Brother Francis Blog — Stations of the Cross

By Desiree Hausam

As Lent comes around this year, I am thinking hard about preparing my kids for this season. 

The lessons and the opportunities of Lent are something that, in the busy whirl of family life, is easy for me to gloss over. I’m not proud of that, but it’s my reality right now.

But, I was struck by our priest’s homily the other day with a reminder of how profoundly important it is to lean into this special season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. It’s critical that we teach our kids to love Lent and how it teaches us to turn away from the world, even from things that are otherwise good, for the sake of learning to love our Savior better. The prayers and the sacrifices that we and our kids lift up matter. 

by Lindsay Schlegel

As a parent responding to the call to raise my children in the Faith, I want to make the liturgical year feel alive and active. The rhythms of seasons of fasting and feasting are meant to reach us as creations of the Creator and to help us—children and adults alike—draw closer to the Lord.

During Advent, we have a Jesse tree, nativity sets, and Advent calendars to mark the season of waiting before Christmas begins. The kids pick out tags from the giving tree at church and select a gift to give.

It’s a little bit more challenging to make the season of Lent compelling to a child.