A Blessed Way To Begin Each Day

Beginning our day gathered together with our morning basket is such a beautiful way to start the day. I'm so thankful to Wildflowers and Marbles for sharing this inspiration. Actually, this is not the only thing I have picked up from her. And to think - she's here in Alabama! I really hope to meet her one day.

My schedule states 8:30 is our start time. However, this is very flexible. We begin our day at the Holy Water Font by blessing ourselves with Holy Water. We repeat a beautiful line a special priest uses, "Let us begin, as we begin all things; "In the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." We tell Jesus good morning and pray our scapular morning offering.

Then we move over to the sofa and have our morning "together" time. We look up the saint of the day and light our candle. A dear friend once gave us globe candle holders representing the different liturgical colors. We check the church calendar for the color of the day and light the insertable candle, which we buy at our church's gift shop.

We read about the saint of the day and also the Daily Mass Readings. The House Cat and Snuggle Bug take turns reading aloud the first reading and the Gospel. I read/sing the Psalm and Buck and Honeybee lead the Alleluia for us. We might reflect for a moment on a line that has touched us or I might have found the Bible story in one of our Children's Picture Bibles to re-tell the story with. Next we incorporate some sort of music. We have been studying songs for Benediction in English and Latin. So we will sing those. Sometimes we will pop in a CD and listen to a song that goes with one of the readings of the day. There are so many wonderful Catholic artist out there! We especially love Danielle Rose, Donna Cori Gibson, and Adrianne Price.

What comes next varies, I may read from:

Once Upon A Time Saints or

Angel Food For Boys and Girls or

Catholic Mosaic or

Our Birds and Their Nestlings

This is such a treasure I stumbled upon on Amazon.

I have reserved an hour block for our morning gathering. By no means is it to the minute, or sometimes even hour. If I'm getting a slow start and the big girls are ready on time, they might go ahead and complete their math lessons before we begin. The important thing is that we do come together sometime in the morning to offer our days to God.

We close our time together by praying The Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be, O My Jesus, Come Holy Spirit and the prayer to St. Michael the Archangel. We thank God for the gift of homeschooling and ask Him to bless dad in his work and be with all of those we have promised to pray for.

May God Bless You in All You Do!