The Creative Cloister
Exploring the artistic roots of our Catholic Faith While ‘Sheltering in place’
Lent Eggs
Lent can be a challenge when it comes to presenting the richness of this Catholic season to children. To encourage our family to grow spiritually we have devised what we call Lent Eggs. We took the idea from Resurrection Eggs which are twelve plastic eggs designed to help families explore the story of the Passion of Jesus. Inside each egg is a small trinket that gives a hint for that part of the Passion story. Each egg is opened. Everyone tries to figure out what piece of the story is represented by the item inside and then there is a discussion about it.
In this bigger, Catholic version, the Passion story is broken up into forty pieces, one for each day of Lent. This expanded version explores the story of the Passion in much greater depth, incorporating the Stations of the Cross and the seven last words of Christ. Each day of Lent we open one of the eggs, use the clue to figure out what piece of the story we will be exploring, read a scripture passage or meditation, look at a few fine art depictions of the event and have a discussion about that part of the Passion. Every year we seem to hit different aspects of the story. It makes the tradition really interesting.
One thing I really appreciate about the Lent eggs is that they are so flexible and adaptable to the ages of the kids. Just change the meditations and dig deeper into the story as they get older. One idea is to assign different eggs to the older children and have them prepare the meditation or discussion ahead of time.
There are two pieces to the Lent eggs: the eggs themselves and the accompanying art/meditation book. And a big Thank You to Lisa Bergman for her work on the meditation book. She pulled that together many years ago for her family. Please don’t be intimidated by the size of this project. I’ve found that putting this tradition together a little at a time with the kids has added to the beauty of it. For the first year just go bare bones and then add to it as you go. It gets a little more polished each year.
Here are temporary place holder images to use inside of the eggs until you find the actual pieces
Brought to you by the St. Martha's Guild of St. John Cantius Church in Chicago IL.
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