Saints Peter Claver and Robert Bellarmine

Saints Peter Claver and Robert Bellarmine: Feast Days Sept. 9th & 17th

Today, September 10th, I decided to make homemade blueberry muffins with my daughter using a recipe a friend of mine had shared with me. As we were getting our ingredients together, my daughter asked, "Mommy, what saint are we making these for?" I looked at her, and not having planned anything for a saint today, replied: "Well, I don't know, but let me check our liturgical calendar and if there's a saint listed for today we will make our muffins for them."

After consulting our calendar, I learned that today, September 10th did not have a saint listed, but a week from today, September 17th, is the feast day of Saint Robert Bellarmine, who was a Jesuit cardinal and is a Doctor of the Church. Looking at yesterday's date, I discovered that September 9th is the feast day of Saint Peter Claver, a Jesuit priest who ministered and served the people brought against their will as slaves from Africa to South America. My daughter and I then decided that our breakfast muffins would have the theme: "Muffins with the Jesuits." As my children and I ate muffins, I shared with them the information I'd learned about both saints. Since I didn't have a lot of time to plan an activity to help my children learn about these two saints, I drew two pictures for them to color: (1) A picture of a stethoscope with a cross on it for Saint Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church, and (2) a picture of shackles for Saint Robert Claver, Patron Saint of Slaves. Next year, I plan on coming up with a better craft and will post an update here. What I learned from today though, is that it is possible to incorporate food and activities to celebrate the saints even without a lot of planning.

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