If you haven’t seen it yet, I’m going on a pilgrimage to England with Fr. Tim Grumbach! Our friends at Select International Tours have planned the whole thing, and I worked with them to pick the BEST of the best stops for the ultimate Catholic trip.

I would love for you to come too! We can bond over our favorite English saints and writers, pray together, and drink tea together. You can find the whole pilgrimage itinerary (and trip details) in this PDF, but it’s all words and no pictures which is a bummer because we’re going to see some amazing sites.

Enter this blog post; your pilgrimage preview, or photo itinerary as it were . . .

 

 

So without further ado, I present our pilgrimage!

 

 

Day 1: Leave the USA

 

 

The pilgrimage includes airfare from the USA to London Heathrow Airport. If you’re already in England and want to join just choose the “land only” option when you’re signing up and you won’t be charged for airfare from the USA!

 

 

Us on the airplane leaving for the pilgrimage ⌄⌄⌄⌄

 

 

via GIPHY

 

 

Just kidding we’ll hopefully all be sleeping because the flight is an overnight flight with breakfast and dinner served on board.

 

 

Day 2: Arrive in London

 

 

We’ll say hi to our tour manager, and head to Mass at the magnificent Church of St. Etheldreda! This is the oldest Roman Catholic Church in England. We’ll also take a panoramic tour of London, seeing Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, and St. Paul’s Cathedral. Then we can explore a bit on our own before checking into the hotel, grabbing some Yorkshire pudding and roast beef, and then hitting the hay.

 

 

Church of St. Etheldreda

 

 

 

 

The first two images come from the St. Etheldreda website. The second two show the full interior of the church! Image 3: Source. Image 4: Source. The statues on the walls are of English Martyrs during the Elizabethan era.

Check out the fascinating history of St. Etheldreda’s here. And take a virtual 3D tour here!

 

 

Our other Day Two stops!

 

 

 

 

Image 1: Buckingham Palace, Image 2: Trafalgar Square, Image 3: Trafalgar Square, Image 4: St. Paul’s Cathedral

 

 

Day 3: The Feast of Sts. Thomas More and John Fisher

 

 

Can I just say how cool it is that we’ll be in London for these fellows’ feast day!? Day three of our pilgrimage is ALL about the English martyrs. We’ll start with Mass at Brompton Oratory which was founded by Cardinal Newman.

 

 

 

 

Images from The London Oratory website!

 

 

Then it’s off to have a tour of Tyburn, the home of the infamous Tyburn Tree (aka. The Elms, the Elms near Tyburne, Tyburn Tree, the Deadly Never Green Tyburn Tree, the Triple Tree) the gallows in the town of Tyburn, a favorite spot for executions in the 15 and 16 hundreds, and home now to the shrine of the English Martyrs.

 

 

 

 

Images 1 and 2: Source, Image 3: Source.

 

 

We’ll also visit: the cell of St. Thomas More in the Tower of London, Tower Hill, the site of his execution, St. Peter ad Vincula, to pray before his remains, and visit All Hallows Chapel, where his daughter, Margaret, prayed for her father during his execution.

 

 

 

 

Images above: 1. St. Thomas More’s Cell, 2. The Bell Tower where his cell is, 3. Tower Hill Memorial, 4&5. St. Peter ad Vincula, and 6. All Hallows Church

 

 

Day 4: Thames Dinner Cruise

 

 

First, Mass, of course, ! Today we’ll be celebrating Mass at the Westminster Cathedral. Then a visit to Westminster Abbey, St. Edward the Confessor, the Poets Corner, and the 17 British monarchs who are buried there. Afterward, we’ll head to Westminster Hall where St. Thomas More’s trial was held. And then in the evening a cruise on the Thames River! Food, wine, entertainment (the classy kind), and some sweet views of the Tower of London, the London Eye, Tower Bridge, and others all lit up for the night!

 

 

 

 

These are all of the Westminster Cathedral. As you can see it’s quite glorious . Images 1, 4, and 5 are from the cathedral website. Image 2: Source. Image 3: Source.

 

 

 

 

St. Edward the Confessor’s Tomb, The Oldest Door in Britain (conveniently located at the Abbey for our viewing pleasure), The Nave of the Abbey, the Poet’s Corner, and Westminster Hall. All images of the Abbey are from the Westminster Abbey website.

 

 

 

 

The London Eye, Tower Bridge, and The Tower of London.

 

 

Day 5: Canterbury and Aylesford

 

 

Today we’ll be visiting the Canterbury Cathedral, The Friars – Aylesford Priory, and the Shrine of the Glorious Assumption and St. Simon Stock

 

 

 

 

The first three images are of the Canterbury Cathedral (Image 1: source, Image 2: source, Image 3: source), and the second three images are from the Aylesford Priory and Shrine of the Glorious Assumption and St. Simon Stock. The images of the Priory are from their website.

 

 

Day 6: Norwich and Walsingham

 

 

Today’s all about the mystic St. Julian of Norwich and Our Lady of Walsingham! First we’ll visit the shrine of St. Julain of Norwich in . . . Norwich . Then we’ll visit the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist before hitting the road to Walsingham to celebrate Mass at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham !

 

 

 

 

The first two images are of the shrine of St. Julian of Norwich. Image 1: Source, Image 2: Source. The second two are of the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. Image 3: Source. Image 4: Source.

 

 

 

 

The images above are of the beautiful grounds at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham!

 

 

Image 1: Source. Images 2, 3, and 4: Source.

 

 

Day 7: A Day to explore in London

 

 

Today’s a free day!

Is there anything in London that you’ve been dying to do?! I need some ideas so drop them in the comments! Here are a few ideas to get you started Stop by the Natural History Museum or the Tate Britain to see classics by English artists. Enjoy high tea at one of the many tea houses in the city. Or see what’s playing at one of the many theaters in the West End! You could see The Phantom of the Opera, Les Miserables, Hamilton or bunches of others!

 

 

 

 

Image 1: Source, Image 2: Source, Image 3: Source, Image 4: Source, Image 5: Source, Image 6: Source

 

 

Day 8: Oxford and our literary heroes!

 

 

Today we’ll be heading to Oxford to visit the favorites spots of some of our favorite authors, J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis We’ll start with a visit to the graves of Tolkien and Lewis, then stop by Lewis’ home “the Kilns” before visiting and celebrating Mass at the Christ Church Cathedral. We’ll also spend the night in Oxford

 

 

 

 

Image 1: C.S. Lewis’ grave, Image 2: J.R.R. Tolkien’s grave, Image 3: The Kilns, Image 4: Christ Cathedral Choir and Organ, Image 5: Christ Cathedral Nave and Alter, Image 6: Christ Cathedral Quad

 

 

Day 9: Oxford again!

 

 

First, we’ll take a jaunt (literal walking through quaint Oxford) to Littlemore, home of St. John Henry Newman. Then we’ll attend Mass in the chapel where he converted, and visit Bermingham Oratory where both St. John Henry Newman and J.R.R. Tolkien lived! We’ll top it all off with dinner at a local restaurant!

 

 

 

 

Image 1: The College At Littlemore, Image 2: The Bermingham Oratory, Image 3: The Bermingham Oratory, Image 4: The Bermingham Oratory

 

 

Day 10: Oford, then Stratford, then London

 

 

Today will be the last full day of our trip . First, Mass at St. Aloysius Catholic Church. Then it’s off to Stratford Upon Avon to visit the home of Shakespear, there will be time to walk around and explore before heading to London for dinner and our last overnight before hitting the road back to the U.S.!

 

 

 

 

Image 1: St. Aloysius Catholic Church, Image 2: St. Aloysius Catholic Church, Image 3: St. Aloysius Catholic Church, Image 4: Anne Hathaway’s Cottage (Shakspears future wife, not the actress!), Image 5: Chedham’s Yard in Stratford, Image 6: Compton Verney Art Gallery and Park in Stratford, Image 7: Shakspears Home, Image 8: Shakspears Home

 

 

Day 11: Goodbye to dear old England!

 

 

And today we’ll say goodbye to our new friends, and head for home!

 

 

As you can see this trip is PACKED, but not hectic.

 

 

We’re going to visit so many beautiful churches, and be able to pray in the hallowed halls where so many saints and martyrs have prayed over thousands of years. We’ll get a taste of the city, AND get to enjoy the English countryside. It really is going to be a marvelous trip.

 

 

I hope I’ll see you there, and if you have any questions you can send an email to helpdesk@catholicallyear.com or reach out to Select International Tours directly!

 

 

Join me in England!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Read more about the pilgrimage in this blog post! Or go directly to sign up here!

 

The post Kendra’s Pilgrimage to England: All the Details appeared first on Catholic All Year.

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Sign up to join me here!

We’ll be spending time in London, visiting the sites of St. Thomas More’s imprisonment and martyrdom ON HIS FEAST DAY. We’ll have a dinner cruise on the Thames, and visit the shrines of St. Simon Stock, St. Julian of Norwich, and Our Lady of Walsingham. We’ll go to Oxford where the great St. John Henry Newman, J.R.R Tolkien, and C.S. Lewis spent much of their lives. Lastly, we’ll swing by Shakespeare’s house before we head on home.

We’ll see amazing sites and share fun experiences together. Fr. Tim Grumbach will be saying Masses for us in beautiful places. He’ll be available to hear confessions. We’ll both be giving talks on the history and inspiration of the places we’ll be visiting. 

We’ll also have time to hang out and chat!

FAQs

Is this a girls’ trip? No! All are welcome. Women, men, wives, husbands, friends, singles, etc.

Can I bring babies or kids along? Yes! I’ll be bringing at least one kid with me. We love kids.

Can I bring my parents along? Yes! The trip is intended for all ages. My parents would be coming if I didn’t need them to babysit. If you have specific questions about accessibility, please get in touch.

Are we to be friends, then? Yes! I hope so!

I can’t wait to raise a glass to some great saints and literary giants with you! Drop a comment below and let me know what you’re most excited about!

I know you might want a few more details, so you can find our entire itinerary in this PDF. And you can find all of the fine print and sign up to join me in Merrie Olde England here!

The post Come to England with me! appeared first on Catholic All Year.

Hi! I have to ask a parenting question. With our oldest, after reading a few of your blogs, we did time-outs. The “two’s” were a breeze! However, he (and now our second child who is almost 3), went through a challenging stage at age three. There’s a ton of STRONG emotion, and, when being babysat, the three-year-old kiddo won’t stay in a time-out. They get into a certain “mode” where they are not listening and there’s no getting through to them.

This makes our kids sound wild, but it was an all-of-a-sudden behavior that happened with our oldest right before we had another baby, and now our daughter who will be 3 in November seems to be starting this same behavior. And we’ll be adding another baby to our family in February.

I guess my question is do you have advice for this behavior? They clearly just need to snap out of it and calm down, but she won’t stay in a time-out. I’m worried about when we are in the hospital having our 4th.

We truly have lovely children! Just a stage. – Kathleen

Hi Kathleen,

Thank you for your question!

Three years old is a CHALLENGE to say the least. 

When parenting children of any age and especially young children there are three things that are really important to remember: first, to always mean what you say, second, to be consistent, and third, to discern why the behavior is occurring.

Meaning what we say as parents is important because it builds a foundation of trust with our child. They know that when we say something we mean it, whether that’s dessert after dinner or a specific consequence that we’ve warned them about. Following through on what you say lets your child know they can take you at your word.

Being consistent builds a habit in both you and your child that certain bad behaviors always get the same dispassionate response. This helps you to respond without reacting when your toddler is throwing a tantrum and allows your child to know what’s going to happen when they choose to act in a certain way.

Discerning the underlying reason that behavior might be occurring helps you help your child in the quickest way possible. Do they always lose it while you’re making lunch? Maybe they’re just hungry and need to eat a bit earlier. Are they upset especially when you get home from appointments or work? Maybe they need a little more one on one time to make it to bedtime without a meltdown.

When your toddler won’t stay in timeout stay consistent and continue to bring her back, let her know that she is free to join the family again once she is calm. If she’s able to talk to you then asking if she needs a hug or a snack can help you get to the bottom of what might really be causing the tantrum. But usually, when toddlers are this worked up it’s something that just needs to be waited out.

Please count on our prayers!
The CAY Team

Looking for more from Kendra about parenting? Here are some posts from the archives with some more tips: Why I Love the Terrible Twos, Mailbag: Please Stop the Screaming, Our One Parenting Rule for a Less Hectic Home

The post CAY Mailbag: Parenting Three-Year-Olds appeared first on Catholic All Year.

In case you prefer watching/listening to reading . . . this post is also available as a video.

by Jack Tierney

Creating a faith-filled Catholic home can seem overwhelming and impossible. It did to me as a young mother of four in 2008. Let me take you through how newbie me finally decided to give liturgical living in the home a try, and the resources we’ve successfully used for almost 15 years to keep it going strong. 

Wondering what IS liturgical living in the home? See that post here and that video here.

Today, let’s talk about WHAT Catholic All Year IS, how we got here, and how we can help you make your Catholic faith a priority in your home.

To do that, I want to introduce you to 2008 me. She was 31 years old, a brunette, had four kids 5 and under, and if her Amazon order history is any indication, she was in kind of a self-help place. A lot of parenting books, a lot of Catholic classics. 

But, as crazy as life was with many small children, bringing home baby number four hadn’t been as chaotic as bringing home the first three. I had achieved my ten thousand hours of baby parenting, so I knew what to expect with this one. I was trying to get out of survival mode and make my home life more meaningful.

The husband and I had both been raised Catholic, but without much formation beyond Mass and the sacraments. We knew we wanted our home and our children’s upbringing to be authentically Catholic, but we really didn’t even know what that would look like. My oldest son asked a LOT of questions. I often didn’t know how to answer them. 

That’s where I was in January 2008 when I read The Year & Our Children, the OG liturgical living in the home book, written in 1956 by Mary Reed Newland. I have a very clear memory of finishing the book, being convinced that it was a beautiful and meaningful way to make the Catholic faith tangible for children in the home . . . and that there was NO WAY I could do it for MY children in MY home.

I recognized that liturgical living in the home is, more than anything, a lifestyle. It’s not just a way of thinking about our faith, it’s a way of living and doing our faith. It’s so good and so worth it, but it requires real change. It’s a scary proposition. I didn’t see how I could manage it.

But it somehow really stuck with me and I couldn’t quite shake it. I kept peeking at the liturgical year wall calendar I had put up in our kitchen and thinking about things I might possibly do sometime.

So after nine months of thinking it was too overwhelming, I finally decided to just go for it. I threw a backyard Michaelmas dinner party, complete with giant devil piñata that my dad made for us out of cardboard boxes. (We still have it, by the way. You just replace the tummy candy pouch each year, and he’s ready for another vanquishing.)

After that it was a slow and steady ramping up over the next few years. We had a family Mardi Gras party before Lent. We came up with family Lenten disciplines. We did a puppet show for the Annunciation. We hosted backyard Stations of the Cross and a fish fry on Good Friday. We did a May Crowning. We ate with our hands for the Feast of St. Joseph. We dressed up for All Saints’ Day. 

My earliest forays into liturgical living were mostly parties, because hospitality and entertaining was something the husband and I already liked to do, and something we had both grown up watching our parents do. It was an obvious place to take something we were already doing and make it more Catholic and more meaningful. Your liturgical living in the home should be an adaptation of the things YOU’RE already doing.

We added one thing at a time, as our family schedules and new babies allowed, until it really became that lifestyle I always suspected it was going to be. We established family traditions for foods and activities we could look forward to each year, like spooky mac and cheese for All Hallow’s Eve, and braids for Our Lady of Guadalupe, and cookie chairs for the Chair of St. Peter. We got to know our patron saints. We learned about the life of the Holy Family and the Early Church, we learned Catholic doctrine, all in little manageable bite-sized chunks spread throughout the year.

In 2013, I decided to jump on the mommy blog bandwagon and create Catholic All Year, so I could share these traditions and how our family was adapting Catholic liturgical living traditions from the last couple thousand years and all over the world to work for our family’s modern life. The response to the blog was really amazing. I loved how it allowed me to get to know other moms from all walks of life all over the world, all trying to get our families to heaven, and hopefully have some fun and make some memories in the process.

In 2018, it became a book, The Catholic All Year Compendium.

Liturgical living in the home was having a moment. Albeit a very niche moment. But I was part of it. For the first time since Mary Reed Newland in the 50s, there was a renaissance of interest in Catholic traditions. More families were recognizing that our Catholic faith wasn’t meant to be just for Sundays, just for Christmas and Easter. It wasn’t meant to be a quiet, personal practice. It was meant to be a loud and involved part of our everyday lives, part of our home and family life, part of our communities.

But with that interest in making a big life change, came the associated fear. I knew other moms were reading my book and feeling the same overwhelm I’d felt reading The Year & Our Children ten years prior.

I wanted to help. I felt, and still do feel, so strongly that this approach is a good one for families, and that it’s doable for ALL families, in their own ways. It just takes getting over that hump of figuring out how to adapt it for your circumstances and get started.

The first step for me when I started liturgical living in the home was reading a book and hanging up a wall calendar. So, Catholic All Year offers you both of those things. The Catholic All Year Compendium, and the wall calendar which contains all the feast days on the universal liturgical calendar, plus the other feast days I mention in the book, and historical but still recommended practices like ember and rogation days. Also, meat Fridays!

I recommend prayers and Bible readings and hymns and foods for particular feast days in The Compendium, but I know from personal experience that wading through the internet to find approved versions of prayers and a Catholic translation of the Bible and family-friendly hymns and recipes is a real challenge. 

So, I created the Catholic All Year Membership Library. In addition to all the free resources available on the blog, and all the content available in the book, if you want to streamline the process of assembling content to use with your family, you can get access to all these resources that I use with my family each month in easy print and go form. All the prayers and devotions and Bible readings, and all the hymns and recipes, plus some printable decor and activities. It also includes a calendar for the month that highlights each feast day with fun symbols associated with the day, and a little summary of the saint or historical event we are celebrating, in case you—like 2008 me—don’t always have the answers to your kids’ questions.

These are the resources I use with my homeschool kids as part of our school day, the hymns we sing together, the recipes I cook for us, the prayers and readings, and devotions I use with my whole family around the dinner table, and the printable decor I use to decorate our home for the seasons and days of the liturgical year.

THEN, I started thinking about all the stuff I had found and created and adapted over the years to help us observe the liturgical year in our home. Candles, and decor, and banners, and rosaries, and scapulars, and stations of the cross, and crucifixes, and images of Our Lady, and the saints. We do projects and activities and eat foods related to the feast days. But if, like me, you didn’t grow up with this stuff in your home, it can be intimidating to know how to collect it all now. 

So we created the Catholic All Year Liturgical Living Subscription Boxes, as a set of training wheels for families new to liturgical living in the home, or for people of any experience level who just don’t have the time or inclination to put these things together for themselves. Each monthly box covers three feast days. Right in the box you’ll find exactly what my family will be using to celebrate these days in our home. This is a lifestyle, right? It’s a habit we are cultivating in our homes. To create a habit, we need to practice it regularly. If you’ve got the box, you’ve got three feast days delivered to your door. You’re creating that habit. From there you can add your own feast day traditions, you can change things up, but you’ve got the basics covered. There are consumable things in each box, but also things that last and can be used year after year, or put out to beautify your home year round.

More recently, there are also a couple more books, The Catholic All Year Prayer Companion, which is a compilation of all those prayers and readings and devotions from the membership library, in book form, and The Catholic All Year Liturgical Year Meal Planner, which includes undated write-on pages and a section in the back with meal suggestions for feast days.

Over on the website, in addition to the blog and the boxes and the library, we have the Catholic All Year Marketplace that has individual items from various boxes, posters, items from some of our favorite Catholic makers, and laser-cut wooden Catholic devotional products designed and cut in our woodshop. Things like a Jesse Tree, and Stations of the Cross.

So, yeah, we’ve got a lot going on. But it’s all just here to help, in case you need it. There are a ton of free resources and blog posts available to all. At its heart, Catholic All Year really is still that blog, and the associated social media accounts, where I give the world a peek at what liturgical living and this counter-cultural Catholic-style family life looks like in one particular home.

Get my books here

Get the wall calendar here, and grab the NEW Academic Calendar and monthly sticker sheets here!

Get free emails here.

Join to get access to the membership library here.

Prep for Candlemas and Lent at the same time!

Use the code CANDLEMAS20 for 20% off candles* up to the feast of Candlemas!

Grab our Memento Mori Lent Countdown Candle here.

Browse our entire candle collection here.

*20% discount is good for one candle product per customer.

The post How To Start Liturgical Living in the Home (with help from me in 2008) appeared first on Catholic All Year.

Note: Since drafting this post, the husband is embarking on another round of tests and treatments. Backstory here. We’d be grateful for your prayers.

Today, I’m sharing a question from the mailbag. Have a question about liturgical living or Catholic life? Send it to me at helpdesk@catholicallyear.com.

Dear Kendra,

Really quickly . . . I attended the Catholic Homeschool Conference online this past year and like many of the listeners LOVED your morning prayer routine. Would you consider sharing it in a blog post? I jotted parts of it down on a misplaced piece of paper (argh!) but would love to use it as an inspiration/template for our own domestic church. I have two little boys so I definitely remembered the “run around outside first” bit.

Happy Feast Day of St. Matthew! I made silver dollar pancakes and they were a big hit with the littles. We also turned on Bach’s Passion According to St. Matthew.

Thank you for all that you do. I’m a big fan of Maria von Trapp (Around the Year with the Von Trapp Family) and I have The Year and Our Children on my shelf, but I turn to you for the updated inspiration for liturgical living TODAY, in the 21st century, with cell phones and laptops and all.

God bless you and your family!

Respectfully,

Elaine S.

Our Morning Prayer Routine

Thanks Elaine!

​Here’s what our morning prayer routine looks like:

Days sometimes get away from us, right? It happens. So whatever we choose to do FIRST in the day, that’s the thing that we are giving the highest priority, the thing that is least likely to get skipped or glossed over. For us that’s prayer and catechesis. That’s what we do first.

Because even though, yes, math and science and grammar are important, my children’s faith formation is the MOST important.

They aren’t going to get it from the world. Who else are they going to get that from but me? So THAT comes first, every day.

1. Run Around Outside

The pregame is to run the kids around outside for a few minutes for exercise. This makes what comes next more successful.

2. Say “Good Morning” to Your Guardian Angel

Then we come into our schoolroom and we begin our day with morning prayers. We kneel down and pray the Morning Offering and the Guardian Angel Prayer.

Then we stand up and we say “good morning” to our Guardian Angels, then we say “good morning” to everybody else’s Guardian Angel, and then everyone hugs each other, usually in a big “group hug” while we also shout “group hug.”

This is a little thing, and it feels like a fun, silly thing, but, really, it gets to the heart of practicing what we preach, which is so meaningful to children. If we believe what we say we believe about our guardian angels, wouldn’t we acknowledge and interact with them?

We would. So we do.

3. Read a Bible story

Then we sit down. The kids each get a lit candle in front of them, which really does seem to help them stay quieter and more focused for this part, and we read a section from a children’s Bible. We begin at the beginning and just keep reading it cover to cover over the years. This allows us to be familiar with the stories and characters and promises of the Old Testament, which helps us to understand how they are fulfilled in the New Testament.

4. Goals and intentions for the day

Then we go around the room and each of us says a goal for the day (something we hope to accomplish this day with God’s help, if it is God’s will) and an intention for the day (someone or something that we are praying for). I think this process helps create a feeling of community. Sharing our prayers and goals with other members of the family helps make us accountable for those goals and lets us pray for each other.

5. Two Minutes of “Silent” Mental Prayer

Then we attempt two minutes of silent mental prayer. Sometimes this might be a guided meditation, in which I try to help us envision ourselves in the scene of the Bible story we read, other times it’s just two minutes of (relative) quiet. Some days are quieter than others, but we keep at it.

Then we blow out our candles. And because everything is a competition, they like to see whose candle smokes the longest and therefore “wins” at lifting our prayers to heaven. 

6. Feast Days

At that point we switch to the liturgical calendar. We’ve got a wall calendar, and a more interactive daily calendar with a cute sticker for each day and a little summary of the feast days (available as part of the CAY Membership here), and we take the sticker off the calendar for the day and read the little summary.

And, usually, that’s it, we move on to the rest of our lessons, which include singing liturgically relevant hymns and memorizing catechism, but . . .

That’s what we do together each morning. It takes 10 or 15 minutes.

7. Liturgical Year Bonus Stuff

But if it’s a feast day that’s of particular importance to our family or the Church, we spend some more time. I’ve got The Catholic All Year Compendium that tells the history and backstory of a lot of feast days, and I’ve got The Catholic All Year Prayer Companion that includes prayers and devotions and Bible readings that are associated with those days, so it’s all right there compiled already and I don’t have to be fiddling around on my phone looking for information or the version or translation of the prayer I want.

And I also have my liturgical year meal planner that has ideas of feast day meals, and I use that too, for planning. 

8. All Feasts are Movable Feasts

Now, WHEN we do this part varies depending on the feast day and our family schedule. It’s usually my preference to involve as many people as possible in our more important feast day observations, so if we can throw a party and invite the neighborhood, I’ll do that. If we can have the whole family together at dinner and do our prayers and readings and discussions all together, I’ll do that. But sometimes better is the enemy of good enough, so if that doesn’t seem likely to happen, I’ll do our feast day readings and prayers and devotions with my school kids. We can always do them again with the family if things change. Sometimes we even move the day we celebrate the feast as needed. We are in charge.

9. Feast Day Activities

Especially for younger kids, I sometimes plan a little activity for them, which makes a feast day feel more special. Honestly, it’s usually as simple as a saint coloring page which I can hand to them as I get started on the school day with the older kids. There are lots of great Catholic artists with coloring pages on Etsy, and Shining Light Dolls puts out a coloring book for each month, which is very convenient.

Catholic All Year Subscription Boxes also come with fun feast day activities for the family . . . that we use in our family!

I also think it’s important to remember to mentally “count” non-desk time as school when applicable. I like to associate family outings with particular feast days whenever I can. So we’ll go to the zoo on the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals, and we’ll go for a hike on the feast of Pope St. John Paul II because he enjoyed hiking, and we do a little Marian pilgrimage on the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, and those are all learning activities!

We read picture books about the saint or the day at storytime. (Find those books here.)

I also do a lot of cooking with my homeschooled kids and I think that’s really educational. There is so much that goes into getting a meal on the table. As a person who didn’t learn to cook until I was a newlywed, I remember vividly how challenging it is to cook before one has learned about planning ahead, and measuring properly, and doing things in the right order, and getting the math right when you need to triple or quadruple all recipes all the time. There’s a lot of learning to be had in cooking, not to mention an example of service to others, so I count that as part of “school” and as part of our liturgical living in the home.

Hope that helps! You can do it!

AMDG, Kendra

Posts with links to books we use

How to Raise Good Little Catholics

The Ultimate Liturgical Library Post: Saint Books for All Year Long

And posts with Father’s Day resources

Twelve Free Father’s Day Printables

Movies for Father’s Day That Don’t Hate Dad

Some products for Father’s Day:

All-Natural Sacred Heart Lotion Bar

St. Benedict Medal Car Magnet

St. Augustine Coasters

The post Our Catholic Morning Prayer Routine with Kids appeared first on Catholic All Year.

First, thank you for your blog. I’ve been reading it for a while now and it’s been a big help [to] me as a convert of a few years ago . . . .

I wanted to ask how you guys handle sick kids, as we move into our umpteenth minor illness of the year so far. I want to be sympathetic but also, I feel like crud myself and stuff still needs to get done. Those minor things like feeding the kids, clothing the kids, educating some of them. . . . And our kids are little enough that we have a zero screens policy with them, so no cartoons here.

Particularly, how do you handle:

• Sick kids who usually share a room with currently well kids
• Kids who are definitely under the weather but not exactly bedridden
• Kids who have clearly been praying strenuously to Our Lady of Lourdes all morning based on their miraculous recovery once the thing they didn’t want to do is over

I grew up with parents who had to send me to school unless I had an actual fever or D&V because they had to work, and it was miserable. My husband grew up able to stay off school whenever he wanted, even if he was just kinda tired. We both did fine at school and fine handling sickness in ourselves as adults, but I can’t seem to figure out a reasonable sickness policy for our kids that’s somewhere in the middle – not making my kids slog on for the sake of it, but discouraging malingering and laziness.

Suzanne

Hi Suzanne,

Yes, it’s hard to know exactly how to handle it! As moms we want to be loving and sympathetic, but we also don’t want to get scammed, er, let our kids wallow in sickness for longer than they need to. We’ve ended up needing to limit screens on sick days, to keep kids from doing that rather than sleeping or trying to catch up on homework. We allow audiobooks and if, in my determination, someone really can’t read or listen or sleep, I’ll allow a movie in the afternoon when homeschooled kids are done with schoolwork and they could watch together.

There’s always the “Newton’s first law effect” to contend with. A child having sick days tends to stay having sick days. If they’re over quantifiable symptoms I have them get up and get dressed in the morning, then if they STILL say they feel sick, I’ll let them stay home. But it’s too easy to decide you couldn’t possibly go to school from under your warm covers.

The flip side of that, of course, is what you mentioned, being too sick to do school or morning chores, then miraculously better when it’s time to go to the park. So if, in the morning, you’ve declared that you need a sick day, you don’t get to change your mind and participate in out-of-the-house activities later in the day. And you have to take a nap, which is very discouraging to my older kids. But I do encourage the kids to go out in the yard and get some fresh air if they’re home sick. We’ve got a swinging couch outside that is the preferred napping spot of sick kids around here.

We haven’t ever changed up beds. My babies are light sleepers, so the current youngest gets her own little room, then the rest of the girls have one room, and all the boys have another. They sleep like rocks and don’t seem to notice if one is up sick.

Different families have different policies on this, but our policy is that kids sleep in their own beds. Kids who barf at night come to our room to tell us and I get them cleaned up and back to their beds. My kids are usually one-and-done on the barfing. But we’ve got an old crib mattress we keep under the bed in our room for night bedwetting training, and I’ll put a kid on that if it seems like it’s going to be a long night.

We are fortunate now to have big kids old enough to pick up the slack for me if I’m sick, and we don’t ever seem to all be sick at once. But back when we were on zone defense, we just did our best on sick days and things like laundry and homeschool can wait a couple days until mom is feeling better. I remember being sick and setting little kids up with coloring pages and play-dough and an audiobook while I slept on the couch in the same room, and we all survived!

Anyway, I don’t feel like there’s any one right way to do it, but that’s what we do!

AMDG,

Kendra

The post Big Families and Sick Kids: Catholic All Year Mailbag Is Back! appeared first on Catholic All Year.

I’ve written about family movie nights before, see that post here. I think it’s been a really important part of establishing our family culture to watch movies together as a family. It gives us shared experiences and common points of reference and inside jokes. As a general rule—at any time of the year—I avoid letting my kids watch kid movies that are so insipid that I couldn’t sit through them, and the grown ups in our family avoid movies that are so racy or violent that we wouldn’t want our teens to see them. We will sometimes watch a shorter kids’ movie as a whole family, then put little kids to bed, then watch something a bit edgier with just the older kids. But in our family, the main goal of movie-watching is family togetherness. And that’s especially true for us at Christmas time.

I spent the month of November (that’s BEFORE Advent, so it’s okay ) previewing Christmas movies on various streaming platforms in the hopes of adding some new movies to our rotation. This post is a roundup of what I thought about the best of those, plus our family favorites . . . 

ANIMATED SHORTS & MOVIES

The Small One (1978, Disney+, 0:25, TV-PG)

The Small One is a classic Jungle Book-era Disney animated short film. It’s sweet and fun and has catchy, if not-always-relevant-to-the-plot musical numbers. And, spoiler alert, it’s got the Baby Jesus at the end.

Illumination Presents: Dr. Seuss’ the Grinch (2018, Amazon, 1:26, PG)

We all love the 1966 classic version and most of us hate the 2000 live action version. IMHO this version is the best. Religious carols. Hilarious a capella group part. Not the usual bad guy backstory. I love this take on the Grinch. He isn’t the terror of the town. The whos shrug off his antisocial behavior. He’s isolated by his own hurt and his own choices. So accurate. All he has to do is get out of his own way to learn to love his fellow man, er, who. 

Mickey’s Christmas Carol (1983, Disney+, 0:26, G)

This is a surprisingly good version of A Christmas Carol. I’ve watched quite a few and they have always been too badly animated, or too badly musical, or too frantic for my taste. So, even though this one is very short, and takes quite a few liberties with the plot, I’ve always really liked it. As have my kids. We love how familiar characters are cast in the story and how it manages to get Dickens’s message of redemption across with humor. There are some slightly scary parts, but it’s Goofy as the ghost of Marley, and Pete as the undertaker, so I really think all but the most sensitive kiddos would be okay with it. It’s a good starter version.

The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992, Disney+, 1:26, G)

The Mickey one is a good version. But this one is my favorite. By a landslide. It’s the Muppets, so, like Mickey’s version, we’ve got familiar faces in the roles, but in this version we also get great songs, top notch live actors, and a VERY faithful adaptation of the book, complete with actual quotes. I actually think this version is also a little less scary than the Mickey one, but its more sophisticated plot may be more difficult for little kids to understand. But they won’t mind, because they’ll be watching Kermit. (P.S. it’s not animated, it’s puppets and live action, but I made the executive decision to list it here. 🙂 )

Klaus (2019, Netflix, 1:38, PG)

An amusing (if mistaken) origin story of Santa. Great visuals, great voice acting, sweet message, gentle reference to an afterlife.

Alien X-mas (2020, Netflix, 0:42, TV-Y)

Amazing claymation, a sweet (if secular) message of love and giving, and a Santa who wields candy cane nunchucks in “The Battle for Christmastown.” It’s awesome. (Violence is limited to snowballs and automatic ribbon machines.)

Prep & Landing (2009, Disney+, 0:22, TV-G) & (2010, Disney+, 0:07, TV-G)

These Pixar shorts feature the elves who get houses ready for Santa’s visit. 2009 & 2010 are cute and unobjectionable. (We skip the 2011 one since the plot of that one centers around hating the new baby, then deciding that you like the new baby. That’s not a concept I support.)

Rankin Bass Stop Motion Christmas Movies

We have many of these on DVD and really like them, but they’re unfortunately not easily available now, either for purchase or streaming.

DON’T RECOMMEND

Angela’s Christmas (2018, Netflix, 0:30, TV-Y)

I much prefer to shine a light on good entertainment rather than point out bad, but . . . I think this deserves to be the exception. Angela and the Baby Jesus is my favorite book in our Advent/Christmas book collection. Our Christmases have been improved by the phrase, “His mother will be roarin’ an’ bawlin.’” The book is sweet and funny and poignant. The Netflix show . . . not so much.

I wanted to like it. Really I did. But its heart is all wrong. In the book, Angela’s brother Pat tells their mother of Angela’s transgression for just the reasons we tell our kids they should tattle: because something is dangerous or destructive. In the show, he’s a taunting little bully who terrorizes his sister constantly and tries to push her into traffic and can’t wait to tell on her.

In the book, the policeman makes a good natured joke to the priest about the Limerick jail, to which the priest doesn’t even reply. In the show, the noble policeman must talk the priest out of his apparent intention to throw a small child into prison . . . just like her poor father had been, traumatizing everyone. It’s just preposterous.

There’s other stuff, but I won’t bore you with more. Just, please get the book. It’s darling.

OLD-TIMEY CLASSICS FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY

White Christmas (1954, Netflix, 2:00, TV-G)

It’s got war and slapstick for the boys and dancing and romance for the girls, how could you go wrong? It’s mostly just an excuse for a bunch of musical numbers, but there is a sweet story of helping out an old buddy woven in there. Plus Phil tells Bob that what he really needs to do is get married and have nine kids. 

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946, Prime, 2:10, PG)

We often watch the Veggie Tales version of this story AND the classic black and white version. I HOPE my kids prefer this one, but it’s hard to tell. There are a lot of sweet, funny moments, and the message is timeless. Its theology about angels is, um, how to put this . . . totally wrong. But we just explain to our kids that people don’t become angels when they die anymore than cockroaches become horses when they die, and then we enjoy the movie. Hee-haw and Merry Christmas!

The Bishop’s Wife (1947, Prime, 1:50, TV-G)

Though centered on a Protestant Bishop and his wife and daughter, it’s a more theologically Catholic take on a movie featuring an angel who intervenes in human affairs. He’s not a person who became an angel, which is nice since that isn’t possible. I like how everyone around him is simultaneously drawn to and confounded by him. That seems accurate! It’s not as funny as It’s a Wonderful Life, though.

The Bells of St. Mary’s (1945, DVD, 2:06, NR)

The second Bing Crosby movie on the list (White Christmas), we also love this classic sequel to Going My Way. It’s very funny and very Catholic, and features an adorable Christmas pageant, which makes it appropriate for the season. It would be worth watching just to hear Bing Crosby singing as Fr. O’Malley, but you also get Ingrid Bergman as Mother Superior teaching a little boy to box. And there’s a grumpy rich old coot and the sisters’ blind faith in miracles, and it’s all just lovely. It’s slower than today’s movies, of course, but my kids really think it’s funny.

Come to the Stable (1949, Amazon, 1:34, NR)

Like It’s a Wonderful Life and The Bishop’s Wife, Come to the Stable seems VERY like The Bells of St. Mary’s. Come to the Stable has the advantage of being based on a very sweet true story of two French religious sisters who came to a small New England town and involve the townsfolk in helping them to build a children’s hospital. But it has the disadvantage of not having Bing Crosby for its random song insertions or quite as much humor.

EIGHTIES TO OUGHTS LIVE ACTION MOVIES

The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (1983, YouTube 0:48)

Not Catholic, but a sweet and very religious faithful TV adaptation of a favorite Christmas book.

The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe (2005, Disney+, 2:27, PG)

I love these books. They are such a lovely mix of adventure, fantasy, and allegory. I think the movie adaptations from the oughts are well-cast and enjoyable. The Father Christmas cameo makes this one a Christmas movie in my book!

A Christmas Story (1983, Amazon, 1:33, PG)

Our whole family loves this movie, but perhaps we shouldn’t. The dad uses gibberish words instead of actual swear words, but there are a handful of lesser but still significant bad words in there. It’s got the infamous leg lamp, which Ralphie caresses. The department store Santa is mean, and Ralphie is pretty convinced that the meaning of Christmas is Getting Stuff. Still, somehow, it seems fun and funny and lighthearted, and the family is loving. We’re going to watch it again this year, but it’s okay with me if you don’t.

Home Alone (1990, Disney+, 1:43, PG)

This one is another Tierney family favorite, but maybe not for everyone. It has some language, an unpleasant family fight right at the beginning, and a very brief scene of Kevin finding and tossing aside an adult magazine. (Nothing that a quick trigger finger on the remote can’t handle.) It also has an extraordinary amount of comic slapstick violence that results in very nasty looking injuries. BUT. The soundtrack is perfect, the kid is brave and resourceful, and there is a message of forgiveness and redemption and the importance of family. There are beautiful scenes involving a Catholic church, in which a character listens to his granddaughter’s choir sing Christmas carols, and Kevin hides from the bad guys in a life-size nativity scene. 

I screened the new Home Sweet Home Alone and it’s trying really hard to check all the boxes of the original, so it’s got sickening slapstick violence and even a scene in church, but it’s just not as charming and the “accidental bad guys” angle just didn’t do it for me.

Elf (2003, Amazon, 1:36, PG)

It’s really funny, for sure, and the overall messages of making time for family and learning to find your place in the world are great. But in my house this is a teens and up movie. Out of wedlock secret pregnancy, paternity tests, and lingerie are not things I want to discuss with my littles.

Joyeux Noel (2006, Amazon, 1:56, PG-13)

A bleak look at war, but a heartwarming take on the stories of enemy combatants in WWI coming together to celebrate a trench-style Christmas. Dialog is in French, English, and German, with subtitles. There’s a nudity-free sex scene between a married couple that we don’t need to see, so we jump past that part. For older teens and up.

Die Hard (1988, Amazon, 2:12, R)

It’s a well done action film. It’s not very Christmassy. But it’s okay with me if you want to call it a Christmas movie. Utterly pointless brief topless scenes (because the eighties) that can be jumped through, very bloody violence. Pro-marriage. For older teens and up.

CHRISTMAS ROM-COMS

This is a whole genre now, as I’m sure you’re aware. Christmas rom-coms have a deserved reputation for being poorly acted and poorly written, but, ya know what, some of them are fun to watch anyway. I think it’s good to celebrate romance and happy endings. We avoid rom-coms that feature divorce or living together as a plot point.  

While You Were Sleeping (1995, Disney+, 1:43, PG)

A movie from my youth that I can actually show my kids! Very sweet and old-timey romantic and definitely at Christmas time, though it’s not really about that. It’s rated PG, but because of mild references to adult situations, I think it’s more appropriate for teens and up. I love the message of appreciating family as they are. Bonus: They are Catholic and go to Mass and there’s a priest to perform the wedding.

A Christmas Prince (2017, Netflix, 1:32, PG)

Probably the most sophisticated of the Netflix Christmas rom-coms (not a super sophisticated bunch). Fun, sweet, family-appropriate, and features more interesting characters than I expected. And all the chaste romance and Christmas decorations you’d want. The sequels get progressively dumber and have subtle nods to less appropriate content.

The Princess Switch (2018, Netflix, 1:42, TV-G)

A Christmas/fairy tale version of the Prince & the Pauper. There are some plot holes, but overall it’s cute and sweet. There’s a “hubba hubba” shirtless guy scene. Hey, how about we all agree it was inappropriate to objectify women’s bodies in the movies of my childhood and it’s inappropriate to objectify men’s bodies in movies now? Could we just NOT? Anyway, the two sequels introduce a third doppelgänger with a troubling worldview and really bothersome accent and mannerisms. They’re not making it into our rotation, even though the third one features a bishop (who isn’t the bad guy , shocking, I know) and some sort of relic of St. Nicholas, but it’s just all dumber than it needs to be.

The Knight Before Christmas (2019, Netflix, 1:32, TV-14)

This one isn’t even trying to make sense, plot-wise. And it really confuses things in the Netflix Christmas Cinematic Universe (NCCU) by introducing a fourth character who looks exactly like Vanessa Hudgens. But it’s sweet and romantic and there’s a focus on honor and virtue, which is nice. (If only also faith!)

Christmas Catch (2018, Netflix, 1:26, TV-G)

My girls get a kick out of the hilariously awkward heroine. It breaks my rule against divorcee rom-coms, but we are pretty sure he could qualify for an annulment.

A Very Country Christmas 2017 Netflix, 1:24 (TV-G)

A sweet, chaste romance featuring a widowed mother, a fun gramma, a cute kid, getting back to one’s roots, and a lot of country music. Also a shirtless guy scene. Argh.

12 Dates of Christmas 2011, Disney+, 1:26 (PG)

Groundhog Day . . . but make it Christmas and Andie MacDowell is the guy from Saved by the Bell. Predictable, but aren’t they all? And she learns some good lessons and even goes to midnight Mass a couple times, so that’s good!

Some Notes:

1. These movies are mostly secular. Ideally, a list of Christmas movies would feature a lot of religious movies, right? Right. However, while I don’t mind correcting secular movie misconceptions about St. Nicholas/Santa Claus, I find the misrepresentations in religious Christmas movies to be more problematic and just, generally, bothersome to me. I know there are religious Christmas movies out there. I have previewed most of them. In my experience, they all get Mary wrong. They all show the Three Wisemen arriving on Christmas day. It. Bugs. Me. So, we read the story of Jesus’ birth from the gospel, we go to Mass, we do a family Nativity Play. There’s no question in our house as to the “reason for the season.” But the majority of Christmas movies we watch are secular.
2. In keeping with the whole “if you don’t have anything nice to say . . .” thing, if I didn’t like a movie, I just didn’t include it here. (There is one exception, but I just really wanted to warn you about that one.)
3. I’ve tried to note instances of language, violence, or racy-ness that I remembered, but I’m sure I missed a few. IMBD.com has a very helpful and detailed “parents guide” section at the bottom of their information about movies. I highly recommend checking that out before watching these or any family movies, since your screening priorities might be different than mine.

The post A Christmas Family Movie Night appeared first on Catholic All Year.

Question:

Dear Kendra,

I have followed you for over a year now and it has been wonderful adding more liturgical traditions to our year!

I’m pregnant and it’s a big shock. We have always been generally open to life, and in fact, my husband gets more excited each time, which is such a blessing! It is me who gets to doubting that I will be able to handle months of illness and another challenging delivery.

Looking for a helpful perspective,

Teresa

Answer:

Dear Teresa,

First off: Congratulations on your pregnancy!

Second: It sounds like you have real and legitimate concerns, and I hope you’ll be able to enlist the help of your husband and family and friends to lighten the load for you a bit over the next few months.

But third: It’s so easy for us to get caught up in the beginning stuff . . . difficult pregnancies, difficult births, those first few weeks and months of maybe reduced sleep and almost certainly reduced productivity. Even financial challenges.

But I think it’s important to remember that when you’re open to life you’re not open to “a pregnancy” or “a baby.”

You’re open to a PERSON.

You’re open to a sibling for your children. You’re open to an aunt or uncle to your grandchildren. You’re open to another loved one at your deathbed. This tiny new person will, God willing, be in your life until you die. Who knows the comfort and support one more child, one more sibling might be to you and your existing kids?

I have done difficult pregnancies, I have done uncertain futures, but it has always felt so SO worth it, when viewed with that long-term lens.

Hang in there, mama,

Kendra

P.S. My friend Monica makes this important addition . . .

Just to add: Even more than a just person for this life, it’s a person for eternal life. What an amazing thing that we, as Mothers, can do like changing eternity! We can bring souls with us to eternity. There’s nothing else on earth that we can bring with us to heaven—not all the wealth or possessions in the world. But we can bring our children. It’s such a gift God has given us.

Note: This particular reader message is an amalgamation of a few similar emails I’ve received.

_________

P.P.S. for all the dads in your life, for Father’s Day coming up, I wanted to remind you of a couple things we’ve got in the CAY Shop.

Coasters!

Available in full-color reusable coaster board in two sets: St. Augustine Quotes and Catholic Beer Quotes

Plan of Life Notepad

Based on the recommendations of Saint Josemaría Escrivá, this notepad can be used by men, women, and kids to keep track of daily spiritual practices and goals. 6×4 inches. 100 single-sided sheets per pad. Printed on 70 lb. premium stationery paper with a cardboard back. See it here.

The post Being Open to Life Is Being Open to a Person appeared first on Catholic All Year.

QUESTION

Hi Kendra,

Thank you for all that you do. I enjoy reading your blog. The articles are thoughtfully written and also very helpful.

If you are able, I would love your insight on another matter: tattoos and piercings. Our oldest is 20 and recently got a tattoo. Initially I was hurt that he didn’t share until afterward, but was happy to learn he did research what the Church taught. He understood that getting a tattoo is not a moral issue, but what you get as the tattoo is a moral issue.

He is our oldest and we had never really discussed our rules around getting a tattoo. He has two younger sisters (16 and 14) and realize we may need to talk about this. The 16 year old talks about getting one someday. While I have many family members and friends with tattoos, personally, I do not like them and feel like it is clouding my judgement going forward. I would rather they wait until they get their first job outside of college. They would be older and outside of the college/campus atmosphere and having to think about this permanent decision within in a professional atmosphere. Some say I would only be inviting rebellious behavior as they can do it on their own at 18.

As a Catholic mom whose insight I respect, I would love your take on the issue.

In Christ,
Jennifer

ANSWER

Dear Jennifer,

Thanks for your kind words. I appreciate your support! My oldest son is almost nineteen, and doesn’t have any tattoos or piercings (of which I am aware). But I don’t feel like I have the secret to getting kids to not get them. I do, however, have some personal insight into what might tempt an otherwise very loving and relatively well-adjusted teenager from a supportive home to flout her parents’ reasonable rules against getting tattoos.

Yes, this is a challenging issue for parents. I feel like it’s a particularly challenging for me because I was that rebellious kid. I had (have) SUPER loving and supportive parents who were REALLY against tattoos and piercings. I remember my dad basically telling me in high school that if I got a tattoo he would withdraw his financial support from me completely.

And so, in my slightly warped teenage brain, I think I saw it as the ultimate test. Would he still love me if I did the ONE thing he said not to do? So I got a tattoo in high school, and kept it hidden (because it turns out I was a pretty cowardly rebel) and I got two more and some piercings in college. And they were dumb and it was dumb and finally one Christmas break my mom saw one of them and it was a whole to do around the Christmas tree, but . . . it turned out that they DID still love and support me. So, in that way I won. But also I really regretted them pretty quickly, and went through the very painful process of having them removed, so overall my parents won. ​

Anyway, coming from that perspective, now as a parent, I have tried to frame tattoos as something one should be smart about, not as a moral issue or a line in the sand. I’ve shared with my kids that I had them, that it was about me trying to be a rebel, that mine were dumb, and that there’s a terrible burning smell when you get them removed. Since kids always want to be cooler than their parents, I assume kids of parents with tattoos probably want them less.​

I agree with your son’s assessment of the morality of tattoos. I think they can be cool, and Catholic, and a tool for evangelization. I think that the New Covenant means that as Christians we are not prohibited from having tattoos. I love that there is a 700-year-old tattoo shop in Jerusalem that caters specifically to Christian pilgrims. But I think, as it seems you do, that it’s a big decision that should be undertaken only by persons with fully-formed brains. Which is, apparently about 25. (But I got married at 24, so . . . )

Overall, it’s probably not something you have much control over. You can advise, but I wouldn’t draw a line in the sand. And I’m sure you, like my parents, will love your kids anyway, even if they get tattoos. And maybe, like my parents, you’ll help them pay to get them removed if they change their minds.

God Bless,

Kendra

P.S. My mom and dad are still amazingly supportive. Case in point: The husband and I were away for a couple days this week and my parents came up to watch the kids, and this is what that looked like yesterday.

P.S.S. Speaking of dads . . . (I’m all about that segue), The newest limited-edition wooden set in the shop is here! These engraved wooden coasters feature Catholic beer quotes and quotes from St. Augustine, a patron saint of beer. They are generously sized to fit under a beer stein, and come with a holder. Maybe you know a dad who might enjoy these for Father’s Day? Swipe through to see more photos. Get the details and order here.

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The post How to Encourage Your Kids to Get Tattoos (based on my personal experience) appeared first on Catholic All Year.

Most of these practices developed naturally for us over the years. They are certainly not unique to our family, but they aren’t things *I* grew up doing . . . so often the kids are the ones to remind me about them! And while I don’t think I’ll give up grumbling about driving any time soon, I’ve come to really appreciate the car as a great place to pray together as a family. If we’re going to be trapped there every day, we can use that time for good!

Here are five simple practices that work for us for being more Catholic in the car.

1. Make the Sign of the Cross when Passing a Catholic Church

As Catholics, we believe that Jesus Christ is truly present in the Eucharist in every tabernacle of every Catholic Church in the world. That means every time I drive past a Catholic Church . . . JESUS IS IN THERE! It’s a big deal! A simple yet powerful way to acknowledge that Truth is to pause the conversation, turn down the radio, and make the Sign of the Cross, focusing for a brief moment on Our Lord, as we drive past. In our family we also usually add a quick Act of Spiritual Communion prayer.

The kids are so used to it that they just naturally interrupt themselves mid-sentence to say the prayer, then roll right back into the conversation. If we have a couple minutes to spare, we’ll stop in front of the church to pray for a moment, or run inside to make a quick visit to the Blessed Sacrament. But even when it’s just that brief act of making the Sign of the Cross, I really cannot say enough for this beautiful way to witness the Truth of what we believe as Catholics to our children, our friends in the car with us, people waiting at the bus stop, etc. 

From the archives: Being Weird Catholics: Seven Ways We Help Our Family Believe in the Real Presence

2. Say the Eternal Rest Prayer when Passing a Cemetery

Another one that’s second nature to us these days is to say the Eternal Rest Prayer when passing a cemetery. 

Each year, in observance of the Holy Souls Indulgence in the first week of November, we make a point to drive past a cemetery each day, out of our way if necessary, to be able to pray for the dead on each of the eight days of the plenary indulgence. From that practice, developed our family habit of saying the Eternal Rest Prayer any time we pass a cemetery year-round (for which there is always a partial indulgence!).

This is another example of actions speaking loudly. As Catholics, we believe that prayers for the dead are important and efficacious. What better way to prove that we believe it, than to make a habit of actually doing it?!

3. Say the Memorare when Hearing an Emergency Siren

My little kids ask a lot of questions. They want to know about ambulances and police cars and fire trucks and where they’re going and why. I tell them that these first responders are off in a hurry to help someone. Having had more than our fair share of ambulance rides in the past few years, I think it’s a fair assumption to make that, wherever that siren is headed . . . the people involved could use our prayers.

Any prayer will do, but I especially like the Memorare for petitionary prayer. Ask Mom, she’ll help.

I think it’s been effective over the years as a way to teach and model empathy. It can be tempting to focus on curiosity, on “rubbernecking” to try to see what’s going on at an accident site, or if someone is pulled over. Or to be frustrated by traffic and delay. But it’s always better to focus myself on charity and prayer instead. 

4. Say the Rosary

I’ve talked about this one many times on the blog, starting here, and here’s the video version . . . 

But I’ll say it again: over many years for our family, the car has proven to be the most effective, most predictable, most consistent way to get to a family Rosary. It’s not always perfect, but that’s okay!

We say a family Rosary together, especially on longer car rides, but we’ll also do one on the way to and from Mass. We share intentions, we take turns leading, people get reminded to speak up and quit spacing out. Sometimes it’s frustrating. But it happens, and that’s the most important thing.

5. Pray by the Clock

Liturgical living gives rhythm and order to the year, with particular devotions and ways to focus our prayer assigned to different days and seasons. But liturgical living can also give rhythm and order to each day!

Having a “Plan of Life” in which we commit to particular prayers and devotions at particular times of day is a VERY effective way to consistently weave prayer throughout the day. Especially for folks with a regular driving schedule, deciding to set some of those regular devotions at times when you know you’ll be in the car can be a great way to make sure they happen. After all, cars these days have clocks, which are precise, reliable, and, um, stout-hearted?

I always plan to say a Morning Offering and a Guardian Angel Prayer first thing when I wake up, but I *also* plan to say them again with the school kids in the car in the morning (and again with the homeschooled kids when we start our school day). So . . . odds are REALLY good that it’s actually going to happen for me.

I also keep an eye on the car clock for other devotions like the noon Angelus (or, during the Easter season, the Regina Caeli) or a 3pm Divine Mercy chaplet. As noted above, I try to work in a Visit to the Blessed Sacrament, even if it’s sometimes from the car because I love you, Jesus, but I’m not waking up this baby. And a Rosary. And Spiritual Reading can happen via podcast. And getting myself to Mass or Confession happens in the car. So, the car is really a whole Plan of Life facilitation machine, when you really think about it, right?

Anyway, these practices have made a big difference for my personal life of faith, and have been a help to my family. I hope some of them will work for you, too, and we’ll all be liturgical driving in no time!

The post Being Catholic in the Car: five ways to pray and live liturgically while driving appeared first on Catholic All Year.