Growing Up in a House Where Virtue Lives

Real girls exercising virtue in real life

Many of you are probably familiar with the Wreath I Virtue Stories. It contains nine short stories, one for each virtue in Wreath I, exemplifying how that virtue can be lived, learned, and nurtured through everyday interactions. What you may not realize is that all of those stories are based on real events. My mom, Joan Stromberg, wrote those stories, and as the oldest child I remember many of them myself. Sometimes she alters names or the exact sequence of events, but the basic stories really happened. Growing up in a house with ten kids provided many opportunities to practice virtue, and I was blessed to be surrounded by parents and siblings who nurtured and exemplified those virtues.

What’s better than virtue stories? More virtue stories!

If you do know and love those stories, I have great news for you. Wreath II Virtue Stories are finally here! Now there are nine more short, beautiful little tales written by my mom, showing how young girls can (and do) live lives of virtue in the ways they interact with their friends, family, and everyone else that is part of their daily lives. This time, the book is illustrated by the incredibly talented Michelle Mahnke, who also illustrates all the Little Flowers Student Guides. Get your copy now and inspire your girls to live virtuously!

Share your stories of virtue

Do you have inspiring tales of how your Little Flower, Blue Knight, or other Catholic club member has exemplified virtue? Share it with us! We love hearing about how these programs help kids (and their parents) grow in holiness. Get involved with our Facebook page, Instagram, or comment below to share your virtue stories too.

Are you able to help us get to the Eucharistic Congress?

get to the Eucharistic Congress

We are so pleased to announce that we have been invited as an exhibitor to the upcoming Eucharistic Congress in July! This is such good news as we will be able to share Little Flowers, Blue Knights and all of the Behold Clubs with families from all over the country.

Being present at this event would be wonderful as we introduce the families present with our Catholic to Core programs with over 30 years of presenting authentic Catholic teaching, virtue, saints and so much more. 

There are other choices of clubs/organizations that will also be there but nothing like Little Flowers and Blue Knights.

Can you help make sure we get to the Eucharistic Congress?

This is huge news but – as with many such things – it comes at a cost. May we be forward enough to ask for your help to get to the Eucharistic Congress?

We are hoping for help in covering the exhibitor registration fee and travel costs.

Check out this link:  https://catalog.beholdpublications.com/product/donate/?v=2320522a6676

If you are able to help us in any other manner, a different amount or otherwise please let us know!

Thank you for considering our request. We are grateful for all of you! God Bless, Rachel & Joan

Little Flowers Girls' Club

Happy Mother’s Day

As my busy weekend starts, I want to wish all of you a very Happy Mother’s Day! As our very own St. Therese of Liseaux reminds us, “The loveliest masterpiece of the heart of God is the heart of a mother.”

And her own mother, St. Zelie shares this wisdom, “Above all, during the months immediately preceding the birth of her child, the mother should keep close to God, of whom the infant she bears within her is the image, the handiwork, the gift and the child. She should be for her offspring, as it were, a temple, a sanctuary, an altar, a tabernacle. In short, her life should be, so to speak, the life of a living sacrament, a sacrament in act, burying herself in the bosom of that God who has so truly instituted it and hallowed it, so that there she may draw that energy, that enlightening, that natural and supernatural beauty which he wills, and wills precisely by her means, to impart to the child she bears and to be born of her.”

That is much to ponder. I know I fall short of the motherhood as reflected by the life of the Blessed Mother and the wisdom as shared by St. Zelie, but I also know of God’s mercy and admiration for our attempts and tries. So to all you beautiful mothers out there, Happy Mother’s Day!

Extra love and prayers to those mothers for whom Sunday will be hard due to loss. Our Blessed Mother understands our pain in a unique way. My Rosary will be said for all of us.

Patron Saints for Virtue Education

What is a patron saint?

A patron saints is simply a saint that has a special meaning to a person, a place or an activity. I personally have several patron saints. St. Joan of Arc is my name patron, but my Confirmation name is Dominica, so I consider St. Dominic a patron saint, too. Places can also have a patron saint. St. Joan of Arc is a patroness of France, along with St. Therese, who is also our patron saint of Little Flowers Girls’ Club®. St. Joseph is the patron saint of a whole list of people, places and things like: patron of the Universal Church, patron of families, patron of fathers, patron of workers and patron of a happy death.

How does a saint become a patron saint?

Usually, a saint patronage develops over time and has something to do with how he lived. For example, St. Thomas Aquinas was a scholar and doctor of the church, so he is the patron saint of students. St. Christopher’s story tells about how he carried the child Jesus through a river, so he is the patron saint of travelers. There are so many different saint stories that you could find a patron saint for just about anything! Here’s a fun list: https://www.catholic.org/saints/patron.php

How can we use patron saints in virtue education?

Think of how many different people there are in the world. Each one has their own strengths, interests, and own path to get to heaven. There are no two people alike just like there are no two saints alike. We can look to the saints to glean from their lives how they practiced virtue in order to grow in holiness. For example, St. Joan of Arc is not only the patroness of France, she is also our patron saint for the Little Flower Girls’ Club® virtue of obedience (Wreath I). When we look at her life, we can see how she practiced the virtue of obedience heroically and learn to imitate that to become more holy.

Patron Saint badges and a Catholic World View

Our patron saints did not just practice one virtue, however, they practices many on their paths in this life towards heaven. Our Catholic Club patron saint badges reflect the Catholic world view that our saints practiced to obtain holiness. I would encourage you to incorporate these badges in your Catholic clubs next year and help to make your own clubs more well-rounded, fun and exciting! These badges are very easy to learn and incorporate in any club you lead…Little Flowers, Blue Knights, Hospitality or even our new program, The Little Way. Check out our patron saint badges today!

Craft Ideas and News – April Leader’s Meeting

craft ideas for Little Flowers

We covered a few things during this month’s meeting including our fundraising effort to get to the Eucharistic Congress in July. We talked about planning end of year ceremonies and/or parties. And we invited you to come to Little Flowers Camp! But we especially talked about craft ideas.

Crafts can be a wonderful addition to your meetings if you have members who like to do them and a parent/older teen ready to help. Some leaders feel as if they are a struggle as they don’t feel they are crafty enough to do it successfully.

Most of our virtues don’t lend themselves to a specific ‘craft’. That is not the purpose of virtues or our programs! It is important to remember the craft is meant to be a visual reminder of the virtue, its saint and flower along with the Scripture verse to be memorized. The crafts can be hung in their bedroom, decorate the house or even given away to someone they love.

With a few small changes most crafts would be great for any virtue, any month. These transformations are easy to do by having the members write the virtue and the saint on the craft. They can add the flower and Scripture verse and even incorporate the virtue’s color on the craft. For younger ones you can make copies of these to be cut out and glued on. Flower stickers, saints’ holy cards, religious stickers, etc. can be used for embellishments and before you know it – You have just made a Behold Club member craft!

From the list of 50 Crafts below, I have found 18 that seem to the easiest to transform –

https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/home/craft-ideas/g39762537/crafts-for-kids/

My Craft Choices

These are my choices that are the easiest to adapt. The numbers listed are for the number of the craft on the list and are NOT out of order. 🙂

Craft #1. Embellished Bow – ribbon is virtue color, add verses with sharpie marker, even attach a saint’s holy card?

  1. Monster Sock? How about Saint Sock? Use the virtue color, add the essential information. These can decorate their room or even be hung outside?
  2. Paper Bag Kite. Like the monster sock above.
  3. Cardboard Suns. Could the sun become cardboard flowers? Make them smaller, adding the important details?
  4. Candles! These could be done as pillar candles as well. You can print out the scripture verses, etc. to pin at the bottom of a pillar candle. Just be sure to remove it if the candle is going to be lit.
  5. Toilet paper or paper towel roll. Print out the Scripture verse, etc. in fancy print to be glue onto the roll. They can be painted in the virtue color or covered with construction paper.
  6. FAVORITE! Have them make the sun catchers and then they can write the verse, etc. on them with a dark marker. You can cut them into the shape of a heart, dove, chalice & host or monstrance.
  7. Bunny Bags become a club bag. Does someone have cricut machine to make a rose, St. Therese or other saint image? Each virtue, saint and scripture verse can be added throughout the year.
  8. Could the octopus become a flower? Or make them the Sun/Son with verse on the circle? Saint’s name on one of the sticks?
  9. We have done the flip flops with the verse, saint written around the edge of the shoe rather on the top. There a number of Scriptures about walking with God you can add (Micah 6:8).
  10. Animal Bookmarks become saints with holy cards or flowers or verses.
  11. Water Bottle Flowers – they can write the verses, saint, etc. on the petals. One might be enough.
  12. Heart Collage can be made into a flower shape easily or leave as it, add the verse and saint to small pieces of paper to add. Put a magnet on the back and on the fridge it goes or add a pin on the back to wear, put on a jacket or backpack.
  13. FAVORITE! Matisse Felt Board. Did you know he made a Stations of the Cross? https://aleteia.org/2018/10/11/the-catholic-chapel-that-was-designed-by-the-artist-matisse/ Felt flowers, crosses, doves, other Catholic images could be cut out and used.
  14. Salt Dough Hangers – In addition to the hearts, do you have flower cookie cutters?
  15. Glue Blobs – use sharpies to add the saint, verse and virtue after the glue has dried.
  16. Butterfly – Flower shape?
  17. Felt Hair Ties in color of virtue.

More Favorite Craft Idea Sites

Another favorite site for inspiration – https://modpodgerocksblog.com They have great ideas for paper plates as well!

Finally, in regard to crafts you might consider reaching out to local nursing homes, retirement homes for religious, etc. to see if the members’ lovely creations might be welcomed to add some color and cheer to the home. Perhaps there is a lonely resident with no visitors who might like a new decoration each month.

Our other craft ideas & suggestions:

https://catalog.beholdpublications.com/?s=craft&post_type=product&v=2320522a6676

God Bless and know you are in our prayers!

Image: Unsplash.com/ dragos-gontariu

Little Flowers/Blue Knights Leader Chat!

Joan us Friday for a zoom Little Flowers/Blue Knights Leader Chat with Joan and Rachel, the creator of Little Flowers Girls’ Clubs® as we talk about end of the year ceremonies, the Eucharistic Congress, and getting ready for summer! Rachel will also be discussing her favorite ideas for crafts, May Mary Crownings, and prayer ceremonies. Don’t miss it!

Every participant gets a free Mother Cabrini coloring book!

Hope to see you Friday for the Leader Chat!

Click here to join meeting at 2 pm EST on Friday, April 26, 2024.

Want to find out more about Little Flowers Girls’ Club? Click here.

Want to find out more about Blue Knights Boys’ Club? Click here.

Can’t make the Little Flowers/Blue Knights Leader Chat this month? No worries! the zoom will be recorded or you can join us again next month!

Help Us Get to the Eucharistic Congress!

EucharisticDonation

We are so excited about the upcoming Eucharistic Congress is coming July 17-21!
If you go to the website you can even check out the countdown – www.eucharisticcongress.org
Little Flowers Girls’ Clubs® are just over 30 years old now with thousands of families being
positively impacted, including your own. We are looking forward to impacting thousands more
by being at the Congress as an Exhibitor.
As you know, we have always been a family owned shop. Friends from the start, Joan and I are
raising 21 children between us and each of us have been promoted to grandmothers. Little
Flowers, Blue Knights and the entire Behold Publications product line has always been a labor
of love from our family to yours.
May we have your help to get to Indianapolis for the Congress as it exceeds our small budget?
We know from our 30 years as the only Catholic to the Core clubs that we had a huge impact on
families and schools.
We are hoping you are able to help us get the $5,500 necessary to cover the exhibitor fees,
traveling and housing.
Every amount will help. CLICK HERE TO DONATE!
Everyone who donates and submits their address will receive a “Thank You” note from Rachel
Watkins.
Those able to give at least $100 will be given a copy of “Search for the Madonna” (a fun,
Catholic historical mystery) as a Thank You.
Let us know your own prayer intentions and we will take them to every Mass we attend and
include them in every Rosary we say during the Congress.
As parents, we know all about budgets and are so grateful for anything you can do to help us
spread the word.
Are you going? Please find us and let us thank you in person! Make sure to donate to get us to the Eucharistic Congress!
Donate here!

Happy Easter! Adding an Easter element to your meetings.

While it might seem I am a bit late to the game, it is important to remember that we are in the middle of the Easter season.

In my family this includes forgoing meatless Fridays but we do a bit of the Good Friday sacrifice and rely on leftovers which are not always a favorite in my house.

With Easter lasting until May 19, 2024, maybe you want to add a bit of Easter joy to your club meetings. Maybe end a meeting with an Easter music sing-along?

(I realize I am suggesting this as someone who can’t play an instrument or even really sing well, but that has never stopped me!)

You can easily build a song list from Spotify or YouTube:

A great choral arrangement with lyrics!
No lyrics but easy to sing along with!

It is important that we know how long the Easter season is meant to be. Life is busy, hard and complicated but God knows that doesn’t He? The lengthy Easter season is a real gift that should remind us that no matter how dark the day may seem, or how difficult our problems are, Jesus did rise from the dead. He won! And so shall we if we remain faithful. Until that day, Easter joy can lift us up when we are down if we lean into it and recall it throughout the whole year.

Another song choice from Matt Maher. This one has become a real favorite of mine and a song of support when I feel discouraged.

Here’s some thoughts about Easter from the USCCB:

https://www.usccb.org/prayer-worship/liturgical-year/easter#:~:text=The%20season%20of%20Easter%20is,cry%20of%20the%20Christian:%20Alleluia!

Image by 4222320 from Pixabay

Mother Cabrini and Me

cabrini shrine

I first met Mother Cabrini through a book called “Immigrant Saint,” by Pietro di Donato, published in 1960. I thought it was a truly moving story and wanted to make her story accessible to children. Her work in New York City especially with orphans, makes a lovely children’s story. I wrote “The Orphans Find a Home,” in 1996, in which three orphan girls are rescued from their furnace room (rather than the sewers, as seen in the movie). The girls are brought to Mother Cabrini’s home, which was the home formerly owned by the Jesuits, named Manresa. I sent the book to Our Sunday Visitor and got the best rejection letter ever! The acquisitions editor told me that the book was wonderful and story needed to be told. Unfortunately, OSV had no place in their catalog for a chapter book for young readers. My husband then encouraged me to publish the book myself. That publishing house is now over 25 years old and has dozens of books, as well as all the product lines for Little Flowers Girls’ Club®, Blue Knights Boys’ Clubs and our other virtue based programs for youth.

The Cabrini Movie

I enjoyed the movie very much and loved that it was the same time frame as my book on Mother Cabrini. The movie was far grittier and widely appealing to an older age group than the book, which is perfect for ages 7-12. I used my research from “Immigrant Saint,” as well as several other biographies to write The Orphans Find a Home. I also obtained research from the archives at Manresa, to write the book, however, some of the characters are fictional. The three orphan girls are real, but they their names and back stories are historical fiction.

Did the movie show Mother Cabrini’s piousness or religious motivations? I think it did. Although her charism was action oriented, I know from my research that Mother did what she did out of love of God. In the movie, the word “ambition” is used to describe Mother Cabrini’s actions. In my experience, it was her “mission” rather than her “ambition” that allowed her to do the things she needed to do for Christ. What did Mother Cabrini rely on for her strength, which didn’t come out in the movie? Mother’s order is the “Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart.” If you look closely at the end of the movie, the foundations that Mother Cabrini founded are pinned with a Sacred Heart on the map of the world. So the movie tries hard to show her piety, you just have to look harder.

After reading the Orphans Find a Home, or Immigrant Saint, why not watch the moving again! You may pick on things you missed about the life of this incredible American Saint!

Enriching the Year of Eucharistic Revival

As many of us know our Church is celebrating a Year of Eucharistic Revival. In response to the sad lack of belief in the Real Presence, the Church is hoping it will serve to educate, enlightened and inspire all of us to increase our love and devotion to Jesus Christ truly present, Body, Soul and Divinity within the Eucharist. It is planned to last until July 17, 2024.

https://www.eucharisticrevival.org/

With this as our inspiration, we have created a Eucharistic Certificate and accompanying activities you could share with your group. You might decide to do them as a group or just share it with the members so they might do them within their family.

We have both the list of activities to do, along with a printable certificate. Like our other badges, you may decide as a Leader/Parent how many and which ones best fit your life.

Click here to download the suggested activities to earn the Eucharistic Revival Certificate: https://beholdpublications.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Eucharistic-Certificate-requirements.pdf

Click here to download the Eucharistic Revival Certificate: https://beholdpublications.com/home/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/eucharistcertificate.pdf