The Liturgical Year

I am so excited to post a review on this new coloring book! My girls and I spent a great part of the last weekend working on these beautiful pictures to color! Sean Fitzpatrick, the artist, knows very well what gets young artists to want to grab those colored pencils...

The illustrations are fairly simple for young hands and yet a more experienced artist can have a lot of fun with it. Hillside Education's site offers the suggestion of brushing the finished pictures with vegetable oil for a stained glass effect, and we did that!

Fenestrae Fidei is a companion book to Catholic Mosaic, also by Hillside Education, yet may be perfectly well used alone. For each of the illustrations, which are depicted in calendar (and liturgical) year order, there is a brief explanatory paragraph.

If you want to do it with Catholic Mosaic, a great idea would be to occupy the readers with the coloring activity while the picture book is read aloud. (Catholic Mosaic is a compendium of study/activity guides on numerous Catholic-theme picture books - many of which can be found through your local library).

Fenestrae Fidei (or, in English, "Windows of Faith") comes in a spiral bound format, with a large black & white drawing on each page. There are lots of them, as Catholic Mosaic author Cay Gibson lists four picture books per month. The drawings are all in a stylized iconic style, varying somewhat in intensity of detail. And they are just beautiful!

I would have liked to see a heavier stock paper in the pages, but what we have been doing is scanning and printing copies for home use. This allows for several children, for instance, to work on the same pictures at any time. Hillside Publications allows for coying within one family, which is of course a wonderful advantage.

Fenestrae Fidei is a very Catholic book, reflecting events of the life of Our Lord, the tradition of our Church and the holiness of the saints.

Families today are fortunate to have a product such as this!

This nice pamphlet is a simple introduction to Catholic customs and keeping Advent and Christmas meaningful and holy. The Advent segment overviews traditions such as the Advent Wreath, Jesse Tree and Advent Calendar and makes suggestions for remember the great Marian feasts of the Immaculate Conception and Our Lady of Guadalupe. There are brief explanations of the symbolism and history of some of these customs as well as relevant tidbits. The Christmas segment covers Christmas Mass, the Nativity Scene, Christmas Trees, Candles, Exchanging Gifts and Sharing a Feast, helping readers understand the religious significance and importance of each. The pamphlet concludes with a "Christmas Season" segment which includes the Solemity of Mary, the Mother of God; the Epiphany and the Baptism of Our Lord.

This inexpensive booklet ($12.95 for 50) is a good start for those wishing to better understand Catholic customs and a holy celebration of Christmas. You would need to do further research to implement some of the customs in your home, but the information is readily available on the Internet and elsewhere.

This new book on the liturgical year was published last year by a recent homeschool graduate. The segment on Advent covers 34 pages (the pages are 8 1/2 x 11 inches with very dense text - so this is quite a bit of material). Miss McEneany, has provided a very thorough, updated resource for Advent traditions by bringing together detailed instructions, ideas and explanations from a wide variety of resources (including quotes from the Catechism of the Catholic Church and explanations about traditions from the Byzantine rite). This segment on Customs for Advent includes information about the Advent Wreath, (and the Byzantine Advent wreath), the Christ Candle, Jesse Tree Symbols and corresponding Old Testament readings, Advent Friends (sometimes called Kris Kringles), Gifts and Cribs for Jesus (to prepare with good deeds, prayers and sacrifices during Advent), ideas for daily spiritual devotions during Advent and quite a bit more. Each explained custom (where appropriate) also includes related prayers.

The second chapter provides detailed ideas for Home Education during Advent by means of a unit study on the time before Christ. This unit study ties together a certain amount of History, English/Vocabulary, Geography, Religion, Math, Literature, Health, Religion, Art, Science, Home Economics and Latin/Music in order to delve deeper into the meaning of Advent.

Chapter three covers Advent Recipes which differ from older books because of a more modern emphasis on natural foods. I would also have to explain that the recipes are not necessarily "traditional" Advent recipes, but rather natural food recipes that would be considered appropriate for Advent. This chapter includes an extensive segment on growing sprouts as well as recipes for dishes (along with explanations of why they are appropriate) such as: Avocado Potato Salad; Root, Sprout and Flower Noodle Salad; Carrot Salad Fish Loaf, Beet Soup, Avocado-Cauliflower Cream Soup, Carrot Cake and Sprouted Sunflower Burgers. All recipes in the book are meatless and in fact contain no animal products (making them cholesterol free). A four page section in the middle of the book provides glossy, full-color photos of the recipes, many of which incorporate festive decorations. The book also includes an extensive bibliography, a listing of sources for materials and foods mentioned in the book and an alphabetical index of recipes.

I have always loved sticker books-- especially when the drawings are cute as in the case of this booklet. Sticker "scenes" are 2 page- spreads following the story of the birth of Our Lord, and the last page had a suggested scheme of each scene.