Faith and Trust

I am really happy with the way our first project for the Year of Faith came out!

I've been thinking about what to do next.  Ideally, I'd like to do one small(ish) project a month, with a larger, less intensive project that would stretch over the year. (More on that soon!)

For October, we focused on what we believe, as articulated by the Nicene Creed.  This month, I thought it would be good to look at another meaning of Faith: not faith about what, but faith in whom. 

So, Faith as trust in Jesus.  Which brings me back to my continual question as a parent: how do I help my kids build and nurture their relationship with God.  It's tricky.  God actually does all the heavy lifting, of course, but how can I help?  Because, really, it all comes down to this, doesn't it?


One thing I've seen is that kids are very concrete in their relationship with God, and it really helps them to have an image to help them focus their imagination on Jesus when they pray.

 Fessing up here, it really helps me too!  I have this picture in my kitchen, hung at eye level, and about life sized, and it really helps me to remember that Jesus is with me.

But that's the image that helps me.  I have known several people who couldn't stand this image!

So I've been having the kids look at lots and lots of images, and picking one that speaks to them.  We've used Google images' search for Jesus (which does include some non-Christian images), a Pinterest page on Jesus (which was very good, if heavy on the smiles), and a Spanish page on Jesus (fairly diverse styles).  I'll print out each kid's favorite, and put it up near their bed.

Year of Faith

I've been thinking about what I would like to do with my kids for the Year of Faith, and I've decided I'd like to start with an intense focus on the Creed.

I had done a project like this about ten years ago, but this time I made a template which you can find here as the Creed PDF (which has fancy lettering), or here as the Creed Word document (with plain lettering).

The basic idea is that the Nicene Creed is broken down into phrases, and each phrase is printed on a blank sheet of paper.  My templates each have 16 pages, but you could do it yourself with the Apostles Creed and it would be a lot shorter.  I'm using the Nicene because I have a lot of kids and a wide age spread. Also, it's the translation that we use at Mass.

Each kid is given a page at a time (the younger kids get the simpler, more concrete phrases), and they draw a representation of the phrase in the blank space.  When they are done (for us it will be during lunch) they share and explain their drawing, and we tape it to the wall.

For us, the whole project will take 3  go arounds which will be spread over two or three weeks.  At the end, we should have a wall covered with an illustrated Creed.  I'll post our results later.

If you're not sure about drawing it out, you could try these Apostles Creed coloring pages.

UPDATE: Queen of Carrots suggested this fabulous picture book of the Nicene Creed!

Now I just have to figure out what I am going to do for me!

One suggestion I had heard was to read the Gospels, but we just did that (and the rest of the New Testament) last year.  My Dominican chapter did a fairly exhaustive multi year study of the CCC a few years back.  I'd kind of like to try the Catechism for Adults or the YouCat.  I'd really like to read through all the documents of Vatican II, but I'm wondering if it's a bit ambitious.

Any ideas?  What are you doing for the Year of Faith?