- Set up your stable early in Advent and then slowly add more of the Nativity figurines each week.
- In the empty manger place a piece of straw or yarn in the manger have a special spot for the empty manger whenever someone says an extra prayer or does a good deed. This helps make a warm bed to welcome Baby Jesus.
- Wait to add Baby Jesus until Christmas Day!
- Have the wise men figurines “wander” through your home during the Christmas season as they look for Jesus. Add them to the Nativity on Epiphany.
Monday, December 18, 2023
Nativity & Christmas Coloring Pages
Saturday, December 16, 2023
Mary, the First Tabernacle
I certainly am not the one who came up with this imagery. So along with a coloring page version of the illustration from our book, I thought I would share with you some wisdom from the Church and the Saints about Mary, the First Tabernacle:
- In his 1976 address at the Eucharistic Congress, Fulton Sheen called her "Mary, the Tabernacle of the Lord." He said: The Word was made flesh and tabernacled within her. In a certain sense, it was Mary’s first Holy Communion, for she had within herself the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ.
- Fulton Sheen also wrote: How to find Christmas peace in a world of unrest? You cannot find peace on the outside but you can find peace on the inside, but letting God do to your soul what Mary let Him do to your soul what Mary let Him do to her body, namely, let Christ be formed in you. As she cooked the meals in her Nazarene home, as she nursed her aged cousin, as she drew water at the well, as she prepared the meals of the village carpenter, as she kneaded the dough and swept the floor, she was conscious that Christ was in her, that she was a living Ciborium, a monstrance of the Divine Eucharist.
- St. Gregory the Great said, Mary, you are the vessel and tabernacle containing all Mysteries.
- St. Peter Julian Eymard wrote this beautiful reflection on St. Joseph adoring Jesus before his birth: Words cannot express the perfection of his adoration. If Saint John leaped in the womb at the approach of Mary, what feelings must have coursed through Joseph during those six months when he had at his side and under his very eyes the hidden God! If the father of Origen used to kiss his child during the night and adore the Holy Spirit living within Him, can we doubt that Joseph must often have adored Jesus hidden in the pure tabernacle of Mary? How fervent that adoration must have been: My Lord and my God, behold your servant! No one can describe the adoration of this noble soul. He saw nothing, yet he believed; his faith had to pierce the virginal veil of Mary. So likewise with you! Under the veil of the Sacred Species your faith must see our Lord. Ask St. Joseph for his Lively, constant faith.
- St. Margaret Mary Alacoque said: Every time you visit the Church for the love of Christ, His heart draws us in an embrace of sheer delight. The tabernacle is like Mary’s womb wherein dwells the same Christ who reigns above, adored by angels, He who enters our bodies and souls.
- And Pope St. John Paul II said: If we wish to discover in all its richness the profound relationship between the Church and the Eucharist, we cannot neglect Mary, Mother and model of the Church…Mary can guide us toward this most holy sacrament because she herself has a profound relationship with it.
- This Vatican document includes a beautiful explanation of Mary as the New Ark of the Covenant: The Virgin Mary is the living shrine of the Word of God, the Ark of the New and Eternal Covenant. In fact, St. Luke’s account of the Annunciation of the angel to Mary nicely incorporates the images of the tent of meeting with God in Sinai and of the temple of Zion. Just as the cloud covered the people of God marching in the desert (cf. Nm 10:34; Dt 33:12; Ps 91:4) and just as the same cloud, as a sign of the divine mystery present in the midst of Israel, hovered over the Ark of the Covenant (cf. Ex 40:35), so now the shadow of the Most High envelops and penetrates the tabernacle of the New Covenant that is the womb of Mary (cf. Lk 1:35).
Click here for the Mary, the First Tabernacle coloring page:
O Antiphons Activity Page
The O Antiphons are traditional, scriptural prayers prayed during the week leading up to Christmas Eve. These antiphons are like a countdown as we near the end of our waiting and our excitement grows. Jesus is almost here!
An antiphon is a short prayer that is spoken, sung, or chanted before and after a longer prayer. The O Antiphons feature the seven titles of the Messiah found in the Book of Isaiah. They are sung in the hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel” and have been used by Christians for around thirteen hundred years! Each of the meanings of the names originally found in the Old Testament all match up to Who Jesus was, what He said, and what He did.
The O Antiphons make a perfect Advent Bible study. You can use this guide to read more about these titles of Jesus. In the Old Testament passage, you should be looking for promises God made about Who the Messiah would be and what He would do. In the New Testament passage, you should read for information showing how Jesus fulfilled that prophecy about the Messiah. The passages listed are often very short, so you can also read a little more to understand the context of the passage.
We turned the chart in our book into the perfect activity page to use for studying the O Antiphon with older kids. You can find it by clicking here:
You might also like these other O Antiphon resources from my archives:
O Antiphons:
O Antiphons Printable Coloring Books*
O Antiphons Bible Study & Creative Project (Digital Resources
Thursday, December 14, 2023
Alllllll the All about Advent & Christmas Printables- Free for you!
The days left in Advent are dwindling, and I know as a teacher I am looking for activities to use in my classroom during the snippets of time before Christmas break. And I bet that parents will be looking for some tools to keep little hands busy while everyone is together over the Christmas Season.
Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods and I have worked hard over the past couple of months to make a huge collection of coloring and activities pages. Using the artwork and catechetical content from our book All about Advent & Christmas: Sharing the Seasons of Hope & Wonder with Children, we hope make the book more interactive this Season and for years to come. We've shared a few printables already and still have more to come... but we want to get them all in your hands NOW so that you can put them to good use- and we're offering them totally FREE!
We've compiled a collection of over thirty pages of printables for Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, including simple coloring pages (with snippets of catechetical content to give them meaning), more complex activity pages for older kids, a few resources translated into Spanish, a bulletin board set, and a clickable calendar with activities for each day.
You can access ALL THE RESOURCES IN THIS FOLDER
Or, you can download ONE FILE WITH ALL ACTIVITY PAGES
Here is a list of the resources included. Many of these activities also have (or will have) their own blog post with additional information and connected resources to help parents and teachers use them well. You can find the links to those posts below:
- Clickable Calendar with activities for everyday in the Advent & Christmas Seasons
- Advent Calendar Coloring Page
- Advent Wreath Coloring Page
- The Advent Wreath- Cards for each week
- Design-an-Advent-Chasuble
- Waiting for Jesus Bulletin Board
- The Threefold Coming of Jesus at Advent Quote Coloring Page (in Spanish & English)
- The Threefold Coming of Jesus at Advent Mini Book (in Spanish & English)
- The Nativity Scene Coloring Page
- St. Juan Diego's Miraculous Tilma (in Spanish & English, older & younger versions)
- Gaudete Sunday Coloring Page
- Bambinelli Sunday Coloring Page
- Bambinelli Sunday Prayer
- Mary, the First Tabernacle Coloring Page
- The O Antiphons Activity Page
- The Nativity Coloring Page
- Christmas Prayer
- Celebrating Epiphany
- Challenging Advent Crossword Puzzle
Tuesday, December 12, 2023
Gaudete Sunday
Can you believe that this Sunday is already Gaudete Sunday, the start of the third week of Advent?
During Advent we use the color purple to remind ourselves of preparing for Jesus to come at Christmas. But on the third Sunday of Advent, you might have a little surprise when you come to Mass and see the priest wearing pink!
Pink, or rose, is a color of joy. On the third Sunday of Advent we are over halfway through the season and drawing closer to the celebration of Christmas. We rejoice because our waiting is almost over!
The third Sunday of Advent even has a special name; it is called Gaudete (pronounced gow-DAY-tay) Sunday. Gaudete is from Latin and means “to rejoice.” It is the first word of the entrance antiphon for Mass on Gaudete Sunday, and the readings that day are all about joy.
We thought your children might like to color their own rose chasuble for Gaudete Sunday! This coloring page is complete with a little catechesis on Gaudete Sunday as well as the symbolism of the chasuble. You can print it here:
You may also like our design-an-Advent-chasuble page too, which you can find here:
Bambinelli Sunday
Friday, December 8, 2023
St. Juan Diego's Miraculous Tilma
- The natural material the tilma was made from would normally last less than 30 years. Juan Diego’s tilma is intact almost 500 years later!
- There are no brushstrokes within the image. No pigment, paint, or other explanation for the image can be detected on the tilma.
- When looked at under a microscope, Mary’s eyes are lifelike and actually show a reflection of the moment Juan Diego opened his tilma to give the roses to the bishop.
- Not only was it miraculous that roses were growing in the winter, but the roses that Juan Diego took to the bishop were native to Castile, Spain- where the bishop was from and an additional sign to him of the miraculous event.
- Acid was accidentally spilled on the tilma in 1785, and a bomb was set off under the tilma in 1921. Both times the tilma remained undamaged.
Other resources for St. Juan Diego and Our Lady of Guadalupe:
Eucharistic Witnesses: Servant of God Charlene Richard
I'm honored to be contributing to the Heart of the Revival, the newsletter and blog for the National Eucharistic Revival. I've written several articles and created activities for kids (like this Eucharistic Procession, Mass Offering Cards, Pilgrimage Passport, Pope Benedict XVI quotes, Art for Holy Week, and Bl. Carlo Acutis Activities).
I've also been helping with a monthly series called American Eucharistic Witnesses. This collection highlights Americans whose lives have been changed by the gift of the Eucharistic. With a different expert author each month and an original woodcut print by the talented Connor Miller, I've been tasked with creating a version of this series for children. Each booklet contains a shorter bio and the art print on the front and back, and inside has some activities like a quote to color, a timeline to put in order, reflection questions, and short comprehension questions to answer. One booklet is for older children (I'd recommend 5th-8th grade) and another for younger children (I'd recommend 2nd-4th grade). The collection matches in structure and we'll finish the series with a final project to pull all the booklets together.