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Last year I took a closer look at the Liturgical candle that was in our church. While the candle was beautiful and ornate, I couldn’t help but notice the inverted cross. In recent times, the upside down cross is used as an anti-Christian symbol. It is meant to turn the tables on Jesus’ victory and show the devil’s victory. In reality, this upside-down cross is actually a very old symbol that goes back to Saint Peter, the first pope, who was crucified as Jesus was but upside down. Peter was fleeing the growing persecution in Rome and along the way meets Jesus. He asks our Lord, “Quo vadis (Where are you going?)” His reply is a gentle rebuke: “I am going to Rome to be crucified again.” Peter understood what Jesus meant. Turning around, he returned to the city to later be crucified, as Jesus had previously, but for Peter it would be upside down. So just as the cross is the symbol of Jesus’ death and triumph, so too the upside down cross is about Peter’s death. There is even a church in Rome called “Domine Quo Vadis” which is dedicated to this meeting! Since then, the Catholic church has used this upside down cross to refer to either Peter himself or subsequent popes after him. Another symbol of the pope is keys. The origin of the keys goes back to when Jesus made Peter the first pope. This found in Matthew 16:13-19: When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They replied, “Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” Simon Peter said in reply, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” Jesus said to him in reply, “Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it. I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” To understand the importance of what a key meant, you’ll have to go back a little further to the book of Isaiah 15:15, 19-25. This is the part of the Bible which Jesus was actually making a reference to: “Thus says the Lord, the GOD of hosts: Up, go to that official, Shebna, master of the palace,(say) I will thrust you from your office and pull you down from your station. On that day I will summon my servant Eliakim, son of Hilkiah I will clothe him with your robe, gird him with your sash, confer on him your authority. He shall be a father to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, and to the house of Judah. I will place the key of the House of David on his shoulder; what he opens, no one will shut, what he shuts, no one will open. I will fix him as a peg in a firm place, a seat of honor for his ancestral house; On him shall hang all the glory of his ancestral house: descendants and offspring, all the little dishes, from bowls to jugs. On that day, says the LORD of hosts, the peg fixed in a firm place shall give way, break off and fall, and the weight that hung on it shall be done away with; for the LORD has spoken.” Each year, the church celebrates the feast of The Chair of St. Peter on Feb. 22nd. In fact, cathedra is the Latin word for “chair”. Cathedral comes from this word because that was where the Bishop’s chair was. However, while there is a true piece of furniture by that name, the significance of this feast is about the role of pope. The Lord knew that we would always need to have a father in charge of the Christian family on earth; someone to shepherd and guide us. The chair of St. Peter is about the role of pope, his authority, and his mission to help protect and care for the church. Ultimately, it is about the pope being a father (which is what the word “pope” means). Beyond any one pope in particular, we celebrate that we have had an unbroken line of popes back to the first pope, Peter. By God’s love and grace, we always have had a father for the church militant here on earth. Happy Father’s day! Written by Jonathan Lawrence – A cradle Catholic, a husband, and a father of 9 children. He enjoys teaching his children about the stories in the Holy Bible and is happy to share a little with you.

The days get away from me and I can never seem to find a free minute to post here on the blog, but today I’m posting a quick and simple project that my 5-year-old loved! We have been learning about animals – God’s amazing creatures – so Caleb created this cute little world of animals craft! And it was a great craft to make on St. Francis of Assisi’s feast day! 😉 ABC Learning Letters: G and W “G” is for God! “W”  is for World! To make this you will need: Stock paper or light cardboard or paper plate crayons – green, blue and dark brown small animal stickers scissors How to create it: Draw a circle on your paper/cardboard. If your animal stickers are larger make your circle larger and small animal stickers = small circle. Have the child draw a cross in the middle of the circle and color it brown. Then they can make outlines of land areas with a green crayon. They can then fill in the land with green and the water with blue. Now they can cut the circle out. Have them add the land animal stickers to the green area and water animals to the blue area. That’s it! So fun and easy! My little guy loved it! Hope you and your kids love it too! ~JenMarie

My oldest son, Jacob created an adorable bouquet of flowers for me! These flowers are made from plastic Easter eggs. The eggs give this colorful bunch of flowers a cute pop! ———————————— Supplies used: colored construction paper stiff cardboard – cereal box cardboard will work plastic Easter eggs (bottom half only) green pipe cleaners – AKA: chenille stems glue stick hot glue (adult supervision is required for younger children) pencil scissors ————————————— How to make them: Use a pencil and half-eggs to create a symmetrical flower shape on the colored construction paper. With a glue stick, glue the colored paper flower onto the stiff cardboard. Glue another sheet of the same color to the back of the cardboard – sandwiching the cardboard between the colored paper. Cut out the flower shape. Hot glue the egg-bottom to the center of the flower. Add hot glue only to the inside edge of the egg. Twist 3 or 4 green pipe cleaners (chenille) together to make a strong stem. Hot glue one end of the pipe cleaner stem to the back-center of the flower. That’s it! Now make a few more to create a bouquet! Front of egg flower craft. Back of egg flower craft project. This activity is a great way to recycle old plastic Easter eggs! The kids can make these crafts for Mother’s Day or for Our Lady! Enjoy!

Here is a cute, easy craft that my 4-year-old, Caleb, just LOVED!! He has been helping me to create these displays and has been giving me all of his thoughts on what he felt should be improved upon! Now it’s been given his seal of approval and is ready to go! And believe me, Caleb is my worst critic! This file is for purchase in our shop. Click Here to visit our shop and purchase it! Perfect for all ages! Caleb enjoyed coloring these, as well as, cutting them out and creating the displays! The cutting lines are extra wide so little hands can easily cut right into the dark, thick, edges. Little ones may need help folding the tomb display, but it’s easy enough to fold and create for most children, ages 6 and up. How to use these displays: After assembling the displays, place them in a nice spot but hide the 2 Jesus and angel figures. On Good Friday, sometime after 3:00 PM – but before dark, * “roll-away” the stone and place the wrapped “Jesus” into the tomb. The wrapped Jesus will remain in the tomb on Holy Saturday. The night before Easter, Mom or Dad may “roll-away” the stone and take out the wrapped Jesus. Add the Resurrected Jesus and the Angel to the area in front of the tomb. This will be a fun surprise for the kids on Easter Morning! *If it works better for the family, the kids can replace the wrapped Jesus with the Resurrected Jesus Sunday Morning. *Why bury Jesus after 3:00 PM but before dark? The Bible tells us that Jesus died at 3:00 pm and the Jewish Sabbath started at sundown on Friday night. So Jesus’ followers would have buried him after 3:00 but before the Sabbath began since they were not allowed to work on the Sabbath. Jesus was buried in a hurry, that’s why the women came back Sunday morning with spices to anoint Jesus! They were unable to anoint his body Friday night. This file is for purchase in our shop. Click  Here to visit our shop and purchase it! Hope you enjoy it! ~JenMarie

Looking for Catholic-themed valentines for St. Valentine’s day? Gotcha covered! I’ve created a cute set of valentines that I think you are going to love! Each of these card designs were lovingly made to honor Our Lord in the Divine Mercy. They are meant to remind the receiver of Jesus’ love and mercy.  Some of them also include a Bible verse to help reinforce Jesus’ love of us or how we should love Him. I had designed these for use on St. Valentine’s day, but I removed the hearts from 5 of the 6 styles so they can also be used at other times of the year, too! Plus, many Catholic boys prefer to use the non-heartsy valentines! 😉 This download has two ways to use these! Print 8 flat cards on one page to give to a large group of receivers! Or print the folded card styles! These are perfect cards for mailing or to give to close friends, family or even your parish priest! These are especially great for this year because this is the Jubilee Year of Mercy! This file is for purchase in our shop. Click  Here to visit our shop and purchase it! Hope you love them! ~JenMarie Parents/Personal Use: Your purchase allows your immediate family to give these cards as loving messages to other family members and friends. The file and printing rights do not extend past your immediate family. Teachers: These can be used to make crafts with a single class. You may also give them as loving messages to students.

I have admired those DIY fill-it-up clear plastic Christmas balls for a few years. But me being me, I like to add a bit of Catholic focus on all our Christmas crafts. So when we made these ball, we added a double sided picture of the Nativity or other religious picture to the inside! Figuring out a way to add the image took a bit of testing and thinking, but I did figure out a way to do it.  We glued two images of the same size onto a popsicle stick. They were glued onto it back-to-back. When the glue is dry, gently fold the image and push it into the ball. After that, we unfolded the picture. Voila! Beautiful Christmas ornament fit for the season! We had a lot of fun filling these balls and adding the religious pictures! The possibilities are endless!! About the plastic balls: For those who don’t know about the clear plastic Christmas ball, they are very simple Christmas balls that are made with clear plastic. The top of the ball comes off and the ball can be filled with anything that your heart desires – well, it does need to fit into the small hole in the top! We bought our ornaments at the Dollar Tree – 2 for a dollar – like those pictured here. Ours are about 2.5 inches wide with a half inch opening at the top.   These ornaments come in many shapes and sizes. I have also seen them at Wal-Mart, AC Moore, and Hobby Lobby. When buying your plastic balls make sure the opening is larger than a popsicle sticks widest side, otherwise the balls are not going to work. About the images we used: Many of the images we used were Nativity stickers. They worked very well. Some of the images were small pictures which we cut from old cards or mission mail. What did we put inside the ornaments? Here is a list of items we added to the inside: raffia (for hay) – cut-up in small 1 inch pieces (or smaller) small sprigs of fake evergreen branches sequins in many shapes:– round– stars– snowflakes-hearts fake snow dust glitter in many colors: gold, silver, blue, red, etc. sand small stones any other small item we found and liked How did we make them? After getting the plastic balls and finding images that fit the size of our balls, we dug through our craft boxes and pulled out anything that we thought might work or fit into the balls. (see list above). Find a cup or lid that will hold your ball in place so it won\’t roll around as you fill it. Now begin to add your hay, snow, greens or any other crafty items you think look nice.  If you are adding tiny items like fake snow or glitter then you may want to use a funnel. If you don’t have a funnel, then roll-up a piece of paper to form a funnel and staple it together. Now add your tiny items. Add only enough snow/hay/greens to cover the area below the picture. Now take a popsicle stick and place it down into the ball – straight up and down – make sure it is touching the bottom of the ball. Make a mark on the stick at the point where the popsicle stick extends out of the ball’s opening. Now remove the stick and cut just below that mark with a knife or cutters. Cut out your images – make sure they are the same size. Cover the back of one image with glue, then place the popsicle stick in the middle of the image. Be sure to leave enough room above the image so the stick can extend into the ball\’s neck. Now add glue to the second image and place it back-to-back on the first image – sandwiching the stick in between the two images.  Many of our images were stickers, which we stuck back-to-back on the popsicle stick. NOTE: We still added glue when using the stickers, because stickers will not stay stuck together if they are stored in a hot or humid area – such as an attic or a basement. Because we store our Christmas decorations in an attic, I wanted to be sure that these stay stuck together, so we could enjoy them for years to come. Your image on the popsicle stick should look similar to the one pictured above. It should have an image on both sides. Now gently and loosely fold the image so it can be slid into the ball. Once you have the image totally in the ball, try to fold the image open by flipping it around and gently pulling it back up the neck of the ball opposite the fold so it will stay open. You can also use another popsicle stick to flatten out the fold. When the image is opened, nestle the bottom end of the stick into your sand, hay, greens, etc. Now, put the top back on the bottle and hang it up! Finished ornaments to inspire! Here are a few of the ornaments which we created. This might help inspire you if you want to create these! The more we created them the more ideas we came up with! So not all our ornaments are pictured here. I\’m sure you can find some adorable items to add in your Christmas balls with Baby Jesus! In the ornament above, the image sits among little fake evergreen clippings, fake snow, tinsel clippings, glitter and a tiny fake candy cane. This sweet ornament is filled with fake snow and loads of multi colored glitter and sequins. This ball was in honor of the F east of the Holy Innocents . The image depicts the Flight into Egypt. The ball holds sand, small stones, a little silver glitter and small silver stars. This ornament is filled with small strips of raffia – hay for the stable. It also has a little bit of silver and blue glitter, as well as, large blue star sequins. The above ornament is simple yet beautiful! It’s filled with fake snow and blue glitter. This ornament was very difficult to get a picture of. It is only filled with fine textured glitter: silver and gold as well as a little bit of blue. It really is very pretty in real life, but the picture does not do it justice! This is another snow filled ball. It does have larger sequins which are not visible in the picture as well as silver glitter. This adorable ball is filled with more fake snow, blue glitter and gold star sequins that are not very visible in the image. What would you add to your Christmas ball ornaments!? If you have another idea, tell me about it in the comments below! I’d love to hear your thoughts! ~JenMarie

Here are a few pages of printable valentines. I made these  last year , but this year I made a new version of these. I was able to update them to look more like I wanted them to look last year. I\’m adding links to both here so you can choose which ones you like the best! How to use them: Simply print the Valentines onto stock paper.  Color them if you printed the black and white cards  Fold the ends over the picture.  Add a sticker or tape to keep it closed.  Write who the card is to and from on the back. Download the Valentines here: There are three versions of this Valentine:  Heart-Cross version in color (ready to use), the  Heart-Cross Version in black and white, and t he *NEW* Crucifix version. Here is a view of the pages: Feel free to download these free files above! God Bless. ~Jen-Marie

As Lent moves along, kids (and grown-ups) forget that it’s still a time for sacrificing. I see my kids (and myself) lapsing on the sacrifices. So, to get us all back on track my kids and I made a “cross tree” as a reminder to keep it up.  Our tree is full of  “no complaint crosses”. Each cross has a task written on it. These tasks are things the kids should do without complaint! The key point here is “without complaint”. I don’t know about all of you other moms out there, but my kids will do the task given to them after they voice their complaint! I remind them that Jesus took his sufferings without complaint and we all need to do our daily duties without complaint, too!  Each of the crosses have a daily duty listed on them. The daily duties are things that we have to do each day, but they are things that we should do without complaint. Some of the things that we wrote on the crosses were: “doing our chores”, “helping our brothers and sisters”, “brushing our teeth”, “cleaning our room”, plus, things like “no wining, instead asking nicely”, or “no complaining about others”, “don’t complain when you are bored”, “no complaining about the temperature in the room” (that’s a hard one for me) etc… We easily added 20 crosses to our tree. It was a great reminder for the kids to keep the Lenten sacrificing in mind throughout the day and to not complain about the things we can do as a sacrifice for God! How we made our tree: I printed the crosses onto purple paper. (purple for sacrifice) Just cut a piece of purple construction to a size that will fit into your copier. I printed the second and third pages onto red paper.(red for Christ’s Passion) The kids made a list of daily activities, which they should do without complaint. I wrote them on the crosses for the younger kids and they hung them on the tree. We made our tree with sticks and an old glass jar filled with rocks (to weigh it down). They can even add a cross whenever they think of another situation when they shouldn’t complain. Download Preview: Download the Tree Ornaments Here: I think kids need to be reminded that complaining is not good. And hopefully I won’t have to say, “I’m sure Jesus never complained to his mother when she asked him to sweep the floor.”  lol! Really, my kids are pretty good kids! But we all need to be reminded to do our daily duties without grumbling – even me! May God Bless the remainder of your Lent! ~Jen-Marie

Here are some lamb arts, crafts, and activities to use for St. Agnes feast day (Jan. 21) or when teaching about the “Lamb of God” or “The Good Shepherd”. Holly at  Three Sided Wheel has this cute  Lamb Prayer Card holder. (with printable parts) Rust and Sunshine has instructions for this cute lamb art project. Gummy Lump has instructions for this fun little lamb project. A Faithful Attempt has instructions to make this Bubble lamb I’d love to try this!! Here is a paper lamb from Melissa’s Stampin’ For Fun This one was made with paper punches, but similar paper shapes could be cut with scissors. I’m sure my daughter will be trying this! Here is how to draw a lamb instructions from How to draw Funny Cartoons ! Isn’t he a fun little guy! Check out the site for other lamb drawing instructions. Paper Dali has a St. Agnes Coloring page: (She’s holding a lamb) Here is our lamb biscuits: Click here to see this post Here is our Lamb Cupcakes Click here to see this post And last but not least is our “Feed My Sheep” game Hope that helps you! I sure found a lot of fun things for my kids! The Winners are…… Okay,  now for the winners of the Holy Name of Jesus efile Puzzle / Game The winners are….. (drawn randomly by Rafflecopter) Click Here to see the winners! Congratulations! I will be sending the winners an email. Thank you to everyone who entered!  And I have to tell you all: The wonderful answers to the “What made you smile this week”  question made me smile! It sounds like many of you have been blessed with some adorable kids and grandkids!! I hope they keep making you smile! 🙂 Blessings! ~Jen-Marie

In 2011, I posted a shell ornament for the Baptism of Our Lord. In that post, we used real shells. As much as we loved that craft I thought I’d offer another shell ornament for Our Lord’s Baptism which is made from paper. This one is for anyone who does not have the shells to use. Here is a picture of the completed paper shell craft: Here is the completed real shell ornament from 2011: Click here to see this old post. You will need: Printable scallops (Free Download below) Or you can buy a basket or bag full of shells at a dollar store or craft store -like in last year’s post . Printable image of Jesus Baptism and the Holy Spirit (Free Download below) Silver glitter or silver glitter glue (optional) String and needle – or tape a string it to the back scissors A glue stick Download the Baptism Craft here: Instructions:  Print the pages from the download above that work best for you: ***Print just the first sheet in this set if you are using real shells Or if this works better here is three sets on a single sheet: Cut out the shell, Baptism and Holy Spirit images. Glue the Baptism image to the shell and glue the dove above the baptism picture. Use the thread and needle to create a hanger for the ornament – Or you can tape a looped string to the back.  Now decorate it with silver glitter/glitter glue if you wish. A few of my kids added the silver glitter glue around the image of Jesus and John the Baptist. (Sorry, not pictured) It’s that easy! May God bless you! ~Jen-Marie

Here is a page of “Jesus Loves You!” valentine tags. I made these to be used as tags on bagged candies, pencils, or lollypops. My kids discovered they are also a perfect size to use as bracelets! Just staple or tape them together! 😉 Download the St. Valentine's tags here: Enjoy! God bless. ~Jen-Marie

Hi all!  Here are a few arts and crafts for the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. (Feb. 11) See if you find any that you might want to do with your kids! Click here to see how to make this Chocolate Grotto, which I posted last year. It’s made from no-bake cookies!! Yum! Click here  to see how to make this felt doll of Our Lady. (I posted this last year, too.)  Here is a neat foil grotto craft from Ad Iesum per Mariam Smart Martha  has step-by-step instructions for this art project. Kristine at The Fire Within posted about this Our Lady of Lourdes Shrine  Xhonane at Familia Catholica posted about this beautiful craft. The Rolling Acres Farm has a great coloring page! Go check it out! Hope you found something you like! Blessings! ~JenMarie