Maundy Thursday 2016

Several years ago, I purchased a three-dimensional Passion Play craft activity for $15 from Illuminated Ink at a homeschool conference. This thing will be glorious: a two-tiered, three-dimensional rotating piece of art showing four scenes from the Passion. 

This year, I had enough children old enough to use it!

Each day this week, we worked on coloring in the elaborate and detailed drawings during our read-aloud time for school. My grand plan proceeded smoothly.

I made photocopies of the card stock images for Joseph to color so he felt included, and didn't know that his three-year-old scribbles wouldn't be used.

Unfortunately, it was on Wednesday night, which I had set aside to stay up late cutting, taping, and gluing this masterpiece, that I read the first line of the instructions, "Begin this project at the beginning of Lent!"

After Chris and I laughed till tears ran down our faces, and I worked for another hour and a half, completing maybe 20% of the project, my dream of the children waking on Maundy Thursday to this gorgeous creation was dead.

I won't be able to use this for catechism during the Holy Triddum, nor as an Easter centerpiece, but maybe if I keep working at it during the Easter octave, I will finish it next week.

As  I told Chris, this will be saved and cherished year to year and will be safely encased in a Rubbermaid bin: one more box he can take up and down from the attic for me. Cue more laughter!

The shrouded altar

I believe last year (when I would have been about six months pregnant), I never even managed to get the Lent box down from the attic, so the holy images were not shrouded during Holy Week. This year, I have an eager 9-1/2-year-old boy, eager to go in the attic on any pretense and to shroud images, which is how I have any success in this area.

On Thursday afternoon, we dyed Easter eggs.

Dying Easter eggs

I scheduled this activity for when I'd have our new babysitter here because I consider dying eggs a two-adult job!

Joseph was most easily occupied when we gave him a paint brush so he'd have something to do rather than sit and stare at an egg sitting in colored water, us telling him to 'wait just a little longer!'