make sure I keep an extra for her in all that we do.  She makes sure she gets a turn to blow the candle, hang an ornament on the Jesus tree and all the other stuff we do.

The Sacrifice bean jar is mine and kids favorite part of Lent.  I have been doing this with them for the past 4 to 5 years.  This Lent since yesterday I have been noticing how much they love to do little sacrifices or good deeds so that they can put a bean in the jar.  Its just amazing how small gestures like this can encourage children to do penances and sacrifices.  I highly recommend everyone with little children to do this for Lent. Today both George and Anna cleaned up the living room, school room, arranged all our shoes which were just laying around messy, all without being told.  I could see them running to put a bean in the jar after they do each of these small help.  It really helped me because I now don't have to go clean up the mess.  I should put this bean jar out through out the year lol..  I am not sure whether it would work out this well if I did that haha...

We also use the Lenten Calendar from Catholic Icing and follow through it till Easter.  This helps the kids to have an understanding of how far we have reached in Lent.  I don't have a picture of it to show here.  I also follow the Lenten Adventure with Holy Heroes.  Please sign up, if you already haven't.  It really helps you and your children to stay on track and understand Lent much better. 

And for me, I gave up sweets, Facebook and I am trying to eat healthy and work out at least three days a week during this 50 days of Lent.  As a family we are trying to daily mass during this time and also go to adoration as a family at least once a week.  We are also planning to do a 1000 piece Lenten Puzzle of the Last Supper.  Lent is praying, fasting and alms-giving.  I hope and pray that we will be able to stay faithful to all these decisions we have made.  Let us pray for each other and stay close to Jesus in this Lenten journey.