In May, in honor of Mary, our family started praying a decade of the rosary each night. At the time, our son was not quite two and I had trouble finding a rosary for a child of that age, so I made one for him.
I started by tracing some shapes onto card stock and cut them out - on cross, one larger circle, and ten smaller circles. I mounted the cross on yellow construction paper, the larger circle on red, and each of the smaller circles on blue. Then I added stickers from Dollar Tree (thank you Lacy at Catholic Icing!). The cross has a painting of the Holy Trinity, the large red circle a painting of Jesus praying, and each blue circle a picture of Mary. I also wrote the name of the prayer for each bead on the back, just in case. Then I laminated each shape with clear contact paper, punched two hole in each circle and strung them together using yarn.
As we tuck my now two year old son into bed each night, after his story, we say a decade if the rosary. He is still learning to cross himself and has just started "reciting" the Hail Mary ("God" and "now" are ver clear!). The other night, in true toddler fashion, he asked to say the rosary again and again. How can I refuse to let him pray? So we said three decades. If he keeps it up, we may be able to work up to a full decade far sooner than I thought!
It is really nice to pray as a family. It provides a calm focus in what can be a tantrum-filled time. It reminds my husband and I to slow down and tap into God's peace instead of giving onto frustration when our lively little boy is resisting bedtime!
No comments:
Post a Comment