Using Quilt Making to Teach About the Sacraments

Say to the Children
A quilt brings together many separate pieces of material and color into a harmonious whole. Making a quilt can bring us into greater unity and community as we each make a design that becomes part of a large quilt that represents the Sacrament you are preparing to celebrate.

The quilt and our experience of making it will echo Jesus’ prayer of unity: “That they all may be one as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they may be one is us” (John 17:22-23). Jesus’ prayer expresses how important it is that we restore unity between ourselves and God, who created us to be at one with him. Jesus came to restore that unity with our Loving Creator and with one another.

Since the Sacraments are gifts of God that help us grow in unity, making community quilts can help you remember and celebrate these wonderful gifts with a warm, creative glow.

The celebrations of the Sacraments involve things you can see, touch, and taste, things you can grasp through your senses—to carry your minds and hearts into the deep, invisible things that the senses can’t grasp. You can’t see God, love, forgiveness, harmony, and joy, yet they are all real and, in fact, the most important realities in life.

In making community quilts, you also use things you can see—things like cloth, paper, color, and symbolic shapes—to convey meanings you can’t see but grasp with your inner vision of mind and heart. The external symbols help you remember and celebrate the invisible graces and blessings God wants to give you to bring you into unity and harmony with his peace, love, and joy.

As you watch the different pieces of the quilt and all the different symbols come into the unity and harmony of the whole quilt, remember this: God wants us all to be as one, to bring all of us into happy unity and harmony with himself, through Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, with the saints and Mary, our blessed Mother, and with each other.

ACTIVITY: Community Quilt Craft

MATERIALS

• Sacrament symbol patterns made by students (for sketches of Sacrament patterns click here. Also see “Symbol Ideas” belowfor suggested patterns for Baptism, First Reconciliation, First Communion, and Confirmation)
• 9” x 12” quilt pieces of construction paper, cardstock, felt, or art foam (one for each child or family)
• a wide variety of decorative art supplies in various colors (paper, felt, foam, material, art jewels, etc.) for decorating each symbol
• one background piece of poster board, craft paper, cloth, or felt large enough to hold all the individual quilt pieces, leaving 1” to 2” space around each piece
• copy paper and pencils to make patterns
• scissors
• glue
• markers (as an option, Sacrament symbol patterns can be traced directly on the individual quilt pieces; muslin works best for this)

Note: You or a parent can take responsibility for affixing all the individual pieces onto the large background piece. This final step need not be part of the craft activity during class time. Depending on the material you use to make the individual quilt pieces and what you are using for the background, you will need needle, thread, sewing machine, and material for hems, borders, and hanging tabs.

PROCEDURE

1. Draw a Sacrament symbol pattern on a piece of copy paper. Base the symbol on one of the ideas suggested in the patterns scattered throughout the article or make up your own. Cut out the pattern. The pattern should measure no more than 8 ½” x 11.”
2. Trace the Sacrament symbol pattern onto a piece of construction paper, cardstock, felt, or art foam and cut it out.
3. Decorate the symbol with other art materials and glue the symbol to your quilt piece.
4. Arrange finished quilt pieces on the large background. Later they will be permanently affixed in place.

Idea: For a Reconciliation quilt, you might want to form a cross in the center of the quilt by placing quilt pieces in clusters of four in each corner.

Tips: Limit the colors of the background pieces for the symbols to three, such as red, light blue, and dark blue; or blue, green, and yellow. For Reconciliation, consider deep blue, turquoise, and yellow on a purple background. One catechist used a small calico print to good effect. With no limitations on colors for the symbols, there will be lots of brightness but unity as well.

Symbol Ideas
Some symbols are unique to a particular sacrament while others are universal; they apply to several or perhaps all of the Sacraments. Here are some suggestions for Baptism, First Reconciliation, First Communion, and Confirmation.

• Baptism: fish, water, shell, deer and running water, baptismal robe, candle
• First Reconciliation: cross (with flowers or jewels), heart, or doves, two hands shaking, people hugging, hand wreath, rainbow, peace symbol, hand raised in absolution
• First Communion: bread, wheat stalks, paten with hosts, chalice, vine and grapes, cross with jewels or flowers, heart, butterfly, sun
• Confirmation: dove, Bible, heart, outstretched hand, cross