Burying (shhh!) Alleluia

Stop. Don't say it!  You know the word.  You won't hear church for the remaining 40 days - plus Sundays - of Lent! It's the A word, A------a! 


Throughout Lent the church doesn't use the joyful word, (shhh) alleluia, removing it as part of the somber, penitential tone of the season.  We bury "it" at our home too.


Is this a man made tradition? Absolutely.  Does it serve a practical opportunity for teaching the faith by providing a contrast between the repentant solemnity of Lent and the joy of Easter?  Beautifully.  Plus, I just like the idea of giving my children something to listen for, or in this case NOT listen for, in worship.

This year baby Pete buried the Alleluia painting Adelae and I made together last year.  She was only three, so she finger painted in glittery gold and silver, and I wrote "Alleluia" for her. 


Adelae can now write, so we made a more advanced Alleluia this year! 


We'll bury the paintings for Lent, and display them again on Easter morning as part of our decorations, so I'm glad to share some of my watercolor paper for this project. 

Using a green crayon Adelae added grass along the bottom of the page. Next she taped a paper circle on the grass near the left side of the paper. Using watercolors, she painted streams of color flowing from the circle to the edges of the paper.

Once the painting was dry, *this is the BeSt part!*, she got to remove the paper circle to reveal clean paper, the empty tomb.

Inside the space she wrote "Alleluia".  I knew she would have a hard time spacing such a big word in such a small space, so she traced my penciled letters in gold marker. I'm proud of her because, a lefty, she kept her wrist up and didn't smear the marker.

Finally, I made a slit in the paper just under the blank circle area.  Adelae cut out a circle for the stone.  We used white paper colored gray with crayon.  I love that her cutting isn't perfect for this application!

We buried Alleluia under the sofa prior to leaving for church on Ash Wednesday.  Last year she checked on "it" almost most every day. The anticipation of seeing and saying ******* again on Easter morning was more exciting to little Adelae then the egg hunt!


If you haven't buried the alleluias with you're little ones yet, it's not too late!