Eucharistic Visit Prayer Service

Does your Little Flowers Girls' Club make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament during your meetings? If you hold your regular meetings in a parish setting, consider teaching the girls how to "make a visit" with this five minute prayer service.

Ceremony for a visit to the Blessed Sacrament
All girls enter the church with silence and reverence. Genuflect and kneel. Make the sign of the cross.
All” May the Eucharisitic heart of Jesus be praised, adored and thanked at every moment, in all the tabernacles of the world, even to the end of time. Amen.
Leader: Now we will have a few moments of silent prayer so we can tell Jesus how we plan to practice our virtue and ask for His help this month.
Allow the girls 3-5 minutes of silent prayer.
Spiritual Communion:
All: My Jesus, I believe that You are truly present in the most Blessed Sacrament. I love You above all things and I desire to possess You in my soul. Since I am unable now to receive you sacramentally come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace you as being there already and unite myself wholly to You. Never let me be separated from you.

Crafty Catholic Kids!

Here's a new book by EHP author Ann Ball that would be a great resource for Little Flowers Girls' Club Leaders looking for some supplemental crafts. Click on the book for ordering information from Our Sunday Visitor. For some great exerpts from the book, go to Ann Ball's website.

Ann wrote Jose Finds the King, a Blessed Miguel Pro Story which is part of the Glory of America Series. This is a great children's story about Ann's favorite saint. This is also a great First Communion story perfect for boys. Click here for ordering information.

May Crowning from Germany!

This beautiful picture is from a May Crowning the Little Flowers Girls' Club in Kaiserslautern, Germany. Thanks so much, Leanne Seguin for this photo. Notice the beautiful wreaths of flowers the girls are wearing.

A Petal Ceremony

Here's another great idea from Rebecca from Yuma, Arizona. Visit their LFGC blog (link in the blog section below and to the right).

Petal Ceremony
The girls line up on one side youngest to oldest and the moms line up on the other side of the room.
As each girl is called up, their mom meets them in the middle
The older girls lead the rest in saying: St. _________________
All reply: Pray for us.
The mom presents a paper flower with the petal attached to the leaf with glue dots.
She says a short blessing: May God bless you and help you to grow in the virtue of….
The flower’s center has the saint’s name and virtue. We are saving these for our tea party center pieces.

Another Great Badge Ceremony Idea

From Sherry Howell from the LFGCLeader's Yahoogroup's archives.

I've taken to writing a badge ceremony booklet for each badge for our group.The different parts are assigned for the girls to read aloud before westart. Some parts are read by the leaders.
We start with the Prayer to St. ThereseWe then have three girls light three candles (one each) for the threetheological virtues (Act of Faith, Hope, and Love)
Next is the review of the badge work -- what the virtue is all about,everyone recites the memory verse, we talk about what activities we did toreinforce the badge, and one of the girls reads a short biography about thesaint for the badge.
To present the badges, we call each girl forward with her parent (or othersubstitute), and safety pin her badge on her sash. (They can be sewn on later.)
We close with a prayer and a song.
We then do refreshments/social time afterward.Our group only meets once a month, and we only do three badges a year, so it's not as burdensome as if we were doing all nine badges in single year.
We've been doing badge ceremonies this way for the last four badges, andthey have been very well received.SherryHowell, NJ

Badge Ceremony Idea

Here's an idea from Christine (http://www.saintjosephhomeschool.com/) on how to plan a badge ceremony. This is from the LittleFlowersGirlsClubLeaders yahoogroup archives.(LittleFlowersGirlsClubLeaders@yahoogroups.com)

We had our first Badge Ceremony on December 8, the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The ceremony took place at the house of two of the Little Flowers. The girls' mother had decorated beautifully, setting up a special table with a statue of Mary and candles. The girls sat around card tables (4 to a table). We opened with the Hail Mary in honor of our Lady. My coleader then did a little lesson on the Immaculate Conception. After the lesson the girls processed to the front of the room with roses (the moms sang Immaculate Mary) and placed them in a vase next to a statue of Mary. A tea followed. After the tea, the girls were called up one at a time. My co-leader gave each girl a certificate and the badges they had earned. Then the girl came to me and I congratulated her, turning her sash from the flower side to the blue side. Then I gave the girl a flower to give to her mom (the girls thanked their moms for helping them to grow in the virtues of Faith and Hope, as they handed their mom a rose). A group photo was then taken of the girls. Finally, they sang the song to the Little Flower. It was a beautiful ceremony. Photos were taken throughout and the girls will receive copies to place in their binders.

For You Writers: Free Online Conference

Catholic Writers to Hold Online Conference

World Wide Web--Writers, editors, agents, and other publishing professionals from around the world are gearing up for the first annual Catholic Writers’ Conference Online, which will be held May 2-9, 2008, and is sponsored by the Catholic Writer’s Guild and Canticle magazine. The online conference is free of charge and open to writers of all levels for those who register by April 25.
Tim Drake, veteran journalist who will be presenting at the conference, says he thinks the conference is worthwhile for all faith-based writers. “I think writers of every stripe, from beginners to seasoned veterans, can always stand to learn something new. This conference provides an opportunity to learn a few tricks of the trade, without having to spend an arm and a leg to get there.”
Author and editor Carolyn Howard-Johnson, who with conference chair Karina Fabian will be conducting seminars designed to help authors put their “Best Book Forward,” concurs. “It's never too early to learn more about what we love…. When we put ourselves out there, the universe seems to bring us exactly what we need. When we close down on opportunity for whatever reason, we miss getting what we should.”
New seminar and chat topics are being added constantly, including seminars on character and dialogue development, virtual book tours, how to get grants and other money with your writing, trends in fiction, world building, and connecting with a secular audience. Presenters and chat hosts include Vinita Wright (Loyola Press), Maya Bohnhoff, Tim Powers, Mark Shea (Catholic Answers), Hope Clark (Funds for Writers), Sr. Madonna Radcliff (Pauline Books & Media), Bert Ghezzi (Word Among Us), and Brian Saint-Paul (Crisis/Inside Catholic).
“We’re very happy with the caliber of publishing professionals who have volunteered to participate in this first conference,” says event co-chair Heidi Hess Saxton, editor of Canticle magazine. “There is a nice mix of fiction and non-fiction as well as book and magazine publishing represented here. Something for everyone … and you can’t beat the price!” Although the conference is offered free of charge, donations are accepted; proceeds will go toward future conferences.
Hope Clark, author of “Funds for Writers” is also optimistic about the event’s success. “I see writers … unable to run from conference to conference, seated before a computer soaking up information, taking notes, excited about finding answers to questions they didn't even know they had. I see writers walking away from this conference excited again about being writers.”
Early registration is recommended, as some courses will have limited openings that will be filled on a first-come, first serve basis. To register or for more information, go to http://www.conference.catholicwritersguild.org.

First Communion Gifts going fast

These doll and doll outfits are going fast, order yours today!

Extra-Special First Communion Gifts!

Just in time for First Communion, we are offering these precious dolls and doll outfits for your Little Flower Girls! These are available for a Limited Time Only! We only have 10 of each of these outfits/dolls, so order early! Click here for order information.You can order the dolls with the outfits for $49.95/each. The dolls are 18" tall and come in three styles: Mary Rose doll has brown hair and brown eyes; Magdalen doll has blond hair and blue eyes and the Teesa doll has auburn hair and green eyes (shown).(if you can't access the links, copy and past this URL: http://members.aol.com/eccehomopr/specialdolls.htm

The outfits alone are $29.95/each. The First Communion outfit is satin and lace and comes with dress, stockings, shoes, veil, and necklace. The Carmelite habit comes with dress, scapular, headpiece, veil, rosary, shoes and stockings. Both outfits fit an 18" doll (American Girl sized doll).

BLOG READER SPECIAL! Enter coupon code: DOLLS08 at checkout and get 10% off your entire order!

No Joy til Easter

Sorry, we are out of Joy Medals until after Easter (pun intended). Seriously, we are making them up now and should have plenty in a week to a week and a half. The kids and I make these up ourselves, and they are very popular this time of year, so we'll try to keep them in stock. Thanks for your patience!

God bless, Joan Stromberg

www.eccehomopress.com

Intro: Karina Fabian

Hello! Joan was kind enough to invite me to join this blog. As most you of probably know, I wrote the Little Flowers and Blue Knights Craft books. I did this mainly as a fun project to share with my kids, and the illustrations you see in the books are done by them. (My seven-year-old likes to brag to his friends at school that he's a famous model on the cover of a book!)

What you may not know is that this was a an enjoyable sideline in my writing career. For many years, I wrote articles on parenting and pregnancy and in 2003, made the decision to devote my efforts to fiction. Currently, I have a Catholic anthology of science fiction out. Infinite Space, Infinite God won the 2007 EPPIE for best sci-fi and has garnered great reviews in magazines like St. Anthony Messenger and SFRevu. I've had many people comment on the thought-provoking nature of the stories and one homeschooling mom say that she thinks it’s a must for Catholic teens to read because of the issues presented. I'm working on a study guide for it now and should have it up in April. Check it out at www.isigsf.com.

Also on the SF-side, I have Leaps of Faith, an anthology of Christian sci-fi, and the contract for Infinite Space, Infinite God II. (Are you w writer? We're looking for stories. Find guidelines at www.isigsf.com/guidelines.) In addition, I'm working on novels and stories about my order of nuns who perform search and rescue operations in space. I have several Rescue Sisters stories in our anthologies and a novel in the works. (No contract yet, alas.)

On the fantasy side, I have a lot of fun with my noir-style dragon detective, Vern of DragonEye, PI. He's a down-and-out professional problem solver on the wrong side of the Interdimensiaonal Gap working off a geas by St. George by serving God and His creatures through the Faerie Catholic Church. With his partner, Sister Grace, he solves crimes, find missing objects, saves the world...whatever pays. Check out his website at www.dragoneyepi.net.

Finally, I'm involved in several writing groups, most especially the Catholic Writers Guild, where I am president. I also present workshops at online conferences. In fact, I'll blog next week about the Catholic Writers Conference Online. In the meantime, if you're interested, check out www.conference.catholicwritersguild.org.

I'm toying with the idea of a trivia game for Little Flowers. Right now, Joan and I are trying to figure out the art and the board. More as things develop!

If you'd like to know more about me or my work, or want to contact me, go to www.fabianspace.com.

Blessings,
Karina Fabian

Extra-Special First Communion Gifts!

Just in time for First Communion, we are offering these precious dolls and doll outfits for your Little Flower Girls! These are available for a Limited Time Only! We only have 10 of each of these outfits/dolls, so order early! Click here for order information.
You can order the dolls with the outfits for $49.95/each. The dolls are 18" tall and come in three styles: Mary Rose doll has brown hair and brown eyes; Magdalen doll has blond hair and blue eyes and the Teesa doll has auburn hair and green eyes (shown).


The outfits alone are $29.95/each. The First Communion outfit is satin and lace and comes with dress, stockings, shoes, veil, and necklace. The Carmelite habit comes with dress, scapular, headpiece, veil, rosary, shoes and stockings. Both outfits fit an 18" doll (American Girl sized doll).