Our Lenten Journey Begins

Ash Wednesday is a special day in our family of faith.  We attended Mass this morning and the music really hit home for me.  One song that we sung was Hosea...

"Long have I waited for your coming
Home to me and living deeply
Our new LIFE"

I can imagine that Jesus is saying this to us.  We start out wanting to follow Him in our Christian journey and then we stumble.  Often times,we give up thinking we have failed.  However, He is there waiting for us to join Him again.  This Lent I hope that I can meet Him on the path and live more deeply devoted to His ways!

The other song that follows the same idea is Refiner's Fire...

"Purify my heart
Let me be as gold and precious silver
Purify my heart
Let me be as gold, pure gold
Refiner's fire
My heart's one desire
Is to be holy
Set apart for You, Lord
I choose to be holy
Set apart for You, my Master
Ready to do Your will
Purify my heart
Cleanse me from within
And make me holy
Purify my heart
Cleanse me from my sin
Deep within"

Lent is penitential season aimed at sacrificing oneself for the greater good found in God.  I pray for my heart to be purified and cleansed of the sin deep within.  I want to be free of all that holds me back from God.

We started a new Lenten project this year....a wonderful home school mom asked our group if we would be interested in a saint doll exchange.  Much like a cookie exchange, we each create one type of saint doll in duplicate (it turns out that our group is 48 strong so we will be making 48 saint dolls) to exchange with the rest of the group.  Our family decided to make two different saints (before we knew how many we were making!) so we are making 96 dolls.

Our family chose St. Teresa of Calcutta because she is one of my favorite saints.  Henry (our second artist of the family) chose to paint Maximilian Kolbe.  This is the saint he chose when he was confirmed.

We consider this project much like you would think of an icon painter.  It is supposed to be a very prayerful experience.  We are to pray for assistance and also pray for those we are painting these dolls to receive blessings.  I hope we can also meditate on the lives that the saints lived to bring us closer to God during this Lenten season.

We started out with an blank canvas.  We had to choose paint colors and practice with a steady hand.  It was a slow start with a lot of redo...but we progress and learn along the way.  Much like life!


We have three weeks to complete the project, so hopefully we will be able to finish this project!