All Lent
Prayers & Devotions
- Go to confession.
- Come up with an appropriate Lenten penance. Think of the ways you separate yourself from God because of the things you want or do. Consider giving up something like vengeance, gossip, sarcasm, or stinginess instead of chocolate.
- Pray the Stations of the Cross on Fridays. Doing it at church is wonderful, but if that’s not practical for you, do it at home. Use short, child-friendly meditations and beautiful images. Dim the lights and start with fourteen lit candles; let children put one candle out at each station so that you end in darkness- the light of Christ is gone.
Charity
- Give what comes of your penance to charity or back to God. For example, if you give up eating out, give the money you save to charity. If you give up watching TV, use that time in prayer or spiritual reading.
- Donate meatless main dishes and Easter food to a food pantry.
Fat Tuesday/Mardi Gras/Shrove Tuesday
February 13
Activities
- Serve pancakes for breakfast (to use up all the eggs and cream and milk that traditionally were not eaten during Lent).
- Have a pancake race. Racers run with a pancake in a frying pan and toss it three times- for the trinity- en route.
- Serve King cake. The lucky one who gets the baby in their piece of cake gets to be “king” for the day.
Ash Wednesday
February 14
Prayers & Devotions
- Attend mass and get your ashes.
- Bury the alleluia.
- On this day, fasting and abstinence from meat are obligatory from age 18 until age 59. When fasting, a person is permitted to eat one full meal, as well as two smaller meals that together are not equal to a full meal.
Friday during Lent
February 16 & 23
March 1, 8, 15, 22, & 29
Prayers & Devotions
- Abstinence from meat is required from age 14 onwards.
The Feast of the Chair of St. Peter
February 22
Prayers & Devotions
Activities
The Feast of St. David
March 1
Prayers & Devotions
Activities
- Read some interesting facts about St. David
- Make a soup using leeks (St. David ate nothing but leeks and water)
- Find ways to practice small, helpful acts of kindness to practice the words of St. David himself: Gwnewch y pethau bychain (Do the little things)
- St. David is the patron saint of Wales. Find and make a delicous recipe from that beautiful part of the U.K.
Saints Perpetua & Felicity, Martyrs
March 7
Prayers & Devotions
Activities
- Get your hair cut or styled (or do a fancy hairstyle for young girls). Perpetua stopped to fix her hair while she was being martyred so she wouldn’t look like she was “grieving in her glory”. This is a good reminder not to whine about our Lenten penances.
- Serve beef. Perpetua and Felicity were martyred by being gored by a “savage cow”.
Laetare Sunday
March 8 (fourth Sunday of Lent)
Activities
- Serve pink foods and/or wear pink.
- Bless a (golden?) rose and display it as tribute to Mary, the Mystical Rose, who bore the Son of God and won for us our redemption. Popes used to do this and send the rose to a Catholic queen.
Saint Patrick, Bishop
March 17
Prayers & Devotions
Activities
- Wear green.
- Serve corned-beef sandwiches, lamb, cabbage, potatoes, whiskey, beer, shepherd’s pie (since he was a shepherd), fish chowder, or fish & chips.
- Make paper shamrocks and label them to illustrate the nature of the Holy Trinity.
- Read Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland by Tomie dePaola.
Saint Joseph, Spouse of the Blessed Virgin Mary
March 19
Prayers & Devotions
Activities
- Read The Song of the Swallows by Leo Politi. This is a picture book about the swallows that always return to the Mission San Juan Capistrano on St. Joseph’s day after flying south for the winter.
- Do a little carpentry project.
- Have a St. Joseph’s Table. This Italian tradition is tiered table with specialty breads and pastries, pasta and vegetable dishes sprinkled with bread crumbs to look like sawdust, fava beans, fish, cream puffs, etc.
Annunciation of the Lord
March 25 (exactly nine months before Christmas)
Prayers & Devotions
- Recite the Angelus at 6:00.
- Read Luke 1:26-38.
- Abstinence from meat is not required today, since it’s a solemnity.
Activities
- Put on a simple Annunciation mystery play or puppet show.
- Serve waffles for breakfast. “Lady Day” sounds like “Waffle Day” in Swedish, so this is a tradition there.
Charity
