Holy Week
As we are preparing our hearts and minds for the Easter season, we’re looking forward to another year celebrating Holy Week. I know how we worship and come to better know our Savior is such a personal journey. We need Him now more than ever. When I shared on Instagram that we try to be more intentional about this sacred time, I had a lot of questions on what that looks like for us. So I hope that by sharing it’ll spark some ideas and then you can create an atmosphere that works best for your family.
Traditionally, we focus on the events and stories that took place during the last week of Christ’s mortal life. Sometimes these days are called slightly different things and we don’t necessarily know all the details of certain days, but to help us all remember the timeline we go with: Palm Sunday, Cleansing Monday, Teaching Tuesday, Betrayal Wednesday, Last Supper Thursday, Good Friday, Salvation Saturday, and Easter Sunday.
Beginning on Palm Sunday each morning during our devotional time we’ll do three things.
First, I like to introduce the day by using artwork to see what the kid’s can tell us about the event in Christ’s life. This year we’re using the artwork from Multiply Goodness. I’m in love with the vintage art they have in their guide.
Next, we will read the coordinating scripture passage and discuss.
Last, I like to give my kids another visual so we watch a coordinating video. We use The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint Holy Week videos.
We’ll close our devotional with a prayer and then do a related activity and/or participate in a simple service project. This year I had planned to just pull from our old materials, but at the last minute I decided to grab the Multiply Goodness guide (pictured below). Each day there are scriptures to read, age specific reflection questions (young children, teens and, adults) and then a suggested family activity and service idea. It is a beautiful guide and I think it’d be a good fit for any Christian home looking to be more intentional about Holy Week.
Sometimes we’ve read the scriptures at night, but for the most part we’ve followed a very similar routine to this over the years. For activities, we’ve done everything from homemade journals to acting out the events using play-doh and waving homemade palm leaves to having our own special Passover dinner. We also like to watch The Prince of Egypt on Thursday.
Next week we will be taking a lighter load with our main studies. I’m trying to put aside other distractions - even the good ones - so we can truly focus on the Savior and have our hearts open to the Spirit. We’re working hard to finish up our solar system study by Friday and then we’ll be moving into our last ancient history study of the year - Rome! I am so excited because we’ve been studying the New Testament this year so we’re looking forward to diving into the history of the Roman empire during the time of Christ.
I’ll leave you with some pictures from the last few years. I hope everyone has a beautiful Easter season.
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