Celebrating the Feast of Pope St. John Paul II in the Home, with a Printable

I am on a ridiculous (and completely unintentional) streak of two weeks of almost daily blog posts. We can’t keep this up forever. I’m trying to stop. Really I am. But there’s been all the guest posting and sponsored posting to tell you about. And Frankie was grumpy at the fair and you guys NEEDED to see THAT, right? And people were mad on the internet! Anyway, one more post I agreed to write that is coming almost, but not quite, too late to be of any use.

Ashley asked me to share how we celebrate the Feast of JPII in our home, and we wouldn’t miss it, because our Jack is named John Paul in his honor. And that feast day is today: October 22nd.

Best JPII meme in town. Credit: Lifeteen

Quick story about that: While I was pregnant (in 2002), Jim pointed out that the Pope was ailing and perhaps he would die before the baby was born, and we could name the baby after him. And I said I was pretty sure that people don’t have to be dead to have babies named after them. It turns out I was right. So we named the baby John Paul. But we call him Jack.

Anyhoo, it is Jack’s name day. Normally he’d get to pick anything he likes for dinner. But I bought kielbasa at the store because it was on sale AND because it was Polish. So I pretty much told him that he could pick anything he wanted for dinner as long as it was kielbasa and sauerkraut. He countered with kielbasa + potatoes + brownies and he didn’t have to eat the sauerkraut. Deal.

recipe at Taste of Home

I plan to poke some gummy worms into the brownies after they cool down, for the “fisher of men, also of fish” thing.

credit: Mama Gone Green

In her question to me, Ashely had the best idea yet for how to celebrate a great outdoorsman like Pope John Paul II: Take a hike. I think ours will just have to be a nature walk around the suburbs. But we will definitely be walking today!

I will never, ever get tired of looking at JPII in the out of doors.

If we tire of walking, we are fortunate enough to have the awesome Ignatius Press movie: Pope John Paul II on DVD. But in case YOU don’t, it’s available live streaming from the Ignatius website!

It stars Jon Voight as the elder, and Cary Elwes as the younger Karol Wojtyla. (By the way, please tell me you’ve read this: The Dread Pirate and the Pope. It just makes me so happy.)

And we own these two great books.

And, today only, the JPII coloring pages at Holy Heroes are on sale for $1.99.
For some more ideas, including Pope Cake (!) see Bonnie’s post at A Knotted Life: Celebrate St. John Paul the Great’s Feast Day.

Or Gina’s post at Someday (Hopefully) They’ll Be Saints: It’s Gonna Be A Party! St. Pope John Paul II Feast Day.

Reader Christina asked me to make this great JPII quote printable. And, how could I say no?

So here it is: Pope St. John Paul II quote on red . . .

And: Pope St. John Paul II quote on white . . .

Click on the title to download the image from Google Drive, or just click on the image to enlarge it, and right-click to save it to your computer. You may download the image for free for your own personal use. If you’d like to sell it, please contact me. Thanks. To request a custom printable, visit my Etsy shop here.

If you do nothing else for Pope St. John Paul II today, watch this video. You’ll be glad you did. I can say with great certainty that this is the best-ever use of auto-tuning. It’s going to be on repeat around here all day.
p.s. Upcoming on the blog . . . This year’s twofer Halloween / All Saints costumes should be coming up on Friday, Frankie’s Little Monster 3rd Birthday party will be this weekend in real life and Monday or Tuesday in blogworld, and Operation Inspired Capsule Wardrobe happened on Tuesday and was a big success. It’s going to take me some time to document it all, but it’s coming!p.p.s. In honor of JPII, I’m going to give away one last bag of goodies from the #whereislulu trip to Spain and France, including a rosary, medals, and a bottle of Lourdes water. Just let me know in the comments how you plan to remember Pope St. John Paul II today. (Watching the YouTube video and having dessert TOTALLY counts.) Winner will be announced on Friday.

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Hi! I’m Kendra. For twenty years now, I’ve been using food, prayer, and conversation based around the liturgical calendar to share the lives of the saints and the beautiful truths and traditions of our Catholic faith. My own ten children, our friends and neighbors, and people just like you have been on this journey with me.

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