Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Wreath I - First Meeting! Faith ~ St. Catherine of Siena

Tonight was the very first meeting for the Little Flowers Girls' Club® of Logan, Ohio!  We originally were scheduled last Wednesday but due to illness had to cancel.  Many thanks to the group for hanging in there during planning, scheduling and now rescheduling.

Our club is a small group of five lovely girls and they certainly seemed to enjoy themselves.  Here are a few images and brief account of our time together...


"When will they be here, Mom?"  The questioning began a full four hours prior to meeting time!


Beginning with prayer, following the Member's Guide saying the Prayer to Therese of the Child Jesus, the Act of Faith, Act of Hope and Act of Love, then introductions and a few 'ice breakers'.

The girls were told that they would hear, share and learn about our role model - the Blessed Virgin Mary, the patroness of LFGC St. Therese of Lisieux, and Saints of the Church.  We discussed the goal of our humble group:  to learn about the virtues and practice them and with God's help make ourselves better to live them through small acts of love - like St. Therese.

A brief biography of St. Therese was read and we talked about her mission to teach souls the "Little Way" to Heaven.  She promised to spend her Heaven doing good upon earth and would let fall a shower of roses.  It was explained that through the LFGC the girls will make a wreath of flowers through small acts to give to Jesus and this shows Him that we love Him.

Since we are all new to the LFGC we spent some time talking about the sashes and badges.  The girls were given their sashes with name badges already applied.  They were anxious to put them on right away :)!  We put together the nine badges of virtues and discussed how they would be earned each month and eventually applied to the sash...displaying a perfect flower.  Based upon the ages of our members, it was decided that five or six items chosen from each month's list in their Member's Guide would be sufficient to earn the badge.  The girls were encourage to complete more if they wanted.

The virtue this month was Faith.  After reading a brief biography about St. Catherine of Siena, the girls were asked why St. Catherine was chosen to represent this virtue.  We used Lesson 23 (The First Commandment) in the book 'Chat with God's Little Ones' to further explain this virtue and 'seeing' with the eyes of our faith.  We read aloud the scripture verse for this month together.  Next, we played the Memory Verse CD and practiced with sign language for additional cues.

At this point, they were ready to move around a bit and put together their notebook page: 


The girls created their pages which included the bible verse, quote from the Catholic Girls Guide and Act of Faith.  There is also an image of St. Catherine of Siena. Special thanks to Jessica at Shower of Roses for her creative talents and allowing others to use her lovely templates and plethora of ideas.   Each member was given a three-ringed binder that they will continue to 'build' at each meeting. 

Here are the finished pages, aren't they great!


Since the flower this month was a sunflower, I loved the idea of making votive candles with a stained glass effect using tissue paper and sealant glue.  (I was just thrilled to find the flower pot shaped holders at Hobby Lobby!)


As the girls were crafting, we talked about the sunflower and as it grows, it follows the path of the sun in the sky.  We are reminded that our hearts, mind and souls should never waver from following the Son of God in heaven (LFGC Leader's Guide)...that we should keep our faith burning brightly.

John 1:5 That God is light and in Him there is no darkness. 


The girls colored the image of St. Catherine (image compliments of Charlotte at Waltzing Matilda - thank you!) also added to their notebooks.


Snack of sunflower themed chocolate cupcakes...


It was wonderful to see the girls already take the initiative to practice the Bible verse as a group even after the meeting was completed.  We gathered in prayer to say the Hail Mary...I am so thankful to our Lord for the blessing of each of these beautiful souls!



Our Little Flowers' of Logan, Ohio!

Pray for our members, Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, as they work towards earning their first patch and grow in the virtue of Faith - and through these small acts, showing their love for your Son, Jesus.