What a Holy Week!

I was moved by a few emails/posts from parishioners & catechists who shared about their families' experience with the Holy Week liturgies last week. It is always the aim of our work in Catechesis of the Good Shepherd to assist the child to fuller participation in the mass. These two stories warmed my heart so much I wanted to share them with you!

The first is from a catechist with two boys in our Level I program (3 and 5 years old). She attended Holy Thursday mass with her children and they were so moved by the part where the altar was stripped that they came home and emptied their own little prayer table that they had set up. Usually the prayer table has a cloth (the color had been purple), a bible, a statue, maybe a few prayer cards, and a candle. The mom told me that they took turns taking things off and even folded (!) the prayer cloth. When they were done it looked like this:

Also, on Easter morning I woke up to this jewel in my notifications on Facebook. It was from a catechist with 3 boys between 7 and 12 years old. 

"My family went to Easter Vigil mass last night. I haven't been in a long time, probably talked myself out of it since last time I went when my boys were little, one threw up right in the middle of it! Anyways, my niece was receiving her sacraments last night so we went. 

During mass I was in awe of our CGS program! How the last few years of being involved in CGS had been preparing me and my boys to fully understand and participate not only in Mass each week, but for this Vigil Mass. Every moment gave me a flash of a work from the atrium! I can't explain the feeling I had while I was sitting there - grateful-peaceful-awe-love! 

And it was made even greater when I looked over at my boys and saw their participation. Most of the way home from Ft. Dodge I sat in the car thinking of how awesome our CGS program is!! Not sure why, but this morning I just had to get on here and share with you all how thankful I am that my boys and I are a part of this program!! Happy Easter!! Alleluia!! Alleluia!!"

Easter Blessings on you and your families!

Pirates and Saints

You never know where the work of a Level III child might take you. In this case, it was into the land of movie-making! These boys took their saint research to a whole new level. Even though I'm the director of our program here, I joked that I was a little nervous with all of the noise that my fellow workers in the vineyard might come and take my catechist card. My assistant and I were commenting as they (loudly) rehearsed that these boys were not likely to forget the story of St. Rose any time soon. I don't think I will either!

What would You Choose?

Sometimes a topic really jumps out at the children and the catechists will see a flurry of new and intense work. This last week in Level III was like that. We are about 6 weeks into a Moses study, and in the last couple of weeks, we've seen 3-dimensional representations of the comparison between Egyptian and Hebrew life after the Exodus, lots and lots of interviewing with interesting questions, and some of the kids even got together "after hours" to work on their project. I promised I would print this here.

Hebrew Times

by Madeleine D, Lydia S, Peyton L

We interviewed several people (Jamie C., Bethany D., Mary T., Genny L.) about Hebrew Times and what they would do if they were in place of a Hebrew slave. Most people wanted to follow God, but admitted they would complain they were travelling for forty years with nothing to eat except manna (which is translated to mean “whatch-a-ma-call-it”) and birds [quail].

When Question #2 asked: If you were a Hebrew slave who had just been freed, would you grumble and complain? Mary T. answered, “Probably not at the beginning, but if I were wandering in the desert for forty years, yes.”

We were also curious of what people would think of Moses. Jamie C. answered, “I would think he’s crazy,” and Bethany D. said, ”At the beginning I’d like him, but in the middle not really.”

So what about you? Would you rather have a large spacious many-roomed house with servants and worship many gods (which are hunks of rock) or live in a cramped tent have a hard life and worship the one true god (not a hunk of rock)? Which would you choose? It’s up to you to find out.

Egyptian                         Hebrew
Good house                    Cramped tent
Fertile land                     Desert land
Servants                         No servants
Worship many Gods     Worship one true God

Chose Egyptians         Chose Hebrew
Read Exodus 7-10        Read Exodus 12-15