Our project list seems to grow rather than shrink around these parts. Thanks to our children they are always inspiring new ideas and showing us new needs that they have. This project is another of those created for our dear children who love to learn about our Holy Catholic Faith and especially by following the Liturgical Calendar. They have been wanting a Liturgical Calendar of their own and what better way to give that to them than to have them take part in the making of it!

This free download was created with our lovely friends over at Crusader's for Christ, they were so gracious as to create the coloring pages for this fun little project and we gladly put the calendar part together to go with it. This is a 26 page black and white download that can be printed 2-sided. The top portion will have a coloring page that fits the Liturgical Season for each month. The following page has a blank calendar in which the child will fill out the month, whom the Church dedicates the month to and the year of Our Lord. Children may also choose to write in the saint of the day, holy days of obligation and fast days, a free 2013 Liturgical Calendar may be found over at Crusader's for Christ. There are blank squares below to fill in the number for the month, so this printable may be used for any year and started at any time of the year! Simply bind the top, or have it bound at a print shop and punch a whole in the bottom middle of each page to hang. We pray that you enjoy this little project as much as we have already on just our first month! 
God bless, 
From us here at Sanctus Simplicitus

Ps. We are considering offering this as a printed item to purchase, would you be so kind as to take our survey below and let us know if you are interested? Thank you!

A continuation of the book Public School Education is being shared over on our Catholic education blog, come and join us in a wonderful book!

You may find the February title pieces and prayers over at the Liturgical Year Bulletin Board Page

The February Crusaders for Christ & Maidens for Mary planner pages are up, March and April should be up sometime this week.

February Butler's Lives of the Saints Notebooking pages are also up and ready to print!

May you all have a blessed Septuegesima Sunday, don't forget to visit our Lenten page to start your Lent preparations. 

Also some of you have asked if we will be having a study guide similar to the short run of Jesse Tree guides that we put out last November and December. At this time we won't be printing any study guides or other items. We will soon be putting up a page featuring two books from the main book used in the Jesse Tree Study Guide. One focuses on the Life of our Savior and the other on The Life of the Soul. We will have free worksheets/ coloring pages etc. available but the books themselves are no longer printed. They may be found through bookfinder.com and prayerfully they will be reprinted so they are more easily available to all. God bless!

I need to make a correction to the Liturgical Year Bulletin Board saints for January as well as the Holy Simplicity planner. The Feast of the Holy Family is a moveable feast and so we will provide an undated piece for the Liturgical Year Bulletin Board (date will be written in with dry erase marker) and a substitute piece for the current Jan. 8th piece.

The date is also incorrect in the Holy Simplicity Planner, it is noted there as on the 12th of this month when it should be on the 13th. My apologies for this error and we will put up another post when the new pieces are available. A blessed Octave of the Epiphany to you all!

"The Feast of the Holy Family is a greater-double and celebrated on the Sunday within the octave of the Epiphany.  If this Sunday falls on the Octave Day, the feast is kept on the Saturday before, Jan 12, with the same commemoration of the Sunday and of the Octave." 

We decided this year to make the Liturgical Wheel for the Liturgical Year Bulletin Board a reusable piece. The Liturgical Calendar changes based on when Easter falls and so the wheel would change ever year. By simplifying the Liturgical wheel we have made it so with a simple turn of part of the wheel it is reusable every year. Simply download the Re-Usable Liturgical Wheel file and follow the directions for putting it together.

Also you will find the January Notebooking pages for those of you following the Butler's Lives of the saints with us over at the Butler's Lives of the Saints Notebooking page!

Praying you have a blessed, safe, happy and holy New Year!

My apologies for having the downloads up so late, as I know many of you have been asking and I'm sure even more patiently waiting for them. You are all most kind to have such patience with me as I know many of you would like to plan ahead faster than I can manage to!

We have a very busy week this week in our house, not only are we recovering from a busy Christmas day but we also have a birthday and anniversary this week and then the up and coming New Year. We will hopefully have ALL the month's downloads up some time today as time allows.

As of now the Crusader's for Christ and Maiden's for Mary children's lesson planning pages are available to download for both January and February! Visit the Children's planner page for those downloads.

Also the January saint pieces for the Liturgical Year Bulletin board were good to go from last year so if you already printed those simply reuse last years. If you have not yet printed them they are on the Liturgical Bulletin Board page ready to download.

The Title pieces for Jan. 2013 and the prayer cards are also up on the Liturgical Year Bulletin Board page ready for download.

Here after a bit I'll be working on the Liturgical Wheel for the Bulletin Board for the year 2013 as well as the Butler's Lives Notebooking Pages for Jan. Thank you again for your patience and we pray you are having a blessed 4th day of Christmas! Don't forget to enter our give away's these 12 days of Christmas. God bless!

+++ S.A.G. +++

For those of you who use our Liturgical Year Bulletin Board pages we have a few updates and changes:

My dear husband was kind enough to catch that in November, St. Sylvester has a picture of St. Sylvester I the Pope and the saint for that day is actually St. Sylvester the abbot. That piece as been updated on the November download. (My husband is more the expert on the saints which is why his site, All the Saints and Peter and Paul, features the saints from the Liturgical Year books  ;)  )

December has some updates and changes as well (my apologies as I know many of you have printed these already as have we). Three saints were left off and in the old file have Feria Days listed. Those have been updated in the December File. Also I didn't realize that we would not have room for all the pieces this month with the 1st on a Saturday causing the 23/30 and 24/31 to share a spot on the grid. In the file below we included split options along with all the other pieces that were changed. All these are in THIS one file here. If you have not yet printed the pieces the files are all updated and are good to go! Thank you for joining us on this yearly journey through the Liturgical Year! We are excited to start our first full year of our bulletin board with all the pieces ready to go.

A blessed Advent to you all!

Although Advent has not started yet, there are Christmas decorations, advertisements and music in all of the stores. It seems every year that this situation comes earlier and earlier. This year I heard Christmas music before All Saint's Day.

In the explanation of the Mass last Sunday, the 23rd After Pentecost, in Dom Gueranger's Liturgical Year that Advent use to be more than 4 weeks. Being as such, the world seems to know that it is time to prepare the way for Our Lord's birthday but without Holy Mother church it celebrates without and before preparation for the great feast.

Holy Mother Church, being the teacher of the faithful, is ever wise in giving us a time to prepare for such a holy season as Christmas. Giving us ample time to make ready our souls and also a time for celebration and rejoicing. "By Advent is meant the four weeks before Christmas,' so it says in the book Catholic life, 'appointed by the Church to prepare us for the worthy celebration of our Saviour's birth. We should endeavor by prayer, the practice of virtues, fasting, and a good confession, to have Jesus formed anew in our hearts at this holy season."

Let us follow our guide, Holy Mother Church, and spend Advent as a time of preparation instead of celebration before the grand day of the Birth of Our Lord has come. The next six Monday's will be dedicated to various parts of the Advent season along with the Church's Liturgical Year. Not only is Advent upon us but the start of a new year within the Church. As the beginning of Our Lord's life comes on Christmas Day the beginning of the Church year also comes. After all, the Church Year follows the life of Our Lord. 

Several Catholic authors of past suggest that Catholics who follow the Church's Year can not but profit from all the grand lessons it teaches in its midst. As Dom Gueranger says, " Those who have gone bravely forward in the path which, a year since, has opened out to them by holy Church, no, by a happy experience, know that the path most surely leads them to the life of union, where divine charity reigns supreme. Who is there that, with anything like earnestness, has allowed his mind and heart to take an interest in the several liturgical seasons which have been brought before us, and been celebrated by the Church during the past twelve months, has not also felt an immense increase of light imparted to him? Now, light is that indispensable element, which delivers us from the power of darkness, and translates us, by the help of God, into the kingdom of the Son of His love. The work of redemption, which this His beloved Son came down upon earth to accomplish for His Father's glory, could not do otherwise than make progress in those who have, with more or less fervour, entered into the spirit of His Church, during the whole year, that is, from the opening of Advent right up to these the closing days of the sacred cycle. All of us, then, whosoever we may be, should give thanks to this Father of lights, who hath thus made us worthy to be partakers, somewhat at least, of the lot of saints. So, then, all of us, be the share of our participation what it may, must pray that the excellent gift, which has been put into our hearts, may fervently yield itself to the still richer development, which the coming new cycle is intended to produce within us."

Please join us every Monday until Christmas on our little path through Advent and the start of the Liturgical Year. May we all fast well so when Christmas does arrive on December 25th we may all FEAST well! And Feast for the whole season of Christmas as the Church gives it to us.

O Antiphons & Christmas Vigil

Exposition of Christian Doctrine - Worship
By: A Seminary Professor
Imprimatur 1919


2. Division of the Ecclesiastical Year
12. What is the ecclesiastical year?
It is the civil year as adapted to the liturgical cycle.
13. Wherein does the ecclesiastical year differ from the civil year?
Like the civil year, the ecclesiastical year comprises 365 days, divided into 52 weeks; but in place of beginning on January 1 and ending with December 31, the ecclesiastical year begins with the first Sunday of Advent and ends with the week following the last Sunday after Pentecost.

14.  What is the reason for this difference?
Since Jesus Christ is the universal center of Catholic worship, the Church has desired to make successive events of the Christian year, so many representations of the mysteries referring to our Saviour.  Now, Christ was born December 25, and this even had been looked forward to for many ages; His reign will be complete only when on the last day He will solemnly judge the living and the dead. This is why the Church begins the Christian year with the four weeks preceding Christmas, reminding us thereby of the four thousand years, according to the ordinary computation, that preceded the coming of the Savior; and this is why she terminates the year with the last Sunday after Pentecost, on which she reads the Gospel of the general judgement.

15. How may the Christian year be divided?
It may be divided into six parts or seasons: 1st, The season of Advent; 2d, Christmastide: 3d, The season of Septuagesima; 4th, The Lenten season; 5th, the Paschal season; 6th, The season of Pentecost.

3. The Season of Advent
16. What is Advent?
Advent is the time during which the Church prepares for the coming of Jesus Christ, that is, for His birth. Footnote- Advent, from the Latin adventus, coming, arrival. We find a record of the observance of Advent as far back as 380 in canon of the Council of Saragossa but this observance may have been introduced from Rome. In the fifth century, Advent was commonly a period of forty days, like Lent, or even longer, beginning on St. Martin's day, Nov. 11; but Rome subsequently reduced the time to four weeks. "We may therefore consider the present discipline of the observance of Advent," says Dom Gueranger, "as having lasted a thousand years, at least as far as the Church of Rome is concerned."

17. How did the observance of this season originate?
It began officially at Rome, and from Rome was introduced into France in the eighth or ninth century, at the same time with the Roman rite. 

18. How long does Advent last?
It begins with the Sunday nearest the feast of St. Andrew (November 30), and includes four Sundays, but not always four complete weeks. These four weeks are symbolical of the four thousand years during which man awaited the coming of the Messiah.

19. What is the spirit animating the Church during the season of Advent?
It is a spirit of penance and of holy longing: of penance, to prepare the way of the Lord in the souls of the faithful; of holy longing to obtain for them the grace of receiving Him worthily.

20. How does the Church manifest her spirit of penance during Advent?
1st. From documents of the sixth century we learn that in France it was customary to prepare for the feast of Christmas by several days' fast. Later on, this practice was extended to the Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday of each week in Advent, a practice that is still observed in some religious orders. To-day the only fast days of obligation in Advent throughout the Church of the Latin rite are the three Ember days and the Vigil of Christmas.2d. During Advent, except on feasts, violet vestments are used; the Te Deum is omitted from the office of the Matins and the Gloria in excels from the Mass. No flowers are placed on the altar, and the organ is not played, except on the feast days, on the third Sunday of Advent, on the Vigil of Christmas. The solemnizing of marriage during this season is forbidden.
3d. On the first Sunday of Advent, the Church puts before us the though of the last judgment, and on the following Sundays she repeats the exhortations to penance which St. John Baptist addressed to the JEws on the banks of the Jordan.

21. How does the Church manifest her holy longing for the Savior during Advent?
She manifests it, principally during the eight days preceding Christmas, by the antiphons known as the Great O's. They are sung both before and after the Magnificat on these days, and express the desire and the expectation of the just who lived before the coming of the Messiah.

22. Why does the church retain the Alleluia during Advent?
She preserves it as a sign and cry of hope.
23. How many comings of Our Lord does the Church speak of?
She speaks of three; 1st, An historical coming, His birth in the manger; 2d, A spiritual and mystical coming, His coming into our souls either by grace or in holy communion; 3d, His coming in glory, when He will appear at the end of time to judge the living and the dead.
24. What should the though of these three comings inspire us to do?
It should move us to thank Our Lord for His feast coming; to beseech Him to effect the second in our souls, and to prepare us for the last by a life of faith and good works.

The Willson family is always coming up with the most wonderful Catholic items! New to their site and free for download is a 2013 Liturgical Year Calendar! It starts this coming Advent!

It is filled with the most wonderful truly Catholic artwork and prayers in honor of whom the Church dedicates each month to. Something every Catholic home cannot be with out!

CLICK HERE TO PREVIEW THE CALENDAR AND GET THE FREE DOWNLOAD