The feast table is decked out in the bright colors of spring and symbols of new life which means I need to wish you all a happy and blessed Octave of Easter! Today we are digging in my top right drawer of the feast table or our family altar. I have a little something I put together to organize all those feast table goodies that I would like to share with you: a Liturgical Binder.
Here you can see how the kids burdened our little lilac branches with a few too many Easter egg ornaments, as well as our current Easter feast table decor. In the basket on the right you can see our rosaries and Divine Mercy Chaplet guide for praying the Divine Mercy Novena.
Creating a Liturgical Binder
When I think back to my first years as a Catholic, there was so little we owned for decorating our home in Catholic style. Our stash of liturgical year paraphernalia is still quite small (a few holy cards, Mass cards, and art prints) but I recently decided I needed a way to organize it all.
I love my planner for knowing when the feast days fall, but I wanted to know at a glance what I had for the liturgical month ahead and be able to store printables I hoped to use with my family.
Enter the liturgical binder.
Step 1- Gather your materials
Here are the things I gathered to create our liturgical binder:
- An accordion file organizer (mine is from Amazon for $6!)
- Holy Cards
- Religious art prints
- Prayer guides and aids
- Mass cards
Step 2- Label your binder tabs
I just used the set of tabs that came with my accordion file and wrote on them in Sharpie. You could go as fancy-smanshy here as you want, but I was looking for a quick and painless way to complete this project.
My accordion file had 12 tabs, so I designated my slots as follows:
- January/February
- March/April
- May/June
- July/August
- September/October
- November/December
- Advent/Christmas
- Lent/Easter
- Mary
This gives me several other tabs to grow into!
Step 3 – Organize and store your liturgical goodies
This step was pretty quick for me since we haven’t acquired a whole lot! I do plan on adding printables to this as I come upon them. (My first stop will be Look to Him and Be Radiant’s beautiful printable prayers.)
Step 4 – Print monthly liturgical calendars for quick reference
I printed my monthly liturgical schedules (found among all the other goodies in my subscriber’s printable library) and stored those in each corresponding pocket. While I could look at my planner every month, this provides a quick reference.
Step 5 – Liturgical monthly book lists
Read through the Catholic Year Book Lists
After years of missing out on reading along with the liturgical cycle of the Church, I’ve finally created a comprehensive and curated list of Catholic book lists for:
- liturgical inspired book lists by month
- Marian book list
- Rosary book list
- Catholic chapter book list
- Catholic spirituality for kids book list
- Advent & Christmas book list
- Lent & Easter book list
All in easy printable format!
Here is the liturgical binder in our feast table. It fits perfectly! (You can tour the feast table here!)
While I dreaded tackling this project, it took me less than 5 minutes to put together, and it cost less than $7 to accomplish! And wouldn’t a liturgical binder would make an awesome wedding or baby shower gift?
I’d love to know how you organize your liturgical year!
I’ve included a few more links here for you if you are intrigued by the whole idea of a feast table or family altar table:
Printable Catholic Home Executive Planner
Subscriber’s Bonus Page Sign up (for those printables!)
Help! Living the Liturgical Year Overwhelms Me!
Mass with Littles: Simple Strategies and Reasonable Expectations
