The Cabbage Patch

Little Flowers and Blue Knights

Tonight we had our year end ceremony for the Little Flowers and Blue Knights.  Father Richard is so gracious to us.  The boys had put together a tool box and were given these at the end of mass while the girls received, what else, flowers.

After this we had small procession outside.  A young teen from our parish passed away suddenly right before Easter.  The post-confirmation class purchased and planted a tree in her honor.  Father blessed the tree after mass.

May Dorothy rest in peace and God give comfort to her family.

Blue Knights

On Monday, I was the leader for Brother's Blue Knights group.  Boy, was this a switch from the Little Flowers.  But, I'm getting ahead of myself.  The topic we are studying is the Spear of the Fear of God.  It's not a fear of God like he's a monster, but the fear that we would do something against him.  God gives us all the graces to make it to heaven, but He also has given us free will.  So, the fear of God is that we will do things or make choices that would prevent us from making it to heaven.  The weapon then is symbolized by the spear.  We use this spear to fight against sin.

You see that I had our memory verse, some newspapers, a piece of cardboard (for the tip of the spear), and a printout of an icon of St. Barnabas, our saint for the Spear of the Fear of God.  The craft guide had many good ideas for a spear, but I chose the newspaper one over the wooden dowel one.

It was a good decision.  We started with a prayer to St. Joseph, the patron saint of the Blue Knights.  Then I talked to them about what the spear of the fear of God was.  I realized rather quickly that we could only spend about 5 minutes in discussion.  So, I took them out to march as we learned our memory verse.  Unfortunately, one of the boys didn't have a coat so we could not stay out too long.  On the way back in, we picked up 3 rocks each to put into our spear.  Three, of course, represents the trinity.

The boys (6 of them) were thrilled to be making a spear.  We rolled up the newspaper and I taped them up.  It didn't take long for them to start the fighting with them.  Let me say that it was a new experience for me.  I have one boy and he's not rambunctious at all.  So, you can imagine what it was like for me.  Anyway, here's Brother's spear.

We usually spend two meetings on each topic and I'm the leader next time.  Oh, boy.  Any ideas for games?

Joy

Every other Monday, we participate in Little Flowers and Blue Knights.  Brother and Sister enjoy their time.  This past Monday, I was the leader for the Little Flowers group.  The saint and virtue were Saint Clare and joy. 

Luckily for me, I had the book Clare and Francis to read to the girls.  After reading the book and discussing it, we went on to praying the rosary.  We prayed the Mother Angelica version of the Joyful Mysteries.  Our craft project was a rosary hanger.  I stole borrowed this idea from Alice's post about her Mary altars.  Everything sort of tied together somehow.  We prayed the Joyful Mysteries by the Poor Clares of Mother Angelica and then made a hanger for each of the girls' rosaries.

Here's my sweet girl painting her rosary hanger.  She helped pick all the colors for the project.  She was just so excited to have me there as her teacher.  I felt awkward and thought maybe the pace didn't flow very well, but Sister did not notice.

I had told Honey that she could participate in the craft project this time around.  She usually spends this time in the siblings room.  However, we miscalculated the number of Little Flowers and did not have enough wooden pieces.  Honey felt very disappointed, but recovered very well.  The above picture is Honey with Gramma (who was visiting from Massachusetts) reciting the rosary.  I plan on getting another rosary hanger for her to paint soon.

This is Pumpkin just being cute.

While the girls were being Little Flowers, my Blue Knight was doing well in his room.  I don't have a good picture of him, but I teach the next time so I will have many pictures of Brother.  Now, if only I could think of a craft project for the boys.  We will be doing the topic of the Spear of the Fear of God with Saint Barnabas and Saint Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows.  Any ideas?