Jesus is risen, Alleluia!  Alleluia!
He is risen indeed, Alleluia!  Alleluia!

We are joyfully celebrating 50 days of Easter!  It’s time to pack our bags with JOY!!!  We are EASTER PEOPLE!  Each Mass throughout the whole year is celebrated as a “mini-Easter” as we celebrate the risen Christ through the Eucharist. 

Enjoy these prayer resources in this season of Life and Joy!  And as always, please let us know if we can help your spiritual needs in any way.  We are here for YOU!

Adding more prayer to your day!

As we live more attuned to God’s presence, we also witness to others the joy and strength of a life centered on Jesus. 

Two short daily prayer habits can help you grow in responsiveness to God’s action in your life:

• Morning Offering - A morning offering prayer gives your first thoughts of the day to God, bringing your day, and all its unknowns to the Lord. Say a simple “good morning” to God as you wake up and offer your day to Him in your own words!
• Evening Examen - Before bed, prayerfully review your day, asking God to show you moments when you recognize God’s presence in your life.  Thank God for the time that you responded to His call in your life.  Follow these simple steps:

1. 1. Ask for grace to see your day through God’s eyes. Invite God to be the leader of this prayer time. 
   2. Review the events of your day hour by hour, slowing down at the significant moments and speeding through less significant ones, as God leads. 
   3. Give thanks for the gifts and blessings you notice and the moments you responded to him with generosity. Ask forgiveness for sins and missed opportunities. 
   4. Ask for any graces or help you need for tomorrow. 

Sharing Faith – Evangelizing ~ Seton Style!

The Easter Season is a perfect time to celebrate and share the grace and glory of God with others.  But how?  It can be easier than you think. The first two don’t even involve other people!  Consider this…

Perhaps, begin by praying for others!  Sometimes it helps to write their name on a sticky note to inspire us to pray for the ability to speak truth and love into people’s hearts in a way that truly reaches them. And pray for his Holy Spirit to give us the words we need to say.

Think about your own actions.  It’s important to demonstrate the love and kindness that God wants us to show, but it’s important to convey that God is the reason and inspiration behind our actions.  Try to do your best to live out the principles of the gospel practically and authentically in your everyday life. If we do so, with humility, then people will truly get to experience what Christ is doing in us. Asking God to help you make that happen is a step in the right direction.

Meet people where they are and see others as gift.  When we approach people with a lens of sacredness and the belief that there is goodness to offer one another, the fruits of the Spirit can come alive in each of us – and be shared with recognition of God’s goodness in each other. 

Timing is everything!  When there is trust and understanding, invitation comes a bit easier.  This can be as simple as sharing a bulletin or inviting someone to watch a Seton Homily with you.  Or, letting someone know that you were thinking about them and praying for them in your prayer time.  If the Holy Spirit moves you, invite them to mass or another event here at Seton. 

Growing together in faith is something that helps us all grow closer to Christ and to one another as active and intentional members in this wonderful community.  Thank you for sharing the life giving message of Christ Jesus!

Celebrate Easter's 50 Days - Family activities to celebrate the Easter season.

This resource was adapted from an online tool called “The Word Among Us” to celebrate the 50 days of Easter!  Alleluia!  HE is ALIVE!!! Easter is the most important feast of the Christian year—so important that the Church sets aside a seven-week season to rejoice in Christ’s victory over sin and death.

How can a family sustain this “Easter spirit” of celebration all the way to Pentecost? Here are fifty ways to celebrate the fifty days. But don’t try to do them all! Each week, just pick a few ideas that seem right for you. You’ll be rejoicing long after the last jellybean is gone!

1. Plan fun family activities—one for every week of Easter.
2. Put up a sign or banner that proclaims, “He is risen!”
3. There were FOUR people who were received into the church Easter Vigil night. Pray a prayer of thanksgiving for them and pray that their faith continues to grow.
4. Add an “alleluia” song—or three alleluias—to your grace before meals.
5. Use a special candle at family meals to recall the light of Christ.
6. Every day, read together from the Easter story: Matthew 28; Mark 16; Luke 24; John 20-21.
7. Watch an Easter movie together. Need some ideas? Check out this link: https://www.christianity.com/wiki/holidays/10-easter-movies-life-of-jesus-watch.html
8. Draw a poster or color a picture of a cross. Hang it on the wall an add paper flowers and leaves to it throughout Easter.
9. Celebrate new life by doing something as a family to support children and their parents (pray for them, offer to take the children on a walk, make them something yummy to share as a family).
10. Keep fresh flowers around.
11. Use the old Easter greeting and response: “Christ is risen! Alleluia, Alleluia! He is risen indeed! Alleluia, Alleluia!”
12. Visit a lonely neighbor or do some other act of kindness to express thanks for the resurrection.
13. Talk about baptism. Share the memories and stories of family members’ baptisms.
14. Plan a outing to a river, lake, stream, or ocean and become aware of God’s magnificent creation.
15. Drape your crucifixes and crosses with a strip of white cloth.
16. Make cookies in the shapes of Easter symbols. Freeze some to serve throughout the season.
17. Learn how other cultures celebrate Easter. Try out some of their customs and foods.
18. Make cards announcing the good news of the resurrection and leave them in public places anonymously.
19. Use a special container for newly blessed water from church. Show your kids how to use holy water and bless each other at the end of the day.
20. Take a moment before or after mass to notice all of the beautiful Easter decorations in the sanctuary!
21. Listen to Handel’s Messiah and other Easter music.
22. Read about the Emmaus disciples (Luke 24:13-35); take a family walk and talk about or think about what that story means for you.
23. How about taking a short trip to an interesting shrine or church? Need a few ideas? Visit: Catholic Shrines and Holy Places Want a longer trip? How about visiting the shrine of St. Therese of Lisieux in Darien Illinois?  Visit: National Shrine and Museum of St. Therese
24. Place a resurrection icon or picture in a place of honor.
25. Discuss what it means to be Christ’s “witnesses” (Luke 24:48)? Help each family member to see that their witness matters.
26. Wear more white, or even gold! They’re the season’s special colors.
27. Pray the Liturgy of the Hours together in the morning or evening (www.liturgyhours.org).
28. If your family likes to sing and play instruments, have people over for a musical Easter celebration.
29. Read about the disciples’ amazing catch of fish (John 21:1-14). Then go fishing together.
30. Or imitate Peter and go swimming at an indoor pool! (John 21:7).
31. The Sunday after Easter is Divine Mercy Sunday. Explore this relatively new devotion (www.marian.org/divinemercy).
32. Talk about how the disciples hid (John 20:19) until the Spirit’s coming at Pentecost. Follow up by playing hide and seek.
33. Plant some seeds.
34. Honor the risen Lord’s mother by learning about “Mary gardens” (www.mgardens.org).
35. Read Luke 24:50-53 or Acts 1:6-11. Ask family members to imagine themselves present at Jesus’ ascension. How would they have felt about it?
36. Pray for those in our parish who are about to receive their First Eucharist.
37. Just before his ascension, Jesus blessed the disciples. Pray together as a way of communicating his blessing to one another.
38. On Ascension Thursday, choose a family intention. Make the nine days till Pentecost a novena to the Holy Spirit.
39. Add some Pentecost red (for fire) to your Easter decorations.
40. Read Acts 2, the Spirit’s coming at Pentecost. Read it in all the languages family members speak! (See the Bible translations at www.biblegateway.com/languages).
41. Decorate a cake with Pentecost flames and other symbols to celebrate the birthday of the church.
42. Talk about the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (see Isaiah 11 and 1 Corinthians 12; also the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1830-1832).
43. Make a Pentecost hanging or mobile that features a dove and tongues of fire.
44. Learn a prayer to the Holy Spirit to use in your family prayer time.
45. Play “twenty questions”: Have someone choose a Bible character or thing from the Easter and Pentecost stories. The group gets twenty questions (yes or no answers only) to guess the right answer.
46. List the nine fruits of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23; Catechism, 1832) on separate slips of paper. Have each family member randomly select a fruit to cultivate.
47. Fly a kite to celebrate the wind of the Holy Spirit.
48. Find ways to make Sunday meals special during the Easter season.
49. Continue the “special Sunday meal” tradition to celebrate Jesus’ resurrection all year.
50. Discuss why Sunday is holy (see John Paul II’s Apostolic Letter, On Keeping the Lord’s Day Holy; Catechism, 2174-2195). Decide how you can keep the Lord’s Day as a family.

And here is a bonus…

Close out our Easter Season by attending our Seton Pentecost Party on Sunday, May 28 after the 8:30 a.m. and the 10:45 a.m. Masses.  ALL ARE WELCOME!

Can we pray for you?

Seton's Prayer Network Ministry supports parishioners, their families and friends with prayer during times of special need. The ministers are a group of people who have offered to pray for others.