Brother Francis Blog

By Anne Metz

Baptism is the sacrament where we welcome new members into our church. It’s a beautiful ritual filled with grace, symbols, liturgy, and tradition. Because of this, it might feel overwhelming to explain Baptism to kids. But, by keeping it simple, and by taking the approach that you can add more details over time, explaining Baptism to children can be fun and easy.

By Colleen Pressprich 

Epiphany, celebrated on January 6th each year, is also known as the Feast of the Three Kings. It’s the day that we celebrate the arrival of the Wise Men at Bethlehem and the end of the Christmas season.  

Here are five easy ways to celebrate this day with your family.

By Lindsay Schlegel

There was Christmas candy for sale in my local grocery store before Halloween this year.

The push to rush the season, to be on to the next thing and the next thing, is nothing new and perhaps neither is your frustration as you endure it. Recognizing the absurdity of the situation is only natural, but to dwell on it doesn’t really get us anywhere. As followers of Christ, when we see something as ridiculous as Santa candy before All Saints Day, we would do better to ask how we can help our culture see the truth.

By Anne Metz

Teaching CCD for the past few years, I’ve encountered more than a few young children who had no idea that Christmas is Jesus’ birthday. It’s easy to see how this can happen. So much of what they are exposed to focuses on just the secular aspects of Christmas: the presents, the tree, the movies, commercials, and Elf on the Shelf, just to name a few.

If that is all they are seeing and hearing about Christmas, of course that will be their understanding of it. None of those things are inherently bad, but they don’t teach kids that Jesus is the reason for the season. So it’s up to us as parents to make that clear to them.

The good news is, this is not as difficult as you may think. In fact, you can keep on doing what you normally do for Christmas while highlighting Jesus’ birth. Here’s how:

By Colleen Pressprich 

Maybe you’ve never celebrated Advent before. Maybe you used to, but you’re in survival mode and you don’t think you’ll manage to make it look like it did before. Maybe you’re curious, but dang those Pinterest boards and Instagram accounts are intimidating. If you fit into any of those categories, this post is for you.

I’m here to tell you that it’s never too late to start Advent traditions, and not only that, it’s easy to do.