Bless the Lord: Write Your Own Canticle

One of my very favorite readings from morning prayer is the canticle from Daniel (start at verse 57) where the 3 men thrown into the fire and start praising God. In my head it’s always linked to St. Francis’ Canticle of the Sun, which is of the same sort. And both are inextricably linked in my head and heart with one of my favorite books from one of my favorite children’s authors, Tomie de Paola: Let the Whole Earth Sing Praise.

Let the Whole Earth Sing Praise is a lesser known title from de Paola, as are most of his pieces with religious themes. It is small and short, and it’s text is hand-lettered, and it is perfect. Included in the author’s note at the beginning, is the fact the book is his own take on both of these important canticles.

Today in honor of Saint Francis, my kiddos and I read this book, and we talked about how God created everything around us and how glorious that is. We talked about our favorite aspects of this big, wide world, and the way that creation points us to God. We talked about Saint Francis’ canticle too and his inspiration. And then, with all this in mind, we wrote our own.

For G, this was an opportunity to practice her writing and her handwriting. So I printed off pages with 2 dotted lines on them, and allowed her to write herself. She always does better when handwriting practice serves a functional, interesting purpose, and she was excited about this project, so her letters came out really well.

For Will, I sat with him and he dictated his sentences to me. They’re pretty funny, and while I tried to steer him away from inanimate objects and towards God’s own creation, I also didn’t want to stifle his own creative spirit, and so let “limousines bless the Lord” stand. Once he had “written” his text, we printed them out on card stock.

And then they illustrated. I was delighted to see how carefully and diligently both kids worked at their illustrations, and how much thought they put into each mark of the crayon (though it took some translating for me to understand what the marks meant).

Once the illustrations were done, we used my handy dandy book binder (one of my best purchases ever) to make their canticles official. Having a project bound really does make it extra special to the kids. They always work harder and spend more time on something if they know that we can bind it afterwards.

And now, with very little fuss and not a whole lot of effort on my part, my kids have a deeper understanding of what it means for their whole selves to want to praise God and to take wonder and joy in His creation. And they’ll be more likely to remember St. Francis and the book of Daniel because we completed a hands-on project that made it their own.

In case you’re looking to make your own canticles with your kids, here’s my pdf for pages with just a couple dotted lines. Page one has 2 dotted lines and page two has 4, giving you some flexibility for however verbose your child is in his praise.

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