Liturgical Calendar Wheel 2008/9

Almost ready to start the liturgical new year at the end of this month and so we finally bought our new calendar. This time we bought a laminated one and we will glue the little saint images on each day - our children LOVE this each morning! Here is my in-depth posting on the calendar and the saints images in the past.

Here is an example of the saint images I have compiled for each day of the year, if you are wanting a free copy of these files please email me and I'll send them through to you.

You just cut and paste the image of the day, they quite small but still clear enough to see all sorts of details.

If you are buying your liturgical wheel in the States, you can buy your laminated or non-laminated copy here.

If you are in Australia you must be quick! There are only 4 copies left when I bought mine a few days ago and they have only the laminated copies left ($24), St Pauls is the place to purchase them.

Saints Pages/Files to share..from Mum to Mom

About a week ago I mentioned how we use the Liturgical Calendar Wheel with our children. We have tried incorporate the daily remembering of the saints with this colourful calendar. Last year I had designed saints pages for each month. Each page/file has at least one saint's image for each day, sometimes more and images for the moveable feasts as well. (with Stef designing January and February) So that they can be cut and glued to the liturgical wheel for a beautiful ‘mosaic’ of colour and saints! Our children really love the daily adding of a saint to the wheel.

I am trying to make these sheets easily accessible to others, who wish to use the saints pages for this particular wheel or other similarly designed one. Or for those who would like to use the little saint’s images for other liturgical arts and craft purposes.

So what I have done is uploaded June and July onto my website and linked it to my blog sidebar – when June is finished I will take June down and put up August and continue on in that manner. Always having the two month’s sheet available. When you click on the links you can open the document or you can save it – by saving it onto your computer you will eventually have the whole year’s worth of sheets to use year after year with your children.

For any Aussie mums wanting to order this wheel for next year contact Heather at St Paul's Bookshop in Brisbane.

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.