Ideas for Celebrating Pentecost

Make a centerpiece. Cut out seven candles with flames on construction paper and label them with the names of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Attach to a strip or two of construction paper formed into a circle and stapled.

Wear Red

Fly a kite

Make a birthday cake and sing Happy Birthday to the Church.

Make Pinwheels and blow on them remembering God's breath of the Holy Spirit upon the Church.

Make a cenacle and re-enact the coming of The Holy Spirit

Print white doves, cut and glue them to card stock, and label each one with one gift of The Holy Spirit. Then cut those out, number them 1-12, hole punch and hang them by red ribbons. We hung ours from our banister railing. After Mass have each member of the family choose a number. Find the dove that matches your number and the gift written on it is the one the Holy Spirit (working through the gift written on it) wishes him to work on for the year. (Catholic Culture.)

Copywork for older children:

Come, my children in the world, come and be my witnesses: I need every mouth that still prays, I need every hand that still traces the sign of the holy Cross! For the day is heavy with storms of temptation— There are many along the road who no more find the way home: You must be light to light their way .... —Gertrud von LeFort.

(Gertrud von LeFort was a German writer of novels, poems, and essays. She came from a Protestant background, but converted to Catholicism in 1926. Most of Gertrud's writings come after this conversion.)

Gifts of the Holy Spirit enable us to live a holy Christian life.

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit are:

Wisdom - desire for the things of God, and to direct our whole life and all our actions to His honor and glory

Understanding - enable us to know more clearly the mysteries of faith

Counsel - warn us of the deceits of the devil, and of the dangers to salvation

Fortitude - strengthen us to do the will of God in all things

Knowledge - enable us to discover the will of God in all things

Piety - love God as a Father, and obey Him because we love Him

Fear of the Lord - have a dread of sin and fear of offending God

The 12 Fruits of the Holy Spirit grow in our souls with our practice of Virtue as enabled by the Gifts of the Holy Spirit:

Charity

Joy

Peace

Patience

Benignity - the quality of being kind and gentle

Goodness

Long-suffering (patient suffering over an extended period)

Mildness

Faith

Modesty

Continency (Purity)

Chastity