A modern priest (who died only 45 years ago), who beat up demons, bore the wounds of the stigmata with courage, bilocated, and read souls, St. Padre Pio is basically a spiritual superhero. Of course there's always that additional detail where he's incorruptible! If there's anyone for our boys to look up to who's lived in the last century, St. Padre Pio is it.He carried crosses valiantly, as he focused much on the fact that as Christians, we must unite ourselves with the crucified Lord. He said, "In order to succeed in reaching our ultimate end we must follow the divine Head, who does not wish to lead the chosen soul on any way other than the one he followed; by that, I say, of abnegation and the Cross."
Today, I used this superhero story to teach the kids about the different ways we can unite ourselves to the crucified Lord. At 3, and 5, they may not fully understand the concept of penance, or mortification, but as I often find myself threatening to call the "waaambulance," I can use all the help I can get in this department. One little way we honored St. Padre Pio, was with "Stigmata Sandwiches!"
It looked much more like a hand originally...
Now, I have to give this fellow Catholic mom a plug, because this was not my original idea. I got this idea from, Catholic Icing, a great site devoted to raising little saints, with all kinds of ideas for celebrating our Catholic traditions with crafts, activites, snacks, etc. The author has even created her own pre-school curriculum. It's just a wonderful place to pop in and check out when you're running low on creative juices and the kids are begging you to do arts & crafts time and you want something a little more meaningful than your go-to play dough & watercolor paint set.
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