Resurrection Garden

We recently made a Resurrection Garden for our Lenten table center piece. I'm not sure why I put it off so long; it took a lot less time than I imagined, and the boys loved playing with the leftover clay.

We used a medium-sized terra cotta saucer for the base, oven-bake clay for the earth (though most other Resurrection gardens use real dirt and grass seed, we went the easy, permanent route), sheet moss for greenery, sticks from our wood pile for crosses, and rocks from our walk-way.

I started out by forming the tomb and Calvary out of clay. The clay of the door to the tomb was formed around one of the large rocks so that it could be used as the stone that sealed the tomb. I kept the clay about 1/4 inch thick, so it's hollow under the hill of Calvary. The boys pressed rocks into the clay for the path. The crosses were made by snipping sticks into appropriate-sized pieces and hot-gluing them together. They were also pressed into the clay to make holes for them to stand in, and then removed. I popped it as shown into the oven (without preheating) the terra cotta wouldn't crack) at 275° for about 20 minutes.

Once out of the oven and cooled, Aidan painted the clay earth colored. The crosses were hot glued in their places.

Sheet moss was then hot glued around the crosses, path, and over the tomb.

It's like a little stage, reminding us what season we are in, and what drama is about to play out this Holy Week. We are using My Holy Week Missal, a gift from Liam's godmother (thank you!) to teach again the stories of Palm Sunday, Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday, as well as reading the appropriate passages from the Bible.

Eli's Mom so generously let him snip some pussy willows for an arrangement for our centerpiece. (Thank you!) That too is a reminder of the new life that was given to us by Christ's Sacrifice, as well as the new life of springtime.