We would like to offer some ideas for your website for the seasons of Mardi Gras, Lent, and Easter. Following are the liturgical dates coming up in 2013:

• Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday/Shrove Tuesday) February 12th
• Ash Wednesday February 13th
• Palm Sunday March 24th
• Holy Thursday March 28th
• Good Friday March 29th
• Holy Saturday March 30th
• Easter Sunday March 31st

There are many great resources for media and links to share with your parish, school, or ministry on these subjects: MARDI GRAS We would like to welcome a new member to Catholic Web Services, Jeff Young, who produces the popular blog & podcast The Catholic Foodie: Where Food Meets Faith.  Jeff is from New Orleans, the hometown of Mardi Gras, where food is king, and he offers fantastic recipes and mixes it with his Catholic Faith.  Jeff uses WordPress for his website and offers other useful links and resources at Catholic Foodie.  One of my favorite traditions of Mardi Gras is having a King Cake, which is served at parties from the time of the Epiphany until Mardi Gras.  A small baby Jesus is inserted into the cake before icing, and the person who gets the slice with baby Jesus is required to bake the cake for the next party.  Jeff offers a delicious recipe for his version of the King Cake: The Catholic Foodie’s Mardi Gras King Cake Recipe

King Cake with Baby Jesus

Here is a great video to share about the Catholic origens of Mardi Gras, Carnival, Fat Tuesday, Lent, and Ash Wednesday:   LENT A number of great websites offer resources to share with your parish or students to learn about the Lenten Season. Busted Halo, is a great resource for young adults and is producing some excellent content to share: Blog about origens of the pretzel with Lent Blog about 25 Great things to do for Lent (Fasting, Prayer, & Almsgiving) Busted Halo’s Fast/Pray/Give Lenten Calendar 2013–coming soon Two minute video explaining the meaning of Ash Wednesday & Lent: Catholic Cuisine – Dust Cake (kids activity) before Ash Wednesday CatholicMom.com offers a huge page of Resources for mothers, children, & family for Lent Life Teen offers 25 ideas about what to give up for Lent Word On Fire–Fr. Barron comments on Lent in this informative video: You may also want to consider Fr. Barron’s DVD on the Seven Deadly Sins for a study group for Lent AmericanCatholic.org offers many resources for Lent including videos, blogs, e-cards, and a weekly Lenten retreat. Easter There are many resources available to help in celebrating the 50 days of the Easter Season.  Busted Halo suggests 5 ways to celebrate Easter. Catholic Online offers a page full of Resources to share for both Lent & Easter CatholicMom.com’s many bloggers offer a number of good Resources for Easter   We at Catholic Web Services wish you all a very holy season of Lent, and hope this blog helped you with some ideas for your website.  Your comments are welcome!   Here is Busted Halo’s Holy Week in Two Minutes:

Lent 4.5 has many great resources for living a simple life during Lent.

Here is also an interesting Ecological Stations of the Cross based on St. Francis’ Canticle of the Creatures