How we spent the Easter Triduum and Easter Sunday :)

A blessed, beautiful Easter to all of you! :) I hope the glorious joy and peace that comes with Easter is still very much evident in your hearts and homes — after all, Easter has just begun! (We're celebrating for 50 Days, how awesome is that!)


Anyway, I know I shared with you in a previous post how we planned to "do" the Easter Triduum and Easter Sunday, so I just want to share what we actually ended up doing.


On Holy (or Maundy) Thursday, we ended up attending the Mass of the Lord's Supper at Sacred Heart Parish, a church near my in-laws' place, instead of at our parish here in our village in Cainta. You see, hubby's grandmother, who is bedridden and ill, also celebrated her birthday on the same day, so we went to their place for her birthday celebration with family members on hubby's side.


We ended up staying longer than planned, even staying overnight (the kids were having so much fun playing with their cousins and bonding with family, they didn't want to leave anymore). So we weren't able to do our own washing of the feet ceremony as a family and also skipped the online Visita Iglesia. We did try to teach the kids about the symbolism behind Jesus' washing the disciples' feet (love and servanthood) and also watched these videos with them:





For Good Friday (God's Friday!), we went back to our apartment in the morning and attended the Good Friday/Veneration of the Cross service in our parish. The kids were kind of tired when we got home, so we didn't do any crafts but just enjoyed spending time together. I'm grateful that Tim was mindful of the fact that we were fasting/abstaining on that day, and he contributed in his own way by "fasting" from the educational computer games which he loves to play.


Holy Saturday was spent cleaning up our apartment in preparation for our Catholic group's prayer meeting on Holy Monday. It was "summer cleaning," for us, since we don't really experience spring here. :) I also prepared the eggs and stuff for the kids' Easter Treasure Hunt, a modified version of the traditional Easter Egg Hunt. :) We didn't get to go to the Easter Vigil though. Hopefully next year.

Easter Sunday saw us attending morning Mass at our parish and going to my dad’s for lunch. We were joined by my youngest brother and a few Youth for Christ (YFC) leaders and missionaries from Timor Leste, who are here for the YFC International Leaders Conference this weekend. It was great to catch up with them and speak in Tetun again! (We used to be based in Timor as missionaries).

The kids had a blast hunting for goodies on their Easter Treasure Hunt and eating the Easter cake their Tito Jay brought for them. 

All in all, it was a truly blessed Easter for our family. I only hope and pray that the seeds of love and life in Jesus will continue to be sown in our kids’ hearts, as well as our own, throughout this Easter season and beyond, and eventually, bear good fruit. In the future.

Enjoy the rest of Easter, everyone!

P.S. Sharing some of our pics with you. :)

I forgot to include this pic in my last post. :) These love notes from Jesus were the last Easter "treasures" in the kids' treasure hunt on Easter Sunday. 

Hubby, me, my dad and our Timorese brothers and sister

Alleluia! :) Kids with their Tito (Uncle) Jay

Ready for our Easter Treasure Hunt! :)

Treasure under Lolo's pillow 

Where to next?! :)

Treasure under their cousins' pillow (The cousins were not present, though..)

More treasures! :)

Our Easter cake. C/o my brother. :) Store-bought from Red Ribbon, hehe!
Didn't have the time to make a genuine Resurrection cake, but I hope we could do it next year! (If we have an oven by then! LOL!)

Of course, we had to have a candle-blowing ceremony! :)

The kids enjoyed playing checkers with their Tito Jay back in our humble home. :)

A blessed Easter to all! {We're going on a treasure hunt!}

Image source here.

Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.

But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

(1 Corinthians 15: 55-57)

Although our Lenten and Holy Week plans and promises did not all go according to what we had hoped, we are nonetheless grateful for how God has brought us to this wonderful day — Easter, when we celebrate Jesus' rising from the dead! :) Thank God we have 50 days to celebrate this beautiful, blessed occasion!

Here's a peek at what the kids will be getting today at our "Easter Treasure Hunt," which we will have during our planned Easter party later at Lolo Mon's house. We'll be having lunch with my dad, my youngest brother and our young "family" members from Timor Leste, who are here for the Youth for Christ International Leaders Conference next weekend:

I reused the plastic Easter eggs we bought last year for our Resurrection Eggs set and placed different "goodies" in each egg — the pink and purple ones are for Rysse and the green and blue ones for Tim. I also bought some Catholic items at our local St. Paul's store.

Can you guess what are inside these eggs? LOL! I think the sticks pretty much give it away! (Lollipops! Tee hee!)

I bought these little books about stories from the Bible (OK, they're kind of NOT related to Easter, but we don't have that many choices here in the Philippines!). Then, I taped Easter eggs to the covers of the books, with each egg containing a one-peso coin. :)

These eggs contain small glow-in-the-dark statues of the Sto. Nino (for Tim) and of Mama Mary (for Rysse).

The last and greatest "treasure" in our hunt will be these VCDs of Saints Stories with holy picture cards of the Resurrected Christ, the Holy Family and St. Therese (for Rysse) and St. Michael (for Tim, they didn't have a St. Timothy card at St. Paul's). The Easter eggs contain a jelly candy each.

I taped the eggs to the kids' favorite snack foods - choc chip cookies for Tim and cheese crackers for Rysse. The eggs contain, again, one-peso coins. :)

We don't have Easter baskets, so I'll just ask the kids to use the bags they got from the CFC Kids for Christ International Kids Village we were blessed to attend last year to gather their Easter treasures. :)

Last-minute additions :) I tried to make a cross out of lollipops, after reading this post about symbolic Easter baskets for Catholic children. How I wish we had Catholic stores that sold Catholic-themed candies and goodies like those featured here! :) 

It's not too late to have a Christ-centered Easter activity for your families, friends! :) Here are some useful links:

Symbolic Easter baskets from Three-Sided Wheel

Catholic Easter basket ideas from Shower of Roses

Easter ideas from Catholicmom.com

While we're at it, let's include the whole family! :) Here are 50 Ways to Celebrate Easter from The Word Among Us website. :) 

P.S. This Easter Sunday, the kids are going on a treasure hunt and we'll be having a simple party. But our only prayer is that they discover the greatest treasure of all, i.e. the Resurrected Christ, alive forevermore! Alleluia! :)

Parents for Eternal Life

I recently read an article entitled “The Teaching of the Catholic Church on Home Schooling – Parents for Eternal Life” by Jesuit priest Fr. John Hardon, and the following paragraph really struck me:

“...what they (children) mainly need is to know why God made them; why they are on earth at all; why they are in this world; that they are here in this life in order to prepare and train themselves for the world to come. In a word, children are to be taught that their short stay here in time is only a preparation for the world that will never end. They are to be trained for heaven.”

(*To read the rest of this entry, please go to my blog post on Philstar.com's unBLOGGED section here. Thanks in advance for your support!) 

Wordless Wednesday

Instant Homeschool Lesson for Divine Mercy Sunday

Our instant "lesson" for Saturday was based on the feast of the Divine Mercy.. We are unschooling now and I just thought of doing this before the kids had lunch. The other day we did "A" is for Ark and did an Ark artwork and read Noah's Ark and other books about listening to God and obeying. 

Saturday's "lesson" was "B" is for Blessed (I tried to connect the lesson to the beatification of Pope John Paul II somehow). Aside from the artwork we did (which was a hit with the kids, thank You Lord for divine inspiration!), Tim practiced writing his uppercase and lowercase A's and B's, numbers 1 and 2. (He is not so into writing actually. I don't want to push him so much either!) 

We also read about The Lost Sheep from The Beginner's Bible for Toddlers (I related it to being Blessed because Jesus always looks for us because of His great love for us), and the book Thank You God for My Two Feet. I had other books I planned to read but Tim said he was already hungry, so I let him and Rysse have lunch already. (Note to self: Start planning ahead, and homeschool earlier in the morning! :-)



I sure hope the kids learn from these "instant" lessons somehow! And that more than these lessons, they learn how to love the Lord with all their heart! I also pray that I will grow more in patience, understanding, kindness and discipline. 


Jesus King of Mercy, we trust in You! Blessed John Paul II, pray for us! Thank you for showing us that life is precious, and that children are a gift from God! :-)

Pope John Paul II: Children Are the Future of a Nation 

"I wish to express the joy that we all find in children, the springtime of life, the anticipation of the future history of each of our present earthly homelands. No country on earth, no political system can think of its own future otherwise than through the image of these new generations that will receive from their parents the manifold heritage of values, duties and aspirations of the nation to which they belong and of the whole human family. Concern for the child, even before birth, from the first moment of conception and then throughout the years of infancy and youth, is the primary and fundamental test of the relationship of one human being to another. And so, what better wish can I express for every nation and for the whole of mankind, and for all the children of the world than a better future in which respect for human rights will become a complete reality throughout the third millennium, which is drawing near?"

~ Pope John Paul II, excerpt from Familiaris Consortio ~

What Kids Should Know About Easter

Easter is THE most important time of the year for us Christians, even more important than Christmas. Sadly though, many people, Catholics and Christians included, often forget about this, and get lost in the hype of Easter egg hunts and chocolate bunnies. Personally, we do not claim to be the perfect Catholic parents, but we hope and pray that our kids will grow up to treasure the wonders and miracles of the Resurrected Lord, and believe in the enduring, saving power of the Cross.

This Easter Sunday, and the succeeding 49 days of Easter after it, may we who are in the ministry of raising up and teaching children (parents, teachers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, KFC facilitators, kids ministers, big brothers and sisters, etc etc) remember to teach our kids that Easter is all about the Lamb, not the rabbit (the customs of which incidentally, is rooted in pagan traditions). 

Here are a few links to help you understand more about why JESUS is the reason for this great and blessed season, and how you can teach your kids about it:

From the Bible Conversation blog: "Is Believing in the Easter Bunny and Jesus the Same?" http://bibleconversation.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/is-believing-in-the-easter-bunny-and-jesus-the-same/

From Grant's Graceland: 

Top Ten Reasons Why Jesus is WAY BETTER Than the Easter Bunny! http://www.grantsgraceland.org/topten/tp0301.html

From Catholic Icing: Religious Easter Ideas For Kids (It's not TOO LATE to do this, Easter lasts for 50 days you know!) http://catholicicing.blogspot.com/2011/04/religious-easter-ideas-for-kids.html

Feel free to share! May the Risen LORD always be in our hearts this Easter and beyond! A blessed, beautiful, bountiful Easter to all!

Rysse "helping " Tim prepare their Resurrection Eggs (idea taken from Catholic Icing)

Tim concentrating on the Resurrection Eggs

The finished product!

Preparing the Last Supper Craft (from Catholic Icing) for Holy Thursday

A cool Catholic way to practice kids' scissors skills

Retelling the Resurrection Story with Catholic Icing's easy-to-do Resurrection Set (Tim can't get enough of it, he keeps asking us to retell it!)

Kids and their Resurrection Set (May your patron saints Timothy and Therese guide you!)

Happy to hear the story of Jesus rising from the dead

(Oops.. forgot this one!) The Last Supper/Holy Thursday craft by Tim and Mama ♥