The Chair of St. Peter- Free art prints

Today is the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter! No, it's really not just a celebration of a really old chair (although there is one within the sculpture behind Bernini's columns in St. Peter's Basilica). Rather it celebrates the authority of the Holy Father, our pope. You can read more about it here.

In honor of the feast, I'd like to share these two digital prints with you. I made them by carving the images in a block and then hand printing with ink. Both have an image of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, one overlaid with the Holy Spirit as a dove, St. Peter's keys, and "Veni Sancte Spiritus" (Come Holy Spirit). I'd love for you to print and display one of these in your home or classroom as a reminder to pray for the Pope!

Click here for the version of the print with the overlaid symbols:

And click here for the version of the print with only St. Peter's dome:

If you haven't already downloaded them, here are a bunch of printables about the pope, perfect to use on this feast day:

And if you want to know more about the role of the pope, you might like my book We Have a Pope!

40 Books for 40 Days- Lenten Book List for Catholic Kids

40 Books for 40 Days: Lenten Book List for Catholic Kids

Here's a new list of books for Catholic kids to read and pray with during the seasons of Lent.

This list contains Amazon Affiliate links, which means if you click through and make a purchase, I earn a small commission at no cost to you. I'd also love to encourage you to shop directly with the publisher or with your local bookshop, or try to request these at your local library! I'm sure I've missed some books that would be great for this topic, so feel free to add your own recommendations in the comments! You can find my giant list of Catholic Kid Books by topic here.

Books for Lent

• All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance and Salvation with Children- Katherine Bogner
• Louie's Lent- Claudia Cangilla McAdam
• Arthur the Clumsy Altar Server Plans the Perfect Lent- Theresa Kiser
• Lent: One Day at a Time for Catholic Teens- Prejean McGrady, Katie

Books with Lenten Themes- Salvation History & Life of Jesus

(While not specifically about Lent, these books help tell the story of why Jesus came to save us)

• The End of the Fiery Sword- McKeegan, Maura Roan
• Saved by the Lamb- McKeegan, Maura Roan
• Dive Deep: 40 Days with God at Sea- Sr. Orianne Pietra René Dyck FSP 
• Lord, Have Mercy- Scott Hahn and Emily Stimpson Chapman
• The Supper of the Lamb- Scott Hahn and Emily Stimpson Chapman
• Our Lady of Sorrows- Patrick O'Hearn 
• When God Speaks- Hunter Leonard 
• Portrait of the Son: A Tale of Love- Josephine Nobisso 
• The Life of Jesus- Alex, Ben

Books about Prayer, Fasting, Almsgiving

(These also are not specifically for Lent, but are perfect for teaching about prayer & sacrifice, vice & virtue, and more)

• Brother Raphael and the Rainy Day Devils- Vivian Dudro 
• The Narrow Gate- Ted & Rachel Schluenderfritz
• Rejoice & Be Glad: Living the Beatitudes- Ted & Rachel Schluenderfritz
• Seven Deadly Dragons Series- John R Wood 
• The Knight's Quest:  A Journey toward Greater Glory- Judith Bouilloc
• Brother Lorenzo's Pretzels: Prayer and the Holy Trinity, Bilinsky, Cornelia
• Listening for God: Silence Practice for Little Ones- Katie Warner
• The Snail and the King- Fr. Peregrine Fletcher, OP

Books for Praying the Stations of the Cross with Kids

• 15-Minute Stations of the Cross For Kids Written by Jared Dees and illustrated by Ezekiel Saucedo
• Scriptural Way of the Cross for Children Illustrated by Tricia Dugat of Providential Co.
• Building Blocks of Faith Stations of the Cross 
• OSV Kids Stations of the Cross
• Walking with Jesus to Calvary: Stations of the Cross for Children- Burrin, Angela
• The Stations of the Cross for Children Written by Jerry Windley-Daoust and illustrated by Vicki Shuck
• The Way of the Cross Written by Juliette Levivier and illustrated by Anne Gravier
• Catholic Family Crate Stations of the Cross Cards
• Stations of the Cross for Kids- Written by Regina Doman and illustrated by Christopher Lewis 

Holy Week Stories

• Petook: The Rooster Who Met Jesus- Caryll Houselander
• Tale of the Three Trees- Hunt, Angela Elwell
• The Shepherd at the Crib and the Cross- Patrick O'Hearn 
• The Wordless Weaver- McAdam, Claudia Cangilla
• The Little Donkey and God's Big Plan- Izabela Ciesinski
• Catholic Icing Symbolic Holy Week and Easter Cookbook

Easter Stories

• Peter and Jesus by a Charcoal Fire- Maura Roan McKeegan
• God the Father and the Best Day Ever- Jagla, Gracie
• The Miracle of the Red Egg, Elizabeth Crispina Johnson
• Simon of Cyrene and the Legend of the Easter Egg- Degazelle, Terri

Allllllll the All about Lent & Holy Week Printables in one spot- FREE for you!

The Season of Lent is filled with so many rich traditions- I want to do my best as a teacher to share them with my students. This year I will definitely be putting this awesome pile of resources to good use in my classroom, and I'm so excited to share them with you too!

Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods and I have collaborated make a huge collection of coloring and activities pages. Using the artwork and catechetical content from our book All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children, we hope make the book more interactive this Season and for years to come. Even though Lent is still a few weeks away, we want to get them all in your hands NOW so that you can get ready- and we're offering them totally FREE!

We've compiled a collection of over twenty pages of printables for Lent, Holy Week, and Easter, including lots of coloring pages (with snippets of catechetical content to give them meaning), a simple Stations of the Cross booklet, a recipe for Lenten pretzels, a Holy Week mini poster, checklist with 40 ideas for the 40 days of Lent, and more!

You can access ALL THE RESOURCES IN THIS FOLDER

Or here is a list of the individual resources included. Each activity also has 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:

• 40 Ways for 40 Days Checklist (Available in English, Spanish, French, German, and Dutch!)
• Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy/Pray, Fast, Give Chart (color)
• Simple Liturgical Calendar (color and black/white)
• Lenten Pretzels Recipe Card (color)
• Fish Fry Friday Coloring Page/Placemat
• Stations of the Cross Mini Book
• Passion Sunday- Why do we cover statues? Coloring & Info Page
• Palm Weaving Coloring & Info Page
• Holy Week Poster (color)
• Saints of Holy Week Coloring & Info Page
• Good Friday Coloring Page
• Pascal Candle Coloring & Info Page
• Crotalus & Aspergillum Coloring & Info Page
• Tenebrae Service Coloring & Info Page
• Resurrection Stained Glass Coloring Page
• Easter Prayer Coloring Page

And all of them work perfectly alongside our book All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children, which you can find at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here. 

40 Ways for 40 Days- Printable checklist with doable items for kids & families!

In remembrance of Jesus’s forty days in the desert, each year the Church invites us into our own forty days of penance and preparation during Lent.

How can you pray, fast, and give this Lent? We’ve got a list of 40 ways you can grow in love of both God and neighbor during these holy forty days. Print out this list, hang it on your fridge and work on it as a family, or stick it in your Bible, planner, or journal to work on individually. Click here to download!

*Thanks to some generous readers, we now have this printable available in FIVE languages! Scroll to the bottom of the post to download in Spanish, French, Dutch, and German!

You can read more about prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in our new book All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children. These resources were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!

You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 

And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:

 

Click here to download printable in Spanish:

Click here to download printable in French:

Click here to download printable in German:

Click here to download printable in Dutch:

Using the Corporal & Spiritual Works of Mercy to guide Lenten Prayer, Fasting, & Giving- Free mini poster!

There are three marks, or characteristics, of Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We should be praying, fasting, and giving all year long, but we can challenge ourselves to increase the quantity (how much) and the quality (how well) we live out these devotions during the season of Lent.

Need some ideas for how to pray, fast, and give this Lent? Check out this free poster which includes practical ideas, lists the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, and gives you a Bible verse to focus your Lenten disciplines. 

You can read more about prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in our new book All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children. These resources were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!

You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 

And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:

Simple Liturgical Calendars: Both Color and Block & White

The order of the seasons of the liturgical year tells the story of Jesus’s life, death, and Resurrection. The Lenten season gives us forty days to prepare for the Sacred Triduum, which celebrates three events: the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection of Jesus.

In the liturgical year, every season of preparation is followed by a season of celebration, so after Lent, we will celebrate the season of Easter, rejoicing for fifty days that Jesus is risen from the dead.

Want to help your kids understand the rhythms of the Liturgical Year? You can find this freebie simple Liturgical Calendar here, in both full color and as a black and white coloring page. It’s perfect to hang next to your family calendar or stick in the cover of your planner. 

These resources were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book! Shari has also made a year specific Liturgical Calendar if you'd like one that is dated to this liturgical year, or she also has it available as a poster!

Discover even more in our new book All About Lent & Holy Week! You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 

And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:

Lenten Pretzels: Free recipe!

First made by monks in the 600s, pretzels were given as rewards to children for memorizing their prayers. The shape of the pretzel is similar to a common prayer posture of crossing your arms over your chest, and the three spaces in a pretzel remind us of the Holy Trinity. Pretzels are made with only flour, salt, and water, so they are appropriate for Lenten fasting regulations and are a common Lenten food.

Want to make pretzels this Lent? You can grab this free recipe card here, watch a video here (coming soon!), and can read more about Lenten fasting traditions in our new book All About Lent & Holy Week!

These resources were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!

You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 

And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:

Fish Fry Friday Placemat

Do you know why we can eat fish on Fridays in Lent? We abstain from chicken, beef, and pork, but fish isn’t considered meat. One reason for this is that historically, fish was common and inexpensive, but meat was more difficult to acquire, much more expensive, and associated with celebration. We can keep our abstinence and still eat fish on Fridays, so it has become popular for parishes to host fish frys on Fridays.

You can get this free Fish Fry Friday placemat to use at your own kitchen table, or even to print and use at a parish Fish Fry. Download it here!

You can read more about lots of Lenten traditions in our new book All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children. These resources were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!

You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 

And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:

Simple Stations of the Cross Booklet for Kids

 

If you are looking for a simple way to include your children in the Stations of the Cross, whether at a parish prayer service or praying together at home, we’d love to share this simple Stations of the Cross booklet with you. You can download it here. Just print, cut horizontally and vertically, stack in order, and staple the pages together. Or you could print and cut, then hang up the Stations as a tool for prayer during the Season of Lent!

You can find color versions of these Stations (and lots more activities) in the Catholic Paper Goods shop, and read more about the Stations of the Cross in our new book All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children. These resources were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!

You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 

And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:

Passiontide: Why do we cover statues?

The fifth Sunday of Lent has a special name: Passion Sunday. This is the beginning of Passiontide, the two weeks leading up to Easter.

As we near Holy Week, many churches will remove their holy images or cover them with purple cloth as an act of fasting, to remove distractions and focus our attention solely on Jesus. We remove the coverings as part of the Easter celebration, bringing back the fullness and beauty of our churches.

You can enter into Passiontide by covering the crucifix, statues, and holy images in your home. Use inexpensive purple fabric or even drape purple tissue paper over these items. You can hold them in place with tape or safety pins and then remove them on Easter morning.

Looking for help explaining this tradition to your kids? We’ve got a coloring & info page for you here!

You can read more about Passiontide and Holy Week in All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children. These resources were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!

You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 

And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:

The Tenebrae Service

Tenebrae (which means “shadows” or “darkness”) is a prayer service held during Holy Week. 

Originating from the Liturgy of the Hours, Tenebrae includes chanted psalms that focus on Christ’s Passion. The mournful songs, called dirges, are like a funeral service for our Savior. A row of candles is lit in a stand called the hearse at the beginning of the service, and after each psalm is chanted, a candle is extinguished until only one remains.

This somber service helps us to think about Jesus’s death on the Cross as we await His Resurrection.

Have you ever attended Tenebrae as a family? You can share this coloring page with your kids and read more about it in All About Lent & Holy Week.

These resources were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!

You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 

And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:

Palm Sunday: Palm Weaving Coloring Page & Video

When you arrive for Mass on Palm Sunday, you will receive palm fronds to hold during the opening procession. You may take those palms home and can tuck them behind a crucifix on the wall or hang them over a door. Some people braid and weave palms into elaborate patterns—such as crosses, roses, or crowns of thorns—for the procession on Palm Sunday. You can try to weave your palms into a simple cross. These blessed palms are a sacramental that can remind us of Holy Week all year long.

Here’s a video (coming soon!) of how to make a simple cross from a palm leaf. If you’d like an easy way to explain this tradition to your kids, you can use this coloring page!

You can read more about Palm Sunday in All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children. These resources were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!

You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 

And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:

Walk Through Holy Week Printable Poster

During Holy Week, we journey with Jesus to Jerusalem and remember the events of His Passion, death, and Resurrection. You can stay close to Jesus this week by walking through these stories from the Gospels using our Walk Through Holy Week Poster.

You can print this poster to use as a guide during Holy Week here. 

FYI, this poster is 11x17". You could send it to print at your local office store for less than a dollar, and you'll be able to use it year after year! Or if you want to print on a regular printer at home, you can either scale down to 8.5x11 or print using the poster feature on multiple sheets.

• For an 8.5x11 print: In Adobe Acrobat, go to Print>Page Size and Handling>Select Fit
• For a 11x17 (or larger) print: In Adobe Acrobat, got to Print>Page Size and Handling>Select Poster>Change Tiling Scale and check the print preview to see the size of your poster. Then print (on multiple sheets), trim, and tape together.

You can read more about walking through Holy Week with Jesus in All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children. These resources were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!

You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 

And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post: