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When the school year ends and the kids are home for summer vacation, it can feel like your whole schedule has gone out the window!
How can you keep up with your family’s faith life when your usual routines aren’t in place? Here are a few ideas.
1Look up local churches and Mass times before traveling
If you’re planning any summer travel, make a plan for going to Mass on vacation. The website (and app!) MassTimes.org is absolute gold for planning Mass ahead of time.
Instead of telling yourself, “We have to go to Mass on vacation,” think, “We get to check out a cool new church in a place we’ve never been to before!” Maybe grab a local treat after Mass to make the Sunday outing even more fun.
2Listen to saint stories and Catholic books
Audiobooks are a lifesaver on road trips with kids, and you can include them in daily quiet time at home or on shorter drives closer to home.
Picking a faith-related listen is an easy and fun way to bring your faith with you throughout the summer.
Check out these options from Hallow, the Catholic Sprouts podcast, or the Saints Alive stories.
3Sign up for a Catholic camp
If you’re planning for the kids to go to summer camp, check out what your local churches have to offer. Catholic camp is a great way to celebrate your kids’ faith with friends in a fun atmosphere.
Vacation Bible School or Totus Tuus are great options for the younger crowd, and there are lots of great Catholic sleepaway camps for older kids, too.
4Sign up for a summer service project
Summer is super busy for some families, so this might not make sense for you. But if your family has some down time this summer, see if you can participate in a local service project.
You might volunteer at a food pantry or with a local religious order, pick up litter, water the community garden, or donate to a food drive. Check out more kid-friendly ways to volunteer here.
5Follow Catholic media
Seeing a post on social media or getting a newsletter in your email inbox can be a helpful source of inspiration. Follow or subscribe to Catholic media accounts for a little faith boost through the summer months.
Here are a few suggestions:
- Aleteia (of course!)
- Our Sunday Visitor
- Word on Fire
- Catholic News Agency
- National Catholic Register
- Catholic All Year
- Be A Heart
There are countless other great accounts to follow, too!
6Stop to see Jesus during the day
When you’re on the way to the splash pad or playground, what about swinging by your local Adoration chapel to say hello to Jesus for a minute or two?
Weaving a visit with Jesus into the everyday fabric of family life is a powerful witness to our children that God is the most important part of life and connected to everything we do.
7Anchor prayer to other daily habits
It can be hard to remember to pray when you don’t even know what time it is most days!
I’ve found it helpful to anchor our family’s prayer routine to other daily habits. For example, we always pray the St. Michael prayer when our kids are lying in bed. Anchoring nightly prayer to our kids’ bedtimes helps me remember to pray every day … even when bedtime is happening later than usual!
You might anchor prayer to mealtimes, or getting up in the morning, or getting in the car. Finding something you do every day and anchoring prayer time to that is a great way to keep your family prayer time going through the unstructured summer months.
And today we celebrate...