Catholic Religious Education (CRE) Week #4

Hello my fellow Catechists. I hope this post finds you well, and that your little ones have not led to premature graying of hair...or worse...caused you to go bald! I learned a valuable lesson blogging last week. Always preview. Thanks to my aunt for catching my post abnormality last week!

As you recall, last week we talked about the Trinity. The Trinity is definitely one of the mysteries of the Church that we will never understand, but I believe my Trinity Shield puzzle helped shed a little bit of light on the subject for my students.

In other news, I have a blessing to share this week! One of my kids is an eager participator. It's probably why he is my favorite, because he actually wants to be there in 7th Grade. That is rare, and he is the first one in my 2 years at 7th Grade that wants to be there. Well, he was raising his hand and trying to answer every question, and I was like "I think we have a future priest in the making." I said this halfway joking, but I wanted to see how he would respond to it, and he was beaming and told me that was one of things he wanted to be when he grew up. So now I have the extra pressure of teaching a future priest to add to the stress of 7th Grade, but this one is a good stress for sure.

Anyhow, this Sunday marks the last day of September, which means Monday is the start of October - The Month of the Holy Rosary. I figured this was a good week to teach them about the Rosary. I do hope it is something they already know, but with the way the Liturgical Year went, my expectations are low. So we will cover prayer in general and some details about the Rosary.

Then, I will let my Aide lead them in it for the rest of the class. I didn't think I was going to like having an Aide, but she's come in handy so far, and will do well at leading them in the Rosary. I am trying to help make her more involved, in case I ever need a substitute, she can fill in seamlessly. Also, I don't want her to get discouraged and feel like she is just in the way. It's still a work in progress for sure. Anyways, here is my lesson plan.

• Preparation for the Lesson
• Bring enough rosaries for the class and instructions on how to pray the Rosary.
• Write the following on the board:
• Who do you talk to when things are going bad?
• Who do you talk to when things are going good?
• When everyone gets there, have them turn to page 255 in their books.
• I am going to need 3 readers for this prayer.
• Talk about what they wrote in their binders.
• Explain that prayer is simply talking to God, just like you would talk to a friend.
• Have them read page 258.
• Have them read page 260.
• Write the five types of prayer on the board.
• Explain that the Mass is one big prayer.
• Ask them to think of another big prayer that Catholics have.
• If they can’t come up with Rosary, hold one up and ask them to identify it.
• Pass out Rosaries
• Have the students get familiar with it.
• Notice the different parts of the Rosary
• Count the beads
• See the natural separations of each part of the Rosary
• Since tomorrow is the beginning of October, and October is the Month of the Rosary, we are going to spend the rest of today talking about the Rosary and hopefully praying it as well.
• Who here prays the Rosary at home either by themselves or with their family?
• How does it make you feel?
• Do you get distracted praying for that long?
• What do you do to fight that distraction?
• In the 1200s, St. Mary appeared to St. Dominic and gave him the Rosary to fight heresies that were spreading in France.
• The Rosary consists of four groups of five mysteries each.
• Can y’all name the four groups of mysteries and the 20 mysteries?
• Joyful (Said on Monday and Saturday)
• The Annunciation
• The Visitation
• The Nativity
• The Presentation in the Temple
• The Finding in the Temple
• Luminous (Said on Thursday)
• The Baptism of Jesus
• The Wedding at Cana
• The Proclamation of the Kingdom
• The Transfiguration
• The Institution of the Eucharist
• Sorrowful (Said on Tuesday and Friday)
• The Agony in the Garden
• The Scourging at the Pillar
• The Crowning with Thorns
• The Carrying of the Cross
• The Crucifixion
• Glorious (Said on Wednesday and Sunday)
• The Resurrection
• The Ascension
• Pentecost
• The Assumption
• The Coronation of Mary
• John Paul II was responsible for giving us the Luminous Mysteries as he felt that more of Christ’s life should be included in this devotion.
• Father Spotswood, a former priest at St. Dominic, is responsible for building a Rosary Garden here.
• It is laid out in the shape of a Rosary.
• Now let’s go over how one prays the Rosary
• The first thing we do is kiss the Crucifix and make the Sign of the Cross
• Why do we kiss the Crucifix?
• Reverence
• Why do we make the Sign of the Cross?
• Because all prayers start with the Sign of the Cross
• Next, we say the Apostles’ Creed
• This is a statement of all our beliefs as a Catholic
• Then, we say the Our Father
• Followed by three Hail Mary’s
• Glory Be
• Fatima Prayer
• We then announce the First Mystery
• Say ten Hail Mary’s
• Glory Be
• Fatima Prayer
• Repeat this for the 2nd through 5th Mysteries
• Hail Holy Queen
• Rosary Prayer
• Sign of the Cross
• Kiss the Crucifix
• Now, we are going to say the Rosary with Miss Hannah leading you in it, and since today is Sunday, what mysteries will we be reflecting on?
• The Glorious Mysteries
• Now that we have prayed the Rosary, what are ways you can build a devotion to Mary and the Rosary?
• Pray it every day
• Get your family to pray it
• Pray it on the way to school
• Pray it before you go to bed

Catholic Religious Education (CRE) Week #2

Happy Friday everyone. It's that time again where I talk about my next class I am teaching as a Catechist, and recap last week. As you recall, last week my 7th grade class learned about the Liturgical Year. Some were worried that my class was too basic for 7th grade and if they went to Mass weekly, they'd know it all. Hearing that I was a little worried.

Luckily for me (unluckily for those kids) only 1 (yes 1) of my kids knew a great deal about. That kid is definitely my favorite. I know you're not supposed to have favorites, but he just seems excited to be there and has a thirst for God. His parents were also the only ones who came in the class to introduce themselves. Future priest? I sure hope so.

I almost had another mini-catastrophe. I had five people register for class. It's a bit of a small number, but manageable and not too rowdy. However, nine kids showed up!! NINE!! Luckily, I had enough stuff prepared for ten, but I definitely wasn't expecting to get close to that number. My aide also was somewhat helpful. Still not 100% sure on how I feel about her, but she can at least write neatly on the board and I might have her be the enforcer/one who tells the kids to be quiet.

On to this week though. I have to cover two chapters this week, but luckily they are the early chapters and should tie together nicely. In Chapter One, we learn about God and how we know Him, and in Chapter Two, we learn about Scripture and Tradition. While looking over my outline for this week to post, I noticed that I had a lot of reading. Sorry, kids need to read! But the outline won't be entirely helpful if it just tells you to read page 15, and you're wondering what page 15 says, so I included some of the keywords on the pages in the outline. What I am most pleased with for this week is the craft I have planned.

It's inspired by St. Iranaeus of Lyons (Patristics..WOO!) He compared a heretic to a thief who took a mosaic (picture made up of little tiles) of a king and rearranged it to look like a fox or a dog. So I am going to make my own mosaic out of construction paper, probably of a cross. Then, I am going to hand out a blank sheet of paper and exactly the same number and color of construction paper squares I used, and tell them I want them to make a picture from the squares.

But the catch is that they have to make the same picture I did without seeing mine. Then, I am going to have them show me their pictures when done. It would be nice if someone has the same picture as me, but doubtful. So I will explain to them that our Catholic faith and beliefs is the Cross. And all those pictures of other things are people who came along and misinterpreted it or changed it either on accident or purpose. And that we are blessed to have three things that help us know what we believe is right - Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium.

• Preparation for the Lesson
• Bring Bible, YouCat, Catechism and Icon of the Crucifixion, prayer shoe box.
• Set these up on a desk and make a prayer space.
• Write the following on the board:
• How do you know that God exists?
• Introduction
• Good morning, I would like you to turn to page 11. I need 4 readers.
• State that God created us to know Him.
• How do you know that God exists?
• Review their answers
• Chapter 1
• Have someone read page 15
• Divine Revelation
• God told us He exists.
• He did it in the Old and New Testament.
• Ask them what Salvation means?
• Being saved from our sins with the potential to go to Heaven.
• Page 16
• Faith – What is it?
• The gift to believe in God. All our given this gift, but not all accept it.
• Page 17
• The Church
• The Catholic Church has been around 2,000 years.
• Chapter 2
• Hand out construction paper mosaic pieces, white sheet of paper, and glue.
• Allow kids 10-15 minutes to work on this.
• How do you know that what you believe is true?
• Our truths about the Catholic faith also came from somewhere. Let’s turn in our books to page 24 and begin reading to discover where they came from.
• Write the keywords on the board as they come to them and review with them after each passage.
• Scripture
• What is it?
• What does it mean to be divinely inspired?
• Tradition
• What is it?
• Where did it come from?
• Magisterium
• What is it?
• Who makes up the Magisterium?
• I’d like you to take your Bibles and turn to the Table of Contents
• As you can see there are 73 books in the entire Bible, 46 in the Old Testament and 27 in the New Testament
• Y’all should have learned about the Old Testament last year, so let’s talk briefly about the New Testament.
• The first four books are called the Gospels, which means Good News. These four books are most of what we are studying.
• Next, is the Acts of the Apostles. This book contains a history of the Apostles and Early Church.
• After that are 21 Epistles or Letters written to specific people or churches. 14 of these were written by St. Paul and the other 7 by other Apostles or Disciples.
• Lastly, is the Book of Revelation, which contains information on how to celebrate the Mass as well as encouragement for early Christians.
• So this collection of books right here, the Bible, is one of the legs on which our Faith and Truth is built.
• Allow for questions if any.
• Next, I would like to show you this picture. Look at it and pass it around. This is called an icon, and an icon is one form of Tradition passed down to us through the ages.
• Icons are prayers in pictures that serve to convey a truth about a specific saint or story of our Faith. We will be using various icons throughout the year.
• Another form of tradition is oral tradition or word of mouth. Stories told from ancient times were passed down from generation to generation until they were written down. That is how much of the Old Testament came to be written.
• However, it wasn’t only Biblical stories that were passed down but the way which we do things. The Sacraments are another example of Tradition. We Baptize people today and receive the Eucharist today the same way they did 2,000 years ago.
• Allow for questions if any.
• Lastly, I would like for you to pass around this book. It is called the YouCat. The YouCat is short for Youth Catechism. And a Catechism is a summary of beliefs in question and answer form.
• The Magisterium wrote the YouCat for people your age, because the other Catechism wasn’t easily readable to y’all. If you don’t have one, I’d encourage you to ask your parents to get you one.
• It is a valuable book that answers some hard questions, a lot of which we won’t get to cover this year.
• Allow for questions if any.
• Conclusion
• I would encourage each of you to read through the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles.
• You could read one chapter a week and do it with your family.
• By doing this, you’ll get a better idea about the life of Jesus and the life of the early Church.
• Next week we will be talking about the Trinity.
• Have a good rest of the week, and I look forward to seeing y’all next week.

Bible Study - 1st Peter 2:11-25

Welcome to the next installment of our Bible Study. Like last week, this will be a recap post instead of a preview post. We've had mixed results with the Bible Study so far. I think myself and another guy in the group expected a whole lot more out of it and expected it to be mind-blowing. So to us, it hasn't lived up to expectations. But I think others enjoy it for what it is - a small group of faith, food, and fellowship with two kids crawling and one 3 year old.

However, to try and make the Bible Study a little better, we decided to use questions Ignatius Press provided on their website. The results were better, but with all things spiritual, it could always stand to use some improvement. Now for my commentary/thoughts/ramblings.

In verses 11, we see elements of spiritual warfare, something the Catholic Epistles are known for in their writings. We are also reminded that we are aliens or sojourners in this world, meaning that we are required to live in the world but not be of it. This is not always easy to accomplish as we get pulled in many directions, but we must be aware at all times that our ultimate goal is Heaven.

Verse 12 is where we discussed the first question, "What is the day of visitation?" In layman's terms, this is the final day of judgment at the end of the age (not the end of the world as the world doesn't end). We see Jesus make reference to this day in Luke 19:44 when Jesus was rebuking the Pharisees (Shocker I know!) because they were criticizing him for riding a donkey like a king aka Palm Sunday. We also see the day of visitation reference in Sirach 18:19-27.

Verses 13-17 are a little tough to swallow living in our current culture. We are told to be subject to governmental authorities. In those days and in other places throughout the world, there is very little chance to have influence on rulers and the government. My U.S. and others readers that live in a democracy can make a difference though. We are supposed to show respect to rulers, because they are in charge and in a way by showing respect to them we show respect to God.

However, this does not mean we are supposed to be pushovers in unjust governments. We need to get Obama or any pro-death/pro-abortion candidate out of office. We have to do it by legal means though and that means doing our Christian and civic duty and showing up to vote. Many people take that right for granted, which is a shame because it is not afforded to everyone throughout the world.

Verses 18-25 deal with slavery. In Roman rule, slavery was a reality as there were hundreds of thousands of slaves with no chance of bettering their lot in life. Peter didn't tell them to overthrow their masters and kill them. No,  he said to be subordinate to their masters, good or bad ones and to their face and behind their backs. It's easy to be subordinate when your master is in front of you, because you might think you can win points or curry favor. But they were called to be subordinate at all times. Why? Because although they couldn't escape slavery, they could better themselves and their life/heart and by doing so walk the path to Heaven. Verses 22-25 are interesting in that it mirrors passages in Isaiah 53, also known as the Suffering Servant section.

That's all I have for today. Tune in next Wednesday for the start of Chapter 3 when we discuss the passage on Husbands and Wives (Verses 1-7) and Peter's Exhortation to Unity, Love, and Humility (Verses 8:12). Have a blessed rest of the week, and I'll see y'all on Friday when I post my next CRE lesson.