forty days: lenten reading for children

The family read-alouds take a more spiritual

loft during this penitential season. Last week

we read "The Way of the Cross: the Story of Padre Pio"

and tonight we embarked on the tale of

Evangeline by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

The mystical opening lines:

This is the forest primeval. The murmuring
pines and the hemlocks,
Bearded with moss, and in garments green,
indistinct in the twilight,
Stand like Druids of eld, with voices sad
and prophetic,
Stand like harpers hoar, with beards that
rest on their bosoms.
Loud from its rocky caverns, the deep-
voiced neighboring ocean
Speaks, and in accents disconsolate answers
the wail of the forest.

And for daily meditation, the children are contemplating the lovely retreat

outlined in "My Path to Heaven"