Daily Catholic Devotions
This quarterly magazine provides an excerpt from one of the daily Mass readings for each day followed by a few thought-provoking paragraphs which attempt to connect the reading with a child's life. They each end with a prayer of one sentence. At the bottom of each page are the references for all of the readings so they can be quickly found in a Bible on hand.
I subscribed to this magazine when I was looking for a way to incorporate the daily Mass readings into our schedule without driving my children away from Scripture. I originally tried reading the daily Mass Scripture readings in their entirety and the children complained mightily. Now, we do a lot of things about which they complain, but my goal with Scripture is not just to read it aloud, but to help them develop a great love for the Word of God. I was therefore searching about for another option when I read about this magazine on one of my Yahoo groups.
In many ways, this little magazine was perfect. We read it twice a week in second grade. Generally, I would read the Scripture verse or verses and then First Son would read the reflection aloud. In general, I found the verses excerpted to be well-selected and the reflections to be pertinent and appropriate for my second grade son. Rather than a narration, I would usually ask him to somehow apply what he'd read to his own life. Some days he did better at this than others. He loved the crosswords, puzzles, and other fun activities they often include for feast days. He also always insisted we spend a few minutes reading the Bee-Attitudes comic on the back whenever a new issue arrived. The illustrations are surprisingly well-done.
I was pleased enough with the magazine to extend our subscription for next year. In third grade, I'm going to ask First Son to read the Scripture excerpts and reflections on his own twice a week and then (probably) write one sentence for me. Ideally, he'd write more of a narration-style sentence (how the excerpt and reflection applies to his life), but at first I will probably just ask him to copy from the Scripture reading or the prayer at the end.
Additionally, our Scripture study will include a story from My Big Book of Catholic Bible Stories twice a week. This is technically our kindergarten Bible story book (a new one because we've read through the others so many times), but I'm very excited about it. Because it uses the actual Scripture (rather than an adapted version of the stories), I think it will be appropriate for First Son as well, so everyone will listen in. On another day, we will be attending daily Mass. (Oh, pray for me alone with my children at Mass! Or maybe pray Kansas Dad will always be able to join us!)
I ordered a subscription on the website just for us, but there are good discounts for bulk orders. That would be a good option for families that meet regularly who want to combine orders.
