A Letter to Frankie about the All for Jesus Lent Challenge

Hi Frankie,

Nice to hear about your plans for Lent. I like your weekly Stations of the Cross candle vigil outside (wow, do you get to hold a candle?!?) and I think the counting to 40 after Grace before Meals is a simple, but pretty effective idea. I’ve been insisting on leading Grace for my family these days, but I think that they suspect that I don’t really know all the words. I don’t think I can quite count to 40 (maybe 11, with a couple jumbled numbers?) but I bet one of my older sisters or brother could lead that.

Well, I showed you in my last letter some of the things my family has done for Lent in the past. I like how your family does so many different things and you try to make them a habit for the rest of the year. I suspect that our family will try to do one or two things…maybe even a different focus for each week in Lent.

I thought a neat way for both of our families and our readers to tackle Lent together would be for a good old fashioned All for Jesus Lent Challenge. Hey Frankie, just so you know, there are PRIZES!

So basically, every week people could choose their best Lent challenge or a special chore they carried out, keeping Jesus’ Sacrifice in mind (so doing the work, without the grumble). They would visit either your Mom’s blog or my Mom’s blog and enter their weekly challenge after they completed it. At the end of Lent, you (Frankie) and I could randomly choose a couple entries and those people would win a free download link to their choice of one of my Mom’s Cathletics Craft Kits.

Speaking of my Mom’s Cathletics Craft Kits, I think our family is going to use the new and expanded Advent & Lent Quest as a countdown throughout Lent.

Here’s a review from Karen’s Adventures in Mommyland for this very same kit and she’s got some great new ways for how to use it, all year round!

There are 3 different Paper Chain Crafts to pick from, but we’re going to learn a little more Catechism in honor of the Year of Faith!

We’re going to cut all the little chain links and keep them in a jar. We’re going to actually use 48 of them, so that we can do this on Sundays too. Each day, we’ll take one out and using this cool staple-free stapler*, we’ll turn it into a link, adding it to a growing decorative chain. I think it will be fun to see it at Easter! It should be pretty long and will remind us of all the cool Catholic facts we talked about.

*no, we don’t get any commission from the cool stapler company…I just wanted to show off this cool stapler we got for Christmas…and we finally have a neat reason to use it!

Hey Frankie,
I know my Mom is also part of the Keep LOVE in LENT link-up where people will be sharing their ideas for celebrating Lent (again, sacrifice and good deeds, without a grumbly face). Maybe we’ll find out about what the other kids are doing…

Hey, by the time you get my letter and start writing back, it’ll probably be Pancake Tuesday! What do you do with your family … on the last day before Lent?

Bye for now, Frankie. I’m going to figure out where Mom hid the scissors, so I can start cutting those Lent links! love, Adam