Saturday, February 22, 2025

The Chair of St. Peter- Free art prints

Today is the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter! No, it's really not just a celebration of a really old chair (although there is one within the sculpture behind Bernini's columns in St. Peter's Basilica). Rather it celebrates the authority of the Holy Father, our pope. You can read more about it here.

In honor of the feast, I'd like to share these two digital prints with you. I made them by carving the images in a block and then hand printing with ink. Both have an image of the dome of St. Peter's Basilica, one overlaid with the Holy Spirit as a dove, St. Peter's keys, and "Veni Sancte Spiritus" (Come Holy Spirit). I'd love for you to print and display one of these in your home or classroom as a reminder to pray for the Pope!

Click here for the version of the print with the overlaid symbols:


And click here for the version of the print with only St. Peter's dome:


If you haven't already downloaded them, here are a bunch of printables about the pope, perfect to use on this feast day:

And if you want to know more about the role of the pope, you might like my book We Have a Pope!

Friday, February 21, 2025

40 Books for 40 Days- Lenten Book List for Catholic Kids


40 Books for 40 Days: Lenten Book List for Catholic Kids
Here's a new list of books for Catholic kids to read and pray with during the seasons of Lent.

This list contains Amazon Affiliate links, which means if you click through and make a purchase, I earn a small commission at no cost to you. I'd also love to encourage you to shop directly with the publisher or with your local bookshop, or try to request these at your local library! I'm sure I've missed some books that would be great for this topic, so feel free to add your own recommendations in the comments! You can find my giant list of Catholic Kid Books by topic here.

Books for Lent

Books with Lenten Themes- Salvation History & Life of Jesus
(While not specifically about Lent, these books help tell the story of why Jesus came to save us)


Books for Praying the Stations of the Cross with Kids
Holy Week Stories

Wednesday, February 12, 2025

Allllllll the All about Lent & Holy Week Printables in one spot- FREE for you!

The Season of Lent is filled with so many rich traditions- I want to do my best as a teacher to share them with my students. This year I will definitely be putting this awesome pile of resources to good use in my classroom, and I'm so excited to share them with you too!

Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods and I have collaborated make a huge collection of coloring and activities pages. Using the artwork and catechetical content from our book All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children, we hope make the book more interactive this Season and for years to come. Even though Lent is still a few weeks away, we want to get them all in your hands NOW so that you can get ready- and we're offering them totally FREE!

We've compiled a collection of over twenty pages of printables for Lent, Holy Week, and Easter, including lots of coloring pages (with snippets of catechetical content to give them meaning), a simple Stations of the Cross booklet, a recipe for Lenten pretzels, a Holy Week mini poster, checklist with 40 ideas for the 40 days of Lent, and more!

You can access ALL THE RESOURCES IN THIS FOLDER

Or here is a list of the individual resources included. Each activity also has their own blog post with additional information and connected resources to help parents and teachers use them well. You can find the links to those posts below:

And all of them work perfectly alongside our book All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children, which you can find at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here

40 Ways for 40 Days- Printable checklist with doable items for kids & families!


In remembrance of Jesus’s forty days in the desert, each year the Church invites us into our own forty days of penance and preparation during Lent.

How can you pray, fast, and give this Lent? We’ve got a list of 40 ways you can grow in love of both God and neighbor during these holy forty days. Print out this list, hang it on your fridge and work on it as a family, or stick it in your Bible, planner, or journal to work on individually. Click here to download!

*Thanks to some generous readers, we now have this printable available in FIVE languages! Scroll to the bottom of the post to download in Spanish, French, Dutch, and German!

You can read more about prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in our new book All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children. These resources were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!

You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 


And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:

 

Click here to download printable in Spanish:


Click here to download printable in French:


Click here to download printable in German:


Click here to download printable in Dutch:

Using the Corporal & Spiritual Works of Mercy to guide Lenten Prayer, Fasting, & Giving- Free mini poster!



There are three marks, or characteristics, of Lent: prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. We should be praying, fasting, and giving all year long, but we can challenge ourselves to increase the quantity (how much) and the quality (how well) we live out these devotions during the season of Lent.

Need some ideas for how to pray, fast, and give this Lent? Check out this free poster which includes practical ideas, lists the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy, and gives you a Bible verse to focus your Lenten disciplines. 


You can read more about prayer, fasting, and almsgiving in our new book All about Lent & Holy Week: Sharing the Seasons of Repentance & Salvation with Children. These resources were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!


You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 


And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:

Simple Liturgical Calendars: Both Color and Block & White

The order of the seasons of the liturgical year tells the story of Jesus’s life, death, and Resurrection. The Lenten season gives us forty days to prepare for the Sacred Triduum, which celebrates three events: the Last Supper, the Crucifixion, and the Resurrection of Jesus.

In the liturgical year, every season of preparation is followed by a season of celebration, so after Lent, we will celebrate the season of Easter, rejoicing for fifty days that Jesus is risen from the dead.

Want to help your kids understand the rhythms of the Liturgical Year? You can find this freebie simple Liturgical Calendar here, in both full color and as a black and white coloring page. It’s perfect to hang next to your family calendar or stick in the cover of your planner. 

These resources were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book! Shari has also made a year specific Liturgical Calendar if you'd like one that is dated to this liturgical year, or she also has it available as a poster!

Discover even more in our new book All About Lent & Holy Week! You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 


And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post:


Lenten Pretzels: Free recipe!


First made by monks in the 600s, pretzels were given as rewards to children for memorizing their prayers. The shape of the pretzel is similar to a common prayer posture of crossing your arms over your chest, and the three spaces in a pretzel remind us of the Holy Trinity. Pretzels are made with only flour, salt, and water, so they are appropriate for Lenten fasting regulations and are a common Lenten food.

Want to make pretzels this Lent? You can grab this free recipe card here, watch a video here (coming soon!), and can read more about Lenten fasting traditions in our new book All About Lent & Holy Week!


These resources were made in cooperation with Shari Van Vranken of Catholic Paper Goods using artwork from our new book!

You can find it at The St. Paul Center here or on Amazon here, or we'd love for you to ask for it at your local Catholic book store. It's also available as an ebook in both places if that's more your style! 


And you can find all of the free resources linked in this post: