It is the Feast of St Joseph, husband of Our Lady and foster father of Our Lord Jesus Christ.
What a feast!!! 🙂
As each year of rich liturgical feasts and celebrations role by, I get more and more enthusiastic with incorporating them into our family life! Now the children are older and therefore more able to understand and participate, I have great joy planning for each big feast. I am also dutifully reminded by Sunshine and Master Luke about what I have done in the years past… just in case I forget 🙂
Last year I came across a truly beautiful Italian tradition for celebrating the Feast of St Joseph… A St Joseph Altar. Below are a few links to give you the history and also a peek at what others have done (not to mention a link to my last minute attempt last year! :))
– Shower of Roses 2013 St Joseph Altar
– Our humble attempt at a St Joseph Altar 2013
Therefore I am REALLY buzzing with excitement about tomorrow! 🙂
This is what we have planned to celebrate the wonderful, humble man who was given the precious role as head of the Holy Family.
ACTIVITIES:
– A simple family altar set up with pictures of St Joseph, Holy Family and candles
This is my latest edition to our holy pictures collection 🙂 I LOVE the added gold highlights
– Family morning Rosary (Joyful Mysteries to meditate on the role of St Joseph)
– A St Joseph Mini Lapbook – I use a simple manila folder and the children cut, paste, fill out and colour to their age and stage :). I have put this together myself, so the link for the PDF is highlighted if you would like to download it. If you do, please make sure you link back here if shared. Thanks 🙂 St Joseph Mini Lapbook
– Sort the Order colouring in activity and pinned timeline – I have quite a lot of BRILLIANT Catholic colouring in books that I photocopy on a regular basis for my kids. I have sourced a range of pictures depicting scenes from the life of St Joseph. The kids will have to order them as a timeline correctly and after colouring them in (if we have time :)) they will pin them along a string chronologically above the family altar. Below are the three I have used for St Joseph.
Life of Mary Colouring book by Sr Karen Cavanagh
Colouring Book about the Rosary – St Joseph Coloring Books
Communion of Saints Coloring Book – Holy Imitation series
– St Joseph Altar
Our parish is having a sung Latin Mass tomorrow evening at 6pm to celebrate the Feast. St Joseph has a very special place in the hearts of the Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer (the order who look after our Parish). It is worth reading why… CLICK HERE!
Following the Mass we are going to have a shared feast to celebrate. We will decorate a St Joseph Altar and share in some of the traditional foods that are found in Italy on this feast. The kids and I are going to be VERY busy baking, cooking and crafting our contributions tomorrow!
Here is our MENU we are creating (Catholic Cuisine by the way is a WONDERFUL site to check out for feast days!)
– Honey Pasta
– Lentil Soup
– Zeppole
– Fig biscuits – thanks Catholic Icing for this clever way of recreating the original 🙂
Yum, yum, yum!!!! 🙂 The house will smell wonderful and our hearts will be lifted up in thanksgiving…. I very much look forward to tomorrow!
One last thing 🙂
I have recently painted a picture of St Joseph (below) and have limited edition prints for sale on my Etsy store. Here is the link if you would like to check it out 🙂 ETSY STORE – RUTH GREEN
St Joseph – original painting by Ruth Green 2013
May your own feast of St Joseph be truly blessed!!!
Ruth xxx
Pulchra Doctrina 
That’s a beautiful painting Ruth, and I love those gold highlighted holy cards as well.