During these 40 days of Lent, I am offering 40 ideas (activities) to help catechists engage young people around the themes and images of this holy season. Here is your next Lenten activity.
Remembering the Lamb
- Explain that we refer to Jesus as the “Lamb of God” not because we want to think of him as cute and cuddly, but because lambs were the animal used in sacrifice for the celebration of Passover.
- Remind the children that, in the Exodus story, the blood of the lamb saved the Israelites from the angel of death. (See Exodus 12:1-20.)
- Point out that we are saved from the death of sin by the blood of the Lamb of God. Jesus sacrificed his life to save us from sin.
- Print out a picture of a lamb so that it is the size of a small poster.
- Post the picture of the lamb on a bulletin board.
- Tell the children that remembering is an important part of our faith and that at Mass, we remember the sacrifice of Jesus, the Lamb of God.
- Invite the children to remember various aspects of the Catholic faith this Lent by taking certain prayers or doctrinal formulas to memory.
- Invite them to choose which prayer (for younger children, the basics such as the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be; for older children, the Memorare, the Morning Offering, the Hail, Holy Queen, and so on) or doctrinal formula (the Nicene or Apostles’ Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Virtues, the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, the Mysteries of the Rosary, and so on) that they will commit to memorizing (taking to heart) this Lent.
- Tell them that, throughout Lent, whenever someone has committed to memory a prayer or a doctrinal formula, he or she can come forward and recite it in front of the group and then glue a cotton ball onto the lamb.
- By the end of Lent, the lamb should have a full “coat” of “wool.”
- Encourage the children to see how many prayers or doctrinal formulas they can take to heart during these 40 days.
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I am a Catholic volunteer for a Prison Ministry in Florida. Although Remembering the Lamb is geared for children, I am always searching and looking for new ideas for the inmates. I am going into the beginning of our 4th year and to date we have had just short of 7,000 inmates sign in to our Catholic Services. Currently there are 40 inmates and 25 inmates in the two groups which we go to every Tuesday and Saturday . There have been 20 baptisms, 45 First Eucharist and 75 Confirmations. Our motto is “We Teach Not Preach”. Anything and everything we do comes from our pockets. We have created over 500+ vocabulary words for them to study and other Catholic information. With these words I have created Bingo Card with the “word’ and I read the definition; also the Wheel of Faith on the same premises as the Word of Fortune except we use Catholic phrases and the newest is Catholic Jeopardy-and all of this is done with cardboard, construction paper and other things that are not considered contraband! We have been blessed to always have an “angel” come along and help at times. Sometimes when we really need or want a specific book (we are looking for one now), we have to save or hope someone comes along and gets them for us.
This activity is so awesome for our guys-because we have to be very careful on the rules and procedures as far as contraband but this is paper and cotton balls-and no contraband there, along with the ideas that are coupled with the activity. Thank you for giving me one additional tool to use in this years Lenten Season. We bring the “church” to the prison with ashes on Ash Wednesday, Washing of the Feet on Holy Thursday, Communion Services, and the list goes on…..and I could to–but I will close with a BIG thank you for this awesome idea.
Mary, thanks for sharing about your amazing ministry. I’m glad that the 40 Ideas for 40 Days of Lent has proven helpful to you in your ministry. You are an inspiration to all of us. Keep up your wonderful works of mercy!