Showing posts with label Rosary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Rosary. Show all posts

Sunday, 11 November 2018

Enjoy An Illustrated Rosary Book for Kids and Their Families {A Review, Giveaway and Coupon Code!!}

Don't you just love when you find a wonderful faith-based resource and have the opportunity to give one away for someone else to enjoy?



{Some links which follow are affiliate links.}

With thanks to a friend who works for 
Gracewatch Media, that's exactly what I am getting to do.  At the end of this post, you can enter a giveaway for an individual softcover Joyful Mysteries, Luminous Mysteries, Sorrowful Mysteries, or Glorious Mysteries Illuminated Rosary book.

First, though, I would like to share with you why I appreciate the 
Illuminated Rosary books so much.

A Simply Beautiful Tool for Praying the Rosary (and Doing Picture Study!) with Children





It's no secret that praying the Rosary with children can be challenging.  Attention wanes.  Strings of rosary beads morph into fidget toys instead of prayer aids. Antsiness happens.  So it is helpful to have resources that draw your children into praying the Rosary and keep them focused on each mystery prayed.

In the past, I've used everything from cookies and cupcakes, to 3-part cards, to celebrations with friends to entice my children into joining in full Rosaries with prayerful attention. Eventually, such efforts helped us get used to praying the Rosary, and we developed habits of praying one decade or a full Rosary as a car rosary, on a rosary walk, as part of the Children's Rosary prayer group movement, or as a bedtime rosary daily.

Now, you'd think that with such habits in place, praying the Rosary with my children would typically be a peaceful and reflective experience. However, I have to be honest: it can still be challenging, especially when we pray the Rosary before bedtime. There is just something about that time that makes my children lose focus and act out.

Until recently, then, our best strategy for praying the Rosary at bedtime has been to use Youtube videos with beautiful artwork in them, which kept my children's attention focused.

Unfortunately, I don't relish screen time just before bedtime - even if it is prayerful screentime, so I've been looking for another engaging strategy.





Enter
 The Complete Illuminated Rosary: An Illustrated Rosary Book for Kids and Their Families by Jerry Windley-Daoust at Gracewatch Media.  As soon as I saw digital samples of it, I thought, I know just what I am getting with my birthday money this year!

I was excited to order a hardcover edition of the The Complete Illuminated Rosary at a discount pre-publishing rate and have been happy to use the prayer aid with my children. 


This Rosary resource is perfect for our family at bedtime: It is large enough for each child to see when we cuddle together and allows us to 
pray while perusing artworks which help us with meditation and attention.




Okay, admittedly, the first time we prayed each decade of the Rosary using
The Complete Illuminated Rosary, the artwork almost drew too much of my children's attention, and I found that they kept interrupting our prayers to comment on the images - what they liked, what surprised them, and more. 


Now, though, my children simply examine the artworks while remaining engaged in prayer.  Thus, 
The Complete Illuminated Rosary has been serving us as an effective alternative of sorts to typical rosary beads, helping my children pray bedtime Rosaries with peace.

Using the book is so simple. 





We just open to the appropriate set of mysteries for the day, then read the prayers, which are printed in an easy-on-the-eyes font while meditating with the
large reprints of artworks that accompany each prayer.




These reprints vary in style,






...time period,





...and cultural lens,





...with some classic...



...and some modern...


All artworks, however, are carefully selected to be child-friendly and engaging.




There are also "prayer beads" of a sort include on the bottom of each page.





For each set of mysteries, a large circular detail of an artwork follows the Canticle of Mary, another follows the Creed and Our Father, and three small detail circles accompany the "Hail Mary"s for Faith, Hope, and Charity.





Then, each mystery begins with a brief paraphrased text from the Bible for meditation as well as a prompt to remember your intentions just above another large circular detail.




Then, the "Our Father" page, too, includes a large circular detail of an artwork, acting as a large Rosary bead.



After that, on each "Hail Mary" page, strings of roses act as beads, allowing children to count to keep track of the number of prayers prayed should they wish to do so.


The Complete Illuminated Rosary also contains pages listing art credits and ideas for how to pray the Rosary using the book.




It is truly a well-designed and lovely prayer aid that, in my children and my opinion is only missing one thing: a list of which day to pray which mystery of the Rosary.  (Sure, we should have this memorized, but do not, so we're sliding a bookmark with this information into our book.)

Same Wonderful Rosary Resource, Several Formats







The Illuminated Rosary comes i a number of formats:
  • single volume softcover
  • single volume hard cover
  • individual volume softcovers for each of the mysteries.
Each of these formats measure 8 1/2  x 11", and The Complete Illuminated Rosary, which I purchased in hardcover, has 368 pages.

So, if you like a lighter resource, the softcover individual format might be for you.  We like the all-in-
one hardcover ourselves.


Purchase Your Own Illuminated Rosary at a Discount

If you'd like to purchase an Illuminated Rosary book
, but are not sure which you would prefer, the following videos might help you decide.





You can purchase  a
 hardcover copy of  The Complete Illuminated Rosary on Amazon (which, at the time of this writing is 26% off with free shipping!) You can also get the Joyful Mysteries, Luminous MysteriesSorrowful Mysteries, or Glorious Mysteries Illuminated Rosary books and other books by author Jerry Windley-Daoust on Amazon.


Alternately, purchase an Illuminated Rosary book direct from Gracewatch Media 
between now and December 12 using the coupon code ROSES 25 for a 25% off discount!

Or, while supplies lasts, get an imperfect copy for 50% using the code dents&dings, for as Allison Gingras from Reconciled to You posted on Facebook earlier this month:


We all acquire a few dents and dings along the journey of life, right? Well, so did a shipment of our new Illuminated Rosary books. Grrr.
On the bright side, while these books aren’t perfect enough to sell new, they’re still in “good” condition, with minor flaws or damage: banged-up corners, dented page edges, ink smudges on the last (blank)page, imperfections in the glossy coating on the spine, etc. You can give these less-than-perfect illustrated rosary books for kids a home for 50% off the sale price using coupon code dents&dings at checkout. Quantities are limited and will be sold on a first-come, first-served basis.

BUY YOUR COPY HERE: http://bit.ly/2F9N7kY

We’re so confident that you’ll be satisfied with these books, we’ll honor our usual no-hassle return policy…we’ll send you return postage and a full refund if you don’t like them.


You can also always check the deals page at Gracewatch Media for other deals and discount codes on wonderful faith-related publications. There product line is truly fabulous for families of faith!

Enter the Giveaway!

I am excited to be able to offer one reader a softcover copy of an individual mystery in the Illuminated Rosary series using this giveaway Rafflecopter.



Sunday, 4 November 2018

Introducing Our Mysteries of the Rosary Peg Dolls and our November Liturgical Shelf

October whizzed by before I made time for my children and myself to swap out our September liturgical shelf with an October one.



Thus, my daughter and I found ourselves combining inspiration from October's devotion to the Holy Rosary and November's devotion to the Holy Souls when making our November display.



For the display, we chose a white cloth to remind us of the purification souls must go through before enjoying the bliss of being in union with God in the glory of heaven.

Marian Devotions


On one side of the display, we kept the paschal candle our friends made for us this year and placed an Our Lady of the Rosary peg doll which we received in a Marian swap and had meant to put up in October. 



On the other side, we kept a blessed white candle another friend gave us for Candlemas place and put a vignette of our Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal and St. Catherine Laboure in front of it, since Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal will be celebrated on the 27th of this month.




Betwixt these two Marian ends, we set up our main display to remind us to pray Rosaries and special prayers for the dearly departed throughout November. 

Introducing Our Mysteries of the Rosary Peg Dolls


Our Rosary reminders includes, of course, rosary beads. They also include peg dolls that we received in a swap a while back which represent each mystery of the Holy Rosary.




The Joyful Mysteries dolls include:



  • a Mary doll with an angel modge podged to it
  • a St. Anne doll with John leaping in her womb
  • a small-sized Jesus doll with a line sketch of the Nativity painted on it
  • a doll with Mary painted on one side, Jesus in the middle, and Joseph with doves on the other side
  • a Mama Mary and Child Jesus doll set




The Glorious Mysteries dolls include:


  • a John the Baptist doll
  • a Jesus with wine doll
  • a apostle with the Word doll
  • a golden (transfiguration) Jesus doll
  • a Jesus doll with bread and wine, plus a modge podged image of the Last Supper



    The Sorrowful Mysteries dolls include:


    • a beautiful Agony in the Garden set with a kneeling Jesus sweating blood, a small rock and an angel
    • a bound and scourged Jesus (the red scourging is on his back)
    • a Jesus crowned with thorns (which has gone missing so is not pictured)
    • a Jesus carrying a cross
    • a Jesus on a cross



      The Luminous Mysteries ones include:


      • a risen Jesus
      • an ascending Jesus
      • an apostle receiving the Holy Spirit
      • a Mary with clouds and stars (for the Assumption)
      • a crowned Mary

      Holy Souls Calendar Pages

      Behind these dolls, we placed the All Souls calendar pages that we made in our AMP club last month. 




      On three of these calendars, we have pre-written names of our own dearly departed as well as names of the beloved deceased of friends, relatives, and blog followers who have asked us to pray so that we can remember to specifically pray for these souls this month. 




      The fourth calendar page remains mostly blank, because one child of mine asked to write names after praying and not as a reminder to pray.



      Still to Come

      Later this week, since some of us have forgotten the words to the St. Gertrude Prayer for Holy Souls, we plans to redo our copywork of this prayer and to slip it between the wall and our Our Lady of the Rosary pegdoll for easy reading access. 


      (In the past, we have also done copywork of The Eternal Rest prayer, but do not need to redo this since we have all long since memorized this prayer and pray it faithfully upon passing cemeteries when we are driving around as well as when we hear of people passing.)

      It's Working




      We have just put our November liturgical shelf display together display, and it is already actively focusing us on both last month's devotion to the Holy Rosary and this month's devotion to praying for Holy Souls.  



      In fact, just before leaving for a walking Rosary to a local cemetery this afternoon, we checked our calendars for the names of the deceased we would pray for along the way.



      Then, as is our custom from the 1st through 8th of November when we got to the cemetery, we prayed for special indulgences for Holy Souls in Purgatory before selecting random souls to pray for. his tradition has become a meaningful and beautiful one for us, and I encourage you to consider making it customary for your family, too!

      Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.  

      Sunday, 23 September 2018

      Two More Weeks to Answer the Call

      Two weeks.

      There are just two weeks to respond to a call to action.

      A call to prayer.

      A call to encircle our nations in protection strength through prayer.

      On October 7 - the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary, anniversary of the Miracle of Lepanto, and the close of the 54 Day for Our Nation -  Americans will join International brothers and sisters to pray for our respective nations. 

      Will you be among those praying? Will you answer the call to be a part of the 
      Rosary Coast to Coast?

      Source: Rosary Coast to Coast


      To do so, see if there is already a prayer location planned near you or create your own event in order to answer the clarion call of the Holy Spirit through Our Lady - a call trumpeted at Fatima, LaSalette, Akita, and Quito.

      I look forward to praying with you - side-by-side if you're local to me and in spirit if you are not.