I’m always trying to figure out how to make it easier for families to observe the Christian Year because we felt so overwhelmed when we first started that journey (which is why we wrote the book we wish we had then). I thought it might be helpful for our family to have resources compiled for the month ahead so that we can plan in advance which special saints days we want to observe and I hope having them all in one place is helpful to you, too!
I made a simple printable April 2014 liturgical calendar you can download for FREE. If you’d like to sign up for my newsletter (on the right sidebar) in exchange for the handy dandy printable, I’d be eternally grateful. *wink wink*
And I pinned all of the following resources on an April (and Easter!) Liturgical Living board on pinterest for your convenience!
As always, remember not to get overwhelmed. You don’t have to observe every saints day! (We certainly don’t at our house.) The liturgical year is a gift. It shouldn’t feel like a burden!
I actually had trouble finding good resources for saints days in the month of April. Maybe everyone is worn at from weeks of Lent and focused on Easter (not a bad thing)? So, maybe next year I can look ahead and have some real food recipes ready!
April 6th: 5th Sunday of Lent
April 11th: St. Stanislaus
Food/Activities for Celebrating:
- St. Stanislaus in LEGOs: Catholic Playground (Maybe it’s just because Benjamin is obsessed with LEGO stuff, I thought this was actually a pretty fun idea for sharing stories about the saints with kids.)
- Coloring Page: Catholic Playground
April 13th: Palm Sunday
- Carling and Fig Sunday (with Split Pea Soup Recipe): Catholic Cuisine
April 17th: Holy Thursday
- Last Supper Craft: Catholic Icing
- Happy Foot Washing Day: Catholic All Year
April 18th: Good Friday
- Printable Stations of the Cross for Children: Catholic Icing
- Make Hot Cross Buns (The Pioneer Woman has a good recipe.)
- Read T.S. Eliot’s Four Quartets (especially East Coker IV).
April 19th: Holy Saturday
- Attend a Vigil Mass! Get ready for Easter!
April 20th: Easter Sunday
- Simple and Fun Kids’ Easter Basket Fillers: Carrots for Michaelmas
- Children’s Picture Books for Eastertide: Two O’s Plus More
- Catholic Resurrection Eggs: Catholic Icing
April 23rd: St. George
Book:
St. George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges
(Our copy is falling apart because we’ve read it so many times. Benjamin loves it.)
Food/Activities for Celebrating:
- Make Shepherd’s Pie for St. George of Merry England. You can find my recipe in our liturgical year cookbook, Feast! I don’t mean to brag…but my recipe is a little bit famous. In my opinion, it’s the best recipe in the book. If you don’t believe me, just check out the Shepherd’s Pie-centered reviews on the Amazon page. 😉 I’m about to make a giant batch to take meals to some new moms this week and I will be making extra for us!
April 25th: St. Mark
Food/Activities for Celebrating:
- Make an Italian meal. (St. Mark is the patron saint of Venice and his feast is enthusiastically celebrated in Sardinia.) Here’s a simple ideas from Catholic Cuisine: Risi e Bisi
April 27th: Divine Mercy Sunday
- Divine Mercy Sunday: Catholic Culture
April 29th: St. Catherine of Siena
- Coloring Page: Catholic Playground
Do you have any special traditions for saints days in April, Holy Week, or Eastertide? I’d love to hear about them in the comments!
In addition to Shepherd’s Pie for St. George’s Day, we share a simple lenten fish entree, reflections on observing Lent, and reflections on celebrating Easter in our real food liturgical year cookbook: Feast! Real Food, Reflections and Simple Living for the Christian Year. You can buy the ebook for $7.99 or the print version for $21.99.
(Links to Amazon are affiliate links. Thank you for supporting Carrots!)
My husband is Polish, and we celebrate Easter with a traditional Polish breakfast, that is similar to the passover meal (each food represents something to be remembered about God’s call to us, Christ’s passion, and resurrection). We do all the cooking on Good Friday, the food is put in a basket and blessed by a priest on Holy Saturday, and eaten on Easter Sunday for breakfast.
This website explains most of the foods and what the symbolize:
http://www.polishcenter.org/polish_easter_traditions.htm
Do you guys do Easter Vigil with littles? If so please. tell. me. HOW?!! Miss it sooooo much. Thanks Haley!
Thanks you SO much for these awesome resources, and the calendar! Same as you, I always think “I need to figure out some fun things to do….” and then either the time slips away and I feel rushed, or I have no idea where to start. So glad to have found you so you can plan ahead for me, hehe!
Thanks for doing this each month. I really appreciate the resources. This year, I’m looking forward to doing a few Holy Week activities/meals/crafts with my littles. Last year we made resurrection rolls from the Catholic Icing blog, and it was a great success. My four year old is already planning for this year.
You know, I just love these posts. Thank you so much.
PS I love your book list posts too. Maybe a saint book list one day? Dying to start collecting some for our children, but don’t know where to begin.
Liguori press has some nice picture books for young children. My review: http://archokc.org/news/2000-review-lives-of-the-saints-appeal-especially-to-children-in-new-illustrated-book-series
{Kathy} Thank you for compiling these great resources for April. I look forward to Holy Week all year. It’s just the best time to be Catholic, isn’t it? I am trying to envision covering all of my crucifixes with purple cloth — that is going to be quite dramatic!
St Gianna beretta Molla April 28. Fantastic, modern, married, mother, doctor, pro life saint! We “just” do our typical “saint day” celebration because we have a Gianna. So, she chooses dinner and cake, we pray through St Gianna and talk about her story. I did find a st Gianna picture book this year that she got for Chirstmas so we will probably use that too!
This is so great! Thank you! I am a part-time attorney with a toddler and a newborn and ZERO time. I bought your cookbook, but it’s tough for me to motivate and plan after the kids are in bed. This is so useful and will actually allow me to make better use of your cookbook, too! Will you be doing this every month? Thank you!
Oh I’m so glad, Lori! I’ve done it for the past three months and I’m going to try to keep it up 🙂
These are so wonderful!! How do you keep up with all the saints and ideas?
We are going to celebrate John Paul II being canonized! Here is my post about it, for more ideas in April! http://somedaysaints.wordpress.com/2014/04/02/celebrating-a-soon-to-be-saint-jpii/ -Gina, by way of the FB Catholic Women Bloggers 🙂
Thanks for the resources! Somewhat related question (which you may have somewhere else on your blog, sorry!) do you have any good book recommendations for info about saints? I want to start encorporating celebrations of saints days into our family and blog posts like these are super helpful but I am hoping to find a book with a good intro to saints and their feast days throughout the year with a little info on each one. Kid friendly is a plus. Thanks!! 🙂
I really need to do a big post on this one, Katie! We have lots of individual books about saints but I haven’t found a book that I really LOVE with short introductions to each one. Here’s two ideas: Our Friends the Saints
and The Picture Book of Saints. Hope that helps!
Thanks!! I’ll check them out!