Lesson for Sunday, Oct. 16th

This week I am continuing to build upon the lessons on the New Roman Missal changes.

Our opening song is a favorite of the children (and me!): Lord, I Lift Your Name on High. (It doesn't really have anything to do with "change", but I wanted to sing it this week!) I like the video found at this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYBUGhWQdLA These are the same hand motions we use, more or less.

To begin the lesson, I told the children that I wanted to tell them a story about some people that lived at the same time and in the same place as Jesus. The story went as follows:

Back when Jesus was alive, the place that he lived had some different kinds of people living there. One group that lived there was the Jewish people, called Jews. Will you say that? (Jews). Jesus himself was a Jew. The Jews lived in this area for a long time, but another group of people came in and fought a war with the Jews. These people were called the Romans. Say that: (Romans). Now, at this time, the Romans had won the control of the area where Jesus lived, and so the Romans were in charge of everything. The Jews DID NOT like those Romans, and especially did not like the Roman soldiers who bossed them around, made them pay taxes that they didn't want to pay, and things like that. In the same way, the Romans really DID NOT like the Jews. They did not think they were as good as the Romans, and so they picked on those Jews and talked bad about them a lot.

Well, there was one Roman soldier that I want to tell you about today who really did something unbelievable. This Roman soldier, called a Centurion, had a servant who was also his friend. This servant became very suddenly sick - very sick - in fact, so sick that he was going to die. This made the Roman soldier very, very upset. His servant needed a miracle if he was going to live. Well, the Roman Centurion knew that there was a Jewish man, called Jesus, who was very special. Jesus was rumored to be able to perform miracles, and so the Roman decided to go see him. I want you to watch this video of whath appened next!

Show the video clip from NEST entertainment called, "Lord, I believe" which is about 2 minutes long and shows the centurion going to Jesus and begging for his servant to be healed. When Jesus says he will come to the centurion, the response is, "Lord, I am not worthy for you to enter under my roof. But if you only say the word I know my servant will be healed." The link is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wH3xLRapUMw After showing the clip, continue to explain:

Now, this was just amazing that a soldier, who didn't even like Jews, had enough faith in Jesus to call him "Lord" and to believe that he could heal the servant. But did you hear what the soldier said when Jesus told him that he would come heal the servant? The soldier said, "Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only say the word and I know my servant will be healed." Does that sound familiar to you at all? Yes? Remember last week I showed you how we are going to have something new to say at Mass? Let's review all of those new things we are going to say, and when you hear something that sounds like what the Roman soldier said, I want you to raise your hand.

I reviewed last week's power point (see blog for Oct. 9) with the students, and of course they all raised their hand at the appropriate time.

I then used this to lead into introducing our Prayer Honor Roll for this year. Prayer Honor Roll is something I use to have the students memorize appropriate prayers for their grade level. I will expand on that in another blog post very soon.

This week we wrapped up the lesson with the Minute to Win It Game "Junk In the Trunk." The blueprint for this game is found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZEAEvIq4Y8 This week I selected my contestant by putting three vessels on the altar: a coffee cup, a drinking cup, and a chalice. I asked who could remember from last week's video about changes what these items on the altar have to do with the changes that are coming. The selected volunteer came up and correctly identified that they were all kinds of cups, but one is called a chalice. We reviewed that "chalice" will replace "cup" in the Eucharistic prayer. As a bonus, I asked if he remembered the Latin word, calix, but he didn't! (However, an audience member did!)

If you have any questions about this lesson or need more information, please contact me at jtruitt@stolivers.com! :-)