SHARE: First Communion Stories from Aquinas and More Catholic Goods

In case you haven’t heard of this:
First Communion Stories is pleased to announce its annual First Holy Communion Story contest once again!
  • From May 1- May 21, submit your unique story about your First Holy Communion.  Be sure to create an account and then send it in!
  • Your story can be as long or short as you would like. Here are a few, simple rules:
    1)   Be truthful
    2)  Talk about good things โ€” this isnโ€™t a place to rant about the lousy liturgy, etc
    3)  Enter tags for your city, year and church name so other people can browse stories from the same area.
    4)  For privacy reasons, please do not include last names in your story.
  • From May 22-May 29, you will have a chance to vote on your favorite First Holy Communion story.
  • Winners will be announced on May 31. 
Our lucky winner will receive a $100 gift card to our store, Aquinas and More Catholic Goods!
Two Runner-ups will each receive a $25.00 gift card to our store,Aquinas and More Catholic Goods.
Happy submitting!
Click here

     
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First Confession Prep: Examination of Conscience {Free Printable}

As you know our second son has been preparing for his First Confession.  I posted his struggles memorizing the Act of Contrition.  I’m happy to report that our little pictograph ideas is working!  YAY!  If you don’t know what I’m talking about visit my post:  and grab it for your child(ren).
Act of Contrition
Next I wanted him to learn to examine his conscience well from the start.  So I turned to the 10 Commandments for this.  I created an Examination of Conscience for him to read through and prepare for Confession.  Here’s what it looks like and a freebie printable to share with my RLS friends:
Basic Examination of Conscience for Little Ones
Enjoy!
     
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First Friday & Saturday Consecration Prayers to the Two Hearts

We did our Home Enthronement to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary almost a year ago.  It was one of the most beautiful days for our family, we had some really nice ladies come and help with the Enthronement and to pray the Rosary with us.  
Every first Friday and Saturday we try to make it out to Mass but when we cannot we do these simple prayers in honor of the Two Hearts based on the Consecration of St. Louis of Montfort.  The prayers we like I’ve now created a PDF to share with you in hopes that you will join us in prayer.
Prayers to the Two Hearts, First Friday and Saturday Devotions (PDF)
Oh wait, I almost forgot, I have four {4}total Consecration Kits that I received from my friend Ray Mooney, the National Director of Parish Consecration over at MyConcecration.org  that I’d love to share with my online friends.  MyConsecration.org provides information about the Total Consecration to Jesus Through Mary, which was created by St. Louis de Montfort โ€“ one of Our Ladyโ€™s greatest apostles.  Please fill out the Rafflecopter below for a chance to win one!  Or, if you don’t want to wait and win, you can ask for a free kit from them directly.  ๐Ÿ™‚  But this is more fun, no?
PS: they now have an APP for the Total Consecration, check it out!
     

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Organized Mom = Happy Home {Daily Organizer Free Printable}

WARNING:  I am not an organized person, never was as a child, nor a young adult, and now as an adult it has been one of my constant struggles.  When I first read books like A Mother’s Rule of Life by Holly Pierlot, I thought, “there is no way I can micro-manage my life like that – NEVER happening, nope…I will be miserable!”  Honestly, I believed that becoming a micro-manager in my home, homeschool, and daily life would equal a tormented mommy and wife.  I mean if every aspect of my life was organized and timed and schedule, when would I find the time to “play”, “relax” and really “enjoy life”.  So I went with the flow like I always did, organized my homeschool, some, the house, some, my prayer life, some.  But my so-called “freedom mentality” was just the opposite!  Yeah, I admit it, I was dead wrong!
With the move to the new house and adding 400+ square feet more to clean and keep organized PLUS depleting the house of clutter by selling or giving away TONS of things before the move, this was my opportunity to give this micro-management a try.  I went kicking and screaming, I confess (to you and my spiritual director).  So I started searching for a method, a practice, what would work for me but also get me to be super organized.  I bought a new book written by fellow Catholic homeschooler (and blogger) Laura Dominick entitled, A Plan for Joy in the Home (highly recommend it!), re-read the old ones (actually, I skimmed), and searched the internet for an answer, Holly at The Three Sided Wheel has other great printables and has been a great inspiration to me.  After seeing many examples of great domesticity and ideas, I came up with a game plan to implement at home.  {Pray for me, this hasn’t been easy but it is so necessary.}  
It’s amazing how getting everything written down on paper helps to get your life in order.  
I will be posting in parts, the way I set up a cleaning schedule, a chore schedule (which we are still working on), a school schedule and daily micro-management of my home.  Maybe, my struggles will be an inspiration to another mama like me, who struggles in this department?  So here I will chronicle my journey to becoming an Organized Mama and in turn creating a Happy, Healthy and Holy Home (Domestic Church anyone?).  I, of course, will also be sharing all the goodies I’ve spent time working on.  They are, obviously, going to be super “cuttie-patooty”, because I’m a visual learner and like “pretty”.  So today I’d like to share my Daily Organizer.  I know it won’t be a practical sheet for EVERYONE and yes it is in color but I do print front and back (to save trees) and also on draft mode (to save on ink).  
Daily Organizer
Also, if you don’t want to have to print this all the time, go ahead and print in regular mode (for bright colors), slip this into a heavy-duty sheet protector and use a dry erase marker.  But if you are like me, I love saving the sheets to look back on things.  Another idea is to print a week’s worth and then sheet protect them so that you have the whole week to look at but other clean sheets available to use.  Enjoy!


UPDATE:  After printing on draft mode and keeping the sheets I realized that there was no need as I have my monthly planner that stores it all.  SO, I printed regular mode and slipped them into sheet protectors.  I love the bright colors.  I also made a second sheet that doesn’t contain the flower back ground for all the even pages (it is page two on the PDF above).  I printed 14 so I have two weeks available to write on to plan ahead.  Here’s what the second sheet looks like:
 
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First Confession Prep: An Act of Contrition {free printable}

Do you have a little one receiving Sacraments this year?  We do, two actually!  Our eldest is doing Confirmation and our second son is preparing for First Communion and First Confession this year!  I’m so excited for him, he’s got all his prayers down except the Act of Contrition.  He is an auditory learner but with this one he just can’t get it right.  SO, I made a pictograph poster for him to practice with.  Of course, I’m sharing it with my dear RLS friends! ๐Ÿ™‚

A made a PDF file and a PowerPoint Presentation of it.  Enjoy and feel free to pass it around to others.

Click  HERE  for the Act of Contrition printable PDF.

Act of Contrition

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Photo Collage Maker Review & Giveaway

Like my cover photo on my FB timeline? 

I made it using Photo Collage Maker and I wrote a review for it and I’m giving away 20 free licenses for it…if you have TONS of kiddie pictures and want a quick way to create neat projects like this one, go and sign up to win! ๐Ÿ™‚ Visit my review and giveaway on 3 Boys and a Dog.

     
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Holy Thursday: Jesus Gives Us a Mandate

Yesterday, on Spy Wednesday, I said I wouldn’t post today but I dawned on me today that Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday, was too important and special NOT to say something on Raising Little Saints.  “The feast of Maundy (or Holy) Thursday solemnly commemorates the institution of the Eucharist and is the oldest of the observances peculiar to Holy Week.” (source: New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia). Do you know what the word “maundy” means?  In Latin, it means COMMAND or MANDATE.  So today is the day that we call the Thursday which the Lord left us a command.  What command would that be?  Well lets turn to Scripture for that:

 “If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever; and the bread that I will give, is My flesh, for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among themselves, saying: How can this man give us His flesh to eat? Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen I say unto you: Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, you shall not have life in you. He that eateth My Flesh, and drinketh My Blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up in the last day.” (John 6)


“Jesus was only nine months in the womb of Mary, three hours on the Cross,
three days in the sepulcher, but He is always in the tabernacle.
Does our reverence before Him bear witness to this most blessed truth?”
Based on John 6, the words of Jesus Christ, Himself.

How does anyone not read this and realize the whole of our existence depends on this single pronouncement? It is not bread, it is not wine, it is your Creator, giving Himself to you gratuitously. Does any Christian that believes in Sola Scriptura not see that their belief system contradicts the Bible, and that in this passage God does not speak cavalierly?

His allegories, or parables, are for instruction. This is NOT an allegory. This is a very POINTED, blunt, take it or live it literal commandment. He went out of His way to make this point.

If He wishes the redemption of humanity for all the rest of time, this giving of His Body and Blood is not a symbol, and it wasn’t just for His time. Those that believe in the Most Blessed Sacrament are the true fundamentalists, and we stake our very souls on this basic belief, that Jesus is Truth Incarnate.

He cannot deceive, nor be deceived. 
He redeems us all, in His Body, and His Blood. 
In this any Christian lives forever, or dies forever.

Agnus dei qui tollis peccata mundi,miserere nobis.
(Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.)


     
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Spy Wednesday: Flowers, Blushing, Shame and Betrayal

Did you know today, the On the Wednesday of Holy Week, is called “Spy Wednesday”?  I had never heard of it until I saw friends on Facebook posting it here and there and everywhere.  So I started looking into it…so here’s the gist of it. It is called Spy Wednesday because this is the day Judas conspired with the Temple leadership to hand Jesus over tot he Sanhedrin. He would accomplish his task the evening of the next day, but today he makes arrangements to hand Jesus over and is paid. Because Judas is thought to be sneaky, his actions conjured up the image of a spy. This is how the Gospel of Matthew, Chapter 26: 14-25 recounts the events of today:

One of the Twelve, who was called Judas Iscariot, went to the chief priests and said, “What are you willing to give me if I hand him over to you?”  They paid him thirty pieces of silver, and from that time on he looked for an opportunity to hand him over.

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the disciples approached Jesus and said, “Where do you want us to prepare for you to eat the Passover?” He said, “Go into the city to a certain man and tell him, ‘The teacher says, AMy appointed time draws near; in your house I shall celebrate the Passover with my disciples.”‘” The disciples then did as Jesus had ordered,
and prepared the Passover. 

When it was evening, he reclined at table with the Twelve.  And while they were eating, he said,
“Amen, I say to you, one of you will betray me.” Deeply distressed at this, they began to say to him one after another, “Surely it is not I, Lord?”  He said in reply, “He who has dipped his hand into the dish with me is the one who will betray me.  The Son of Man indeed goes, as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed.  It would be better for that man if he had never been born.”

Then Judas, his betrayer, said in reply, “Surely it is not I, Rabbi?”
He answered, “You have said so.”

So after that reading and talking some with the kids, we decided to pick four words that had meaning for this day, they selected:  flowers, blushing, betrayal, and shame.  We made this into a step-by-step art lesson using a picture of the tree Judas hung himself from, now known as the Judas Tree (or it’s scientific name: )  We used our Draw-Write-Now book to start the tree off and then they each added something.  The details was either my 7 year old’s idea (like seeing Calvary from afar) or making gray clouds because “God was probably really sad at Judas,” as my five year old daughter suggested.  We used colored pencils, crayons, and markers to make it a mixed media project.  Here are their masterpieces:
Of course, the rope from the tree was the boy’s idea and he even added Judas.
My daughter went with the rope idea, minus
 the dead guy.  Kids!  ๐Ÿ˜€
A Closer look at them:

They did these with just a little guidance from me, not bad for ages seven and five huh? ๐Ÿ˜€
While I won’t be posting the remainder of the week, here is my post from last year’s Holy Thursday,

And our Holy Week Journey from last year with a FREE printable!  ๐Ÿ™‚
Have a blessed remainder of the week friends!

     
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