Monica McConkey, Author at Equipping Catholic Families

A Renewed Hope! Smart Catholics FREE Online Conference May 16-18

May 15, 2020 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

Smart Catholics is hosting a FREE Online conference of 38 Catholic Speakers, 9 1/2 hours of video presenting

A Renewed Hope!

Life worth Living

Being Catholic literally makes your life better, and more exciting. Learn how!

Be a magnetic Catholic

Find out how to be an irresistible Catholic, the kind of person everyone wants to be friends with.

Confidence about the truth

Meet incredible speakers, and discover why they love being Catholic!

Register TODAY for FREE:

… I’m one of the speakers!

Monica McConkey

PRAYER ⋅ FAITH FORMATION ⋅ FAMILY

Mom of 5, Monica blogs about Catholic crafts and family traditions. She is an author and creator of 60+ Saint, Sacrament, Catechism and Prayer-packed Craft Kits to help teach the Catholic Faith. With her husband, Bill, she founded ‘Arma Dei’, a Catholic family publishing company.

Filed Under: Catholic conferences Tagged With: conference

The Treasure Chest is Back! …and Our Response to St. John Paul II

May 7, 2020 by Monica McConkey 1 Comment

The Treasure Chest is back in print!

Twenty years ago, a Mom of two young kids, I began collecting ideas for crafts and activities to celebrate and teach the Catholic Faith at home. Tapping into the Liturgical Calendar of our Church, what I thought would be just a little booklet for my Catholic Mom friends, turned into a 300 page book. When we weren’t quite satisfied with our publisher options, we decided to embark on a brand new journey of self-publishing. My business-prof-husband cold-called our growing directory of Catholic Book stores in North America and we carefully chose our family vacation routes by the Catholic Book Stores we could visit on the way.

Filed Under: Catholic Crafts, Catholic Resources, Liturgical Calendar Crafts, Treasure Chest crafts and activities Tagged With: catholic crafts

Equipping Catholic Families with Mary Crafts for the Month of May!

April 30, 2020 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

Join us to celebrate May Saints and the Monthly Devotion dedicated to Our Blessed Mother Mary and the continued joyful season of Easter! Do you see something you like?

Here are the links for easy crafts and already-formatted Catholic Craft Kits for the Month of Mary. Some of these are free tutorials and the craft kits come with permission to copy for home use, year after year!

Filed Under: #CatholicCrafts, Catholic Crafts, Catholic Gifts, DIY Crafts, Easter, Family Fun, Feast Day Fun, Liturgical Calendar Crafts, Saints Tagged With: catholic crafts, Feast Day Fun, liturgical calendar, Saints Craft Kits

Equipping Catholic Families for the 50 Days of Easter at Home!

April 14, 2020 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

Alleluia! He has Risen!

This is our summary post of sustainable celebration for all 50 days of Easter including non-chocolate surprises and treats for plastic eggs and awesome Catholic crafts and family traditions, but first things first…did you discover this awesome Devotional for the 50 Days of Easter from The Good Soil? It’s BEAUTIFUL! Join us in reflecting on the hope of the resurrection this Easter. Each day you will receive an email with stories from different women on how they have heard Christ’s call!

Filed Under: #CatholicCrafts, Easter, family projects, family traditions, Liturgical Calendar Crafts, prayer, Sacraments, Saints Tagged With: Catholic Printables, Easter, liturgical calendar, prayer, Saints

Lent: Saints & Virtue: HOLY WEEK

April 4, 2020 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

April 5-11

Quick Bio: St. Rita knew from an early age that she wanted to be a nun, but out of obedience to her parents, she accepted an arranged marriage at the age of 12.

St. Rita’s husband was unfaithful, abusive and domineering. During their 18 years of marriage, St. Rita prayed fervently for her husband and he experienced a conversion. Due to the rivalry between some aristocratic families, St. Rita’s husband was murdered, his mutilated body dumped on the family’s doorstep. Their enraged teenaged sons vowed a vendetta.

Filed Under: Catholic Resources, Holy Week, Lent, prayer, Reflection, Saints Tagged With: Lent, prayer, reflection, Saints, saints + virtue

FREE Amazing Catholic Conference / Lenten Retreat from Home this Weekend!

April 2, 2020 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

There are TWO awesome ONLINE events with world-class speakers available for Catholics this weekend April 3-5th and they are FREE! Register NOW!

There are TWO Conferences going on at the same time: the Women’s Conference and the Men’s Conference.

My understanding is that registration is FREE through this link: Virtual Catholic Conference

Filed Under: Catholic conferences, Catholic Resources Tagged With: Lent, Pilgrimage

Celebrating Holy Week at Home

April 2, 2020 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

With the reality of closed Churches and cancelled public Masses, we’re all scrambling to figure out how to celebrate the liturgies of Holy Week meaningfully at home.

Our Directory of Live-Streamed and On-Demand Masses: Homilies at Home

Filed Under: #CatholicCrafts, Easter, Holy Week, Lent, Liturgical Calendar Crafts, Mass, Printables Tagged With: Easter, Feast Day Fun, Holy Week, Lent, printables

Lent: Saints & Virtue: Week SIX

March 28, 2020 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

Week Six: March 29-April 4

Quick Bio: St.Gianna was born in 1922. She grew up in Italy and was a pediatrician. Chronic illness prevented her from joining her brother on missionary work in Brazil. She had hoped to work in gynecology, treating poor women. She married Pietro in 1955 and they had their first three children between 1956-1959. Near the end of her pregnancy with her fourth child, she developed a fibroma in her uterus. Doctors recommended abortion, but St. Gianna insisted that they remove only the tumor even though there was great risk to her own life. A week after the baby was born, St. Gianna died from complications in childbirth resulting in infection.

Filed Under: Catholic Resources, Lent, prayer, Saints Tagged With: Lent, Saints, saints + virtue

Crafts with Easy-to-Print Catholic Printables

March 26, 2020 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

Prayer Crafts

Hands-On Crafts Lenten Pack of Prayers:

Rosary, Divine Mercy and Stations of the Cross!

Print, Color, Assemble and Pray!

Bundle of One Page Printables

Sign of the Cross Mirror Signs
Illustrated Prayer Cards (Classic Prayers)
Stations of the Cross Coloring Page
Rosary Coloring Page
Divine Mercy Coloring Page
Reconciliation Refresher
Monthly Saints Days
Prayer Journal Prompts
St Benedict Medal
It’s My Feast Day Plate

Customize a dollar store notebook into a treasured Prayer Journal, just the way you want it!

Filed Under: #CatholicCrafts, Catholic Crafts, Catholic Mom Bundle, Catholic Resources, converted 2 Catholic, Printables, Saints Tagged With: Catechism, catholic crafts, Catholic Printables, prayer, printables, Rosary, Sacraments, Saints, Saints Activities

Crafts at Home, with What You Have on Hand

March 26, 2020 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

Looking for crafts to do at home, with what you have on hand?
We sifted through our archives and these are the simplest crafts we found. Many of the crafts are totally appropriate for these last weeks of Lent and the others are just in case you have any kids obsessed with Medieval Times.