Sacred Heart and Immaculate Heart Felt Craft Lesson

I wanted to do a simple craft for our little ones this year for the Feast Days of The Sacred Heart of Jesus and The Immaculate Heart of Mary.
I wasn't sure what I would do except it had to be hands on and quick and simple to do.

This is what I came up with~
Now you don't need to use that beautiful hand dyed wool felt for this craft, you can use the synthetic stuff from Spotlight of a cheap craft store.

I simple free hand drew two red heart shapes and the bits and pieces for each of the two hearts.
Of course you can make these as large of small as you like, and like I said, you don't need to measure just free hand cut as you go.

For the Sacred Heart of Jesus:
A large red heart
I cut a  cross from brown felt.
Orange fire shape
From a different colour brown I cut little 'stick like' rectangles that could be put together to make the crown of thorns
A few drops of blood from the red felt again

For the Immaculate Heart of Mary:
A Large Red heart
Orange fire shape
The sword was the most difficult (not really it is very simple). I cut the blade part from grey felt and then the handle part form brown, over lapping the grey bald part a little. Then I did a very small running stitch to join them with brown thread.
Pink roses- first I cut a circle and then just cut little parts out to make the rose,  flower shape
Tiny little green leap shapes.

Of course I like to give our little ones colouring pages for a feast day and this year we used these ones:
We really liked this colouring page as well as This colouring page. Also this was another I found on line too.
We didn't do this activity page but it is  a really good page for older kids
I also made word search for the children from this site using key words from both the devotions.

I also wanted to be able to talk about the symbolic meaning of the images  and what each part of the image means.
This was actually a bit harder for me as I have never actually thought about it in such detail (naughty me).
This was what I was able to find out: in relation to these particular images
Sacred Heart of Jesus:

Hearts represent love and life. Jesus’ heart beats with the fire of love (at the top of the heart) which was demonstrated at the cross. The fire also represents the purifying fire of God by which he purifies men. It exudes the transformative power of divine love.The crown of thorns brought suffering which was endured for the love of man to redeem him — to bear man’s pain in his own heart. The cut in the heart is that made by the lance that was thrust through his heart when he was on the cross.

The blood dripping represents the new life secured through his death (life came through dead). The result is the heart of man (below surrounded by flowers) is given new life. The flowers represent a garden of delights, new life, freshness. The Garden of Eden which brought about death by sin is now replaced by the Garden of Heaven which brings new life because of holiness.

Adam and Eve experienced death at the Tree of Life in the Garden of Eden; The New Adam (Jesus) brings about life at the Tree of Death (the cross) in another garden. This cross is at the top of the heart. Heaven is represented by the clouds and the blazing sun or heavenly light from God behind the hearts.

Immaculate Heart of Mary:

This one is similar to the Sacred Heart. The roses surrounding Mary’s heart represent her sinlessness and purity, sweetness and new life. The seven swords piercing the top of the heart represents the “Seven Sorrows of Mary,” (“Mater Dolorosa”). The first of her sorrows was the Prophecy

of Simeon that a sword would pierce her soul because of her son’s death Luke 2:35), 2) their flight into Egypt, 3) the loss of Jesus in the Temple; 4) the fourth sorrow is Mary watching Jesus carry the cross, 5) the crucifixion imagining a mother watching her son die this way; 6)  receiving his limp, cold body after the crucifixion, 7) the body of her son buried in the tomb.

When Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple as a baby the prophet Simeon said that the life and death of Jesus would be like a sword that would pierce her soul (Luke 2:35). The lower heart, the one of Mary surrounded by roses, shows a cut in it which is symbolic of her sorrows.  But her sorrows have brought us new life and pure hearts represented by the garden of roses below.

Corbyn was so funny to watch as he placed all of the flowers of  Mary's heart. I think he really wanted to give her some love, as flowers really symbolise love in our home.

Myffy working on her interpretation.

I actually think this is good for the children as it gets them to think of how the image is put together.

The children's finished work for the day

When it is all finished for the day it can be neatly placed in a plastic sleeve and filed in a ring binder ready for nest years feast day, or when ever you want to get it out again.

For our actual feast day celebrations we simple set up our display (a previous years craft here as well) and will leave it till the end of the month, as we did for last year

Blessings to you and your homes,