Last evening’s session went OK, however, as I look back over my attempt to walk the young people through the Bible in preparation for the unit on Jesus, I’m having second thoughts about my approach.

Frankly, I think it was a bit beyond them to explore so many Scripture passages (as outlined in my handout)  in one swoop. As brief as most of those passages are and as easy as I thought it would be to tell the story of salvation history by glancing at each of these, I’m not so sure that the lightbulbs were going on. I have to hand it to the kids…they behaved well throughout and we had some nice moments (especially when reading about the giving of the Ten Commandments). However, I think this approach of reading so many Scripture passages in one sitting is better suited for high school students and adults. I think it would have better suited my 8th graders for me to simply lead them through the sections of the Bible as I describe in my book The Bible Blueprint - inviting them to find one or two passages in each of the 8 sections of the Bible (Pentateuch, History, Wisdom, Prophets/Gospels, Acts, Letters, Revelation).

Overall, I think they got the idea of the story of salvation history but I don’t think I was hitting the nail on the head. To top it off, the CD I had for my song of the week didn’t work last night so that threw me off a bit. Luckily, they were very well behaved for the guided reflection (sacred space) and things ended on a good note because of that.

The good part is, they did read directly from the Bible for a couple of weeks in class, and they encountered the wonderful stories of Abraham, Moses, and David. The “bad” is that I’m not so sure that reading certain other passages was very effective (too many unrecognizable names of people and places) and I’d hate to think that they would come away with the idea that reading the Bible is too difficult for them.

We live and learn, right? And, we teach and learn! Each time we teach, we can step back and evaluate how effective our approach was and make adjustments so that the next time we teach that same topic, we can improve our strategies. With years of experience, we learn not to beat ourselves up over sessions that are less than satisfactory but to simply make the necessary adjustments to find the right vehicle for proclaiming God’s Word in the future!

As I mentioned yesterday, one of the concepts we covered in Monday evening’s class was the Holy Spirit as our ADVOCATE. To help illustrate this point, I invited my aide, Lucy, to share her experience as a nurse, explaining how she advocates for patients.

Here’s what happened:

• I first asked if anyone knew what an advocate is or what it means to advocate for someone. One of the young men responded that “it means to help someone else.”
• I then explained that to help us understand what it means to be an advocate for someone, our aide, Mrs. R., would tell us a little bit about her experience as a nurse.
• Lucy explained that she is a nurse at the local hospital (about a mile from the parish) and that she works in the delivery room. She said that she especially spends her time with many young girls, assisting them as they become single moms. She explained that many of the patients are afraid, nervous, and worried and that she comforts them, supports them, explains things to them, holds their hand when needed, and guides them through the experience.
• Lucy spoke beautifully for about 5 minutes and the kids interacted with her nicely.
• I followed up by saying, “Mrs. R. just gave us a perfect example of what we mean by the word ADVOCATE. All of the things that she says she does for her patients are what the Holy Spirit does for us. The Holy Spirit is present to us, helping us to overcome our fears, giving us courage and strength, teaching us, and guiding us. In fact, as we continue this year and talk about the Holy Spirit and when the bishop talks about the Holy Spirit at Confirmation, I’d like you to think of Mrs. R. and you’ll know exactly what we’re talking about!” They liked that idea.
• I asked them if they know of other people – parents, siblings – who are advocates and quickly 4 or 5 of them shared. We talked briefly about various careers which allow people to advocate for others (teachers, doctors, lawyers, social workers, etc.)
• I explained that the Holy Spirit is our teacher and that, even in this room, the Spirit is our teacher. I am the catechist but that means that it’s my job to make sure that conditions are right for us to pay attention to what the Holy Spirit is teaching us.  

I had a very definite sense that the ”light bulb” had gone on for them. Thanks, Lucy!

I had a very enjoyable session last night! Here are the highlights:

• We began in church with an opening prayer service with the pastor. I met my group out in the parking lot and they were jovial and polite. I had a full class with the 2 absentees from last week being present.
• The kids were very well behaved in church…I was quite pleased to see that. My aide Lucy was there as well and it was nice to have her present as well.
• I eased out of church after the prayer service and before our class was dismissed to get upstairs, allowing Lucy to bring them up. This gave me a few minutes to get a few more things in place before they arrived. We had 45 minutes left at this point.
• As they entered, I greeted them with a short “quiz” about what we covered last week. This got their attention immediately and then they realized that the questions were fun and we enjoyed going over the correct answers. It actually made for a nice review of last week.
• We did our opening prayer: “This is the day the Lord has made…” followed by signing our foreheads, lips, and hearts, and then passing the candle to offer prayers of thanksgiving or petition. They are doing very nicely with that, thanking God for very simple things, not being silly, and just looking and sounding comfortable.
• 2 of the students, both boys, brought personal symbols for the prayer center! One brought his 3rd grade Rosary and the other brought a small stone. I was very pleased with this and encouraged the others to follow suit.
• We did an activity called “Revealing Moments” in which I covered a poster of a celebrity (Taylor Swift) with cards that we played a memory game with. One of the girls guessed pretty early and then I explained that we didn’t know who it was until we revealed various parts of her face. I said that today we were going to learn about how God has revealed himself to us in Jesus.
• We read from the textbook about how Jesus reveals to us the face of God. We used the ball toss for taking turns reading and they continue to enjoy that and it keeps them engaged a bit more.
• One of them asked me if we were doing sacred space! I said that’s up next.
• The article in the text mentioned Jn 3:16 – “For God so loved the world…”  I sent them to their sacred space to reflect on this passage which I provided on small slips of paper, inviting them to memorize the words. I turned out the lights, put on some music, and they were very quiet. I did a sort of Lectio Divina on this passage, repeating it every 30-45 seconds or so for 2 or 3 minutes and then just leaving it silent for a few minutes.
• I finished by telling them that their “assignment” was to spend some quality time with someone who needs love in the days ahead because God sent his only Son Jesus to spend quality time with us!
• We gathered for a Glory Be and they blessed themselves with Holy Water as they left.

Thank you, Lord, for a good session.