Sorry. After all the buildup about this site, I’m afraid I didn’t post anything last week. a
a. ) I left for an out of town trip very early Thursday morning and did not have internet access until Monday night.
b.) We really didn’t do anything except organizational issues. Altar server coordinator Irene Nave stopped by to talk to the students about becoming altar servers.
We got things started off quickly last night.
After six years of teaching this class from the same book, we changed to a different publisher this year, so Mrs. Rudolphi and I will be feeling our way a little.
After an opening prayer, we started with the first of our “We Believe” statements – “Jesus is the Son of God.” We read the story of Jesus’s baptism in the Jordan River and the appearance of God in all three persons of the Holy Trinity. This got us discussing the concept of the Trinity. We discussed that the concept is a mystery that we can never fully comprehend. We presented several explanations with the idea that they may get close to the truth of the Trinity, but not fully explain it. This included the famous St. Patrick’s explanation of the shamrock.
One student said he always thought of the Trinity as being like a sandwich – one sandwich with several ingredients. I can’t say I’ve ever heard of the Trinity described as a sandwich, but I thought it was extremely insightful.
About that time, Father John stopped by to meet the class. He talked about the altar service. He also gave the students some additional thoughts on the Trinity. They had lots of questions.
When Fr. John left, we only had about ten minutes left in the class. We quickly covered our second major point to this chapter – “Jesus shows us God’s love.” Jesus showed us how to live our lives by the way he lived his. The textbook referenced the story of Jesus healing the blind begger. Through this story, we explained that Jesus did not associate with the rich and powerful of his time. He befriended the poor and the outcasts.
I tried to turn that into a lesson the students could take home with them, by talking about the dynamics in most groups of 5th graders. In any class, there are typically some popular kids and also some less popular. While most kids would like to be part of the popular crowd, that is not what Jesus would want us to do. Our students could follow Jesus by being kind to and befriending all the kids in their class or school, not just the “cool” or popular ones. We didn’t have enough time to really talk about this, so I’m not sure how well that concept was received.
Next week, we’ll do a short review of last night’s material, and then finish up the chapter. The session should be more discussion and activity focused.
At the end of class, one of our students asked if she could address the class. She told her fellow students that she and her mother would be conducting a food drive close to Thanksgiving and asked them to contribute. We’ll be back with you with more specifics as they become available.
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