I will post more details on this St. Faustina spoon doll later. Happy Feast, everyone!
October 05, 2006
October 04, 2006
Saints of the Season
As the vibrant greens of summer give way to glints of gold, the Church has blessed us with a bounty of saints' day celebrations, each one flickering like a candle in a long procession marching ever onward toward the great feast of All Hallows on November 1. This week alone, we rejoiced with the Archangels, St. Padre Pio, St. Therese of Lisieux, the Guardian Angels, and now St. Francis of Assisi. In the coming days and weeks, we will pray to Our Lady of the Rosary and give thanks for the lives of St. Faustina, St. Gerard Majella, and St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, to name but a few.
As with all works of the Spirit, the timing of these feasts is no accident. October's flood of festivities calls the saints to our minds and hearts each and every day, inviting us to pause and ponder these great souls as the perfect preparation for All Saint's Day.
Our crafts can help us to get ready as well. This unassuming little bag of wooden ice cream spoons is just waiting to sing the praises of the heavenly court:
A few odds and ends are all that is needed--markers and some scrapbooking paper, although construction paper would work just as well:
The great thing about saints' crafts is that it is easy to make almost any saint recognizable just by including certain symbols. St. Therese wears the habit of a Carmelite and carries the crucifix adorned by roses:
Good St. Francis appears in a friar's robe with a beard and tonsure and bearing the wounds of the stigmata. Of course, a sweet little bird alights on his shoulder, a reminder of Francis' affinity toward animals and his famous "Sermon to the Birds":
A collection of these small and simple saints would make a pleasing and kid-friendly display for the Feast of All Saints. Just imagine what your children could create if they collected these for a year!
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And as long as we are discussing Saint Francis, I thought you might like to see the statue and craft awaiting our homeschooling group for tomorrow's feast--Franciscan miniature birdhouses. Hopefully, I will have photos of the finished product to share with you soon.
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It is amusing to note, by the way, that the spoons come in packs of sixty, exactly enough for a complete set of "Sixty Saints for Boys" or "Sixty Saints for Girls." There are no coincidences. : )
