Sacred and Immaculate Heart (Healthy) Snack Platters

Happy Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus!

 

I'm popping in to share these very easy and healthy snack platters for today's feast day and tomorrow's feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

 

  As a contributor to Catholic Cuisine, I have posted the details over there but here are a few more photos:

 

Immaculate Heart Fruit Platter

 I found a helpful post on Pinterest about how to cut a watermelon. I couldn't wait to give it a try for this fruit platter...Wow, amazingly easy!

 

Frugal tip!   Are you wondering what kind of platter might hold something like this?  I bought two 18" clear Sturdiware platters from our local party store a few years ago.  They were only a few dollars a piece and I've used the heck out of them, ever since.  They have come in SO handy for graduations, sacramental celebrations, and many parties!  I just wash them by hand after using them and store them for the next occasion:)

 

  Sacred Heart of Jesus Veggie Platter and Immaculate Heart Fruit Platter

 

Hope you are enjoying a blessed summer!

 



Sacred and Immaculate Hearts Fruit Dessert

Happy Feasts of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary!

Oops, I thought I was taking a blogging break?;)

Well, just in case anyone is looking for ideas...Couldn't help but share these yummy (and easy) fruit dessert pizzas we made to celebrate.  Hint: It's just a roll of sugar cookie dough with the most amazing frosting!
These two back-to-back feast days are a couple of my favorites:)

+Check out the recipe...I shared it over at Catholic Cuisine+

Here's another one I made for a dear friend and her family, in thanksgiving for their hard work in coordinating our Parish VBS...They deserved a little treat for having the servant hearts of Jesus and Mary!

"In the Sacred Heart, every treasure of wisdom and knowledge is hidden.  In that Divine heart beats God's infinite love for everyone.  For each one of us individually."
~Bl. John Paul II~

Love Is Never Last Minute!

Boy, St. Valentine's Day has really snuck up on me this year!

I found myself scurrying around the house today having the kids help me make and put up last minute decorations.  Don't all kids love to decorate for special occasions? But love really isn't last minute, is it?  Or is it?

Love, coming from God, is always on time.  But are we on time with our Love for Him?

St. Valentine's Day is a day we focus on the love and charity that we should really have all year round.

I like taking a little time to reflect on God's love and how I can best show a little more love, a little more often.  This is a great day out of the year to think about that:)

If you are looking for an easy idea to decorate for St. Valentine's Day, remembering how God first loved us, think about His Sacred Heart.  After all the real St. Valentine knew this…He loved Christ so much that he gave his life out of love.  {If you don't already have the book about the life of St. Valentine, I highly recommend it!  It's a family favorite that we look forward to each year:)}

We just took a package of heart-shaped cutouts and made them into the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

AND some cookies...by adding a little brown icing!
These were just store-bought;)

What an easy way to transform the secular to the sacred...

Even if it is last-minute decoration, love itself is never last minute!

This was the scripture wreath we made last year...

My favorite scripture quote about love is stenciled above our kitchen table...

"Beloved let us love one another for love is of God...

"1 John 4:7

Last night we completed our "Socks of Love" St. Valentine service project...It went great!

Our parish youth and their families helped fill up 70 pairs of socks with toiletries for our local homeless shelter...

What a great job they did in less than an hour!  

I should not be amazed but I WAS...God provided the perfect amount of supplies for the number of socks we received, including the exact amount of tags.

Nope, God's love is never last minute...It is perfect and right on time.  Amen!

Socks of Love were dropped off at the local homeless shelter on St. Valentine's Day...I am always filled with joy over the love of Jesus in the hearts of these servants!

"O St. Valentine, lover of Christ and of the Church, we ask your intercession that we may learn how to love God above all things, and to selflessly love one another.  O glorious St. Valentine, pray for us, that we too may have the steadfast faith of the martyrs."

Sacred Heart of Jesus and World Youth Day

Have you heard that the Holy Father will be consecrating the youth to the Sacred Heart of Jesus at World Youth Day?  Our pilgrims are so excited!  They have worked very hard and have been incredibly blessed to raise enough money, after 2 years of fund raising, to cover their entire trip.  My dear husband and a few other adult chaperones are leading about 20 pilgrims, including our 17yo son,  to WYD in Spain this August.  Everyone is joyfully preparing for this special spiritual journey.  Just for fun, we attempted to make a giant Sacred Heart Sugar Cookie.  It wasn't quite as fancy as the cake we made last year but it tasted good!   If you know other pilgrims who are attending WYD or if you would like to pray a long with everyone there, be sure to order the Magnificat WYD Pilgrim Guide.  It's only $6.95 with shipping and handling.
We baked this cookie for the Immaculate Heart of Mary today:D

This afternoon we had one of those "mission accomplished" moments. We were able to celebrate the Holy Hearts by making these fun liturgical folders that I mentioned in a previous post.  I have been admiring them for quite some time forEVERand over at Gardenia's place and we finally sat down and made some.  The children really enjoyed doing them and the project turned out to be a great distraction as we tried to wait patiently for Dad to come home (with Army Dude) from their week-long Scouting trip.  They will finally be home late tonight...Hallelujah!
~Superboy (Age 7) did the Sacred Heart of Jesus folder~

Here is the inside...

We talked about the meaning of the Sacred Heart and he copied a little prayer onto some cut-out hearts.  Shhh, I didn't tell him that this was good summer writing practice!

~Princess did the Immaculate Heart of Mary~

Here was the inside...

A closer look...

Angel Baby broke out with her coloring debut!  We were all shocked that she colored so well in the lines and picked her own color scheme.  I was working with the other kids and looked over her shoulder to discover "wow!"  We all thought it was amazing work for a 3yo.

Here was her final product...

Oh, how I love the sweet treasures that little hands make!

"Everything in Mary leads us toward her Son, our only Savior, by whose foreseen merits she was preserved immaculate and full of grace; everything in Mary lifts up our hearts to the praise of the Holy Trinity."~Pope Paul VI~

Holy "Heart" Days

Happy Holy "Heart" Days...

Celebrating the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary this weekend!

Sacred Heart of Jesus,

we believe in Your love for us.

Help us to love You more.

We pulled out our holy"heart" wreaths that we made last year.  I have come to love liturgical decorating!  Oh, the simple pleasures...It was especially fun to pull out a liturgical decoration all ready made and set to go:) The Sacred Heart goes perfectly with our Independence Day (4th of July) red, white, and blue this year. 

The Immaculate Heart of Mary wreath adorns another entrance to our home...

Here are my shared links if you are interested in making one:

{Don't be intimidated...they really aren't difficult at all:D}

Sacred Heart of Jesus wreath

Immaculate Heart of Mary wreath

Having the Sacred Heart placed at the entrance of a home reminds me of the 2nd and 8th Promises of the Sacred Heart:  Those that honor His Sacred Heart are promised blessed and peaceful homes...

Speaking of that, I just love these elegant Sacred Heart of Jesus tiles that Lena, from JOYfilled family, made last year.  What a beautiful way to uphold the devotion in her home.  I was especially honored to receive one as a gift and I love it!  This year, JOYfilled family made beautiful Sacred Heart of Jesus frames.  Be sure to pop over and see!

This weekend we are planning to make some liturgical folders in honor of these special 2 holy "hearts".  Gardenia has folder tutorials for both the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts over at My Little Flower.  Be sure to check them out!  This link has a whole list of her neat folders and ideas to carry you through the liturgical year.  Thank you, Gardenia!

I always love and appreciate these free Immaculate Heart and Sacred Heart bookmarks and prayer cards over at Ukok's place. They have been a blessing for us, more than a few times!

~Have you seen Cheryl's cute craft over at The Diary Of A Sower?  Or Xhonane's artwork at Catholic Family? And of course Catholic Icing and Catholic Cuisine always have great ideas to enhance our faith celebrations too~
You may visit Fisheaters for an in depth explanation about the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  I love this site!
"My dear friends, let us love one another, since love is from God and everyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.  Whoever fails to love does not know God, because God is love."~1 Jn 4:7~

St. Valentine Dessert

I thought I'd share this St. Valentine Dessert idea...Also adaptable for the Sacred Heart of Jesus!

I made these for a World Youth Day (Bunco) Fundraiser at our Parish this weekend...

They were really easy and very inexpensive!

ALL ITEMS: The foil pans, Duncan Hines Brownie mix, clear basket wrap, stencil, and ribbon came from the Dollar Tree!  Each pan of brownies cost approximately $2.00!

These would also make nice St. Valentine gifts for grandparents, other family, friends, teachers, etc.

I just baked the brownies in the disposable pans and used powdered sugar and a stencil for the heart design.  {I use a powdered sugar shaker that makes it a bit easier to control the sprinkling} Also, be careful when lifting the stencil from the pan once you've sprinkled the sugar!

I wrapped each pan in clear plastic basket wrap and tied it with red and white ribbon.  Then I added a crucifix or plastic rosary to each wrapped brownie pan.   

(You may also add a Saint Medal or another sacramental embellishment to bring the "Saint" back to St. Valentine's Day!)

I also think these would be lovely for the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus or Immaculate Heart of Mary.  You could use a stencil for an Immaculate Heart image like this one!

I draped a red plastic rosary through the top of this wrapped brownie pan and also added a crucifix.
Happy St. Valentine's Day Baking!

Sacred & Immaculate Heart Cakes

~Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary Cakes~
We had fun making these cakes for the dual feasts of the Sacred & Immaculate Hearts!  They were fairly easy with heart-shaped cake pans!  These are special back to back feasts so we wanted to really celebrate these joyous occasions today and tomorrow.  This link explains the Sacred Heart of Jesus.  And this link explains the Immaculate Heart of Mary.
I was particularly struck by this statement from Catholic Culture:" How society, culture, economy, politics today need this Heart!  It is really true, the more man distances himself from God-Love the more he becomes 'heartless', agitated about a thousand things because he has mislaid the principal one: to let oneself be loved by Christ and to respond to this Love with our love."
WOW, is this ever so true!

So with that in mind, back to the cakes of LOVE...

We started with the Sacred Heart of Jesus, representing how much He truly loves us. 
We used red food coloring to die the white frosting, then used squeezable chocolate brownie topping for the weave of thorns...Finally, we added a bit of red icing for the blood He shed.  Oh what a loving and merciful God!

After painting 2 small craft sticks brown, we glued them to a straw so that we weren't poking painted sticks into our edible cake!  Silk flower petals (from the Dollar Tree) were glued on to the sticks to represent the flames.  They looked like this:

~Here you see the front of the Sacred Heart (straw) cross and flames and the back of the Immaculate Heart flames~

*The straw was the only part that we stuck into the cake*

A close-up of the Immaculate Heart of Mary Cake

(We used the same idea of gluing the stick to the straw for the sword that pierced her heart)

Here is another photo of the dual hearts!

This is the picture that hangs over our home altar/prayer table...A nice visual reflection for these two special days.

"Behold the Heart which so loved mankind."
~St. Margaret Mary Alacoque~
"The heart that resembles that of Christ more than any other is without a  doubt the Heart of Mary, His Immaculate Mother."~Pope Benedict XVI~
One last thing...For another idea, here is a photo of some Immaculate Heart of Mary Rice Krispy Treats that we made in the past....

~Happy "Feasting" With Love~

Sacred Heart of Jesus Wreath

~Sacred Heart of Jesus Wreath~

There is still time to make a lovely Sacred Heart of Jesus wreath since the whole month of June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart...

~This was a really easy craft to adorn your front door or home altar!~

*My daughter Princess (age 7) was a good helper*

We started with a foam heart and silk red roses, found at Michael's...

~Most of the roses were stuck right into the foam...Sometimes with a little help from my (hot glue) friend~

~We added some dried birch tree branches for the woven thorns through the middle...Think we'll add a bit more to make it a thicker weave~

~The cross(on top)with flames was "originally" made from painted craft sticks and silk red petals, once again with a little help from the hot glue gun~ (I think I would use natural objects for the cross next time..In fact, I may end up with a re-do very soon.  The craft sticks look a bit out of place!) I ended up re-doing the cross with natural sticks.  I think it looks much better this way. (Photo at top and bottom)

Here are some ways to display the finished wreath.... 

~We took a photo with our wreath hung inside our entry way~

~Then we hung it on our front door~

~It seemed a little bare so we attached it to a plain white wreath we had on hand~

**Everyone agreed "Much better" for the front door**
I'm just loving the idea of a liturgical wreath!

We can detach the Sacred Heart wreath and use it for our home altar when we are through the month of June!  
Here are a few photos of the "re-do", using natural branches from the backyard and more twigs for the center thorn weave...

Much better, don't you think?