One of these is called the Structure of the Mass which is made up of a chart which separates the prayers of the mass into 4 groups. For the children who have been in the atrium since they were young, the colors on the chart are very familiar:
- Green is for the Liturgy of the Word
- Yellow is for the Preparation of the Gifts
- Orange is for the "heart" of the Mass: The Eucharistic Prayer
- and Grey is for Communion
The children are given small tiles that are colored to match the specific number of prayers in each section. The number of prayers in unchanging each week, but some of the tiles are white on the back which tells us that the prayer or reading for that day is "proper" for that mass. We talked about how "Joy to the World" wouldn't be a very proper song to sing on November 21st, but it would be very proper on Christmas.
The main focus of this presentation is to place the tiles and to notice the few picture tiles that represent the gestures of the priest. Again, these gestures are more familiar if the child has been in the atrium, but we are constantly using new ways to represent these important concepts so that the child will still be interested. The first gesture is in the Prepartation of the Gifts, while the last two gestures are found in the Eucharistic Prayer:
- The Preparation of the Chalice: the priest adds a few drops of water to the wine (the wine represents Jesus, and the water represents us)
- The Epiclesis: God the Father is asked to send his Spirit on the gifts of bread and wine (hands coming down onto the gifts)
- The Offering: where we offer ourselves together with Christ back to the Father (hands raising up the gifts)
We also are continuing our work with the Plan of God. Now that we have had our first two moments (the preliminary meditation and the control strip presentation), the children have a go at the mute strip. This is also a 30 ft. long timeline, but it is mostly blank! The children's work is to place the work of human beings and the peoples in the correct place on the timeline. It is a HUGE work, and is really a copying of the control work, but is way more interesting to the kids because of the cool pictures, woodwork, and such. I'll tell you it was a BIG project, getting that one done!
After the children finish preparing the mute, we all come together to work with the text strips that synthesize the main points of the presentation. Here are a few of them:
- The people of today work; further developing the results of work done in past times. What’s more, through working, they established relationships with people of their own time; and they prepare developments for future times.
- Every division is against the Plan of God, which is to establish a cosmic communion that embraces heaven and earth, all people and all things.
- We await the time when God will be all in all.
- When Jesus, who is true God and true man as one, came on the earth, people are no longer only united to people but; God is united with people in a communion of love.
Each child will read one of the strips and together the group will discuss what it means and where on the timeline it might be placed.
This whole work lays a foundation on which all of the work we do in Level III is based. This is because it is simply a concrete way of stating that somewhat abstract concept of God's plan for creation: Communion. God created us to: "Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength," and to "Love your neighbor as yourself." When we see how we as humans have and can continue to work together to build communion (and of course the ways in which we haven't done this), and when we see how God has bridged the gap himself so that we may come to Him, we can see the plan--even for our own lives. Come, Lord Jesus!
God bless you and your families,
Ms. Mandie, CGS Catechist and Director of Faith Formation
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