better late than never

...Should be my mantra.  While I might not be the prototype for the 'Type B' personality, I'm not far off the mark.  I'm pretty notorious for being days late with birthday phone calls, I can't even get a kindergarten project in ahead of time, and I'm likely to arrive in a new city/country/state with a knowledge of the week's temperatures as my main 'plan'. 

But I am not the focus here.  The focus here is Lent.  (Oh the irony of those 2 sentences!)

Each year, I watch college friend/blogger, Elizabeth, make a Crown of Thorns with her 3, 4, and now 5 kiddos.  Each year, I have every good intention of embarking on the same kid friendly Lenten journey. But it never happens.

I promised myself this would be the year we did it.  Then the first week rolled by... annnnd the second. Yep, and the third one too.

 

Then it hit me.  These guys?  They haven't the slightest clue which week of Lent we're in.  They have little more than a foggy notion of what Lent is. 

The point is that next year, they'll remember that this is the time of year when we make that pokey crown thing.  They'll remember getting their hands all goopy, helping roll out the salt dough into 'snakes', covering their noses in flour, and if I'm lucky, they'll remember something of the conversations we had while making it.  Conversations about Jesus and Mary, all the holy Angels and Saints, the seasons of the Church... the beauty of Catholicism.

Because this is the Church at Her most beautiful.  (In my opinion, anyway.)  Little hands (whose help made this braiding part way easier) doing little tasks with great love and a bit of fun.  Little hearts learning in a gentle manner about a bigger world of suffering.  Of need.  Of hope.

I'm so thankful that we finally found ourselves covered in flour on a lazy Saturday morning, poking toothpicks (the directions mean it when they say, barely poke in the toothpick or it won't come out once baked!) into the braided dough, collecting brown items from our nature collection, flipping through my collection of holy cards for just the right ones to adorn our Lenten center piece.

I owe a shout out to another fabulous post college friend/blogger, Lauren, for the idea of creating such a simple prayerful Lenten focus.

A dried yellow flower to remind us of the hope of Easter, A Family Prayer (picked because it had a 'jewel' inside, not because of the family part), and don't mind that cicada exoskeleton.  He's just one of many in our collection!  

the recipe can be found here.

And don't take 3 years getting around to it like I did.  It's way easier than it looks.  Besides, it's Lent, it doesn't have to be perfect!