Lenten Calendar

It is that time of year again. We just celebrated meatfare Sunday yesterday with a big turkey dinner as our farewell to meat till mid-April and this week we are gearing up for lent to begin next Monday. Since becoming Orthodox 4 years ago lent has become my favorite time of year. It is also the most challenging. Strict fasting, church services 5 days a week and an intense level of spiritual, emotional and physical exercise make it a challenging yet rewarding time of year.
The past two years I have been working on an idea of how to teach my young children about lent and get them involved. For the nativity fast I created an advent calendar out of baby food jars for all 40 days based off of this link. My kids absolutely love doing "their jars" every day of the fast and it gives us something special to talk about daily. Wanting to do something similar for lent I decided to make another set of jars for all 48 days of lent and holy week.

Inside each jar there are three different things. The first is two quarters (one for each child participating). They each take their quarter and put into a special piggy bank that is for giving to the church. I do this as a way for them to begin understanding almsgiving. On Pascha (Easter) we bring the piggy bank to church and donate all the money they have put in over the past 7 weeks.

The second item in the jar is either a token with a number on it or an icon signifying the topic for that day. Each Sunday of lent is focused on something different (Sunday of Orthodoxy, St. Gregory Palamas, Sunday of the Cross, St. John Climacus, St. Mary of Egypt and Palm Sunday) so for those days I have a small icon of those feasts/saints to use as a tool to discuss the topic. For the other days I divided up the bible stories beginning with Christ's 40 days of temptation in the desert to his resurrection in the "Children's Bible Reader" so there is a bible story for each day. I tabbed out all of the stories with numbers that correspond with a token with that number on it in each jar.

Most of the stories are very short (half page to two pages at most) and have beautiful illustrations for the kids to look at. Starting at Lazarus Saturday through Pascha the bible stories are divided up to track with the events of Holy Week. I also have the story of the Annunciation tabbed to read on March 25th to celebrate the feast. Here is a link to the schedule of readings.

The third and final item in each jar is a small candy for each child. The candy, while not necessary, brings excitement to open their jar daily. During the nativity fast there was not a day that went by without one of children reminding me that we needed to "do our jar" for the day. Even though lent is a time of strict fasting this small treat helps remind them that we are in a special time of the year that is set apart. 

I am so excited to begin our Lenten journey once again and will end with the prayer of St. Ephraim the Syrian:

Oh Lord and Master of my life!

Take from me the spirit of sloth,

faint-heartedness, lust of power, and idle talk.

But give rather the spirit of chastity,

humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.

Yea, Lord and King! Grant me to see my own errors

and not to judge my brother,

for Thou art blessed unto the ages and ages,

Amen.