First Steps in Your Journey of Faith and Parish Life: A Baby Journal from Baptism to First Reconciliation - Hardcover

This full-color, illustrated baby journal, designed especially for Catholic families at the birth or Baptism of a child, gathers photos and reflections from parents about the significant events and developments in the child’s first seven years, from birth to Baptism to preparation for First Reconciliation. The focus is on the family’s faith, the child’s year-to-year spiritual growth, and the importance of parish life. Text offers questions prompting parents to record memories and also provides prayers for the child; quotes from Scripture, the Catechism, and the saints; and brief saint biographies of special interest to children and family life.

First Steps is a baby journal with a unique, refreshing spiritual focus. It encourages families to cultivate and record a child’s “journey of faith and parish life,”from birth and Baptism all the way to First Reconciliation.

Parents fill the book with photos and answers to questions about the significant events and developments in a child’s first seven years. As they do, they are prompted to consider the child’s significance as the fruit of their love; the meaning of Baptism as the child’s “spiritual birthday”; signs of the child’s spiritual growth, year by year; and the critical role of parish life in raising the child in the Faith.

Created especially for Catholic families, First Steps offers these features you won’t find in other baby journals:

· Prayers for the child and the home, to God, the saints, and the child’s guardian angel

· Thoughtful quotes to ponder from Scripture, the Catechism, and the saints

· Brief saint biographies of special interest to children and family life

· A section designed to strengthen the involvement of the child’s family in the parish

· A final encouragement to the child, in the seventh year, to prepare for First Reconciliation.

Beautifully designed and illustrated, First Steps makes a perfect gift for the birth or Baptism of a child. Its emphasis on parish life makes it especially attractive as a pastoral gift on those occasions. It provides Catholic parents a thoughtful, faith-deepening way to tell the story of how a child came to grow, not just in age, but in grace.