Happy Ash Wednesday! Today on Instagram’s Stories I was talking about decorating our house for Lent. A couple people asked me to share how I decorate so I thought I would do a quick post about how we set up our Lenten decor and family activities.

Normally, our home already has Sacred Spaces – tables or tops of shelves where we have icons, candles, a Bible or statues. I share about the various spaces in our house in the post Creating a Sacred Space for Prayer. Today I’ll just be focusing about Lent.

First, I love putting wreaths or seasonal welcome signs on our front door. For Lent, I made a simple Lenten wreath to mark the season. I used a grape vine wreath and purple ribbon I purchased at a craft store. Super simple.

In our home’s entryway we have a prayer table that pretty much stays the same year round (except during Advent.) During Lent, I drape the Sacred Heart icon with a purple piece of cloth that was material remnant from a craft store. I use a purple vase and usually have purple flowers.

Also in the entryway we have a small bookcase and I placed the Blessed Is She “She Who Believed” Print in a frame with a statue of Our Lady and some flowers. (There were lots of Valentine flowers from my Sweetie to put around the house!)

The family room is where we are the most often to eat, watch TV or say our family night prayers. I use the top of a low shelf to make this seasonal prayer space. For Lent we remove the St. Michael the Archangel and St Therese icons and place John the Baptist and Padre Pio to remind us of the importance to repent and turn back to God.

This photo was taken last year when I also set up a candle centerpiece using a long rectangular tray filled with six votive candles for the six weeks of Lent. (This year I forgot to buy more votive candle at Target so I’ll do that this weekend.)

I purchased tiny wreaths from Michael’s Craft Store that fit around the candle. We add a wreath to a candle on each Sunday of Lent. We light the candles in the evening during our family prayer.

Two years ago I purchased/ printed off this Lent Calendar from Do Small Things with Great Love.com. I placed it in an inexpensive frame from Ikea. (It was made with plastic front, not glass.)  At first we used a dry erase pen to mark a cross on each day as it passed. It is great for the kids, who have no sense of time, to see how many more days until Easter. After a few years of use, however, the front of the plastic frame was getting beat up so I removed it and they mark straight on the paper.

We also like Kendra’s idea of using Sacrifice Beans. Every time a family member makes an Acts of Love or makes a sacrifice they put a dried kidney bean in the bowl. On Easter Sunday the dry beans are changed to jelly beans (or some other treat.)

Another activity the kids enjoy is the Act of Love Jar. They are able to make their own sacrifices but if they need a little inspiration, they can choose something out of the jar. It will say things such as: I will share a toy with my brother. I will not complain today. I will clean up my room without being asked. I will make a card for someone to cheer them up. I will be nice to someone I don’t usually talk to at school. Things like that.

The Prayer Jar has a special intention for each day. During our evening prayer we pick out a petition to pray for such as: For pregnant moms. For our firefighters. For our priests. For those entering the Church on Easter. For the souls in purgatory. For people sick in the hospital. For the homeless. Etc. Anyone can also add their own intention into the jar too.

When we first started family prayer time the boys were younger and a lot more wild. There were nights when prayer ended with boys literally coming to blows and screaming over who got to blow out the candle or pick the prayer intention, which then followed with me yelling at them and Brian sending them to their rooms for misbehaving. (Aw, peaceful prayer time.)

Since they are used to having a “Student of the Day” in school so we took that same concept with the “prayer helper of the day.” The name rotates and that person is in charge of leading prayer, marking the day on the Lent calendar, picking the petition, blowing out the candle etc. It’s our third year doing it and my then 3, 5 and 7 year olds are now 6, 8 and 10 doing prayers without a single punch or fight. LOL. Frankly, they are doing an awesome job. (Although we are still battling a few “do we have to pray” attitudes now and then…. and, truth be told, its not always from the kids… she admitted guiltily.) 😉

A couple years ago we started using the Blessed Is She stations of the cross cards. I added them to the prayer space using a little stand and rotating them.

This year, Blessed Is She put out new Mary’s Way of the Cross Cards. I pinned them to some twine I hooked to the wall next to our prayer space.

During the week we pray a decade of the rosary. This lent we will pray Stations of the Cross on Fridays. We will use this book The Way of the Cross from Magnificat/Ignatius.

What about you? Do you have a favorite Lenten family activity? Do you decorate your house during Lent? Share in the comments. 🙂

Have a blessed Lent.

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Happy First Week (days) of Lent! In years past, I didn’t really buckle down until a couple weeks into Lent but each year I get a little better. Not perfect, mind you, but better.

Ash Wednesday started out with a bang – a more stressful than usual morning with me upset and frustrated, the boys more wild than usual (or at least they seemed it) and I was already dreading Lent without making it an hour into it. Thankfully, I made it to morning Mass early and had some time to cool down and pray and get my mind and heart in the right attitude. And the rest of the day was lovely, right?? Well, yes and no.

If you follow me on Instagram and watched my instastories that day, you saw how I spent the first half of the day getting the house cleaned and decorating for Lent. It all looked so pretty! Yeah, it looked great but then I was given a little reminder that Lent is more than just getting the pretty prayer journal, and putting up the purple flowers and Lenten activities, it also meant actually putting my Lenten practices to work.

What you didn’t see on the instastories was the second half of the day when things started to go downhill. I got a call from Brian about a work project that needed to be redone. Pronto. There was another issue with a family member that needed to be dealt with, also pronto. My car was on the fritz and they called to say the bill would be over $500. Add that to a number of other things that  went wrong in a few hours. Combine all this with being food deprived from fasting and well, let’s just say that mama had a meltdown by the time the evening was over. I hit that “don’t even look, talk or touch me!” zone, all the while thinking, “Damn it! I can’t even get past Ash Wednesday without screwing up royally.” Sigh.

Thankfully, God is patient and his mercy is ready to pick us up and dust us off. After apologies and hugs were given to the family and after I checked the calendar to see when my next confession was scheduled (in a couple days) I was able to go to bed knowing tomorrow would be a fresh, blank page ready for me to start a new story. Happily, today was a better day.

I tell you all this because I know someone reading this will be a little encouraged that none of us have it all together and that we are all dealing with our own struggles and inadequacies. I also want to encourage you that no matter how many times we may fail, God never, never, tires of picking us back up.

Choosing My Lenten Fast

Each year I usually share with you what I am working on during Lent, mostly because I know my mom will read it and ask me how I am doing when she calls me. This holds me accountable. 😉

I was actually having a hard time narrowing down what I should give up or do for Lent but I was reading Kathryn’s blog post This, *This* Is Your Lenten Fast and her words kicked me in the arse. She said:

Rather than telling yourself, “Oh, Lent is coming, time to give up sweets and Dr Pepper,” let’s do something different instead.

Dig deep. Start with what you take to the confessional every time. Or, if you haven’t been in a while (hey, no judgment) start with something that takes your time away from God. Start with the thing that’s your barrier – maybe it’s social media, your attitude, the crap in your house or the junk in your heart.

Like a big neon sign was the words “Start with what you take to the confessional every time.” I know what that is.

Later I read Blessed Is She’s daily devotion for Ash Wednesday and Jenny said:

This Lent, don’t give up chocolate. Don’t set your alarm 15 minutes early. Not before asking Him what He wants from your heart. Ask Him how you can best make a sacrifice to become who He wants you to be. The fasting, prayer, and almsgiving of Lent are all for the sake of bring our whole selves, body and soul, closer to Him. Lent is about offering ourselves to God anew, asking Him to strip away the facade and, in His great mercy, to reveal to us those parts of ourselves that look the least like Him.

I opened up my Blessed Is She journal and it said in bold letters:

PUT ON LOVE.

Ugh, stop it, Lord! You’ve made your point. Yeah, yeah, yeah. “Put on Love.” It makes a great prayer journal title and a great #hashtag for my IG photos but it is so hard to actually LIVE.

I’d rather just give up chocolate. (And for me, that’s saying a lot.)

However, when I look back at my little meltdown earlier, my self-love is glaring. Everyone was bugging me. Everyone was making me work harder. Everyone was stressing me out. Me. Me. Me. It’s all about me. Okay, so I was exceptionally selfish that afternoon (I blame it on the lack of food!) but I know myself. I know that I can be selfish and self-centered and that is what God wants to continue to root out of me. He’s been working on it for so dang long, and although I am better than I was in years past, I’ve still got a loooong way to go.

So for Lent I am doing some things that will help me curb my self-love. I’ll not bore you with the specifics but I’ll gladly take any prayers you can send my way. I, in return, promise to pray for you this Lent too. We’re traveling this journey together.

How can I pray for you this Lent?

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