Count Down to Christmas with a Works of Mercy Chain

Happy New (Liturgical) Year!

If life has thrown you some unexpected curve balls lately and you feel as unprepared for Advent this year as I do, perhaps the simple freebie I am offering today can help.

Let Our 2023 Advent Chain Help Your Family Live the Works of Mercy This Advent

We just took the first link down from our annual Advent chain tonight, so I thought I would share the Advent Chain printable we made for it here in case you're looking for some quick inspiration for an easy way to count down to Christmas while keeping your family's hearts focused on sharing Christ's love through Works of Mercy.

To use the printable as we do, just print the document out. Then, color or paint all of the backsides of the strips violet, except for the final one that says "Celebrate! Christ has come!" which is the Christmas strip and left white. (Alternately, print on purple paper.)

After that, cut the pages into strips and use tape or staples to make a looped paper chain. 

Hang the chain up and - viola! - you and yours are ready to count down to Christmas while focusing on the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy.

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links. This means that, at zero cost to you, I will earn an affiliate commission if you click through the link and finalize a purchase.

Alternatively, you could browse the document for ideas for making a count-down chain tailored to your family or put the strips out with a Giving Manger  (which I reviewed previously) or homemade Sacrifice Manger (like the one pictured in 6 Things to Do Before Christmas).

Know You're Not Alone If You're Just Starting to get Ready for Advent Even If Advent Has Already Begun

And if you don't have an Advent Wreath set out next to Advent reading, Jesse Ornaments ready to go, or any of your personal Advent traditions rolling out yet, take heart! You are not alone.

Until tonight, the only thing we had out was a St. Andrew Christmas Novena Prayer Rebus Bookmark that we made years ago and just happened to find yesterday when cleaning, and currently, besides the addition of our annual Advent Chain, that remains true.

For you see, last week that old saying that life is what happens when you're making other plans became a reality here again.

A week ago today, I had plans to be well-prepared for Advent by last night. As a part of my plans, since family has been making paper Advent chains in order to count down to Christmas for years now, I had asked my youngest child to start listing Works of Mercy ideas that he would like us to include in our 2023 chain in his binder so that we might make them into a chain later in the week.

Then, the week happened and with it came a major car repair, a printer issue, a plumbing issue, an urgent care visit, an internet outage, another car repair, a roof replacement, and more.

Yes. All of this. In one week. 

So, before I knew it, Advent was upon us, and, instead of being prepared and starting Advent with morning Mass and traditions, my husband and I decided to celebrate the onset of Advent by giving everyone in our household the gift of waking up naturally and going to a noon Mass.

On the way to and from Mass, we prayed the Rosary, and - having been prompted by the aforementioned Christmas Novena bookmark that reappeared yesterday - we caught up on our Novena, too.

Then, the first day of Advent unfolded for us, without many of our New (Liturgical) Year except for praying the Christmas Novena and getting our simple Advent Chain ready.

And that's okay. Totally okay. 

Christ did not come to us in the manger because we were perfect. He does not come to us in the Eucharist because we are perfect. And He won't be coming to us again because of our earthly perfection.

In fact, Christ comes to us in our mess and our brokenness. He meets where we are at. He loves us. He gives us so much grace and mercy and asks us simply to love Him and let Him save us.

That's incredible. That's what this season is about: waiting in joyful anticipation for Christ's coming. 

The only thing we really need to journey well through Advent is a heart, mind, and soul turned toward Christ, awaiting Him.  

I'd love to hear how you're doing this Advent. If you have prayer intentions you would like others and me to pray for, please feel free to leave them in a comment. If you want to share some of your own family's traditions for journeying through Advent, feel free to share that, too. 

May God bless you with a joyful Advent.

Get A Complimentary Printable Act of Hope Copywork Set

Happy Palm Sunday!

This week, after I posted a complimentary Act of Hope copywork printable, a reader reached out to ask me if I might complete our the Act of Faith and Act of Hope sets I had shared with an Act of Charity one.

I was happy to oblige and, so, today, am sharing forward a complimentary Act of Charity copywork printable for her, her children who are working on memorizing it for Confirmation preparation, and anyone else who might be blessed by it.

As with most of my free copywork sets, the Act of Charity copywork set includes a cursive model:

A print model:

And a blank line sheet:

That way, your children can choose to practice their printing, cursive, or both as they work to memorize this prayer.

Also, as usual, to help children who have difficulty with "grounding" their letters when writing, there is a double thick line at the bottom of each line on the blank sheet, and, for those who often forget to space their words, there are spaces between words on the model as a visual reminder.

I pray that this simple Act of Charity copywork set blesses your and yours.

If you have other requests, jut let me know.

You can find more free, printable prayer copywork here!

May our Lord continually to build within each of is the virtues of faith, hope, and charity.

Get a Complimentary Act of Hope Copywork Set

A couple years ago, someone asked me to make a complimentary Act of Faith copywork printable , and I was happy to oblige.

More, recently, I was prompted to trade out the words to make an Act of Hope set and was happy to do so.

Here it is for anyone who is working on memorizing it for Confirmation preparation as well as anyone else who might be blessed by it.

As with most of my free copywork sets, the Act of Hope copywork set includes a cursive model:

A print model:

And a blank line sheet:

That way, your children can choose to practice their printing, cursive, or both.

Also, to help children remember to "ground" their letters, there is a double thick line at the bottom of each line on the blank sheet.  Plus, there are spaces between words on the model to prompt children to leave spaces between words as they copy.

I pray that this simple Act of Hope copywork set blesses your and yours.

If you have other requests, jut let me know.

You can find more free, printable prayer copywork here!

May you always be blessed with hope!

Print a FREE Gifts of the Holy Spirit Memory Game

We've got another child preparing for Confirmation here, so, in order to help solidify the Gifts of the Holy Ghost in his mind, I whipped up a super simple printable card game that can be played in three different tried-and-true ways.

1. Concentration/Memory
(for 1 or more players)

Lay the cards words down in even rows. Then, turn two cards over to reveal what their words say. If the cards match - for example, “Fear of the Lord…” and “… fills us with a dread of sin”, keep the match, and go again. If they don’t, turn the cards back over and pass onto the next turn. If playing solo, the game ends when you have matched all cards. If playing with more players, whoever has the most card pairs at the end wins.


2. Go Fish

(for 2 or more players; if there are many players, use more sets of cards)

Lay all the cards face down as “fish in a pond”. Then, each player take three cards. Player 1 ask another play, “Do you have ____?” naming what is needed to complete the pair - so, for example, if holding “...fills us with a dread of sin”, Player 1 would ask, “Do you have Fear of the Lord? If the player asked has the card requested, the card is given to Player 1, who lays the match down. If not, the player says, “No. Go fish!”” and Player 1 takes a face down card from the “fish pond”. The next person then takes a turn asking. Play continues until all cards are matched, and the player with the most matches wins.


3. The Slap Game

(for 3 or more players)

Lay the cards that name the Gifts of the Holy Spirit face up so that the words show. Give the corresponding pairs to the caller, who draws one card and makes it a question, for example, “What fills us with a dread of sin?” In response, players compete to be the first to slap the corresponding card, for example “Fear of the Lord”. Whoever slaps the correct card gets to keep it. Then, a new clue is given by the caller. The game ends when all cards have been slapped, and whoever has the most cards at the end gets to be the next caller.

When making the cards, I purposefully went for function over eye appeal in order to save printer ink and so that my son - and anyone who chooses to print a set of cards out - can easily personalize the cards.

If you'd like to download and print your own set of Gifts of the Holy Ghost Matching Cards, click here.

You can find other complimentary printables by scrolling here.

May your child enjoy using these free cards to solidify the Gifts of the Holy Spirit in his or her mind.

Know Someone Sick? Make Oil-Free 10+ Vegetable (Chicken) Soup to Boost Immunity!

Do you know someone who is sick that could use a meal dropped at the door? 

We've known a number of people over the past few months who fit this description, some who - Praise God! - have already begun healing and others who are very much in need of prayers.

Thus, I've had my children helping me to wash and chop vegetables and cook up chilis, soups, stews, and other dishes to share.

Among them was an Oil-Free 10+ Vegetable (Chicken) Soup to Boost Immunity that we came up with after looking at a bunch of recipes online and seeing what was available between rummaging our fridge and cupboards and making a run to a local store. The result, I thought, was delicious. So, in honor of it being National Soup Month - and as inspiration for you to gift forward a meal to someone you know in need - I am sharing the recipe below and also as a free printable.

I will warn you that this recipe has a lot more ingredients than many others do and is a bit labor-intensive with all the washing, peeling, and chopping of vegetables. So, it definitely makes a good Sunday service / Work of Mercy project rather than a quick weeknight help. That said, it is chock full of nutrition and wonderfully tasty, so don't let the long list of ingredients and extra prep time scare you away from it.

Further, I want to suggest that, if you are short on time, you simply whip up you favorite easy soup recipe, because most soups make a wonderfully nutritious, warming, and flexible meal to share.

If brought over hot, soups can be enjoyed right away.

If the recipient is not up to eating or has been gifted ample food by others, soups can be refrigerated or frozen, then, portioned out and reheated easily on stovetop or in a microwave. 

Most soups are forgiving, too. So you can add and drop ingredients according to availability, taste, food intolerances/allergies, etc.

Oh, and speaking of intolerances and allergies, I often ask about those before making meals to door-drop, and, if I don't have a chance to do so, I typically will avoid ingredients that tend to be common allergens. So, for example, in the soup below, I would not add the corn. (In fact, in one of the batches we made, we purposefully left out the corn due to the family allergies.)

Similarly, because some folks are vegetarian or vegan, unless I know everyone in a family is a meater, I tend to make vegan options that meat and/or dairy can be added to. (So, for example, I cooked chicken, onion, and herbs separately when cooking up our 10-Vegetable soup and, then, packaged it in another container and wrote a note that suggested that family meat-lovers might like to add the chicken to the soup or eat it on its own.)

***

Oil-Free 10+ Vegetable (Chicken) Soup to Boost Immunity!

Veggies:

1 yellow onion, diced

2 carrots, sliced 

2 celery, sliced 

1 red bell pepper, diced

1 yellow bell pepper, diced

1 poblano pepper, seeded, diced 

4 garlic cloves, minced

Spices:

1 tablespoon cumin

1 tablespoon paprika

1 tablespoon rosemary or marjoram

1 tablespoon basil

1 ½ teaspoons white pepper

1 teaspoon onion powder

1 teaspoon garlic powder

½ teaspoon thyme (or a bay leaf or two)

Other ingredients:

2 tablespoons tomato paste 

4 15-ounce cans fire roasted tomatoes (or 2 28-ounce cans)

4 cups water (or veggie broth or chicken stock) 

2 tablespoons rice vinegar

2 tablespoons liquid amino acids (or low sodium soy sauce)

1 15-ounce can garbanzo beans, drained and rinsed

2 cups frozen corn or 15-ounce can frozen fire roasted corn (optional)

1 cup frozen green peas 

Up to 3 cups fresh spinach, sliced (or a small package of frozen spinach)

Add in before serving, if desired:

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lime juice 

chicken (pre-cooked with garlic, onions, and fresh oregano or just canned chicken)

Directions:

Put a very large pot on medium high heat and add just enough water or broth to cover the bottom. Heat until it starts to steam, then add the veggies.

Sweat/water saute the vegetables until they have softened, about 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.

Add all the spices except the thyme or bay leaves to the pot and stir constantly for 30 seconds to activate the spices.

Add the tomato paste, cook for 4 to 5 minutes, and keep stirring until the paste begins to darken and starts to caramelize.

Add 1/2 cup of water or broth/stock and scrape the bottom of the pot with a spoon to scrape off any flavorful bits that are stuck to the bottom.

Add the rest of the ingredients except the spinach, lime juice, and optional chicken. Stir to combine. Cover and bring to a boil, which should take about 10 minutes. Then, reduce the heat to medium low, add the optional chicken in, and simmer for 30 minutes.

Uncover the soup and add spinach if you like more al dente veggies and call it done. Or simmer for another 45 minutes for softer veggies and, then, add spinach. Let the spinach wilt for a minute while continuing to stir.

Taste the soup and adjust any spices if needed, or add salt to your taste. Add lime, if desired, and enjoy!

Notes:

You can add any other meat, bean, or lentil that you like and/or “stretch” the soup by adding up to four more cups of broth or water.

You can also add up to 2 tablespoons chia seeds for a bit of protein and to gel-up the soup some.

***

Whether making this soup or not, I encourage you to cook up your favorite soup and bless someone forward with it this week! It would be a lovely way to live a Work of Mercy.

Did You Miss One of Our Top 10 Faith Posts of 2021?

Happy 2022!  May the new year bring joy and peace to your heart, home, and homeschool.

As my family and I look forward to all the opportunities ahead of us, I am also taking a look back at some of the ways we've lived, learned, and celebrated our faith. As I do so, I thought I would share forward our Top 10 Faith Posts of 2021 in case you would like to revisit a favorite post for inspiration, find one you missed, download a free printable, etc.

I pray that as you scroll through our Top 10 Faith Posts, you will find inspiration to continue to live and grow in faith with your family in 2022. 

Top 10 Faith Posts of 2022

~10~

This is the time of year when Advent/Christmas books are often on sale. You might like to pick these ones up. We enjoy them - and have shared a short list for each week of Advent.

~9~

Is it me or does it seem that some years the liturgical season of Lent seems to creep up so quickly after Christmas?

These 15 Ways to Prepare for Lent with Kids - and the ideas and traditions they include - might inspire you to be ready this year!

~8~

We had such fun putting together and performing a semi-spontaneous Christmas Epiphany Play last year and enjoyed doing so this year, too.

If you'd like a no-rehearsal, audience-participation play for next Christmas and Epiphany, feel free to use the one we shared.

~7~

Advent traditions are a beautiful thing, but as kids grow and life changes, some traditions seem to get forgotten, lost, or, at the very least, tweaked. Others, hold fast. 

This year, I asked my kids what their favorite traditions are so we could be sure to honor them this year - and to share them to, perhaps, inspire you.

~6~

Celebrating All Saints Day has been a long-time living-the-liturgical-year tradition here and we've ended up trying out a lot of games, activities, and themed-eats. This year, we shared our favorite five. Maybe they will become favorites for you, too.

~5~

Sometimes a motto read in a book for a Catholic mama's book club ends up getting passed along on a hike in the woods and, then, gets passed along in a blog post, which, oddly, becomes a top 10 in popularity for the year. This was one of those times. 

What mottos or tidbits from mama-reads have you passed onto your growing kids?

~4~

It was a delight to end up being asked to be on the judging panel for this past year's Mary Garden Contest put on by the Museum of Family Prayer.

The contest is an annual one, so you can look for it this year, too. Winners from last year can be found on the Museum of Family Prayer Facebook page.

~3~

It always surprises me what posts find their way into the top 10. Sometimes it's the ones where I am simply passing forward information, like in this one with it's prayer too beautiful not to share. 

It's truly a lovely, little short prayer taht I think you will appreciate.

~2~

As my children get older and our school-work-life balance gets even fuller, our efforts to live the liturgical year sometimes slip. Simple eats like the ones we enjoy on Saint Padre Pio's feast day draw everyone to the table to celebrate though.

What simple eats bring your teens to the table on feast days?

~1~

Have You Read Counsels of Perfection for Christian Mothers? You Must! It is truly a gem! I am so glad a local Catholic mama book club I sometimes participated in introduced me to it. It's an inspiring and practical read that you can access for free!

***

As I've said before: Please never be shy about making any requests for content you'd like to see here! Like many folks who share online, I have more ideas in my head than focus and time to share about them all. So, I like to tailor what we share about here to what you'd most like to see. I can only do that if you let us know.

Please leave a comment here, let me know via social media, or just tell me next time you see me (since some followers here actually know me in real life, too!)  We love feedback! 

Oh, and if you'd like to browse past Top 10 collections, find them here.

May God bless you a yours 2022 unfolds.

8 Easy Eats for Your All Saints Day Party

There are so many meals, snacks, and treats that can be made for All Saints Day.

In fact, if you want an idea, you could pick just about anything shared on Catholic Cuisine, peruse our past sharing of Simple Eats with the Saints, borrow an idea from Snacking with the Saints, or browse Pinterest.

You can also take a peak at these eight easy eats that have been served at All Saints Day parties we've attended through the years.

Mind you, our parties are often thrown togther fairly last-minute by busy moms who have too much going on, so you won't find picture-perfect set ups in the photos - just quick, easy ideas.

1. St. Thomas Fingers

Mini-franks were heated and put in a crock. Kids devoured them!

2. St. Bernadette's Sticks

We love bringing these, because they can be gluten-free and eveyrone likes them. 

Find a printable signfor this along with other snakcs here.

3. St. Maria's Stew

A crock of stew warms everyone up. Use your favorite recipe or the one here, and find a printable signfor this along with other snakcs here.

4. Blood of the Martyrs

Juice wigglers made like the orange juice ones described here, but with red 100% juice instead of orange juice, always go in a flash!

5. Saint Halo's

When you have Portuguese friends, their cookies become halos!

6. St. Francis' Friends



Who doens't like animal crackers? You can even find gluten-free ones.

7. St. Therese's "Carmel"ite Apples

Sure, they brown quickly if you don't shake them in lemon juice, ut sliced apples and caramel are always a hit!

8. St. Isidore's Bounty

It's alwasy good to have whole foods to balance the treats, so a tray of favorite produce is a must most years!

What are some of your favorite simple eats for All Saints Day parties? Do share them with us by posting them as comments or on our Facebook page. Thank you so much!

Saints in Heaven, pray for us.

5 Favorite All Saints Day Games

October is upon us, which means All Saints Day is just around the corner. 

As I look forward to this year's All Saints Day party, I asked my children what their favorite All Saints Day party game or activity was throughout the years and thought about what others ones I should bring back this year.

I share them here in case you, too, are looking forward to an All Saints Day party and want some ideas.

1. Throw Satan Out of Heaven

My youngest child said, "the one where we through things off a ladder". He means our St. Michael game, which happens to be one of the first saint games we ever made and one we have played many times throughout the years.

It's super simple to play: just cover a ladder or stepstool with a blueish cloth to be "heaven", then have kiss toss a snake (Satan) toy as far as they can into "brambles" below.

Everyone at our parties has always enjoyed this game! You can find a free pritnable for it here.

2. Balance St. Thomas Aquinas' Books

My daughter said "the one where we balance books", which has been a perennial favorite of many of our repeat party goers.

Basically, kids walk across a board or low balance beam with books on their heads.

A tip if you use this game - don't use treasured books, because the binding can break as they fall off chidlren's heads.

You can find a free printable for it here.

3. All Saints Day Treats in a Jar Guessing Game

My eldest son said, "the one where I won the coins!"

He meant the candy jar guessing activity that friends often prepare for our parties based on ideas from Catholic Inspired, Catholic Icing, and Shower of Roses - three fantastic Catholic blogs!

4.  St. Anthony Seek and Find

My favorite - just because it always engages younger and older children alike and has a sensory element to it, is St. Anthony's Seek and Find.

For it, I put various beans into a container and hide small objects, such as religious medals, in them. Kids try to find all the objects before resetting the game for the next players.

Kids have enjoyed this one for years!

5. Serve with the Inspiration of St. Kateri

Finally, several parents at a past party told me we need to make our Serve with the Inspiration of St. Kateri activity an annual one. 

Admittedly, not all the kids like this activity, but some do - and it gets things cleaned up.

Basically, it is a clean up scavenger hunt. You can find a free printable for it here.

More Ideas!

If you'd like ideas for other games, you can find tons of them in our All Saints Day archives. Also, please feel free to share your own - with links, photos, or whatever - in a comment here or on our Facebook page.

Saints in Heaven, pray for us.