Little Flowers (April Style)

Cate belongs to a Little Flowers girls’ group that is sponsored by our homeschool co-op. All of the mommies take turn hosting and April was my month.

This means that yesterday our home was inundated with lots and lots of happy, hoppy 8- and 9-year-old girls.

It also means that Friday night found me stressing.

You want proof that this big, waddling mommy was stressing? How’s this for proof: I asked my husband if he liked the new brand of Doritos that I served for supper (it was “Mexican Night”) and he said, “Um, not so much.”

My response was to start crying.

That’s how pathetically overwhelmed I’ve been.

As is so often the case these days, my dear friend Cathie came to the rescue. “Look,” she told me, when I called her for perhaps the 23rd time that day, “We’re talking about a group of 8-year-old girls here. They’re just glad to get together. Don’t feel like you have to impress them. Relax! They’ll have fun no matter what you plan.”

And then, because Cathie is a true friend of the heart, she offered to stay and help me when she dropped her daughter off.

We are doing Wreath 1 this year and our saint for the month was Catherine Labouré. I printed out these coloring pages (Thank you, Jenn!) and that was the ice-breaker when the girls first arrived. (Not that they needed one.) For the lesson, we talked about the Miraculous Medal and how St. Catherine knelt at the feet of Our Blessed Mother in the chapel at Rue de Bac, Paris.

I’ve been to that chapel and have seen St. Catherine’s body—totally cool. (If you go to this website and scroll down, you will see it.) We talked about how certain saints were given the gift of incorruptibility. We looked at postcards from the Sainte Chapelle and from St. Bernadette’s monastery in Nevers.

(You have to hand it to our Blessed Mother. She has a way of letting us know the saints which were so dear to her.)

For the activity, which was taken from the Little Flowers Craft Companion, the girls took a cardboard box and découpaged it with pretty tissue.

I printed out an image of the Miraculous Medal and they used that for the cover.

At the beatification of St. Catherine Labouré, there were 8000 Children of Mary present, all veiled in white and wearing the Miraculous Medal. Can you imagine? What a witness to the intercession of Mary; what a sign of hope in all-too-troubled world.

I know I complain and joke about this pregnancy a lot. The fact is, Baby Number 6 wouldn’t be here without the prayers of many—and that includes Mother Mary, my daughter Cate, and you!

So thank you, everyone, for understanding that while the jokes do much to help me cope…

…it’s the miracle of this baby that gets the shout-out.

Oh Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

St. Catherine Labouré, pray for us!