PinSteeping myself in the thoughts of classical education has me turning my mind to the idea of ordering my children’s affections to what is true, good, and beautiful. To that end, I have spent much time thinking about the liturgies of our days, years, and lives. How will we worship? And by worship I don’t just mean the act of church attendance on Sunday, but the worship of every single day. How will my children learn the faith? How do the lofty ideas of theology become real to them?

We are fortunate that the Church provides a rich banquet of opportunity for worship in prayer, the liturgical year, and most importantly the Mass. My biggest impediment to living this liturgy is my own lack of knowledge and even more my own lack of habit or tradition creating this kind of lifestyle in our home. As a convert from a non-liturgical background, I have made some headway in a living liturgy, but honestly, I am creating all of these practices from scratch. What few traditions we do have are often disordered (i.e in my family Christmas always started the day after Thanksgiving and was packed away December 26.) What I desire is a step-by-step class or workshop, maybe meeting monthly, to guide me in making permanent changes in the habits of my family to lead us to a deeper daily worship in all that we do. Some kind of community of like-minded people working on the same steps. So far my efforts at getting something like that started, either in our parish or online, have not proved fruitful.

So what I have been doing is pondering, praying, considering, and trying to come up with a plan. What follows are some of my thoughts on what is necessary and important in this endeavor. I invite you to look over my notes and comment. What looks good? What am I forgetting? Do you have any tips or ideas?

Some of these things are already in practice — some we do now, some we have done and have fallen out of the habit. Some of these things we do not do. They are plans and ideas. Also these are best suited to my young children. I anticipate them changing over the years to include other things — especially the Education category.

I have decided that there are four distinct and important areas to address:

1. Prayer
2. Keeping Sunday
3. Education
4. Liturgical Year

Let me take them one-by-one and list out some bullet points of thoughts.


Prayer

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  • Mom’s prayer routine must precede children’s. I can not teach what I do not do.
  • Liturgy of the hours, plan for prayer. What am I praying and reading at each set time during the day.
  • Bells set on phone. Stop and respond.
  • Children’s Daily Prayer in mornings. (Love this!)
  • Angelus immediately after lunch (not traditional, but better for our day – tied to a read aloud time).
  • Evening prayer before bed. (decade of the rosary working up to more, blessing with holy water)
  • Adoration (weekly for mom {would take monthly right now — out of this habit}, monthly children’s adoration, work into taking children to regular adoration especially when children’s adoration not in session).
  • Daily Mass – more, if not regular, attendance. Strive for one to two times a month. Feast days and with homeschool group (community!).

Keeping Sunday

  • Mass attendance.
  • Minimal housework/chores on Sunday.
  • Set aside for family activity.
  • No shopping.
  • Begin the night before — special dinner, special prayer, read the Gospel and discuss before bed. (Big Saturday night dinner would mean left overs and less cooking on Sunday.)


Education

  • Bible stories – read, narrate, illustrate. Focus on salvation history and Jesus in all. 
  • Faith and Life – read, narrate
  • Saints biographies – read, narrate, illustrate
  • Memorization (what? where does it fit?)
  • Integrate geography and history
  • Art and music study with an eye to the faith in the arts
  • Don’t try to do it all every year. Some years focus on Bible, some focus on catechism, some on Saints. Plan for the year in advance — choose books, schedule in. Winging it doesn’t work!

Liturgical Year
  • Create simple traditions that are anticipated and repeated year after year.
  • Make list of ideas for the year in one document.
  • Larger projects during Advent and Lent. Season planned ahead (shop and stock the week before).
  • Create own calendar in iCal with the ones we want to focus on so I can see what is coming up I need to prepare for in advance (buy supplies, etc).
  • Write church days on the family weekly calendar.
  • Pull out books for month. Store in their own special basket.
  • Create family altar. Change with the season (where? dining area table is smaller but a bigger area of focus)
  • “Today is (date and liturgical event)” written on chalkboard to call to everyone’s attention.
  • Utilize much-loved tea time even if kept simple.
  • Celebrate baptism day (Kids all have the same one and just days after Thomas’s birthday. How to celebrate?)
  • Name days (patron saint).
That’s what I’ve got. Now to work on implementation. I think it would be a rich liturgical life indeed if we were consistent with implementing most of the above. I also think it is doable. Thoughts?