Students learn about Lent through artwork

Lent is a 40-day season of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving that begins on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22, and ends at sundown on Holy Thursday, April 6. During this time, Catholic school students of the Archdiocese of Newark have been learning about the life and ministry of Jesus and preparing to celebrate the Lord's Resurrection on Easter. 

In addition to participating in prayer services, almsgiving, and sacrifice, one of the many ways students are learning about Lent is through artwork. Throughout history, artists have used artworks to express their own faith, to describe Biblical events, and as a form of worship .  

Here are some of the art projects students have been working on during Lent. 

Pre-K 4 students at Saint Francis Academy in Union City created Easter Cross mosaics to display in their classroom. 

At Queen of Peace Grammar School in North Arlington, 3rd and 4th graders worked with prayer partners to make Easter Morning Sunrise Crosses. 

The 5th and 6th graders at Academy of Our Lady in Glen Rock learned the art of making Pysanky eggs, also called Ukrainian Easter eggs, decorated to symbolize nature's rebirth in the spring. 

Pysanky are made using batik or a reverse wax method. Fresh eggs are dipped in dyes beginning with lighter colors and finishing with darker pigments. Designs are drawn on each egg with hot beeswax. When the process is complete, the layers of hardened wax melt away by placing the egg near a flame, revealing the egg’s design in colors of yellow, orange and red. 

The finished pysanky are given to friends and loved ones during the Easter season with the words, “Christos Voskrese!” – Christ is Risen!  

Students at Saint Thomas the Apostle School in Bloomfield created Celtic and Lent crosses to display in hallways in the weeks leading up to Lent. 

Students at Holy Trinity School in Westfield created an artistic paper cross based on their Lenten promises and sacrifices. They gifted the cross to Father Anthony Randazzo, pastor of Holy Trinity Church, on Ash Wednesday. 

Students at Academy of Our Lady of Grace in Fairview created purple crosses to symbolize the beginning of the Lenten season. 

Second grade students at Holy Trinity School in Westfield presented a theatrical rendition of The Last Supper for their families during the last week of Lent.