Class #15, January 18, 2012

Our mission last night was to finish up our lesson on the Eucharist. Our focus was on the Mass, or more specifically, the elements and order of the Mass. I suspected that many in the class really had little idea of what was happening in the Mass, the flow, the purpose of various parts, and so on. So I put together and distributed a two-page “Order of the Mass” and issued each student a missalette.

We started by talking about the recent changes in the priest’s prayers and our responses, and the reasons behind the changes. We talked about the old Latin mass and the changes of the Second Vatican Council.

We compared the Order of the Mass to the students going with their family to visit another family or relatives for dinner. In the Mass, we are visiting God’s house, but the general concept can be similar. For example:

When we go to someone’s house, we are welcomed, just as we are at Mass.

When we go to someone’s house, we start out by talking and visiting. In the Mass (Liturgy of the Word), we also exchange communication with God. Our prayers (Kyrie, Gloria, etc.) we address God, and in the readings, God addresses us.

When we visit someone’s house for dinner, we always bring something like dessert or wine. In the offertory, we present gifts to God.

The comparison becomes even closer in the Preparation of the Gifts and the Eucharist itself.

I don’t know how well that idea sunk into the class, but we tried.

We walked through the order of the Mass, referring to both the simple outline I had drawn up and also the missalette. We pointed out several spots in the missalette where it can be difficult to follow.  For example, there are four Eucharistic prayers, and you never know which one the priest will use (although it seems as if #2 seems to be the most common.)

We are continuing our effort to try to get all the students engaged in each class. On some evenings, we are more successful than others. As in most groups, there are a number of students who have their hands up constantly, and, frankly, are fairly demanding of attention. On the other hand, there are also some students who are semi-comatose. They occupy a seat and breathe the air, but that is about it. I wish I could pull some of these kids into the flow of the class.  However, with the class size (25 at full strength) and the relatively short time we have together, there really isn’t much time for the individual attention that would require. I am not suggesting these kids are behavior problems.  I just know that these students are learning nothing in the hour they are spending at CCD each week. That’s a shame.

I am certainly not going to “name names” in this forum. However, as a parent you are always free to call me to see how your child is doing. My contact information is under the “About” tab at the top of this page. Also, you are always more than welcome to sit in on any of our classes.  I promise; I won’t ask you any hard questions. 

Class #14, January 11, 2012

Sometimes you beat the bear and sometimes the bear beats you. I’m afraid it was my turn to be beaten Wednesday night. The class was reasonably well behaved; that was not the problem. Whether it was the subject material, my teaching efforts or some external force, we just couldn’t get the class engaged. When I mentioned this to Mrs. Rudolphi after class she agreed, but said “Don’t worry about it Mike. I think maybe three of them were listening to you.” In any case, we plow on.

The class was the first of two on the Eucharist. We discussed the origin of the sacrament at the Last Supper, and explained the Last Supper as a celebration of the Jewish Passover. We emphasized that through the Eucharist we are:

Nourished in the Word of God

Joined more closely to Christ and one another

The grace of Baptism grows I us

We are strengthened to love and serve others.

We explained the concept of a covenant, and described the original covenant between God and the Jewish people. We also described how, at the Last Supper, Jesus disposed of the old covenant and created a new covenant for his followers. We celebrate this covenant in the Eucharist.

We discussed the Eucharist’s role as a memorial, a meal and a sacrifice. We had the class break up into pairs to work together. They read a passage from the text and listed ways the Eucharist fits into each of these roles.

We read the story of Jesus appearing to two of his disciples on the road to Emmaus. The disciples did not recognize Jesus until they stopped for a meal. When Jesus broke the loaf of bread, suddenly the disciples recognized him. We compared this story to connecting with Jesus through the breaking of bread in the Eucharist.

We particularly emphasized the key Catholic belief that Jesus is truly present in the bread and wine of the Eucharist. (Real Presence) We pointed out that while many Protestant churches have communion services, they believe the bread and wine (or grape juice) only represent Jesus. We believe that while the bread and wine do not change chemically, Jesus is truly present there.

We briefly discussed he concept of Jesus as the “bread of life.”

We gave out two “homework” assignments.

1. To ask their parents to take them to Mass this weekend, and, when they receive the Eucharist, to think about the concepts we discussed.
2. If they have not already done so, read all of the Gospel of Matthew through Chapter 8. We’ll have a short quiz at the start of class next week.

Class #13, January 4, 2012

Happy New Year, and welcome back!

We started off 2012 with a good class last night. As we got going, we did ask the class to make a stronger effort to listen to our discussions and to actually follow along when another student is reading aloud from the text. Sometimes I think some of the students just “zone out” when we are reading from the text., I (half-jokingly), pointed out, it can be frustrating to tell someone “The sky is blue.” But when you ask them a minute later, “What color is the sky?” you get a blank stare. While we do try to generate a lot of information through discussion, we also have to pull information out of the textbook.

Before the break, we had started on the Sacrament of Confirmation.  We had discussed the Pentecost and the relationship of that event to Confirmation. Last night, we began by reviewing that to refresh everyone’s memory.

We compared Confirmation to Baptism in two ways.

– We described Baptism as the first step to entering into the Church community, and Confirmation is the second half of the process.

– We also discussed Confirmation as an opportunity for them to make a commitment to God and the Church.  Since most children are baptized as infants, they really don’t have a say in the process. Their baptismal promises are made by their godparents; their parents select their godparents; and they don’t choose their own name. In Confirmation, they make their own commitment; select their sponsor; and choose a Confirmation name. We pointed out that most other religions have some kind of commitment ceremony around the time a child turns 12-14.

As expected, the idea of taking another name was fascinating to the class, and we spent probably too much time discussing that.

We talked about the need for preparation to receive Confirmation and emphasized that it is a two-year process, beginning in seventh grade. We walked through the actual process of the sacrament.

We finished up with the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, but to be honest, I don’t think that concept stuck with the class very well. It is a subject that could easily occupy an entire class session to get across.  At least they have been exposed to the concept, if they don’t fully understand it.

We’re done with Confirmation. We’ll start the next class with a short review and then move on.

Our readings of the Gospel of Matthew have fallen off, just because we have been busy with other material and haven’t remembered to make assignments. We’ll talk about that next week and resume the assignments. I think we’re up to around Chapter 7. If you would like to encourage your child to read and review those first chapters before next week, that would be great.

Classes #11 & 12, Nov 30 & Dec 7, 2011

Until I started working on this update, I didn’t realize I hadn’t written a summary for last week’s class. Sorry about that.

Last week, we started with a review of the liturgical year with the intention of concentrating on the season of Advent. As often happens, the discussion of the liturgical year opened up a ton of questions so we spent the entire class answering and discussing.

This week, Father John joined us at the beginning of class. He wanted to encourage the students to attend the parish Advent penance service next Tuesday (Dec 13) at 7 pm in the church. Naturally, the students had a bunch of questions for him. It was very obvious that, for most of the class, the Sacrament of Reconciliation is not a concept with which they are familiar or comfortable. After Father John left to move on to the next class, we continued the discussion of Reconciliation. Not surprisingly, many of the students were very nervous or even scared about the idea of sitting down with someone (a priest) and talking about what they have done wrong. We emphasized several points.

The priest is bound to secrecy about whatever they discuss. Under no circumstances will they pick up the phone and call the parents or anyone else.

At their age, there is nothing they could possibly tell the priest that would surprise him.

The priest is simply an intermediary to God, and God already knows what you have done, so what’s the big secret?

We had our usual run of questions, many of which started with “What if…” When the “what if” scenarios started to get a little outrageous, we shut down the discussion of Reconciliation and moved on to the lesson of the day, the Sacrament of Confirmation.

We started by pointing out that we would be discussing Confirmation from several different angles.

• Confirmation as a way of receiving, via the Holy Spirit, the strength to live as God wishes them to.
• Confirmation as completing their initiation into the Church.
• Confirmation as a commitment.

We read and discussed the events of the first Pentecost. We told them how the Holy Spirit came upon the apostles and turned them from meek and terrified men into strong evangelists.  We compared this power to a sports team or an athlete who gets so psyched up and motivated that he or she can conquer a superior opponent. We compared the Sacrament of Confirmation to the first Pentecost. Through the Sacrament of Confirmation, the grace of the Holy Spirit will give them the strength and determination to be faithful followers of Christ.

We talked about how their first step into the Church came with Baptism, and the second with the Eucharist.  The Sacrament of Confirmation rounds out the three sacraments of initiation and completes their membership into the Church.

It was our intention to further discuss Confirmation as the recipient’s commitment to fully join the Church and live their lives as Christians. We didn’t get to that. We’ll hit that when we finish with the Sacrament after the Christmas break.

This week (It’s now Monday, by the time I am finishing this.), the students should report to the Church for a Christmas program. Parents and siblings are also most welcome.

As you will note from the schedule, there will be no CCD class the following two weeks. We’ll be back on January 4.

Mrs. Rudolphi and I hope you and your family have a fantastic Christmas season. We’ll see everyone after the first of the year.

Class #10 November 17, 2011

Oh, wow! We had a very lively and interesting class last night.

We started off with a mandatory “good touch-bad touch” discussion. In light of all the news coming out of my brother’s and sisters’ alma mater (Penn State), it was probably well timed.

We went over seven or eight guidelines or pieces of advice for children to follow to avoid becoming abuse victims. I don’t have my guide sheet with me right now. I’ll update this posting in a day or so with some of the specifics. The two primary themes were “You can and should say ‘no’ to an adult who is making you feel uncomfortable” and “Talk to your parents.”

I did reference the Penn State issue in a very general way, and recommended the children ask their parents about it if they want to know more.

As has already been very obvious, this class just loves to ask questions and discuss things. So you can imagine how this subject took the lid off the can of worms. Almost none of the questions or discussions focused on personal abuse. They were much more interested in talking about stranger abduction, someone breaking into their house, and similar subjects. Mrs. Rudolphi was a tremendous help in this discussion. We let it go for a while, but eventually some of the questions just got to be absurd. Some of the students were just making up bizarre situations to keep things going. So we moved on to other things.

We really didn’t have time for a full lesson after that, so we organized a “quiz bowl.” We divided the class into four teams. We have them a few minutes to review the chapters of the Gospel of Matthew that they have (supposedly) already read (Chapters 1-5). Then we asked them questions from those chapters. We allowed it to be “open book,” but didn’t give them a whole lot of time to look up answers if they were starting from scratch. Actually, I was fairly happy at their recall. It went well.

We have no class next week due to the Thanksgiving week. We’re back on November 30. The Season of Advent will be on the agenda for that night.

Please ask your child to read Chapter 6 of Matthew, and any of the previous chapters he or she may have missed.

Class # 9 November 9, 2011

Another busy class session last night. We had pretty-close to a full house, with a new student thrown in.

We finish up the Sacrament of Baptism last week, but in the rush to close out the chapter before the end of class, we pretty-much glossed over the important symbols of Baptism (water, sacred chrism (oil), a candle and a white garment.) I thought it would be a good idea to introduce the students to the concept of symbols and their importance in the Church.

We talked a little about the concept of symbols and then I distributed an exercise. I asked them to think of symbols they encounter in their everyday life and draw it on one side of the paper. On the other side they should write what the symbol represents. I had drawn an American flag and the initials “USA” on the top line as an example. The class came up with some pretty good ideas.

From there, we listed the four symbols of Baptism and discussed their meanings.

• Water – Cleans the soul. Washes away sin.
• Candle – Light (love) of God.
• White Garment – A sin-free soul.
• Sacred Chrism – A physical representation of the Gift of the Holy Spirit

When we finished that, we shifted gears completely and introduced the class to the liturgical year.  We started with a story about a Native American boy who was obsessed with studying and getting ahead and never took time to play with his friends or enjoy life. His grandfather took him fishing to convey a message that there is a time for everything and that he shouldn’t be so focused on just one thing.

We talked about the various ways we keep track of the year, like the normal calendar, sports seasons, the school year and so on. We described the various seasons of the liturgical calendar and their meanings.

We had a little difficulty conveying the reasons why the liturgical calendar doesn’t match up with the regular calendar the same way every year. To that end, we described how the date of Easter moves around, from late-March through late-April, and the formula for the way the date is selected. (Easter is the first Sunday of a full moon, following the vernal equinox. The Church has standardized the date of the full moon in the lunar cycle, the 14^th day of the cycle,  and the day of the equinox, March 21, even though it may not be exactly astronomically correct in some years. )

As always, we had a bunch of questions and a lot of discussion. It’s a little rowdy, but for the most part, the class is paying attention and getting involved. Mrs. Rudolphi and I are trying our best to spread things around and include more of the class in the various discussions.

And a final note – one of our students, Alexis, and her mom are collecting canned food for the homeless. They will collect the cans next week during CCD. Your child should have given you a flier.

Class #8 November 2, 2011

We had another good class Wednesday evening. We finished up our discussion of Baptism.

We reviewed the three aspects or purposes of Baptism.

1. Wipes us free from sin.

2. Initiates us to the Church and the “Communion of Saints”

3. Gives us the spiritual strength to live as God wishes us to live

We discussed that while all of this class was baptized as infants, there are people who are baptized when they are older. We talked a little about RCIA and what that is all about.

We also talked about godparents and their role – a back-up for parents on the spiritual side. Some of the class had some difficulty understanding that the baptismal godparents are not necessarily the people who designated to care for a child in the event something happens to the parents. We explained that the two concepts are entirely different. The guardians would deal with all aspects of a child’s life; the godparents only the spiritual.

We pointed out that everyone is called to Baptism. There are no qualifications and no one is rejected.

We talked about praying for the dead, and pointed out that yesterday, coincidentally, was All Souls Day, when the church prays for all deceased. Some students expressed surprised that they were “allowed” to pray for the soul of any deceased person. “Even if they didn’t live in Savannah?”

We got a little into the mechanics of the sacrament. One of the photos in their book showed an adult being baptized in a tub or pool in a church. We talked about how different churches sometimes do things differently. However, Catholics believe that it doesn’t matter whether it is total immersion or just a cup of water. It works fine both ways.

We pretty much blew right past the four main symbols of Baptism.

• Water
• Chrism oil
• White garment
• Candle

I think we’ll spend a little time next week talking about religious symbols and their importance in worship.

We finished up with the surprising (to the students) revelation that anyone can perform a Baptism in an emergency. We pointed out that this emergency situation most often is called into play with a critically ill newborn baby.

Learn something new every day.

Class #7 October 26, 2011

As Mrs. Rudolphi and I discussed after class this week, we aren’t making much progress through the text, but we are having some interesting class sessions. The students are full of questions and enjoy the discussions. Since fifth grade is not a sacramental preparation class (as are first, second, seventh and eighth), we don’t feel a real need to stick strictly with the text. If the class wants to question and discuss a subject that is vaguely related to religion, God, morality, etc,  we’ll run with it.

We do have one problem we need to address. There are a handful of students who have really taken the advice to “get engaged.” However, more than half of the questions and comments tend to come from that handful of the students. We (I) need to do a better job of spreading it around and getting the more quiet students involved. That will be a goal next week.

On another down-note, we did not discuss the class’s reading assignment, chapter four of the Gospel of Matthew, because only two students admitted to have actually read it. Please give us some help on this at home. Each chapter is quite short and shouldn’t take the student more than a few minutes to read it. We asked them to double-up this week and read both chapters four (last week’s assignment) and five (this week’s assignment.) Parents – please give your child a little nudge. Thanks.

This week’s class was the first of two sessions on the Sacrament of Baptism.  We discussed the concepts that Baptism is the first sacrament to be received and no other sacrament can be received without Baptism. Baptism brings the recipient into the Church (Body of Christ, community, etc.) We also discussed how Baptism wipes our souls free from sin, but we can receive it only once. After that, we have Penance/Reconciliation for forgiveness.

One student asked why an infant would need to have his sins forgiven when he hasn’t had the chance to commit any. That opened the discussion of original sin. Many of the students didn’t think it was fair that God would penalize someone born today for the sin of Adam and Eve. We pointed out that is why have the Sacrament of Baptism.

A student asked why we are typically baptized as babies. Why not, he asked, wait until you are about to die and then get all your sins forgiven at the same time. This led to a lively discussion that largely focused on the idea that you never know when your life may end.

One student then asked how it is that we know all these teachings (all Christian teachings) are true?  This led to a discussion of the concept of faith, which, to be honest, I don’t think we handled very well. Towards the end of the class, Father John stopped by, so we kicked the question over to him. I’m not sure he answered it much better. I’m betting this question will come up again.

Next week, we plan to finish up the Sacrament of Baptism.  Hopefully.

By the way, parents, you are always welcome to sit in on the class and observe, and/or participate as you wish.

Class #6, October 19, 2011

We are not making very fast progress through the curriculum, but we sure are having some interesting classes. We are having lots of discussions, questions, etc.

We started with a quick overview of Chapter 3 of Matthew. Only a few students had read it before the class. Your help reminding your child about that weekly assignment would be greatly appreciated. This week’s assignment is Chapter 4.

Since it has been a couple of weeks since we covered the first half of the chapter, we continued with a review of the main points.

We covered the Seven Sacraments —  broken down into the Sacraments of Initiation (Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist), Healing (Reconciliation and Anointing of the Sick) and Communion of Service (Matrimony and Holy Orders.)

We discussed the concept that we receive Sanctifying Grace through the Sacraments.  Again, we described “grace” as simply God’s love. We compared God’s love to parental love. Through the Sacraments, we receive God’s love, in a similar fashion that a child receives and feels his/her parents’ love through actions like a hug and kiss. As Mrs. Rudolphi put it, “The Sacraments are God’s way of giving you a hug.”

We discussed the concept of a vocation as a calling. We talked about how, as Catholics, we share a common vocation to holiness and evangelization. Of course, the term “evangelization” was a new one to nearly all the students. After defining the concept, we brainstormed on different ways they, as fifth graders, could answer the call to evangelization.  We suggested the best way to evangelize is simply to live a good life and serve as an example.  One student correctly described it as being a “role model.” We emphasized that they should not go out of their way to call attention to their actions, ie: showing off. Rather, just do the right thing (What would Jesus do?) and let their actions be their message.

Several weeks ago, we briefly covered the Sacraments of Initiation. So last night, we did an overview of the remaining four. There wasn’t much discussion of Reconciliation, as the students were already familiar with it.

We had many questions about the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick. We pointed out that modern medicine has accepted that there is a definite connection between a person’s mental/spiritual outlook and their physical health. So Anointing of the Sick serves two purposes. Together with Reconciliation and the Eucharist, it prepares a person for the possibility (or imminence) of death, but it also can serve a healing role in a spiritual sense.

The students had greater difficulty getting their minds around the Sacraments of Matrimony and Holy Orders. They seemed to understand that through Holy Orders, a priest enters a life of service. They had a little tougher time understanding that a man and woman enter a life of service to each other through Matrimony.

We had a lot of discussion about why priests are not allowed to marry (most of the time.) One of the students asked if, instead of getting married, a priest just “had a regular relationship?”  Yikes! That one came out of the blue. We talked a little about the hierarchy of deacons, priests, bishops, cardinals and the pope. And, of course, we mentioned that Savannah has a new bishop.

We finished off with a story about the exceptions to the “no married priests” rule. Yes, there are some married priests. Ask your child about it. See if anyone was listening.

By the way, our text is published by Sadlier Publishing Company. If you are interested, you can find some outlines and other material at their Web site. We are using the  “Project Disciple – We Believe” curriculum.

Class #5 October 12, 2011

Sorry for the late posting. I was out of town all day Thursday.

We aren’t making much progress as far as the textbook is concerned, but we are having some interesting class sessions and discussions.

We started with a review of Matthew Chapter Two. Actually, for most of the class, it was an initial impression as they indicated they had not read it at home during the week. Oh well. This chapter involves the visit of the Magi, Herod’s treachery, the flight to Egypt and Herod’s murder of all the male babies in Bethlehem. Also, in this one chapter, Matthew makes several references to Old Testament prophecies. We talked about all kinds of things, including Herod’s motivation for wanting to kill the infant Jesus. We discussed Matthew’s use of the prophecies as part of his ongoing campaign to establish Jesus’s credentials as the Messiah.

As that discussion was winding down, Father John stopped in for a visit. The class kept him busy with questions on anything and everything they could think of. One big question was why God allows evil in the world. I can’t even begin to remember the rest of them.

Next week, we plan on completing our introduction to the Sacraments.

Also, parents, please ask your child to read Chapter 3 of the Gospel of Matthew.