Liturgical calendar & daily saints - a feast for their little eyes!

I talked about another great way for the children to connect with their heavenly friends in a very visual way. In a way, that it is sort of like celebrating their birthdays with the use of pictures.....their ‘birthday’ into eternal life. These beautiful and colourful liturgical calendars put out by Liturgical Training Publications, are simply a wonderful liturgical medium in the home. (My wheel has a 'split' down the middle because I have stuck it onto the front of our homeschooling wall unit that is in our lounge, can't miss it there.)

They show everyone at one quick glance what time of the Church year we are in....purple for the penitential/preparing periods of Lent and Advent. Yellow for the celebratory periods of Christmas and Easter. Green for the ordinary time of the year. Each ‘spoke’ in the wheel is one week, with Sunday on the outside down to Saturday near the centre. Major feasts and solemnities are written in on this calendar, to mark the important days to remember and celebrate.

I started at the beginning of last year and we got through the whole year and loved it. Then I bought this year’s calendar and something happened....well, nothing happened actually...that’s what...... I delayed in getting it going for silly reasons ranging from, "where is double sided tape when I need it?!?!" To, “I’ve got to find the other handle to the homeschooling cabinet, so I can cut out the out space and screw that handle back in, then I can hang it....(still looking)” But we finally got it going a few weeks ago, really enjoyed the fun of sticking LOTS all at once and we are seriously back into the swing of it again and loving it!

Look at the wonderful illustrations that surround the wheel and the feature picture used as the ‘centrepiece.’ Each year there is a different artist and theme. Last year the use of strong, primary colours featured along with a Mexican theme where a procession in honor of Our Lady of Guadalupe was the focal highlight.

This year pastel colours of predominately purple and green feature. Using motifs from the Book of Kells for the symbols of the four evangelists who sit majestically on each corner. It is these four evangelists who were called to write about the life of Jesus Christ in Sacred Scripture, and it is Jesus who is the beautiful centrepiece – another glorious theme! These yearly themes can be discussed in length with the children, there will always be something new each year for them to learn through these calendars.

Last year I thought it would be great to stick images of the saints on each day of the year, so that it is a physical way of bringing the calendar to the children’s attention on a daily basis. This job was a bit like the book inventory, you only put in the hard slog once! You reap it’s benefits for years to come. So I cut and pasted images from the Internet of the saints throughout the year (also major feasts eg: Easter Sunday, The Ascension etc.)

Stef helped me with a couple of the months as well. I was emailing these monthly sheets to a few ladies but my husband decided that was crazy and ‘zipped’ them all into a year folder and I am still trying to nut out an easy way to pass this onto others who might want to use them....maybe I can get them onto my blog to be somehow accessed....well, I’ll work on that one.... Here is an example of a sheet for the month of July.

The use of saints images with the calendar are an excellent, added tool. I have my children sorting themselves into some frantic order, of who posts each day, (oh me next, mum!) and the questions they ask during the cutting and gluing... My little 4 year old boy who simply LOVES St George, asks everyday where he is, such a little character. I’m sure it makes St George smile from up above.