Today, 1st February, is St Brigid's day. At the weekend the kids and I made these crosses out of pipe cleaners as shown on the Catholic Icing site. (Please see sidebar for the link).
As Henry and his First Communion group have been learning about the Saints, we brought them along on Sunday to show the rest of his group. Some of the other parents who were brought up in Ireland were familiar with the tradition of cross weaving on this feast day.
Here is Henry's cross made out of the Irish flag colours. I looked up the story of St Brigid on the good ol' internet to tell the children and picked out these snippets about her that I thought the kids would appeal to them most:
-her parents were baptised by St Patrick.
-she was a very beautiful girl who wanted to become a nun. But she attracted a lot of attention from men so she prayed to God to have her beauty taken away. Her prayer was granted so Brigid's father agreed to let her become a nun. As soon as she had taken her final vows, her beauty returned!
- While sitting beside the bed of a dying pagan chieftain, Brigid bent down and picked up some reeds that were lying on the floor and began weaving them into a cross and told the chieftain all about the life of Jesus. The chieftain converted to Christianity.
- Because she was so lovely and gentle, she reminded people of Jesus' mother Mary and is sometimes known as Mary of the Irish
-her parents were not married when she was born and she is therefore a patron saint of children of unmarried parents; also children with abusive parents and students.
- Her flower is the madonna lily.
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