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Daily Lenten Meditations

«  March 2010  »

Sun Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat
  • Pray Light a candle. Every time you pass that candle today, offer a prayer of thanks. Don’t ask for anything. Just thank him.
  • Fast Don’t cut corners. Even if no one will know, complete today’s work thoroughly.
  • Give Touch is a powerful thing. Make an effort today to touch your children: a hug, a shoulder rub, a tousled head -- especially the bigger ones
1
  • Pray Make five minutes in the morning, at midday and in the evening to be still, silent, and alone, only asking God to infuse your soul with his will.
  • Fast No noise today. Turn off the TV, the radio, the iPod. Find God in the silence.
  • Give Pay particular unsolicited attention to your least demanding child today.
2
  • Pray Begin a gratitude journal. At the end of the day, jot down five things for which you are grateful. Think upon these things.
  • Fast Remember the first time you had a moment alone with your first child. What did you promise him? Do that. Be that.
  • Give We can only expect what we inspect. For every task you assign today, follow through and before it’s truly finished ensure that there is praise from you.
3
  • Pray “My sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me." -- John 10:27
  • Fast Every time a child interrupts you today, stop what you are doing and look into his eyes as he talks.
  • Give “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.” -- Blessed Teresa of Calcutta Speak kindly all day long.
4
  • Pray Ask God to show you how weak and small you are. Open your heart to see it.
  • Fast Don’t argue today. As much as possible give up, give in, give way.
  • Give When you are tempted to put on the TV for kids today, pull out a stack of favorite picture books instead. Invite the kids to join you on the couch.
5
  • Pray Take a walk, even if it’s cold or raining. Leave your iPod at home.
  • Fast Think of someone whose life you are tempted to envy and then choke out these words: Thank you, God, for the blessings you have given to X. Help me to see my own.
  • Give Think about the kind of person your husband married. Be that person for him today.
6
7
  • Pray "Love consumes us only in the measure of our self-surrender." -- St. Therese of Lisieux
  • Fast As you go about your daily routine today, remember that you are expecting someone very important for dinner tonight. Together with your children, work towards your husband’s homecoming as if you were expecting to welcome a king back to his castle.
  • Give “You can do nothing with children unless you win their confidence and love by bringing them into touch with oneself, by breaking through all the hindrances that keep them at a distance. We must accommodate ourselves to their tastes, we must make ourselves like them.” -- St. John Bosco
8
  • Pray Take this quote to prayer today and listen to God’s answer: “Real love is demanding. I would fail in my mission if I did not tell you so. Love demands a personal commitment to the will of God.” -- John Paul II
  • Fast Stop looking for encouragement and approval. Genuinely encourage and affirm someone else instead.
  • Give Let your child choose a huge stack of picture books (use that word “huge” when you ask her to gather them). Read them all to her today.
9
  • Pray Persevere. “He who does not give up prayer cannot possibly continue to offend God habitually. Either he will give up prayer, or he will give up sinning.” -- St. Alphonsus Liguori
  • Fast Don’t forget that the only pedestal you need ever stand on, is the one your husband and children build for you.
  • Give Focus on your home today. The world can find another volunteer, but your husband and children have only you.
10
  • Pray Insist on quiet from all your children during naptime today. Pray the Divine Mercy chaplet.
  • Fast We’re half way through. Compare yourself now only to yourself when Lent began. Tweak the plan.
  • Give Reach out to a local friend today. Reconnect.
11
  • Pray Ask God to make you humble and lowly.
  • Fast Don’t compare or complain. Do compliment.
  • Give Pack a picnic and go somewhere to eat it with your children. If the weather is prohibitive, build a tent in the living room and it eat there. Sit on the ground with them. Be fully present.
12
  • Pray Sometime before bedtime tonight, make time to pray with and for each of your children.
  • Fast Rise a little earlier and bring your husband breakfast in bed. (If it’s too late today, plan for tomorrow).
  • Give Plan a date night.
13
14
  • Pray Give thanks for food, clothes, and shelter. Listen to His plan for stewardship.
  • Fast Clean out the refrigerator today instead of eating lunch. Pull everything out and wipe it all down. As you do it, thank God for the food he provides for your family.
  • Give “We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty.” -- Blessed Teresa of Calcutta
15
  • Pray Before you read or do anything else today, pray this prayer, taken from the writings of St. Louis de Montfort: Lord, help me to imitate Mary's deep humility, lively faith, blind obedience, unceasing prayer, constant self-denial, surpassing purity, ardent love, heroic patience, angelic kindness, and heavenly wisdom. Amen.
  • Fast Give up thinking things have to be perfect.
  • Give As you do laundry today, bless the person for whom you are folding. With every crease, offer a prayer.
16
  • Pray For a few minutes tonight, after your children are sleeping, kneel beside their beds. Let your breath rise and fall with theirs. Entrust them to the Father and thank him for lending them to you.
  • Fast Let go of self-recrimination. “There is still time for endurance, time for patience, time for healing, time for change. Have you slipped? Rise up. Have you sinned? Cease. Do not stand among sinners, but leap aside.” -- St. Basil the Great
  • Give Do not say “In a minute” or “When I finish this” at all today. Instead, put aside your agenda and meet their needs (and even some wants) immediately and cheerfully.
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Bloggers

Meet the Faith & Family bloggers. We invite you to join us in encouraging and helping the Faith & Family community grow in faith!

Danielle Bean

Danielle Bean
Danielle Bean, a mother of eight, is Editorial Director of Faith & Family. She is author of My Cup of Tea: Musings of a Catholic Mom (Pauline 2005) and Mom to Mom, Day to Day: Advice and Support for Catholic Living (Pauline 2007). Though she once struggled to separate her life …
Read My Posts

Rachel Balducci

Rachel Balducci
Rachel Balducci is married to Paul and together they are the parents of five lively boys. Besides being a mom, she is also a writer and a newspaper columnist for the Diocese of Savannah, Georgia. For the past four years, she has maintained her personal blog at Testosterhome.net where she …
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Lisa Hendey

Lisa Hendey
Lisa Hendey is the founder and editor of CatholicMom.com, a Catholic web site focusing on the Catholic faith, Catholic parenting and family life, and Catholic cultural topics. Most recently she has authored The Handbook for Catholic Moms. Lisa is also employed as webmaster for her parish web sites. …
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Arwen Mosher

Arwen Mosher
Arwen Mosher lives in southeastern Michigan with her husband Bryan and their young children Camilla and Blaise. She has a bachelor's degree in theology. She dreads laundry, craves sleep, loves to read novels and do logic puzzles, and can't live without tea. Her personal blog site is ABC Family. …
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Rebecca Teti

Rebecca Teti
Rebecca Teti is married to Dennis and has four children (3 boys, 1 girl) who -- like yours no doubt -- are pious and kind, gorgeous, and can spin flax into gold. A Washington, DC, native, she converted to Catholicism while an undergrad at the U. Dallas, where she double-majored in …
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Robyn Lee

Robyn Lee
Robyn Lee is the managing editor of Faith & Family magazine. She is (yikes!) an almost 30 year-old, single lady, living in Connecticut with her two cousins in a small bungalow-style kit house built by her great uncle in the 1950s. She also conveniently lives next door to her sister, brother-in-law …
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Hallie Lord

Hallie Lord
Hallie Lord married her dashing husband, Dan, in the fall of 2001 (the same year, coincidentally, that she joyfully converted to the Catholic faith). They now happily reside in the deep South with their two energetic boys and two very sassy girls. In her *ample* spare time, Hallie enjoys cheap wine, …
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Fr. John Bartunek, LC

Fr. John Bartunek, LC

Fr John Bartunek, LC, STL, received his BA in History from Stanford University in 1990, graduating Phi Beta Kappa. He comes from an evangelical Christian background and became a member of the Catholic Church in 1991. After college he worked as a high school history teacher, drama director, and …
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Guest Bloggers

Melissa Wiley

Melissa Wiley
Melissa Wiley is a homeschooling mother of six and the author of The Martha Years and The Charlotte Years, two series of books about the ancestors of Laura Ingalls Wilder. She blogs about children’s books, family, and home education at Here in the Bonny Glen.
Read My Posts

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Easter in June

a Faith and Family magazine bleg

Posted by Danielle Bean in News on Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Lori Hadacek Chaplin, one of our senior writers at Faith and Family magazine, is asking for your input.

She’s working on a Lent/Easter resource guide for next year’s spring issue and would like to know:

What are some of the creative ways (crafts, projects, books, or other activities) your family 1. observes the season of Lent and 2. celebrates Easter?

Leave your responses in the comments here or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) and I’ll be sure they find their way to Lori. Thanks!

Comments
7
Filed under easter, feedback, input, magazine

Quitting the Penance

How do you handle the Lent-to-Easter transition?

Posted by Arwen Mosher in Faith on Wednesday, April 15, 2009

This year one of my Lenten resolutions involved fitting extra prayer into my life.  It’s prayer I felt I should have been doing anyway, but the arrival of Lent gave me the motivation I needed to commit to making it happen daily.

In past years when I’ve given up things for Lent, it’s been clear what I should do when Easter came around.  If I’d given up cookies, Easter naturally meant I could enjoy... READ MORE 

Comments
4
Filed under discipline, easter, lent, penance

Good Pleasure

what are your Easter delights?

Posted by Rebecca Teti in Family on Tuesday, April 14, 2009

http://www.seriouseats.com/2009/04/how-to-make-smeeps-smores-plus-peeps-easter-candy.html

During the octave of Easter, my kids are allowed to eat (or not eat) anything they choose.

The rest of the year sugary cereals never enter our home.

After the Easter Vigil, however, as Dennis & I pour ourselves a drink, the kids end their Lenten fasts with something nutritionally abominable.

This year it was Reese’s Puffs.

I’m not one of those moms who fears sugar overly, but the rule in our house... READ MORE 

Comments
14
Filed under easter, god the father, kids, parenting, simple pleasures, treats

Reveling in Easter Joy

Easter Stations of Light

Posted by Danielle Bean in Faith on Monday, April 13, 2009

Did you and your family participate in the Stations of the Cross during Lent and last week during Holy Week?

Then you owe it to yourselves to spend some time fully participating in the joys of Easter this week. Our sister site NCRegister.com offers a helpful guide to the “Via Lucis” or “Way of Light,” a devotion promoted by John Paul II.

More information (including history, images, texts, and age-appropriate readings).

Comments
2
Filed under christ, easter, joy, prayer

Easter at Your House

Show us how you celebrate!

Posted by Danielle Bean in Family on Sunday, April 12, 2009

Happy Easter!

I hope you and your family are enjoying a lovely Easter and that you’ll be willing to share some of your family’s celebrations.

Do you have a blog or Flickr account where you’ve posted Easter photos or have you written a post about your family’s Easter celebration? If so, please share it using the Mr. Linky form below. If you don’t have a link, feel free to share what you’ve been up to in the comments. I can’t wait to read all about it!

 

Comments
2
Filed under celebrations, easter, links, photos

He Is Risen!

Posted by Rachel Balducci in Faith on Sunday, April 12, 2009

“Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but he has been raised.”

Luke 24:4

Comments
2
Filed under christ, easter, joy

Dyeing for Some Fun

5 Ways to Keep it Simple

Posted by Danielle Bean in Homemaking on Saturday, April 11, 2009

This will be our fifteenth year of decorating Easter eggs on Holy Saturday. I guess that makes it a Bean family tradition.

Over the years, we’ve experimented a bit with different techniques. Natural dyes can be a lot of fun—art and science all in one!

With just a bit of preparedness, decoupage can produce some strikingly beautiful eggs (Check out Kristen’s gorgeous results).

Some of our chickens... READ MORE 

Comments
14
Filed under crafts, easter, eggs, fun

Taking a Coffee Break

Posted by Danielle Bean in News on Friday, April 10, 2009

In recognition of Good Friday and Holy Saturday, we won’t be hosting our usual Coffee Talks here at Faith & Family Live today and tomorrow.

There will be some posting here, but it will be a bit quieter than usual as my fellow bloggers and I prepare for Easter. I pray God will bless all of you and your families as you prepare for and celebrate this sacred season!

Comments
0
Filed under coffee talk, easter, lent

The Road to Easter Day

Children's book brings the events of Holy Week to life!

Posted by Lisa Hendey in Reviews on Thursday, April 09, 2009

Many mothers struggle with how to share the events and liturgies of Holy Week with their little ones.  A wonderful new book from Pauline Books and Media entitled The Road to Easter Day can help you share these precious stories with your child.

This picture book by author Jan Godfrey is sure to become a Lenten and Easter classic in your home.  It tells the story of Ben, a young boy who observes the... READ MORE 

Comments
6
Filed under books, children, easter, holy week, lent

Triduum Juggling

How do you handle it?

Posted by Arwen Mosher in Family on Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Celebrating the Triduum is a lot easier when you don’t have children yet.

I remember the days when I could concentrate through Mass on Thursday, the Good Friday service, and the entire Easter Vigil, and use the time in between liturgies to read the scriptures and pray and meditate.

I love having children, but I do sometimes think wistfully of the simplicity of those days.

Bryan and I have had several... READ MORE 

Comments
23
Filed under children, easter, mass, triduum

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