Family Corner: Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday

Palm Sunday is a favorite feast for children. They wave palm fronds in the air, spear their siblings with them, and fold them artfully for decorating the house. Sometimes, these activities even occur during Mass! Children both love and learn from active experiences.

All of the senses are engaged when we pray together in the sunlit church--incense wafting--and turn the spiky fronds between our fingers. Luke's account of the Passion readies our hearts for the drama of the week to come. This is a blessed and opportune time to create family traditions, while we celebrate beloved liturgical ones.

Pray:
Celebrate the sacraments and liturgies of Holy Week as much as possible; perfect attendance is not the objective! Rather, focus on sharing the journey of these days together as a family. Gather within the parish community and observe in small yet memorable ways at home.
The parish bulletin and website give all the details about liturgies and times.

Eat:
Good Friday is, for adults, a day of fasting and abstaining from meat. Even though children are not required to fast, encouraging them to give up a snack or glass of juice can introduce them to a sacrificial spirit and its blessings.

On Holy Thursday, some families re-create a traditional Jewish Seder (Passover) Meal to recall Jesus’s last supper with his disciples. If you would like to try the Seder, here are some ideas about planning the meal from a Catholic point of view: https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/holy-thursday-seder-meal-3976

And Easter Sunday is the day for the most special and most treasured family dishes. Do you make an Easter lamb cake with a fluffy coconut fleece?  Do you re-create grandma’s creamy scalloped potatoes?

Make the Easter meal special in every way. Use the good dishes and colorful linens. Arrange daisies in a pretty vase. Invite your new brother-in-law or neighbors to bring a festive Easter dish from their culture. Easter Sunday is the grand day of our victory as Christians, and people all over the world, in cities and towns and waysides, celebrate around the table.

Newly baptized Catholics and cradle Catholics alike might consider how to “baptize” the Reese's Peanut Butter egg that has always been part of the season. Even a simple prayer of Thanksgiving for the delicious treat as a sign of all of God's gifts, especially eternal life, can help celebrate Easter joy.

Do:  
Here is a way to make Christ’s Passion, Death, and Resurrection meaningful for children: build a Good Friday diorama with natural and found materials. This is a long tradition in our families and neighborhoods.

On Good Friday morning, we gather the children, prayerfully read the Passion story, and then build a miniature replica of the garden of Gethsemane, the hill of Calvary, and Jesus’s tomb. 

Here's how:
The Good Friday diorama

1. Have ready on a table, indoors or out, but where some dirt will be OK, the following materials:
2. Gather the children. Read aloud the account of the Passion, Gospel of Luke 22:39 through 24:53.

3. Hand each child a bag or basket, and then set out on a walk-through the neighborhood. While quietly walking, look for any natural thing that could be used to build a miniature Garden of Gethsemane, such stones, pinecones, pine sprigs, moss, feathers, or tufts of grass. Allow each child to pick up materials to contribute to the group project of building the garden. (If the weather is too chilly or wet, gather materials from the house. Any kind of craft materials could be used, such as felt, ribbon, cardboard, etc.)

4. Let the building begin! Explain to the children that the cake pan or box lid is the template on which to build a likeness of the garden, the hill, and the tomb. Suggesting tasks for particular children, considering their ages and abilities, can help get the activity going and encourage cooperation.

5. Stones or dry beans can be used to create miniature walls or pathways, and play dough is an excellent mortar. Play dough can be used to wrap the can or jar, then the smallest child can help stud the tomb with pebbles.

6. Glue sticks together in the form of a cross, or use twine or yarn to wrap the sticks in cross shape. Place in a prominent place in the scene, perhaps on top of a grassy hill that has a play dough base.

7. Find or make a simple figure to represent Jesus and glue or bind the figure to the cross. Perhaps make a similar cross and figure for each of thieves who were crucified with Jesus. This figure could be a Lego figure, a pinecone, or a hand drawn and cut out Image. Encourage children to create the likeness of Jesus in a respectful way. The Jesus figure is hung on this cross at the very last.

8. After building the diorama, say a short prayer together, then place it prominently in the house.

9. On Easter Sunday morning, encourage the children to run and look in Jesus’s tomb. What will they find? No body, but a flower, a note from “Jesus”, or a small treat (which a thoughtful adult has secretly placed there!).

The reading, walking, and the creation of the diorama is a kind of extended prayer for all involved. Our family has enjoyed this activity on Good Friday through two generations, along with cousins and neighbors and friends. It is the perfect way to start a solemn day of quiet preparation.

(Family Corner will break for Easter and return on Divine Mercy Sunday, April 27.)