A Montessori Rosary and an Easy, Peasy Pita Lunch

I try very hard to help my children pray. Not just endure our Holy Hours in our Adoration Chapel. Pray. Communicate with God. And, well, it’s tough. After all, it is difficult, no, CONTRARY to a child’s nature, to sit quietly in a silent chapel. For an hour.

For several months we have been using the fantastic suggestions from http://mostholyrosary.org/childjesus/childrens_holy_hour.htm
Thanks to Brenda, who sent me that link! But for May, the Rosary! I was inspired as I dilly-dallied in bed, tangled up in several children.


Here are the materials- prayer rug (we take these every week and they are simply table runners cut in half and hemmed), Rosary picture book, basket, rock, 10 flowers (I am a pathetic gardener and the only flowers in our yard are dandelions and clover):

I will tell you how we used these in a moment. Three bags packed and ready to go:

Tromping to the chapel:

Each child set up, turning to the first Luminous mystery picture, and this is how we prayed the Montessori Rosary:
During the Our Father, the children picked up the rock and held it or looked at it, or pretty much whatever they wanted to d with it short of throwing it. After the prayer, they set the rock in the basket and picked up a flower. “Hail Mary” while holding, sniffing, or thinking about the flower.

(Since ever I can remember, I have told my children that every Hail Mary in every Rosary they pray blossoms eternally in Heaven; when they get their they will see a field all their own of these glorious flowers.) Repeated for 10 Hail Mary’s. On the Glory Be, they removed the rock and dumped the flowers back in their place.

A decade of the Rosary:

Rosie liked this best. She actually concentrated for 3 mysteries.

Isaiah went back to his Rosary ring after the first mystery, but he said he enjoyed it. Maybe next time I will let him use pebbles instead of flowers and we’ll talk about spiritual ammunition.
John Paul participated. Actively. Very actively, the whole way through.

Prostrating to concentrate:

I closed our formal prayer time after the first 3 mysteries. About 20 minutes. The rest of the Hour was filled with writing petitions for the petition box, checking the holy water fonts, and looking through holy cards.


"Never give to the mind more than you give to the hand."
-Maria Montessori


Afterwards, we were famished. And lunch was long past by the time we made it home.

Thursday is usually pita day. Anything works in a pita. PB&J, hummus, veggies with leftover meat, mashed up beans with sprouts. So here are the plates we sat down to after a super-quick (8 minutes?), super-easy lunch prep with the help of Eden organic, BPA-lining-free black beans. (Yes, it's cheaper and better to cook your own. But we're talking 2pm and no one's eaten lunch and you didn't think about that this morning.) Simply pitas stuffed with black beans and a bit of mayo. The silver cup holds homemade salad dressing/ dipping sauce.

And a toddler plate with leftover pancakes:

Super-healthy. Awfully delicious. Easy, peasy.


The spirit cannot endure the body when overfed, but, if underfed, the body cannot endure the spirit.
-St Frances de Sales