Stations of Light Prayer Gems

Back in April, I gave a brief tutorial on a prayer aid that I developed for my children, the Stations of the Cross prayer gems.  (You can re-visit that tutorial here.)  I've updated that prayer aid a bit, and adapted it to help my kids learn the Stations of Light. 

The Stations of Light,which are also called the "Via Lucis," or "Way of Light," or "The Stations of the Ressurection."  They are a relatively new devotion in the Catholic Church. It was first observed in Rome in 1990.

Like the Station of the Cross, it has 14 steps.  However, these steps focus on the appearances of Jesus and the miracles that occurred after He rose from the dead.  When this is prayed as a group, a paschal candle is carried instead of a cross.  It can be prayed anytime during the year but is especially appropriate between Easter Sunday and Pentecost.  You can find out more about each of the various stations at the Our Sunday Visitor website here.   You can also find out more about the devotion here at the Archdiocese of Detroit website.

I wanted to teach this beautiful meditation to my children, so I created some prayer stones similar to the ones I made for the Stations of the Cross, but using images that represent the various Stations of Light.  You can use the icon-type images on the Archdiocese of Detroit website (listed above).  I found some beautiful full color images on The Bookworm. 

After downloading the images, I pasted them into Microsoft Publisher to resize them to the appropriate size to fit my clear glass gems.   I printed them out, sprayed them with a light coating of hairspray (to prevent bleeding or smearing of the images), then attached them to the back of the gems with Mod Podge.  I then sealed the back of the images with a couple of coats of Mode Podge.

I also printed out a set of cards to use with the prayer gems.  I punched a hole in the upper left hand corner of the images and thread them onto a reclosable ring.

I used a cloth bag to store my Stations of the Cross gems, but wanted to try something different. I purchased a "Craftmates Lockables" 14-compartment box on sale at Joann's Fabrics and Crafts. The glass gems fit perfectly in the compartments. I glued a picture to each compartment and numbered them from I to XIV.  (A good way to help your children learn their Roman numerals at the same time!) Now we can meditate on each station while looking at the cards and putting the prayer gems in their appropriate compartments.

Here are a few photos of my Stations of the Resurrection prayer gems and their storage container:

These prayer gems are so easy to make and would be a perfect craft for a vacation bible school.  I can imagine using them to teach the rosary or almost any other prayer.  It's just a matter of finding the right images.