The Holy Week Journey as a Family: A Reflection on Bringing the Sacred Home with the Rev. Dr. Libby Catania
Episode 153, Published 03/31/2025, Listen Here
Gain confidence with the scriptures through our weekly Bible Study - this conversation discusses how to engage with Holy Week as a family. We also reference the readings for the week of 04/13 – you can find the prayer services and upcoming reading list here.
In this episode of Bedtime Chapel, our guest the Rev. Dr. Libby Catania leads a thoughtful exploration of how to observe Holy Week as a family. She reviews practical and meaningful ways to celebrate the Holy Days—from Palm Sunday to Easter—emphasizing both the liturgical richness of the season and the importance of engaging families in these practices. Libby shares specific ideas and personal insights on incorporating Holy Week rituals into family life, inviting listeners to reflect on the deeper significance of Christ’s journey and resurrection.
In addition to the Holy Week celebrations, the conversation touches on modern challenges for families—particularly how technology and screen time can create barriers to genuine connection with our children. Libby offers guidance for parents to be more present during these sacred times. We will definitely be putting some of these suggestions into practice - and hope you do the same!
The Rev. Dr. Libby Catania is a friend, mentor, and example of how to live our one’s vocation in a whole-hearted authentic way. She is the co-founder of Limina Renewal Center, a Spiritual Companion, and priest who is canonically resident in Diocese of Maine.
Libby Catania is a mother of human, furry and plant beings, grandmother, wife and friend. She and her husband Bill are blessed to be co-stewards of Limina Renewal Center on the coast of Maine. Prior to founding Limina, Libby was a full-time priest in the diocese of Massachusetts and prior to that the diocese of Virginia. She has taught ethics and preaching classes at the graduate level, but most enjoys wondering and dreaming with children and teens. When not roaming the tidal flats, LIbby loves to run, knit, read, garden, and cook - especially with family and friends. We highly recommend checking out Liminia if you’re looking for a retreat that will be balm to your soul and food for the journey!
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Key moments in our conversation include:
00:30 – Introducing Libby and the focus on Holy Week celebrations
03:44 – Conversation on the importance of turning off screens and being present with children
05:30 – Libby reviews specific practices for observing Holy Week in a family context - including the discussion of how to use a children’s Bible
10:42 - Specific practices for Maundy Thursday
14:40 – Embodied nature of the Holy Week services
21:23 - Practical Ways of Integrating Holy Week to Family Life
Further Resources from this Discussion
Children’s Bibles Mentioned:
Children of God Storybook Bible by Archbishop Desmond Tutu
God’s Stories family-focused Bible from the Bible for Normal People
Holy Week: An Emotions Primer – a board book using feelings to help children connect with the story
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00:00:00 Natalie Thomas
Hello, and welcome to Bedtime Chapel's weekly scripture study. I'm Natalie.
00:00:04 James Thomas
And I'm James. We are deacons in the Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts.
00:00:07 Natalie Thomas
And Bedtime Chapel grew out of a shared desire to support families that are trying to know, love, and follow Jesus in a post-Christian world.
00:00:18 James Thomas
We offer a nightly prayer service that includes a short gospel reading and these weekly scripture studies. Our guest this week is the Reverend Dr. Libby Catania, and she is back for her second week with us. And this in the holiest week of the Christian year.
00:00:35 Natalie Thomas
And we are actually going to focus. Oh, sorry, Go.
00:00:40 Libby Catania
Oh, no, no. I was just going to say thank you all for having me.
00:00:43 James Thomas
Good to have you back.
00:00:44 Natalie Thomas
It's great to have you. Yeah. And most of our conversation today is going to focus on Holy Week and engaging with your family during Holy Week. But we wanted to open it up with a chance for you to get to introduce yourself a little bit further. And specifically, in Matthew's telling of Jesus going to the temple, we hear at the end of the story that children were singing praises to God.
And we're curious to hear from you about how you in your life or how parents, caregivers in the wider church can make space to hear praises of children in such a busy world and indeed, a busy week that we're about to go into.
00:01:22 Libby Catania
Oh, thank you so much. And I'm always so cognizant that, at least in Massachusetts, especially for working parents, Holy Week often comes with a day off for the children on Friday. And if you're a working parent, that is not always a grace, no matter how much you might love to be off of work yourself on Good Friday.
Perhaps you're not. So. I'm just. I'm so sensitive that spring breaks and Holy Week and school vacations can really throw our daily, daily rhythms and routines into a lot of change and transition this time of year. So my heart is with people who are parenting little humans as they move through this particularly special time in the church year.
So to your question of how to listen to the children singing praises and the unique expressions of God that they offer to us, because I don't know if I said it at Stephen's baptism, but one of my very favorite things to remind parents of at baptisms is that these precious little beings who are in our loving care for a certain amount of time are beautiful expressions of the divine.
And there's something about God that we can only know because he, Phoebe and Steven and my Phoebe and Sophie and Charlie and Teddy have existed on the planet. And if we don't listen to them. If we don't make the time in our lives to hear what they're seeing, hear what they're hearing, pay attention to what matters to them, then we are missing something that God is trying to communicate with us through those little beings and of course through all humans.
But it can be easy to just keep children in a particular routine and rhythm and wake up, get dressed, go to school, come home, do homework, have dinner, go to bed and not make the time. So I mean, it's all over our culture and it probably sounds trite and boring to even say really turning off screens and cell phones when around our children.
And I'm as guilty, I mean, I'm sure my 14 year old son, if he hears this, is howling with laughter because he scolds me as much for being on my phone as I do him. But we can't listen to each other. We can't really see how our children are singing praises to God if we are separated from them by our devices.
So that's just during this Holy Week. Maybe contemplating having different limitations in our own lives about how we're engaging technology, particularly around our children, might be one way that we can open ourselves to hear what they're saying in new ways.
00:04:28 James Thomas
Yeah, if we were to begin to go down the rabbit hole of who's actually guiltier of being in the phone, us or the children, that would, we'd be on the call for a long time because we live with that. And you know, I think it's something we're always acting as a check on one another about.
We both work full time and it's an easy way to zone out and not in good ways always. So, yeah, very appreciative of that counsel and something we could all work on, adults and children. I think sometimes when adults talk about, oh, these kids are always on their phone, it's like I'm always on my phone.
So absolutely, you know, that is a all generations issue. Turning then to Holy Week and the services ahead, how would you recommend to families to engage with the week, the services, rituals at home, prayers at home, topics of conversation. What does it mean in 21st century America to keep a Holy Holy Week?
00:05:35 Libby Catania
That's such a wonderful question and I'd love to hear what you all do with young children. Mine are old enough now that this is. It's been a while, but when I was rector of a parish for many years and prior to that working full time in a big congregation in Northern Virginia outside Washington D.C.
i was very blessed to get to work a lot with the children and the teens in those congregations. And I was always very passionately committed to figuring out a way that, that the stories became something that the children could really take in and engage with at age appropriate levels. Because especially on Palm Sunday, if children are in church, they have this wonderful experience of the palms and the procession and a very engaged service.
But then depending on what happens in congregations and if families are not connected with a congregation, just telling the story can feel somewhat remote unless we help our children, especially the kinesthetic learners among us, to experience these stories in some way. So a couple things that we did and again, I'd love to hear your thoughts on some of these.
The first, and this is a pretty obvious one, I'm sure most families do this, but find an account of Holy Week in an age appropriate Bible and read that to the children. Especially if you are going to be in a church service that will use a more adult version of the story that might go over their heads.
Just helping them to access the heart of the story in an age appropriate way can be really helpful. What bible do you guys use when you read with Phoebe and Stephen?
00:07:31 James Thomas
The common English Bible that we also use on the podcast is generally, and then I would say probably adapted. And you know, as, as we're reading it, we're sort of skipping over or explaining anything that you know. And we do have a couple of. We're still actually this is a good conversation point because we're on the, we're on the hunt for a good picture Bible.
We're always, or maybe picture Bible's not the quite the right word. But you know, Natalie, I know you've been engaged in trying to find one that we really like and we've had a few attempts that, that, oh well, you know, maybe nothing that we've, I don't know that we found one that we really love, love, love.
00:08:10 Natalie Thomas
Yet we have one or two that we have used but don't fall, haven't, haven't fallen in love with. And then I noticed that you recommended the Rainbow Children of God from Desmond Tutu. That's the one that's at the church that on Sundays when I'm with Phoebe and Steven before we go into the big service.
That's the Bible that I'm reading out of there. Also. There's a new one coming out too. Sorry. There's a new one coming out too. I can't remember the name of it right off hand, but I will link it in the show notes and it's a Bible picture book. And I've heard that it's highly recommended for, again, kind of this bridge of speaks to across ages, across an intergenerational community, but supports people in interpreting the stories to younger, which I guess is probably what we're doing the most at home, is that we're listening to it, we're pausing it, and then we're explaining it in our own words to them.
00:09:13 James Thomas
Yeah.
00:09:15 Libby Catania
Which is awesome. And I think you all are exceptional in your ability to do that for all sorts of reasons. But if families have limited time, it might be easier for them to read from a trusted children's Bible. And I, again, I mean, Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Tutu, is so extraordinary. And the way that he retells the stories, I have always found incredibly moving.
So I might begin there. And then another little resource that I love. I think I sent you the link. There's a little board book called not as in boring, but a children's book, a board book called Holy Week, and it focuses on the emotions of Holy Week for children. So, for example, the picture about Palm Sunday, the emotion for the day is excited, and it shows a little image of Jesus on the donkey with the palms.
And it just has one passage from John's Gospel. When Jesus entered Jerusalem for the Passover feast, a crowd gathered to see him waving palm branches and shouting, hosanna. Hosanna. Hosanna. So helping children connect to the story through their emotions, you know, so Palm Sunday, we have excited, and then we move on to Jesus in the temple, and he's angry when he's casting out the money changers.
And then we get to Maundy Thursday and the words are loved and thankful, and Jesus is sorrowful in the garden, and we have overwhelmed. So, I mean, for me, as a busy parent trying to figure out how to communicate any of this to my four children when they were young, this was something that felt within my grasp because then we could open conversations about, what does it mean to feel overwhelmed?
What are you thankful for tonight? I loved using this little board book with the children because by helping the children feel into the story what Jesus and his followers and his friends and disciples were experiencing through these different emotions, it helps them connect that into the lives that they're experiencing where they feel excited and angry and loved and thankful and overwhelmed and all of those things, rather than this being a story that happened 2,000 years ago or only a story that happened 2,000 years ago.
I mean, do you guys have little children? How does that resonate with you in terms of talking With Phoebe and Steven.
00:11:55 Natalie Thomas
Yeah. That is definitely the entryway that we use when we're talking with the kids is to think about how it might feel. That's the translatable element of the story often is how might Jesus have felt in that moment? How might his friends have felt at that moment? How might the people who were observing the situation feel at that moment?
And then to go into what sort of situations bring up those feelings for Phoebe, I mean, Stephen is one. Right. So he's not. Well, actually, he just started praying with us. Now we'll say, who do you want to pray for? And who knows what's going on in his heart? But he has a laundry list of people that he likes to share the names with us.
And that is very, very.
00:12:41 Libby Catania
She's sweet.
00:12:42 Natalie Thomas
Yeah. And who am I to say that he is not very intentional about the names that he lifts up? But, you know, for. For Phoebe, I think this idea of feelings and emotions is accessible for her at three. And then, you know, in addition, we often like to give her to suggest. Let me use that word to suggest one element of a story that we're about to read that she pays attention to, which can really help hone in her focus on an experience of either a service that we're going to attend or a story that we're going to read together.
00:13:20 James Thomas
Yeah. And I guess I would also, because Natalie just said the services that we attend, and I realize that, you know, these services can sometimes be very late at night, and I don't wanna get preachy about, you know, take your kids a good Friday. I don't mean that. But for those who are.
If you are wishing that you could take your kids to a service or something, you know, please, as we've said many times on this podcast in the past, and as we've talked about, kind of probably the most consistent thread through these scripture studies that we do, we hope that the church community that you are in is a place that is welcoming to Christians of all ages.
And as Natalie just said, Stephen, who is 16 months old, is beginning to be able to lift up prayers of his own. And as Libby knows well, is indeed a baptized Christian. Not to sort of create a space where we're demanding that everybody go and grind out the Easter vigil with an infant.
That's certainly not my intention, but if you. If you're in a space where, you know, you're feeling called to do that as a family, please do. Please do and make the experience of public worship an aspect of your Holy Week, if that's Something that your family wants to do. You should. We hope you will.
00:14:40 Libby Catania
And Holy Week is such an awesome time, especially if families, for whatever reason, are not able to worship in a community on a regular basis. The services during Holy Week are so lavish and rich with their imagery, with the stories, with the rituals, with the sacraments, that I think they're particularly engaging for children and, you know, really cover all that it is to be human and how Jesus accompanies us and is present and has experienced everything from, you know, sheer joy and excitement to fury and rage and betrayal and shame and just everything, everything shows up in Holy, Holy Week.
00:15:28 James Thomas
Yeah, great point. Such a great point. If you were to go, you would sort of get it all, the whole story.
00:15:36 Natalie Thomas
So, yeah, my favorite service of the week and maybe of the whole year is the Monday, Thursday, Holy Thursday service because of the physicality of it and the embodied nature of it. You know, the takeaway that I always have is that you can't, you can't say Jesus didn't care about our physical being after that service.
Right, right, right. So, Libby, maybe that's an entryway for me to ask you specifically about Holy Thursday and then if you want to roll into Good Friday.
00:16:05 Libby Catania
Yeah. So as much as, as families feel comfortable, I think that leading into Holy Thursday or Maundy Thursday. And of course, Maundy is one of those weird words that children and adults alike say. All right, what. What is a Maundy? You know, just reminding us that we' to love each other at that service.
The mandate. Mandate there a lot more. So as much as families feel comfortable placing the Last supper and the foot washing service in the proper cultural context for Jesus, which is, of course, as you all know, a Passover meal, it's a great opportunity to, if children are young and they don't already know it, but to begin to introduce and remind children that Jesus was an extremely faithful, practicing Jewish man living at a very particular place in a particular time where he would get together with his friends and family to have, you know, big feasts and celebrations at special times in the Jewish calendar.
I know it for deacons in the church, that may be well, of course, but I'm. Oh, I'm constantly surprised by the number of adults that have not internalized that reality. So again, as much as families feel comfortable sharing that, I think that's a great place to start. And then in the context of, you know, just lifting up that Jesus was basically whatever the big cultural celebration is that you all have in your families or your listeners have in their Families.
Jesus was at that kind of an event. You know, it was having the big meal around a religious festival. So whether, you know, it's Christmas or Easter, whenever families gather as. Or maybe Thanksgiving is the closest thing that some families come to. That's the context. And so for kids to have that sense of, oh, okay, so what would it be like at, you know, big Christmas dinner if, you know, my grandma walked over and bent down and started washing the feet of her friends who were at the supper just to have these little thought experiments with children to help them key into, like, wow, this is really something.
Pretty cool that Jesus is doing that. He saw that there was this need of, you know, of course, the filthy feet walking around on sandy roads all day, and he was willing to be the person to do the dirty work of washing the feet. It's, you know, Sue, I always would have a lot of fun with kids.
They have hilarious and wonderful things to speculate about with the feet and Jesus and the dirt and the mess and the mud and the muddy water and what happened to it. So as much as we feel comfortable again, letting their imaginations run, it helps them, you know, in Ignatian spirituality, that kind of imaginative engagement with the Gospel lesson is exactly what will help them feel the power of the gift that Jesus offers later in the meal when he institutes the first Eucharist.
And I mentioned to you all a fun thing to do if families can't make it to a foot washing service for all sorts of different reasons. If you live in a place that you can go outside and walk around in some dirt, stomp in some mud, get the family's feet dirty, I mean, some people would be disgusted by this.
But again, to help children have that experience of what does it mean that Jesus, you know, this extraordinary teacher, our Lord, our Savior, the Messiah, washed feet. Could be a powerful moment to read that story as a family and then wash each other's feet and let the children wash the adults feet and wash each other's feet, what does that sound like to you guys?
00:20:19 James Thomas
I'm going to give an honest answer. And if you are out there hearing this and your mind jumped to Peppa Pig jumping in muddy, muddy puddles. I like to jump in muddy puddles. Then I, I commiserate with you over Peppa Pig. No, no, my mind did go there. My mind did go there.
But.
00:20:46 Libby Catania
But, no, that's awesome. No, I love that. I love that. Yeah, yeah. So you know, Peppa Pig goes to a Passover meal and has filthy feet and washes them right?
00:21:01 James Thomas
Right, right.
00:21:03 Libby Catania
Yeah.
00:21:04 Natalie Thomas
No, I mean, I. I also was thinking about pep in my brain. How can you not with how much it's on our TV right now? But the. The idea of the tenderness of the foot washing is what is coming up for me and how often we do that. To me, this is a moment of translating the story, helping me as an adult caregiver, think about this in my current context.
But how tenderly I wash a frustrated toddler's face. And to imagine that tenderness in Jesus, what's coming up for me.
00:21:40 Libby Catania
Yes, yes. And then, of course, you know, with older children and younger children, too, but especially with older children, to help them make the explicit connection that this thing that we do on Sunday mornings called Holy Communion, Holy Eucharist had a beginning and that, you know, there were Eucharistic meals celebrated in Jewish households, but that Jesus instead institutes it in a new way that is then carried forward into the community as a way of remembering the extraordinary life and teaching and gift and as a gateway into eternal life with him through the resurrection, which we'll come to.
So that's a lot. One of the things I suggest with families is you choose one thing a day. There's so much in Holy Week. There's so much in Holy Week. And just depending on where we as parents are, where our kids are, you know, if there's one thing that we can focus on on any given day, then then that's great.
But clergy struggle to figure out how can we help people experience the richness of these days in their entirety and frequently don't. Can't. I mean, it's just too much. So families should certainly feel well empowered to just do what they can do. So moving on to Good Friday, I love Stations of the Cross services.
I'm not sure how you all feel about them. I was raised Catholic and went to Catholic school for many, many years. So this was a part of my life and tradition. And I feel that the power of a Stations of the Cross service in telling the story of what happened with Jesus can be particularly useful with kids.
At St. Mary's we, quote, unquote, told the Stations of the Cross sort of like we would the Christmas pageant in a way. So families can do this in the home. If they're not going to be able to attend a Good Friday service. Look up online all sorts of different children's, children's Stations of the Cross services, or maybe you all have one that you could link to.
But again, you know, using things that we have in our household to help tell the stories so, you know, when Jesus is betrayed by Judas after the Last Supper, if we, you know, pull out some, some Monopoly money or something like that and, or, you know, Jesus is, is tried by Caiaphas, the high priest and you know, they rip his clothes, you know, let kids rip an old T shirt or again, to help them experience the feel that, you know, when we get to, you know, Jesus is on, you know, hanging on the cross and the soldier offers him the sponge soaked in vinegar, you know, let them taste a tiny little bit of vinegar.
I mean, there's just. I, I can send to you the suggested props that we used when we used to tell the story together at St. Mary's and there's again lots of resources online but using, you know, Desmond Tutu's Bible or another children's Bible that just very concisely without all the gory details because obviously that would be very traumatic for, for young children, but makes the point of what happens on Good Friday with the insertion of little quote unquote props or tangible exemplars for the children, I think can help make it real for them.
The other possibility is there are different stations in creation to help children, especially if as a family, if the children are off school and you're going to go for a walk in nature, there's all sorts of different ways that we can quote, unquote, read the Good Friday story in nature. So when we used to do it at St.
Mary's for example, we would have the first station. Jesus is condemned to die by a muddy creek that was on the property of the church. And this sort of, the water would remind us of Pilate washing his hands of Jesus. So it might take a little bit of creativity on the parents part.
But again, there's lots of these kinds of services available to give you some ideas for how you might share what happens on Good Friday with children in ways that are relatable, accessible and tangible to them.
00:26:23 Natalie Thomas
Thank you so much, Libby. And we're going to save Easter for next week since we in the, the technically this week ends on the listeners experience will end on Saturday and then we'll get into Easter on Sunday. But thank you so much for those powerful ideas. I know that we are going to put into practice.
I'm making this royal re decision. I love, I know, I love this.
00:26:48 James Thomas
Idea and not for the first time.
00:26:49 Natalie Thomas
And not for the first time. Yeah, this idea of the physical encounters of, of the Good Friday and to suggest that with the families that we serve with as well. So thank you again to the Reverend Dr. Libby Catania for being with us. You can find the work that she does on the Limina Retreat center, which we will link to below.
And you can stay in touch with us between now and next week on Facebook or Instagram or our website, Gmail. Everything, everything and everywhere we are. Bedtime chapel.com bedtime chapel handle and until next week, during this very Holy Week, we will be praying with you.
