First Prize

Saints Martha, Mary, and Lazarus

Second Prize

Venerable Fulton Sheen, Servant of God Chaplain Emil Kapaun, Blessed Stanley Rother , and Servant of God Michelle Duppong

Third Prize

Our Lady of Guadalupe

Honorable Mentions:

Note to honorable mention winners: We decided that you all were so amazing that we couldn’t let you go without a prize too! We’re gifting you three months of our Venerable Level membership to try if you aren’t a current member already! Please contact us at helpdesk@catholicallyear.com to collect your prize.

Ss. Thomas Becket, Sebastian, and Jude

St. Emma of Regensburg

Mother Teresa

St. George, St. Lucia, and St. Faustina

St. Clare of Assisi, Bl. Carlo, and St. Teresa of Calcutta

St. Denis

St.  Rose, St. John the Evangelist, and St. Denis

St. Margaret of Cortona, St. Rose of Lima, St. Padre Pio, and St. Catherine of Siena

Our contest winners each receive A Free month of our Blessed Membership Tier plus a box of goodies from the CAY Marketplace!

The CAY Membership starts at $12/month and includes access to hundreds of feast day-inspired recipes, and activities, FREE shipping on all Marketplace orders, and a FREE Liturgical Wall Calendar! Check out all of the membership options below!

• Blessed
• Venerable

Wondering what to do with your family for the rest of the month of the Poor Souls in Purgatory? We’ve got you covered!

Visit a cemetery to pray for the dead from November 1st-8th to receive a plenary indulgence that can be applied to the Poor Souls! You can find the prayers for your visit in our Visiting a Cemetery Printable Booklet. Learn more about the requirements for gaining an indulgence for the Poor Souls here.

Decorate for the month of November with this All Saints Banner or this Requiescant in Pace Banner!

Find everything Memento Mori, including our new sweatshirt and T-shirt here!

The post 2024 Costume Contest: Winners and Honorable Mentions appeared first on Catholic All Year.

Another All Saints’ Day has come and gone, and it was amazing to get to see all of the saints that your families chose to dress up as! The Catholic All Year team loved getting to look through each and every costume to choose the winners and honorable mentions. So, without further ado, let’s get to the good part!

The 1st Place Winners – The Blessed Ulma Family

The 2nd Place Winner – St. Joseph of Cupertino

We’re big fans of levitation here!

The 3rd Place Winner – Little Mother Teresa

The Honorable Mentions

Note to honorable mention winners: We decided that you all were so amazing that we couldn’t let you go without a prize too! We’re gifting you three months of our Venerable Level membership to try if you aren’t a current member already! Please contact us at helpdesk@catholicallyear.com to collect your prize.

Saints Peter and Paul

St. George the Dragon Slayer

St. John Bosco

St. Juan Diego, Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Thérèse, and St. John Paul II

St. Lucy

St. Catherine of Siena

St. Thomas Aquinas

Amazing tonsures! #welovetoseeit

St. Cecilia

St. Pius X

St. Maximillian Kolbe

St. Augustine of Hippo

St. Alphonsus

St. Clare of Assisi

St. Francis of Assisi and St. Michael the Archangel

St. Patrick

St. Teresa of Avila, St. Josephine Bakhita, St. Jean Vianney, Pope St. Pius X, St. Kateri Tekakwitha, St. Wenceslaus, Bl. Pier Giorgio Frasatti

St. Damien of Molokai

Shout out to George as St. Michael the Archangel!

Thank you so much to everyone who entered!

Our contest winners each received three months of various tiers of the CAY Membership! Want to learn more?

Check out all of the memberships below!

• Doctor of the Church
• Saint
• Blessed
• Venerable

Wondering what to do with your family for the rest of the month of the Poor Souls in Purgatory? We’ve got you covered!

Visit a cemetery to pray for the dead from November 1st-8th to recieve an plenary indulgence that can be applied to the Poor Souls! You can find the prayers for your visit in our Visiting a Cemetery Printable Booklet. Learn more about the requirements for gaining an indulgence for the Poor Souls here.

Decorate for the month of November with this All Saints Banner or this Requiescant in Pace Banner!

Meet some new saintly friends with these brand new saint photo cards and photo album.

The post The 2023 Costume Contest: Winners & Honorable Mentions appeared first on Catholic All Year.

The prizes are as follows:

First place wins three months of a Doctor of the Church level membership!

Second place wins three months of a Saint level membership!

And Third place wins three months of a Blessed level membership!

Any international winners will receive three months of a Venerable level membership!

Here’s how to enter . . .

If your kids are dressing up in a Catholic costume for Halloween or All Saints Day share a photo on Instagram and Facebook using #catholiccostume tag @catholicallyear and @kendra_tierney. (If you have a private account, you’ll need to set it to public for the day so I can see your tag.) If you are not a social media type, you can email your photo to me at helpdesk@catholicallyear.com.

We’ll do a round-up post following the close of the contest, which is November 1, 2022 at 11:59PM. By entering you give us permission to share photos on the Catholic All Year blog and social media channels.  Three winners will be selected & announced on November 2! Open world wide, international winners will win a digital pize.

The post Y’all Ready For This? It’s a CAY All Saints Day Costume Contest! appeared first on Catholic All Year.

I wanted to share a couple quick things:

1. Today is not a Meat Friday for Catholics.
2. Essentials are 10% off in the shop and every order $50 or over receives a free academic calendar!

Today is not a Meat Friday for Catholics

I love a Meat Friday as much as the next guy. Maybe more! But they have to be legit. Every year the so-called “Turkey Indult” makes its way around social media. Posts claim that in the 1950s Pope Pius XII instituted a dispensation from the required Friday abstinence from meat as a gift to American Catholics in perpetuity. But . . . they don’t cite any sources. And popes put stuff in writing. It’s kind of a thing.

So it never passed the sniff test for me. And now, there’s a whole painstakingly researched post (two actually) at New Liturgical Movement that prove (as much as it’s possible to prove something in the negative) that what people are referring to is a one time dispensation issued by Pope John XXIII in 1958 as part of a flurry of last-minute civic holiday dispensations he granted in the early days of his papacy.

It wasn’t ever a long-term thing.

Anyway, you can read the whole thing here and the follow-up here. It’s interesting!

Local bishops can still grant a dispensation, but as far as I can tell, ours hasn’t. Of course, since the new fasting and abstinence rules instituted by the US bishops in the 1966 Pastoral Statement On Penance And Abstinence, we are permitted to make an alternate sacrifice on non-Lenten Fridays. But I, personally, think sticking with abstinence from meat is the way to go. (I talked more about it in this old post.) Anyway, we’ll be having our usual turkey bone broth, vegetables, and noodle soup today, and saving the turkey meat leftovers for tomorrow.

What if I already had turkey today?

If you thought the “Turkey Indult” was real, or this is the first you’ve heard of Friday abstinence from meat outside of Lent . . . that’s not your fault!

There aren’t any hard and fast guidelines for what to do when we make a mistake, but for sure we can’t sin by accident or when we’ve been misinformed by what we had reason to believe was a trustworthy source.

If it were me, I just wouldn’t eat any more meat for the day, or I’d offer an alternate sacrifice, like no treats, or if that wasn’t possible no screens. Or, I’d just ask God for forgiveness and make a point to remember it next year!

But it IS Black Friday in the CAY Shop!

Advent begins on Sunday, and we are doing 10% of essentials collection (no code needed!) and a free academic calendar in all orders of $50 or more!

some of what’s on sale:

Please note: Shipping is available to US addresses only. We will ship as quickly as possible, but cannot guarantee that items will arrive before Advent begins. Sale prices do not apply to previously placed orders. No refunds or exchanges are available. But please let me know at helpdesk @ catholicallyear.com if there is a problem with your order so we can help.

The post It’s Not a Meat Friday but It Is Black Friday and Advent Is on Sale Here at CAY! appeared first on Catholic All Year.

I’m about to launch into a little description of seven different Advent season traditions. This coming Advent, I expect that our family will do all of them. Hopefully you will read these and think, “Hey, those sound meaningful and manageable. Let’s do this.”  But maybe you will think, “Hey that sounds like a lot. No way am I doing it all.” I get that. That is a reasonable reaction.

We didn’t always observe all of these traditions in our home. We started small and worked our way up. In years when I’ve been sick and pregnant, or the year Advent started in the midst of a long hospital stay for one of our kids, things have been, obviously, more pared back. I hope what you’ll take away from this post is that the most important concept in all of this is to DO SOMETHING in your home for Advent. Something. Set this season apart from the rest of the year and differentiate it from the Christmas season in a way that’s clear to you and your kids.

Would it help if a box full of my favorite Catholic Advent traditions just showed up on your doorstep? That can happen. Click here.

1. ADVENT CALENDARS

PROS of an Advent Calendar are: it’s super quick and easy, it can be homemade or store-bought, cheap or fancy, and it’s whole goal is the whole point . . . to remind us that it’s Advent every day

CONS of an Advent Calendar are: if you have multiple kids, you’ll either need multiple calendars or a system of turn-taking, the LEGO ones, in particular, take up a ton of space and can be untidy, so consider that when making your choice of type, but overall this one is a no brainer. Definitely do it!

Okay. Number one on the list is: an Advent Calendar. When you are observing Advent as a time of waiting, your kids are sure to want to know HOW MUCH LONGER?! They will probably want to know how much longer a couple times per day. A good way to acknowledge that yearning desire for knowledge, and thwart at least a few of the questions, is to have an Advent calendar (or ten) around the house.

There are dozens of different types from which to choose, homemade or store bought, disposable or reusable, and we’ve had quite a few over the years. The key, I think, is finding one that encourages the spirit of waiting and preparing we are hoping to foster, rather than a spirit of receiving.

Early on we tried those little “open the door”  eat a piece of chocolate every day-style calendars. But when Christmas arrived, all the kids had to show for Advent was a piece of trash and a hankering for chocolate every morning. Now, we prefer Advent calendars that build to something, or that actually build something. I like any calendar that lets you add something to a scene each day. There are paper and sticker and wooden and felt and even LEGO versions of this type of Advent Calendar. 

And all it has to require of a busy mom is a place to put it. 

We usually have many Advent Calendars up around the house. My newest favorite iteration is the wrapped picture book Advent Calendar. We choose 24 Christmas/Advent/winter picture books, wrap them and stack them. Then each evening, the kids unwrap one, we read it, and add it to our basket of seasonal books. These can be new books or even books from the library, but we usually just use books we already own. It’s really a cute tradition that encourages reading together AND helps define the season. Looking to add to your library? Some of our favorite books are in this post.

So many cute versions of Advent Calendars! Paper, felt, wood, charm bracelet, mini tree, LEGO, sticker, or use a Jesse Tree set as an Advent calendar that makes a beautiful image.

2. ADVENT WREATHS

PROS of an Advent Wreath are: it’s a beautiful prayerful tradition that takes very little time; it’s simple to create at home; you get that full sensory experience of prayer, sight, and smell 

CONS of an Advent Wreath are: it involves fire and branches so there’s the potential for mess and danger. Mary Reed Newland, one of the OG 1960s mom liturgical living advocates, would hang her wreath over the table from the ceiling to keep it away from little hands. It can be hard to find time during the day with the whole family together, but MAKING that time is definitely a pro.

Number two is the Advent Wreath! I have very strong memories of our family Advent wreath when I was growing up. Perhaps it’s because that was really the only “liturgical living in the home” tradition my family observed, or maybe it’s because I was a preteen in the late eighties and had a very hairsprayed two-layers-of-bangs-hairdo thing happening, that I once set ablaze leaning over a lit front candle to light a back candle. Not a good technique, but memorable. Fortunately, it didn’t sour me on the tradition. There’s something really magical about the smell of the greenery and the flickering candlelight and the repetition of the prayers each evening, as we slowly build to Christmas.

An Advent wreath is a beautiful way to talk about the idea of religious symbolism with kids. The circle of the wreath, with no beginning and no end, symbolizes God’s eternal nature. The evergreen branches symbolize the immortality of the soul. Decorative pine cones or seed pods symbolize new life and resurrection. The four candles symbolize the four weeks of the Advent season, but also the four thousand years from the creation of Adam and Eve to the birth of Jesus Christ. (As time is reckoned in the Bible, which might not be meant literally.) The candle flames symbolize the light of Christ.

When choosing or creating an Advent wreath for your home, it’s good to be mindful of all that great symbolism associated with the traditional shape and materials, so you don’t accidentally end up with one that’s missing any of it. 

Also good to remember: there is a strong preference (but not an official mandate) in various Church documents for the use of natural rather than artificial materials for religious purposes whenever possible. “Fake” greenery and “fake” candles are not ideal for use in a sacramental.   

My kids and I just go out and cut whatever greenery we can find in the yard to create our wreath. DIY anything with kids can be overwhelming, but this one really is pretty easy. Even very young kids can successfully create an Advent wreath with just a little help. 

Make a simple DIY Advent wreath! See the video here.

Jar candles or votive candles in a glass holder make it simple and tidy. The youngest kids get to light candles with help from a grown up, but by the time they are five or six, most of my kids have been able to learn to light candles themselves without incident, and they take a lot of pride in it. And we always teach them to light the back candle before the front one. And to take it easy on the hairspray. 

The traditional Advent wreath prayers can be found online and in Catholic prayer books. We say the prayer and light the candle or candles together as a family each night before dinner. We keep the candles burning throughout the meal.

Get the prayers here.

3. THE CHRISTMAS ANTICIPATION PRAYER

PROS of the Christmas Anticipation Prayer are: it’s easy to memorize, it can be done anywhere, at home or in the car, while doing the dishes, etc., the prayers can be offered for a particular intention, which gives even more meaning to the season, the prayers can be done all at once, or spread through the day, it feels like a real accomplishment if you manage it

CONS of the Christmas Anticipation Prayer are: it can be hard to remember and frustrating when you don’t. My advice is to set a timer on your phone at a time when you think you’ll be able to manage it, then a backup in case something pulls you away. And don’t stress if you miss a day. It’s not a magic spell. It’s an attempt to create a habit and to grow in personal holiness. If you miss a day, you can make it up the next day, or just skip it and try to do better in the future. It’s okay.

Number 3 is the Christmas Anticipation Prayer, also known as the St. Andrew Christmas Novena . . . which is confusing because it’s not a novena (which is a prayer said for nine days straight) and it doesn’t really have anything to do with St. Andrew, other than that it’s traditionally recited fifteen times per day, beginning on his feast day and ending on Christmas Eve.

Grab your prayer and cling combo here!

If you’re looking to level up to something a bit more challenging, I think this is a great tradition to try. The prayer itself always always gets me right in the gut. I love it. Somehow it makes it all feel so real to me, how Christmas was an actual historical event, this one amazing moment in time, in which a very special baby was born to a very special mother, in very humble surroundings.

4. A GRADUAL APPROACH TO DECORATING

PROS of a gradual approach to decorating are: it really emphasizes visually, in the home, that Advent is a season, there’s less pressure to have everything perfect all at once, decorating becomes a long-term family activity rather than a one-day job, for some moms this will feel like a fun, natural way to approach it

CONS of a gradual approach to decorating are: for other moms, it is more of a challenge. If you like to check boxes and get things done, it can be hard to adopt a slower roll. A focus on homemade things means it won’t necessarily look perfect. Those aspects were hard for me, but they’ve become positives rather than negatives.

I touched on this a bit already, but it’s important enough that I want to emphasize it again here. So, number four is a gradual approach to decorating. It’s more of a change in mindset than a devotion per se, but I’ve found it so helpful. I think the American cultural standard is to drag out the Christmas storage boxes sometime after Thanksgiving (or maybe Halloween) and throw up all the decorations in one fell swoop, then take them down as quickly after Christmas as possible. 

Taking a slow, gradual approach to decorating where we add new things weekly, or associated with particular feast days, helps to make Advent that season of waiting and preparation. There’s a very cute fiction book from 1964 called the Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas and in it, they add one decoration to their home each day, and they mostly make them all. I haven’t been able to manage that level of precision, but I do like putting up decorations a few at a time and involving the kids in the process, and trying to incorporate homemade things like paper snowflakes and natural elements like evergreen branches whenever possible.

It works especially well with a nativity set. The first Sunday of Advent, we set up the stable, the second Sunday we put in the animals, the third Sunday we add shepherds and any other extra people, the fourth Sunday we add Mary and Joseph, then on Christmas Eve we add the angel and baby Jesus. The WiseMen arrive later on Epiphany.

Check out Fontanini, Little Drops of Water , or Almond Rod Toys for beautiful, kid-friendly nativity sets with enough pieces to add as you go.

5. STRAW FOR BABY JESUS

PROS of Straw for Baby Jesus are: it’s motivational and encourages good behavior without the “Santa or elves are watching you” thing, which doesn’t seem as liturgically correct to me, it also emphasizes the idea that we are preparing our hearts as well as our homes for the coming of Jesus at Christmas. It doesn’t require activity-planning or getting kids to sit still.

CONS of Straw for Baby Jesus are: that it’s basically a behavior modification technique and those take some figuring to get right, what is straw-worthy and what isn’t will vary between homes, also there will be days when we forget or days when we don’t deserve any straws, and we always end up on Christmas Eve with all the kids running around doing questionably worthy good deeds to get all the straw in there in time, but that also ends up being pretty cute and fun.

Number five is what we call: Straw for Baby Jesus. The idea is for kids to learn in action about Jesus’ words in the parable: “as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me”. Their sacrifices and good works during Advent, done for parents or friends or siblings, can help to create a soft, comfy bed for the baby Jesus when he is born on Christmas. 

We have about a one foot wooden manger that we put on our altar table—but a small wooden crate or a shoe box wrapped in brown paper would work just as well. Also on the altar table, we keep a bag of pieces of raffia or yarn. During Advent, if the husband or I see one of the kids doing a good job on a task, or being kind to a sibling, or doing as we’ve asked them right away, we tell them they can go put a piece of straw in Baby Jesus’ manger. We also let the kids award pieces of straw to each other at evening prayers, if they’ve witnessed or been on the receiving end of acts of kindness.

It’s really amazing how motivating the straw is. They are getting NO reward for themselves. They’re not earning points towards a big prize. All they are getting to do is put a piece of yarn in a box. That’s it. But all my kids, from toddlers to teenagers, appreciate being recognized for good behavior. We do systems like this twice a year, during Advent and Lent, and it’s really helpful for resetting if the kids have fallen into bad habits, and for reinforcing good behaviors. I think it’s more effective, and doesn’t create a sense of entitlement, because it happens only twice a year, and for a set time period each time.

Last thing before bed on Christmas Eve, we bring the Baby Jesus out and place him in the straw and sing “Away in a Manger,” “Silent Night,” and “O Come, Little Children.”

Get the wooden manger set here, or a printable version (yes . . . a PRINTABLE VERSION) here.

6. THE CHRISTMAS NOVENA

PROS of the Christmas Novena: are that it really seats those last few days leading up to Christmas firmly in prayer and scripture, and if you ask my kids, it has been the most memorable and meaningful liturgical living tradition in their minds, of all the many that we do each year

CONS of the Christmas Novena: are that, everyone ELSE is throwing Christmas parties during those nine days, so scheduling can become a challenge. But I think that’s really also a pro, because it helps us remember that even if everyone else has jumped straight to Christmas, we are still saying our Novena so it must not be here quite yet!

Number 6 is the Christmas Novena. Of all the many things our family does during Advent each year, the nine day Christmas Novena is the most meaningful and memorable. Especially at the beginning of our liturgical living journey, we found the nine day format to be more manageable for our family than the twenty-five day Jesse Tree, which we’ll talk about in a second. The set of prayers and readings we use in our family was composed by an Italian priest in 1721. I love the feeling of being united with the billions of Catholics who have prayed these same prayers over the centuries.

Get the prayer booklet here, or it’s in The Catholic All Year Prayer Companion.

A novena is any prayer or set of prayers said for nine days consecutively, usually ending on the vigil of a particular feast day and often done with a particular intention in mind. So, a Christmas novena could be anything from a Memorare or a Rosary each day, to a nine day set of prayers and readings like the one we use, done in preparation for Christmas. It would normally begin on December 16, and end on December 24. But, because we have often invited friends and neighbors to join us for our novena, and most of them have other family obligations on Christmas Eve, we have sometimes started our novena on December 15, and ended it on the day before Christmas Eve. We just do what works best for our family. 

See the video of how and why here.

The schedule that seems to work for us is to start the novena after dinner. I have booklets printed up with all the prayers and readings, and we assign different roles and readings to different people. We sit in the living room, around the fire. We do the novena first, then, while dad or a big kid reads a story aloud to the kids, I set up a small snack for everyone. In theory, I stick to my rule about no Christmas treats before Christmas, and serve things like cheese and crackers and fruit, but in practice, I sometimes find myself putting out homemade goodies that have been given to us by friends and neighbors, and won’t keep. Okay, that happens a lot. But it means we’ve made it pretty close to Christmas waiting to have Christmas treats, so I think it works.

Whether it’s with your whole parish, a few neighbors, or just your family, I really can’t recommend the Christmas novena enough.

7. JESSE TREE

PROS of the Jesse Tree: are that feeling of connection with the long history of our faith, and the fact that it’s ecumenical and a practice we can share with our Protestant brothers and sisters. It can be combined with other traditions, Jesse Tree ornaments can function as an Advent Calendar, and the readings can be done alongside other prayers or novenas.

CONS of the Jesse Tree: are that, even with my adjustments, it’s still a daily time commitment every day for twenty five days straight, and especially when combined with other devotions that’s a scheduling challenge. Still, as with the Christmas Anticipation Prayer, you can skip days or double days if you need to, or abridge it, doing just the reading, or just the reflection, if your audience isn’t up for the whole thing.

Finally, number 7 is the Jesse Tree. The Jesse tree is an Advent activity in which salvation history from creation through the incarnation is traced using (mostly Old Testament) Bible readings and ornaments featuring associated traditional symbols, one for each day of the whole Advent season. 

In the Compendium, I report that we tried the Jesse Tree when my big kids were little and it didn’t work for us. Which is true. We did and it didn’t. But then . . . Scott Hahn’s people asked me if I would write a Jesse Tree family devotional for their publishing company. And I was like, “I, um. I, said, I, . . . yes. Yes, I will do that for Scott Hahn.”

So, I did. And it was a great project for me. I managed to solve the issues that had made it especially challenging for us when we tried it the first time. And now we do it and it’s been a great way for us to learn Old Testament history and characters and symbolism.

It’s also been a great lesson for ME in not writing things off forever. It wasn’t a good fit for us in our season of life when we first tried it, but later, and with some personal effort on my part to make adjustments and fix what hadn’t worked, it became a good fit.

Get a simple felt wall-hanging version here, or a free coloring page version (available with new or previous purchase of the book). Get the book at the St. Paul Center or from Barnes and Nobel or from Amazon(it will be back in stock on the marketplace soon).

Okay, so there’s your intro to various Catholic Advent traditions. Of course, there are also traditions associated with particular feast days and a whole lot more that I didn’t get into today, but I hope it’s been helpful as an overview. Most of this information is from The Catholic All Year Compendium. See that book for deeper dive into all of this liturgical living in the home stuff. I hope you’re feeling inspired to try to incorporate some of these into your family’s Advent season, and empowered to do them in a way that will work for your particular family and circumstances and season of life this year. 

The post Seven Catholic Advent Traditions, and which ones will work for your family appeared first on Catholic All Year.

The new episode of the Catholic All Year Liturgical Living Show is here a bit early! For November, I want to share some Catholic traditions for All Souls’ Day, and that comes right at the beginning of the month.

As usual, stay tuned to the end for my book recommendations for the month, courtesy of our sponsor, Ignatius Press. Get 25% off of the recommended books through 12/31/19 at Ignatius.com with the code CAY1119.

Let’s talk about Hallowtide, shall we? All Hallow’s Eve (Halloween), All Saints’ Day (Nov. 1), and All Souls’ Day (Nov. 2) make up what is traditionally called Hallowtide. The spooky skeletons and ghosts and death imagery of Halloween celebrations are part of the Catholic tradition of Memento Mori or “Remember you will die,” popular in the Medieval Era, but also found in the Bible.

The idea is that it is important that we remember our own mortality, and that of those we love, so that we can live each day preparing our souls to meet God and face our particular judgement, and helping those around us be ready to face theirs. In our home, alongside the fun of costumes and candy, we use Halloween and the other days of Hallowtide to focus on the three different parts of the Church.

On Halloween, we think of the Church Militant: all of us here on earth, struggling against temptation and our fallen natures, loving God and our neighbor, and hoping, through God’s grace, to one day die a happy death and be welcomed into heaven.

We dress up in spooky and/or funny costumes. We carve jack-o-lanterns. We go trick-or-treating and eat too much candy. We read spooky stories and watch spooky movies and read or recite spooky poems about death.

Get the Momento Mori Poetry booklet here as a printable pdf. Or in the Catholic All October paperback booklet on Amazon.

On All Saint’s Day we focus on the Church Triumphant: all the saints who have died and are in heaven, beholding the face of Our Lord, and inspiring us and interceding for us.

We go to Mass, and, around here, we dress up again for All Saints’ Day, this time as a favorite saint for our homeschool All Saints’ Day Pageant.

On All Souls’ Day (and for the whole month of November) we focus on the Church Suffering: the Holy Souls in Purgatory, who are guaranteed to one day be in heaven, but who are now suffering and need our prayers.

Get the Eternal Rest prayer and the Order for Visiting a Cemetery as a printable pdf here, or as part of the Catholic All November paperback on Amazon here.

One of our favorite “weird” Catholic family traditions is visiting a cemetery in November to pray for our beloved dead and all the Holy Souls in purgatory, and to attempt to gain for them the Holy Souls indulgences. 

This practice combines two of the most easily misunderstood Catholic teachings: purgatory and indulgences.

We know that after our deaths, we will be judged according to our love for God and our fellow man, and our actions on earth, and end up in heaven or hell. But since the early days of the Church, theologians have recognized a third possible destination for the souls of the dead. Those who loved God, but died with an attachment to sin, must be purified in some was to achieve the holiness necessary to enter heaven. We call that process of purification: purgatory. 

The souls in purgatory can no longer pray for themselves, or make sacrifices, or do good works, so they need us, the living, to do these things for them. Especially on the Feast of All Souls, and in the month of November, Catholics pray for and make sacrifices for our beloved dead, and for the other souls in purgatory who need our prayers.

One of the best ways we can do this is by gaining indulgences. An indulgence is a way that the Church uses the authority given by Jesus to bind sins and to loose them. It’s a way to encourage the faithful in prayers, practices, and devotions that will be beneficial to our souls and to the souls in purgatory.  

Indulgences can be plenary, which means full, or partial. A plenary indulgence will release us, or a soul in purgatory, from the temporal punishment due to sins. 

Our family’s favorite plenary indulgences to obtain each year are the All Souls’ Indulgences. Every year, from November 1-8, we can obtain a plenary indulgence each day (subject to the usual conditions), applicable only to the holy souls in purgatory, and subject to the usual conditions, for praying for the Holy Souls in a cemetery. You can use any prayers, but our favorites are the Eternal Rest Prayer, or if we have more time, the Order for Visiting a Cemetery.

It’s truly one of the greatest acts of Christian charity a person can do, plus it’s pretty fun to hang out in cemeteries looking for forgotten gravestones and praying for the soul of someone who might not have anyone else in the whole world to pray for him!

So that’s it! A very Catholic Hallowtide is a fun and spooky and meaningful way to teach our kids about important Catholic Truths. (And the mom tax on candy, of course. Gotta learn that one young.)

Further reading for All Souls’ Day:

Praying for the Dead With Children

Easy Family Activities for the Month of the Poor Souls in November

Further reading for All Saints’ Day:

Awesome All Saints Day Costumes in Expert, Store-Bought, and, What? is it October?

Last Minute Twofer Costumes for Halloween AND All Saints Day

Over 150 All-Saints Day Costumes for Kids

Twofer Costumes for Halloween and All Saints 2015 Edition

Over 150 MORE All Saints Day Costumes for Kids

Further reading for Halloween:

Halloween Movies to Spook the Whole Family

Halloween for Kids on Netflix Streaming: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Spooky Stories for the Whole Family

The post Memento Mori for Kids: Other People Died and You Will, Too. Or, A Very Catholic Hallowtide appeared first on Catholic All Year.

Read Aloud Recommendations for Each Month

DECEMBER

Advent & Christmas Middle Length Family Read-Alouds (also great as audiobooks). I’ve included the publisher’s recommended age range, but we listen as a whole family, babies to adults.

The Twenty-four Days Before Christmas: An Austin Family Story by Madeleine L’Engle  2010 (originally 1964), recommended age range 4-8, illustrated short chapter book

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson 1972, recommended age range 8-12, short chapter book 

Christmas in Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren 1981, recommended age 7 and up, long picture book

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens 1843, recommended age 10 and up, short chapter book

A Child’s Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas 1952, recommended age 7 and up, long picture book

The Story of Holly and Ivy by Rumer Godden 1958, recommended age range 5-8 long picture book

Advent & Christmas Picture Books

Angela and the Baby Jesus by Frank McCourt 2007

The Donkey’s Dream by Barbara Helen Berger 1985

Christmas in the Manger board book by Nola Buck 1998

An Orange for Frankie by Patricia Polacco  2004

The Year of the Perfect Christmas Tree: An Appalachian Story by Gloria Houston 1996

The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie dePaola  1997

The Legend of Old Befana: An Italian Christmas Story by Tomie dePaola  2017

The Clown of God by Tomie dePaola  1978

The Twelve Days of Christmas by Laurel Long  2011

December 6—Saint Nicholas

The Miracle of Saint Nicholas (Note: about an Orthodox Parish called St. Nicholas, not about the saint, but a great story!) by Gloria Whelan  1997

The Baker’s Dozen: A Saint Nicholas Tale by Aaron Shepard  2018

Santa’s Favorite Story: Santa Tells the Story of the First Christmas by Hisako Aoki 2007

The Legend of Saint Nicholas (An overview of the various and more fantastical St. Nicholas legends) by Demi 2003

Saint Nicholas and the Nine Gold Coins (A more detailed version of the money through the window story) by Jim Forest 2015

December 9—Saint Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin / December 12—Our Lady of Guadalupe

Lady of Guadalupe by Tomie dePaola  1980

Guadalupe: First Words – Primeras Palabras board book by Patty Rodriguez

Third Sunday of Advent—Gaudete Sunday / Bambinelli Sunday

Bambinelli Sunday: A Christmas Blessing  by Amy Welborn  2013

December 24—Christmas Eve / Saints Adam and Eve

The End of the Fiery Sword: Adam & Eve and Jesus & Mary by Maura Roan McKeegan 2014

December 25—THE NATIVITY OF THE LORD (Christmas)

The Christmas Story  by The Metropolitan Museum of Art  2017

December 26—Saint Stephen, The First Martyr

Wenceslas (Note: St. Wenceslas’ feast day is actually September 28, but most people associate him with the Feast of St. Stephen) by Geraldine McCaughrean  2007

JANUARY

January 1—Mary, Mother of God 

Mary: The Mother of Jesus  by Tomie dePaola  1995

My First Pictures of Mary board book by Maïte Roche 2011

January 6 (or the Sunday after January 1)—Epiphany

We Three Kings by Gennady Spirin  2007

FEBRUARY

February 1—Saint Brigid of Ireland

Brigid and the Butter: A Legend about St Brigid by Pamela Love  2017

February 11—Our Lady of Lourdes

Saint Bernadette and the Miracles of Lourdes by Demi 2017

February 23—Saint Isabelle

Marguerite Makes a Book by Bruce Robertson 1999

MARCH

March 17—Saint Patrick

Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland by Tomie dePaola 1992

Patrick: Saint of Ireland by Diana Mayo 2002

March 25—The Annunciation

Mary Stories from the Bible by Charlotte Grossetête   2018

Holy Week

Margaret’s First Holy Week (The Pope’s Cat) short chapter book by Jon M. Sweeney  2019

The Queen and the Cross (About St. Helena, so also appropriate for her feast day August 18 or Exaltation of the Holy Cross September 14) by Cornelia Bilinsky 2013

The Tale of Three Trees: A Traditional Folktale  by Angela Elwell Hunt 1989

APRIL

Easter

The Easter Story  by Brian Wildsmith  2000

Into the Sea, Out of the Tomb: Jonah and Jesus by Maura Roan McKeegan  2016

The Story of the Easter Robin by Dandi Daley Mackall 2010

April 23—Saint George

Saint George and the Dragon (fairytale legend St. George) by Margaret Hodges 1984

Saint George and the Dragon (Catholic legend St. George) by Jim Forest  2011

MAY

May 22—Saint Rita

Brothers at Bat: the True Story of an Amazing All Brother Baseball Team  (we read this for the feast of St. Rita since she’s unofficially the patron saint of baseball) by Audrey Vernick 2012

May 30—Saint Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc  by Demi 2011 

May 31—Visitation

Take It to the Queen: A Tale of Hope by Josephine Nobisso  2008

Little Gold Star: A Spanish American Cinderella Tale by San Souci, Robert D 2000

JUNE

June 29—Saints Peter and Paul

Peter, Apostle of Jesus: The Life of a Saint  by Boris Grebille 2014

JULY

July 22—Saint Mary Magdalene 

The Miracle of the Red Egg by Elizabeth Crispina Johnson 2014

AUGUST

August 28—Saint Augustine

Brother Hugo and the Bear by Katy Beebe  2014

Gus Finds God by Michael P. Foley 2018

SEPTEMBER

September 5—Saint Teresa of Calcutta

Mother Teresa: The Smile of Calcutta (Life of a Saint)  by Charlotte Grossetête 2016

September 11

Fourteen Cows for America  (not a saint story, but a beautiful book for September 11th) by Carmen Agra Deedy 2009

September 29—Michaelmas

The Bearskinner: A Tale of the Brothers Grimm Hardcover by Laura Amy Schlitz  2007 (we read this for Michaelmas, because it’s about triumphing over the devil, it’s my all-time favorite picture book)

OCTOBER

October 1—Saint Thérèse

Therese: The Little Flower of Lisieux (Life of a Saint) by Sioux Berger 2011

The Little Flower: A Parable of Saint Therese of Lisieux by Becky B. Arganbright 2015

October 2—The Holy Guardian Angels

Angel in the Waters by Regina Doman 2005

God Bless the Gargoyles by Dav Pilkey 2016

October 4—Saint Francis

Saint Francis and the Wolf by Richard Egielski 2005

Saint Francis by Brian Wildsmith  1996

Brother Sun, Sister Moon  by Katherine Paterson 2011

October 7—Our Lady of the Rosary

Let’s Pray the Rosary by Mauricette Vial-Andru 2015

Mysteries of the Rosary board book set by Catholic Sprouts 2019

Hail Mary board book/ Our Father board book by Maïte Roche 2017

October 22—Saint Pope John Paul II

The Story of Saint John Paul II: A Boy Who Became Pope by Fabiola Garza 2014

Lolek – The Boy Who Became Pope John Paul II by Mary Hramiec Hoffman 2008 (the two JPII books are both well-written and illustrated, but this one has more historical information)

October 31—All Hallow’s Eve

Cautionary Tales for Children Hardcover by Hilaire Belloc  2002 (originally 1907) We like these as spooky Memento Mori poems for Halloween!

NOVEMBER

A Story of St. Catherine of Alexandria by Brother Flavius C.S.C 2013 (originally 1965)

So that’s it, our entire picture book liturgical library! If you’ve read these, I’d love to know which are your family’s favorites, and if you love a saint picture book that’s not on the list, please let me know in the comments. I’m always looking to add good books to our collection. Check back in on this post, I’ll update it as we get new books!

And please pray for all of us at the Fiat Conference, and consider joining us!

The post The Ultimate Liturgical Library Post: Saint Books for All Year Long appeared first on Catholic All Year.

On November 1st, we celebrate all the saints in heaven, who are our hope and help and inspiration. The rest of the month, we focus on the holy souls in purgatory. (They are also called poor souls . . . same souls, they are “poor” because they are suffering, and “holy” because they will definitely get to heaven some day, it’s just a matter of time.)

We pray especially for the souls of our family members who have died, and aren’t quite in heaven yet, but will get there with our assistance. And we pray for the souls who have no one else to pray for them. As Catholics, we believe that our prayers and sacrifices offered to God can help the souls in purgatory to get to heaven. It is something very real and important that even little kids can do!

Our family has a few activities we like to do each year, that we’ve found to be fun and meaningful. I thought you might like to join us. So I jotted them down.

1. Get Some Indulgences Applicable to the Poor Souls

There are some really awesome opportunities to gain plenary (or full) indulgences on November 2, and for the entire week of November 1-8th, that are applied to the poor souls in purgatory. The rest of the month (and the rest of the year) you can get partial indulgences.

I talked all about it in this post:

PRAYING FOR THE DEAD WITH CHILDREN

We visited our local cemetery today, to leave flowers on graves and pray for the dead, both at that cemetery, and our own beloved dead. The kids really do look forward to it each year. There are lots of cultures who do a great job of remembering their dead in a way that’s tangible to kids, but I think that for most Americans, it’s a foreign concept. Many of us tend to try to keep the idea of death and the dead far away from our kids. But it doesn’t have to be like that. Catholic tradition is not to hide death, but to prepare for it, and to remember those who have gone before us.

Each day this week, we’ll stop by once per day, and without getting out of the car we’ll pray for all the poor souls. It take just a few minutes, but it really makes this month and those souls real to our family.

A post shared by Kendra Tierney (@kendra_tierney) on Nov 1, 2017 at 11:46am PDT

2. Pray Some Very Efficacious Prayers

There are two prayers that are especially good for this month.

Prayer for the Poor Souls in Purgatory aka Requiem Prayer

V. Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord.
R. And let the perpetual light shine upon them.
And may the souls of all the faithful departed,
through the mercy of God, rest in peace.
Amen.

and the Prayer for the Holy Souls in Purgatory by St. Gertrude the Great

Eternal Father,
I offer You the most precious blood
of thy Divine Son, Jesus,
in union with the Masses said
throughout the world today,
for all the Holy Souls in Purgatory,
for sinners everywhere,
for sinners in the universal Church,
for those in my own home,
and in my family. Amen.

We pray these in addition to, or instead of, our usual family evening prayers.

3. Write the Names of Deceased Family Members on a Candle and Set Up a Family Altar

This is an activity that helps us remember our beloved dead all month long. And it’s SUPER easy. I buy a plain large glass votive candle. They are available at dollar stores and in the latin food section of grocery stores around here. But a smaller glass votive candle holder or even just a glass jar with a candle in it would work just as well.

Using a sharpie, we write the names of everyone we can remember who has died, for whom we would like to pray. For us, it’s family members, neighbors, and even celebrities who have died. In any year, not just this year. Then we place the candle on our home altar table, and all month long we keep the candle lit during dinner and our evening prayers.

If you don’t have an altar table, a corner of a counter of the center of the dinner table would work, too.

We put any photos we have to go with the names on the altar table as well, and any Mass cards from funerals. It’s a really beautiful way to help kids remember family members who have gone before them, especially those with whom they share a name!

And, just to be clear, this isn’t any sort of ancestor worship. It’s just a reminder of those that we have loved who have died. Either they are already in heaven, and they can offer prayers to God for us, or they’re not yet in heaven and we can offer prayers to God for them.

4. Make Soul Cakes and Trade Them for Prayers

On All Souls Day, and any time this month, we like to make soul cakes. This recipe from Lavender and Lovage is very authentic, and very tasty, but it’s in British. Here’s a translation of measurements:

• 1.5 sticks butter
• 3/4 cups granulated sugar
• 3 egg yolks
• 3 1/3 cups all purpose flour
• 2 tsp mixed spice (I used cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves)
• 2/3 cup raisins
• A little milk (I use buttermilk if I have it on hand)

But if you don’t like the look of those, any scone or muffin recipe can be your soul cakes.

5. Make Eggs in Purgatory

A traditional recipe for this month is Eggs in Purgatory. There is a fancy version here at Bon Appétit that is super tasty, but involves things like rubbing the outside of a lemon on toast.

If that’s not your jam, just pick your favorite salsa, dump it into a frying pan, heat it to bubbling, crack whole eggs into individual wells in the salsa, and cook them to taste with some salt and pepper. Scoop individual eggs onto pieces of toast with some salsa and serve with a salad. It makes a delicious breakfast anytime, but I love it for a meat-free Friday dinner.

I hope some of these traditions will be fun and meaningful for your family as well!

_________

If you’d like to keep track of ALL the feasts of the Catholic liturgical year, I’ve created a wall calendar to help you do it!

It features the all the feasts and fasts of the Universal Calendar and then some, illustrated with images featuring the traditional Catholic monthly devotions. It’s an easy visual way to bring liturgical living into your home. You can keep track of the feasts and fasts and seasons of the Catholic year, and be reminded to focus your prayer on a different aspect of our faith each month.

As the Church year begins with December, so does this calendar. You get December 2017 through December 2018, thirteen months. Available for purchase here. Thanks!

There’s a special coupon code currently available from the publisher:

Save 10% On Orders of Print Products
Plus Free Mail or 50% Off Ground Shipping
Use Code: BOOKSHIP17
Cannot be combined with other offers
Does not apply to ebooks or services
Ends November 6th at 11:59 PM

Related reading . . .

From this blog:

At the End, Charlotte Dies: a Reflection on Death for All Souls Day

Little Kids and Death: How Taking My Kids to a Traditional Funeral Didn’t Freak Them Out

From around the interwebs:

Mary Reed Newland: Teaching About Death

Hallowmas with Harry: What Harry Potter Taught Me About Death and the Communion of Saints

20 Ways to Pray for the Holy Souls in Purgatory

What is an Indulgence?

The Doctrine Of Purgatory

The post Easy Family Activities for the Month of the Poor Souls in November appeared first on Catholic All Year.

In honor of the day, I’d like to share with you some thoughts on . . .

Charlotte’s Web. I’ll never forget reading it as a girl. Like many bookish folks of a certain age, Charlotte’s death was the first I ever experienced, in literature or real life. The fact that anyone, let alone a main character, would actually die gave me quite a shock. I didn’t have any experience with hardship or sadness in life OR books. I was part of that first generation to get trophies just for showing up. I was pretty sure she was going to pull through, somehow.

But, of course, she didn’t.

I don’t remember being traumatized, more just genuinely surprised. I’d never read a book before where they didn’t all live happily ever after.

Wilbur survived without Charlotte, and because of her. And I carried on as well, primed now to love and lose Beth March, Anne Frank, and, eventually, Cedric Diggory <sniff>.

I really believe that what children experience in books, they are better able to process in real life. Dying, and the perception of dying, has been on my mind a lot lately. I’ve been praying for a change of heart for Brittany. That she might see that choosing death isn’t the same thing as dying with dignity. And I’ve been praying for Courtney and the beautiful example of her slow progression towards dying that her family has been giving to the world. So it was with eyes wide open that I picked Charlotte’s Web as a read-aloud with my kids.

It’s been nearly thirty years since I read it that first time, and I was impressed, again, with the simplicity of the story and the gentleness of the storytelling and the lyrical quality of the language. And we laughed out loud at Lurvy, and Avery, and Templeton.

We read a couple of chapters each day over lunch. Creeping closer and closer to Charlotte’s death. As the bookmark inched towards those last couple of chapters, I wondered how my kids would handle it.

There’s plenty of foreshadowing, of course, so they kinda saw the writing in the wall. And they were neither shocked NOR surprised when Charlotte died. In fact, they weren’t even all that troubled, being much more interested in all the baby spiders.

When I read it as a child, I thought Charlotte’s Web was an unrealistically unhappy book in which characters just die for no good reason.

But this time, I saw it differently. This time it seemed like an unrealistically happy book. Wilbur is SAVED! Charlotte dies a quiet, offscreen death. Hey, look over THERE at all the BABIES!

It’s a fairy tale modern American death story. Charlotte spends herself heroically. Her unsung efforts save the life of her friend. She is a burden to none. An inconvenience to no one. She gets to make her heartfelt goodbye speech, and leave her children well-looked-after. She waves goodbye and dies alone. She leaves behind only happy memories and baby spiders.

And it’s fine and lovely and we all enjoyed it.

But, now, as an adult, with a little more life experience under my belt, it doesn’t seem . . . authentic.

Death IS inconvenient. It’s loud and messy and expensive. It hurts, in all possible ways. Maybe a wave goodbye and a fade to black is possible for anthropomorphic spiders, but for people, there is no such thing as an easy death.

For those left behind, there is the memory of lengthy suffering, or the regret of an untimely parting. The myth of an easy death denies that every death of a loved one is a burden, but one that it’s good for us to carry. But just because death isn’t easy doesn’t mean it isn’t good.

All Souls Day is the day to remember that. It’s the day to be grateful for the pain, because it meant we loved deeply and openly, all the way to the end. It’s the day to remember that every end is a beginning, and every death is a birth into eternal life.

Charlotte died alone, with nothing but her pride. Wilbur was denied the gift of her last, vulnerable moments. He didn’t get a chance to serve her the way she had been allowed to serve him. That’s not what I want for our family. I pray for the grace to take on the burdens of illness and old age and death for the people I love. And I pray, when the time comes, for the humility to BE a burden to the people who love me.

The whole month of November is dedicated to our lost loved ones, the holy souls in purgatory. It’s a great time to tell our kids about their great grandparents and great great grandparents, about how they lived and how they died. It’s a great time to teach them to pray for friends and family members who have died. It’s a great time to tell them about Courtney, and ask them to pray for her and her family. It’s a great time to show them that, when we love each other, it’s okay to be a burden. 

It’s also a pretty good time to read Charlotte’s Web. Because even if it’s not perfect, it’s still a classic.

In related news . . .

LITTLE KIDS AND DEATH: HOW TAKING MY KIDS TO A TRADITIONAL FUNERAL DIDN’T FREAK THEM OUT

The post At the End, Charlotte Dies: a Reflection on Death for All Souls Day appeared first on Catholic All Year.

It’s a great way for kids to learn about and connect with the saints. Our homeschool group has an All Saints pageant every year, and it’s probably my kids’ favorite event.

But All Hallows’ Eve is just as much a Catholic holiday as All Saints Day and <stamping foot> darned if I’ll let a bunch of poorly catechized college girls wearing tube dresses and carrying a prop steal it from us. 

So WE will do both thank you very much.

But that doesn’t mean I have the time or resources or inclination to sew/craft/create/buy two separate costumes for each of my children. 

My deal is, I (with a LOT of help from Nana and Grandad) will provide them with an All Saints costume, and they’re on their own to create their Halloween costume of choice from our dress up clothes and/or recycle bin. But in recent years, we’ve been coming up with twofer costumes that will work for BOTH days. 

Oh, and I should warn you that I think some scariness is good for my kids, I have a great devotion to the martyrs, and I am just contrary enough that I have no problem showing up at a gathering full of children dressed as priests and princesses with MY child sporting a severed neck that’s squirting blood. Which brings me to costume number one . . .

Cephalophore. Repeat after me children: suh-PHEL-uh-fore. Still can’t pronounce it? They Might Be Giants can help:

Cephalophores (Greek for “head-carrier”) are a classification of martyrs, noteworthy for having had their heads cut off, but that not really being a problem for them. St. Denis, for instance, picked up his head and walked six miles back to his church, preaching a sermon the whole way. Awesome sauce.

He’s in good company too, there are nearly thirty cephalophore saints to choose from.

We made ours from scratch, based on this tutorial. We used a backpack as the base, and made shoulders and a neck stump of paper mâché. We cut a slit in the bishop robes for Jack’s actual head to stick out of, and stuffed the sleeves of the robes and some long gloves to look like his arms. For trick or treating, he dressed in a big trench coat instead.

I never got used to seeing him in this costume. It is VERY disconcerting.

For this year, Jack is working on a St. John the Baptist / Head on a Platter costume. It should really be something.

We started with a flesh colored shirt that we drew abs on, because St. Sebastian is holy, but dude is also totally ripped. My dad took straight sticks from the yard to make the arrows. They were attached, half on each side, to a piece of coat hanger bent into a horseshoe shape. One bent coat hanger went over each shoulder, under his shirt. We cut little holes in the shirt so the arrows could poke through both in the front and the back.

If you don’t want to try to make the arrows yourself, a few joke-shop Arrow Thru the Heads
would probably work over the shoulders.

For All Saints Day, he wore a loin cloth. For Halloween, he put on some jeans and boots and a cowboy hat.

Betty does not want a gruesome costume. She wants a pretty costume. But those can be fun too. Last year I sewed her a St. Kateri costume. I could have saved time and money just buying her this Indian Princess costume, but hers turned out really cute and she was very happy with it. It also worked quite nicely as the Indian to go with Gus’ cowboy for Halloween. She was, however, utterly scandalized at my suggestion that she carry a bow in order to be the Indian who shot Cowboy Gus. The very idea! She sees herself as more of the Pocahontas / Sacajawea assisting helpless white folks-type Indian maiden.

St. Longinus / Roman Centurion

We actually bought the plastic parts of this costume at the Coliseum on our first trip to Rome, which makes it VERY authentic, right? Nana sewed him the red tunic underneath and the red cape, but complete Roman Warrior Costumes
are widely available.

 

Okay, so maybe Ophelia from Hamlet is nearly as obscure as St. Philomena, but I still think it would be cool to do a very disheveled post-drowning St. Philomena, who could double as Ophelia.

Anita, however, did not think that would be cool. So, we went with a tidier approach to the costume. 

But she didn’t seem to have any problem bringing the gruesome in her pageant clues.

Nana sewed her the tunic with St. Philomena’s traditional symbols on it. But she was Greek, so a Greek Goddess Costume would work just fine for a Greek saint.

Knights have a lot going for them in the way of costumes. Little boys think they’re awesome (and they’re right, of course), there are plenty to choose from: St. Nuno, St. George, St. Michael, St. Francis etc., AND store bought knight costumes are very easy to come by.

We bought the St. George costume on Bobby on the right nearly five years ago at Costco for around ten bucks and it’s still going strong.

But anything worth doing is worth over-doing, so the next year Jack and Grandad fashioned a full suit of armour out of aluminum flashing for Jack’s St. Nuno costume.

And this year, Betty is going to wear it to be St. Joan of Arc!

But, usually, she wants to be a princess. Fortunately there are also plenty of princess saints. Nana sewed these dresses for her, but any store bought old-fashioned princess costume
would do just fine.

icon written by Cody Chasen Burkett

You could use a whole store-bought Viking Costume. We bought the axe and helmet at a costume shop, and two yards of fake fur at the fabric store and cut a hole for Jack’s head. No sewing required! We found the rope in the garage. But by far the coolest part of this costume is that those are my mom’s actual snow boots from the seventies. That she actually wore. Ya know, just around. Take THAT Ugg boots.

Girls could be St. Sunnivia, with their own Viking Costume.

For Gus . . . I ordered some zombie wound tatoos and we’re going to get some pale make-up and shred some clothes. Maybe for the saints pageant we’ll bring a stuffed dog. Eeew.

For Bobby . . . I ordered some blue striped pajamas and some Harry Potter glasses. For the saint’s pageant we’ll add St. Maximilian Kolbe’s prisoner number and the red triangle. For Halloween, we’ll add some handcuffs and a plastic ball and chain. I wanted them to have a collar, so I went with Pajamas
(that I’ll have to take up, since they’re not a child’s size), but there are also Convict Costumes
that would work.

Just for the record, that’s not one of my kids. He looks quite dapper though. I think we’re going to dress Frankie in a suit and sweater vest, and he can be Blessed Miguel Pro. Bullet holes are optional.

So THAT is how we roll for the All Saints Day and Halloween. How about you?

If you’d like to keep track of ALL the feasts of the Catholic liturgical year, I’ve created a wall calendar to help you do it!

It features the all the feasts and fasts of the Universal Calendar and then some, illustrated with images featuring the traditional Catholic monthly devotions. It’s an easy visual way to bring liturgical living into your home. You can keep track of the feasts and fasts and seasons of the Catholic year, and be reminded to focus your prayer on a different aspect of our faith each month.

As the Church year begins with December, so does this calendar. You get December 2025 through December 2025, thirteen months. Available for purchase here. Thanks!

We also have beautiful, large academic calendars available in the CAY Marketplace! Don’t miss out on grabbing a set of feast day stickers to go along with your calendar too!

The post Costumes for All Saints Day AND Halloween: One Part Catholic, Two Parts Awesome appeared first on Catholic All Year.