Last Minute Holy Week at Home

March 31, 2026 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

Spy Wednesday!

30 Coins Hidden

Tenebrae means “shadow” or “darkness.” The Liturgy of the Hours is chanted and with the completion of each reading, a candle is extinguished until the church is pitch black.

Spy Wednesday is traditionally the day we read how Mary anointed Jesus’ Feet with expensive oil and dried His Feet with her hair. Judas criticizes Mary’s efforts, mentioning that the price of the expensive oil would be better suited to help the poor. Judas looks for an opportunity to turn Jesus over to the chief priests and will receive 30 coins for his betrayal; approximately one tenth the expense of the anointing oil.

Filed Under: #CatholicCrafts, Catholic Crafts, Catholic Resources, family, Holy Week, Liturgical Calendar Crafts, Printables, Treasure Chest crafts and activities Tagged With: Catholic Printables, Holy Week, printables

March Saints Days + LENT!

March 6, 2026 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

Equipping Catholic Families for March Saints!

Welcome to our monthly summary of crafts and family traditions related to the Monthly Devotion, Key Feast Days and the Liturgical Season of LENT!

The Monthly Devotion for March is St Joseph!

We love St. Joseph so much that we designed a Holy Medal for him!

This 1.25” St Joseph Medal honors St Joseph as Guardian of the Redeemer AND Protector of Families. Keychain included. This is an EXCELLENT Prompt to Pray for St Joseph’s Intercession! MORE INFO

Book Recommendations

These books are SO GOOD!

Consecration to St. Joseph by Fr. Donald Calloway

Filed Under: Catholic Crafts, Feast Day Fun, Holy Week, Lent, Liturgical Calendar Crafts, prayer, Printables Tagged With: Catholic Printables, Feast Day Fun, Lent, prayer, printables

Print and Pray Craft Kits for Lent

February 9, 2026 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

Have you thought of what you’d like to do for Lent this year?

Giving up something, adding a prayerful devotion, donating money or time for the needs of the poor?

Here are a couple of links to print-and-pray craft kits that are EASY to adopt for a prayerFULL LENT, even if it’s totally LAST MINUTE!

Filed Under: #CatholicCrafts, Catholic Crafts, Holy Week, Lent, prayer, Printables Tagged With: catholic crafts, Catholic Printables, Holy Week, Lent, prayer, printables

Ash Wednesday is next week already!

February 8, 2026 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

Just in time…the Catholic Mom Bundle for Lent 2026 is available now!

Now, with this being my 21st Catholic Mom Bundle I’m participating in, I always look forward to sharing some sneak peeks into the Bundle and while I’m always kind of excited about the collection of resources, this Lent’s Bundle has some amazing offerings from some NEW contributors! One of the printables is over 200 pages and it outlines the different charisms we can encourage in our kids…and how to do just that!

Filed Under: #CatholicCrafts, Catholic Crafts, Holy Week, Lent, Liturgical Calendar Crafts Tagged With: catholic crafts, Catholic Printables, Lent, liturgical calendar, sale

Rosary Resources and Sacrament Prep!

February 8, 2026 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

Rosary Resources

These Rosary Resources are already researched and formatted with the prayers and Mysteries of the Rosary. The craft kits are fun activities to color, embellish and assemble into powerful prayer counters, keeping little hands busy and hearts focused and prayerful.

Spiritual Bouquet of Prayer Petal Flowers

Filed Under: Catholic Crafts, prayer, Printables, Rosary, Sacraments Tagged With: catholic crafts, Catholic Printables, prayer, printables, Rosary, Sacraments

Calling all Catholics: A Practical Self-Guided Retreat for Consistent Prayer from the Heart

February 3, 2026 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

This self-guided retreat is an invitation to rediscover prayer in the midst of ordinary life. Instead of waiting for the “perfect” quiet moment, or quieter season in your life, you’ll learn how to turn your real, everyday experiences into personal prompts to pray from the heart. Daily chores, routines, distractions, temptations, frustrations, and even your habits and weaknesses become gentle reminders to reach for the Lord. Nothing is wasted — every thought, feeling, and task can become a small, personal return to His presence…and a custom conversation-starter with Him. By the end of this retreat, you’ll be building a rhythm of prayer that grows naturally out of your real life,

deepening your personal relationship with Jesus that is honest, steady, and alive.

In 2020, we released this deeply personal, but practical book about prayer: Prompt Me to Pray by Monica McConkey

Prompt Me to Pray by Monica McConkey presents practical tips for prayer that can be easily customized to fit our busy lives, habits, daily tasks, and even our struggles. Recognizing our littleness as an inexhaustible source of Prompts to Pray helps us to reach out humbly in prayer when we need Him most and reminds us that God can use all things for good.

The book features different approaches to heartfelt prayer, including journaling and praying out loud, with both spontaneous and classic prayers. It also includes journaling pages with specific writing prompts and prayers to customize your own personal plan for prayer, and a prayer vault of classic prayers and templates with full color pocket prayer prompts.

And now, we are offering a Self-Guided Retreat which includes the original book Prompt Me to Pray and the Retreat Companion workbook to crystallize your own customized Prayer plan, using personal and practical reminders that are unique to you!

The Retreat Companion is a 27-page booklet for your eyes only! Within these workbook pages, you can explore your most effective, consistent prompts, and practicing these prompts will most certainly lead to more consistent, heartfelt prayer as we strive to pray without ceasing. 1 Thessalonians 5:17

I love this quote from St. Alphonsus Liguori from his book How to Converse with God

Acquire the habit of speaking to God as if you were alone with Him, familiarly and with confidence and love, as to the dearest and most loving of friends. Speak to Him often of your business, your plans, your troubles, your fears– of everything that concerns you.

Do you yearn for your relationship with Jesus to feel deeper and more real?
Are you ready for your own personal season of consistent and intimate prayer from the heart?

Filed Under: Catholic Crafts, Catholic Resources, prayer, retreat Tagged With: Catholic Books, prayer, reflection

Live Liturgically this February!

February 2, 2026 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

Equipping Catholic Families for February Saints Days!

This is our monthly summary of crafts and family traditions related to the Monthly Devotion, Key Feast Days, and the appropriate Season of the Liturgical Calendar. As our kids get older, our activities and commitment to Catholic crafts have changed and adjusted (at least for our last TEEN and young adult kids)! While we haven’t exactly been adding a lot of Catholic crafts around here, we do enjoy pulling out the crafts and programs we’ve developed over the years, sometimes sharing them with younger families in our parish!

The Monthly Devotion for February is
the Holy Family

This month, the official Devotion focuses on the Holy Family. What an awesome example of family life, St Joseph, Mother Mary, and Jesus offer us!

Holy Family Crafts

Holy Family Felt Friends Tutorial

Filed Under: #CatholicCrafts, Catholic Crafts, DIY Crafts, Family crafts, Feast Day Fun, Liturgical Calendar Crafts, prayer, Printables, Treasure Chest crafts and activities Tagged With: Catholic Printables, Feast Day Fun, Lent, liturgical calendar, Saints Activities

Prompts to Pray are evolving!

January 20, 2026 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

Over the years, this Arma Dei Catholic family business has gradually involved in its’ mission. While we still create and offer many products to help families and classroom teach and celebrate the Catholic Faith, we have felt prompted to create and practice Prompts to help us PRAY MORE, pray more consistently and from the heart.

In 2020, we published Prompt Me to Pray.

Prompt Me to Pray by Monica McConkey presents practical tips for prayer that can be easily customized to fit our busy lives, habits, daily tasks, and even our struggles. Recognizing our littleness as an inexhaustible source of Prompts to Pray helps us to reach out humbly in prayer when we need Him most and reminds us that God can use all things for good.

Monica shares the Prompts to Pray that she has discovered as she pursues consistent, heartfelt prayer and a personal relationship with Jesus.

Since this book, we have created additional resources to prompt us to pray through the Liturgical Seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter.

We have created a number of Catholic Craft Kit Printables to prompt us to pray throughout all seasons of the Liturgical Calendar including the 32 or 33 weeks of Ordinary Time.

In the weeks a head we will be showing you a number of practical little gifts that will also prompt us all to pray
a little more every day!

Filed Under: Catholic Crafts

NEW Digital Products Spotlight!

January 20, 2026 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

23 Saints research templates formatted as full color recipe card/postcards with quick and quantifiable facts, plus black and white templates for research projects.
Saint Scripts Series FOUR contains the full color postcards plus blank templates with coloring picture for these Saints:
Ven Antonietta Meo, St Carlo Acutis, Bl Chiara Badano, St Damien of Molokai, St Dymphna, St Francesca, St Jacinta,
St Francis de Sales, Ven Fulton Sheen, St Gertrude, St Ignatius of Loyola, Bl Imelda Lambertini, St John of the Cross,
St José Sanchez del Rio, St Katherine Drexel, St Lazarus, St Martha, St Mary, St Perpetua, St Felicity, St Pier Giorgio Frassati,
St Philomena, St Rose of Lima. With permission to copy for a whole class!
Saint Scripts FOUR

The Holy Rummoli craft kit includes the 9 classic Card and Combo spaces, along with 8 additional custom Cathletics Card and Combo spaces, arranged to create the table-top Rummoli game.

Holy Rummoli can also be played with our own Cathletics Playing Cards!
You will love the thoughtful Card combos featuring our Catholic Faith and Catechism!

Holy Rummoli can be played with Cathletics (or a regular playing card deck) and a set of Poker Chips or Bingo tokens (not included).

Holy Rummoli!

Here’s something different! Here’s a Prayer App to help you say the 30 Day Cloak of St Joseph Novena using your phone!

A Pocket Prayer APP
The Cloak of St. Joseph

A meticulously designed 13-page PDF formatted to your PHONE!

This APP includes the entire 30-day Devotion of The Cloak of St Joseph, including all prayers and offerings, supplications, litany and invocations and includes our custom
Praying St Joseph illustration.

A Pocket Prayer APP for the Cloak of St Joseph

and consistent with our newly focused mission to prompt people to pray more consistently and from the heart (with the help of the Saints), here’s an introduction to a very special craft kit, close to my heart, that I created last year during Lent, too late to share for LAST Lent.

Filed Under: Catholic Crafts, Liturgical Calendar Crafts, prayer, Printables, Saints Tagged With: Catholic Printables, prayer, printables, Saints

equipping Catholics for Advent and December SAINTS

November 17, 2025 by Monica McConkey Leave a Comment

December Saints Days and ADVENT!

Equipping Catholic Families for December Saints!

Advent starts on November 30th!

Here is our monthly summary of crafts and family traditions related to the Monthly Devotion, Key Feast Days, and the appropriate Season of the Liturgical Calendar: Advent!

We’ve got a very special Advent Calendar Craft Kit available and it combines the Jesse Tree, O Antiphons and December Saints Days, all in one!

It also includes 36 Jesse Tree / O Antiphon / Christmas ornaments and the St. Andrew’s Christmas Novena Prayer Tracker…and all of these you can print at home!

It’s not too late to get a little Christmas Shopping done AND jumpstart your Advent Prayer!

Buy Prompt Me to Pray for your best buddy who prays, and pick up the Prompt Me to Pray through Advent and Prompt Me to Pray through Christmas booklets to bump up your prayer right into the new year!

See the

Prompt Me to Pray through Advent
Prompt Me to Pray through Christmas

Prompt Me to Pray Advent and Book BUNDLE

are available by PDF or printed and shipped to you!

Key Feast Days in December:

St Francis Xavier (December 3)
St John Damascene (December 4)
St Nicholas (December 6)
St Ambrose (December 7)
Immaculate Conception (December 8)
St Juan Diego (December 9)
Our Lady of Loretto (December 10)
Our Lady, Queen of Angels (December 11)
St Damasus I (December 11)
Our Lady of Guadalupe (December 12)
St Lucy (December 13)
Bambinelli Sunday (December 14)
St John of the Cross (December 14)
O Antiphons (December 17-23)
Expectation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Dec 18)
St Abraham, St Isaac, St Jacob (December 20)
St Thomas, St Peter Canisius (December 21)
St John of Kanty (December 23)
The Birth of Jesus (December 25)
St Stephen (December 26)
St John Apostle (December 27)
Holy Innocents (December 28)
St Thomas Becket (December 29)
Feast of the Holy Family (December 30)

Season of the Liturgical Calendar: Advent!

Anticipating Advent: Prep for Advent: Summary of Crafts and Activities
from the ARCHIVES: Keep Christ in Christmas: read Him, look for Him, pray to Him, visit him, share Him, give for Him; live for Him Keep Christ in Christmas

The Advent Calendar

The Advent Calendar is a great way to countdown the days until Christmas.

Our own Jesse Tree and O Antiphon Advent Calendar is available by PDF and includes SO much!

This PREMIUM Craft Kit offers black and white templates to help you countdown (and pray!) through the days of Advent, with:
+one Letter-sized (8.5″x11″) fully illustrated Jesse Tree/O Antiphon/Saints Advent Calendar*

+one oversized (10″x15″) fully illustrated Jesse Tree/O Antiphon/Saints Advent Calendar*

+36 double-sided (2.5″) fully illustrated Jesse Tree/O Antiphon Advent Ornaments

+one fully illustrated Catholic Anticipation Prayer / St. Andrew’s Novena Prayer Counter

2025 Jesse Tree and O Antiphon Advent Calendar with Ornaments and Novena Prayer Counter

You’ll find lots of chocolate covered ones in the stores now, but you can make your own and fill it with dollarstore Nativity figures, holy medals, Saint pegs, Super Saints, printable Advent Quest challenges and of course your favorite treats or chocolates. There are so many ways to make an Advent Calendar (including this one we made years ago) and we found 35 [Awesome} DIY Advent Calendars here.

Fill up your Advent Calendar with faith-filled toys, treats and prayers:

The Jesse Tree

The Jesse Tree is a wonderful faith-filled activity with Biblical symbols and figures and readings for each day of Advent. Jesus’ Lineage unfolds each day, leading up to His Birth on December 25th. You can make a nicely crafted banner like our The Family Handprint Jesse Tree and bring it out for Advent and Lent each year!

If you don’t want to just print yourself our BRAND NEW, SUPER EASY Jesse Tree Advent Calendar

Here are some of my other favorite Jesse Tree kits and tips:

Our Family Jesse Tree from Faith and Fabric
Jesse Tree Ornament Exchange
My Jesse Tree: The Ultimate Guide to Making a Jesse Tree
Printable 3-D Jesse Tree Ornaments by Drawn2BCreative!
The Mosaic Jesse Tree at To Jesus, Sincerely
Jesse Tree O Antiphon Advent Calendar Printable by Arma Dei

The Advent Wreath

It can be tricky getting those 3 purple and 1 white candles at the last minute, so we often pick them up throughout the year when we see them…or we’ve been known to tie purple and pink ribbons around white candles, in a pinch.

We’ve also used Dollar Store Votive candles and dressed them up in purple and pink!

One year, we made this Mailbox Blessings Advent Wreath and wrote little notes to each other throughout Advent, placing them in these adorable little mailboxes.

Dollar Store Advent Wreath

DIY Advent Wreath with Dollar Store Votives

Advent Prayers

Advent is an excellent opportunity to ramp up our family prayers…morning, before or after meals, around the Advent Wreath, in the car (bustling around to different events) or at bedtime!

Here are some of our prayerful craft kit printables to get you started:

New Family Traditions

This time of year there is a lot of talk about different activities and family traditions to help focus Advent within the family. Don’t try them all at once! Choose one that’s right for you and get your kids involved to keep it going throughout Advent. If good deeds and sacrifices are part of your Advent tradition…consider Nesting…for Sock Baby Jesus.

This year we hosted a Sock Baby Jesus Workshop! Every kid made their own Sock Baby Jesus and we even made a couple more to give to a few other families in our Parish!