We had an interesting class last Wednesday. Our faith assessment exercise dealt with some basic Catholic teachings and practices.
The source of divine revelation? Scripture and tradition.
The Precepts of the Church. (ie: obligations as Catholics)
— Attendance at Mass on Sundays and Holy Days.
–Confession at least once a year
–Receive the Eucharist during Easter Season.
–Observe days of fast and abstinence
–Help provide for the needs of the Church (time, treasure and talent)
The follow up discussion was interesting. Many of these concepts were foreign to the students, so we had some “I didn’t know that!” responses.
The faith assessment also included a section on the Theological and Cardinal Virtues. We explained the differences and asked the students to place each virtue in the correct category.
Theological – Faith, Hope and Charity (or Love)
Cardinal – Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude
We had to define most of them and explained that the Theological Virtues are gifts from God and concern our relationship to God. The Cardinal Virtues were actually first conceived by Plato and concern our relationships to fellow humans.
After a fair amount of discussion, we walked across the hall to view a video by a Father Barron on the Theological Virtues. The video is targeted for adults, but, as I told the students, they should be able to follow most of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuyKsaj6GbM&t=117s
When we returned to our classroom, we were just about out of time. We left them with a homework assignment. We would appreciate it if our parents would follow up on this. Our next class will deal with the Cardinal Virtues in more depth. Their assignment is to do a little internet research on the Cardinal Virtues, so they will have some background before they come to class. Here is a site with some information I have used.
http://catholicism.about.com/od/beliefsteachings/tp/Cardinal_Virtues.htm
Important scheduling information — We will have no class this week, since it would be the night before Thanksgiving. Also, we will not have class next week, November 30, as that is the evening of our parish’s Confirmation Mass. We will be back December 7.
St Peter the Apostle CCD- 5th Grade 