The children and I also talked about the story of Jesus in the Wilderness from Matthew 4:1-11. See if your child remembers the 3 temptations of Christ.
All the children are coming home with a little pipe cleaner pretzel. If you would like to see the story and tradition they learned about, you can retell the story below to your child or have them tell it to you.
Angelo and the Pretzel
A long time ago, there was a monk in Italy named Angelo. Angelo worked in the monastery kitchen baking bread.
One morning, Angelo began to bake the day's bread. Since it was Lent, he didn't put any butter, eggs or sugar into the dough.
While the bread was in the oven, Angelo sat down to think and pray. The children in his parish didn't seem to be learning their prayers. He wished he could come up with a clever way to help them remember. As Angelo thought, he rolled a leftover piece of dough between his fingers.
He put the dough on a pan and baked it. Angelo got busy cleaning the kitchen and let the dough bake too long. But when he tasted it, he decided it was delicious.
That afternoon, Angelo baked an entire batch of pretiolas. When the children came to the bakery to visit him, he gave the pretiolas to those who knew their prayers.
And that's the story of a monk named Angelo and the very first pretzel.
