The other day, I drove past a Protestant church whose marquee read “He is Risen!” I joked with my wife that “they’re a week early!” And yet, of course, we know that Jesus is Risen. As we proceed through this Holy Week, we reflect on the suffering and death of Jesus through the lens of the Resurrection. We don’t pretend this week that we don’t know how the story ends. Good Friday is not a wake service for Jesus. We are not re-enacting…we are entering into Jesus’ Paschal Mystery which brings suffering, death, and new life together. We are striving to conform our lives to Jesus and to unite our suffering to his so that we may also be united with him in the Resurrection.
Tonight, I’ll be taking my class to the church for the Living Stations of the Cross. We may have 15-20 minutes afterwards in the classroom, I’m not sure. If we do, I’ll use the time to go over the Passion reading from Mark’s Gospel, using the Looking for Clues activity I posted a while back.
After posting 40 Lenten ideas (activities) in 40 days, I admit to being a bit “spent!” 🙂 It was fun and I greatly appreciate all of the feedback and suggestions that y’all sent in. To give my brain a little “rest” and as a way of honoring the holiness of this week, I will not be posting the remainder of this week.
With that in mind, my wish for you and for all those you teach is for a blessed Holy Week and a jubiliant Easter!
See you back here on Easter Monday!
Thank you Joe. Best wishes to you as well for a Blessed Holy Week and very Happy Easter. Thanks so much for all of the wonderful activities suggested over the past several weeks. I was able to incorporate several of them into my 7th grade class. Not only did they make this Lenten season so much more meaningful for my students, they also made this Lent perhaps the most meaningful Lent I have experienced in quite a long time. I hope and pray that the meaningfulness of the season carries over throughout the year for both my students and myself.
Thanks again.
Henry, thanks for the kind words. Glad to hear that some ideas clicked for you!
Thank you so much for sharing 40 resources for Lent! Actually there were more than 40 because I clicked through some of the websites that the activities were linked to. They were all really great and useable activities.
Happy Easter!
Jenn, I guess it was the gift that kept on giving!
Thanks, Joe, for bringing us together as catechists. For me to hear Henry say that it’s the most meaningful Lent he has experienced in a long time just validates even more why I am a cathechist (because I feel the same way). My Holy Week gift boxes were a smash hit yesterday by the way.
I learned at work today what else it means to be a catechist. A couple weeks ago I had shared with a woman that works for me that I was a catechist (she asked what I was doing this weekend…..etc) and she was soooo excited. She apparently was also Catholic. Today she came over to me and was so excited about experiencing the Passion yesterday at her church because the youth group at her church acts out the Passion on the altar! She said “I don’t know why I cry every year, the story always ends the same”. Indeed! Those tears from the Passion of Jesus every year are, to me, a part of our mystery of faith.
Happy Easter to all!
Greg Olson
Greg, thanks for sharing your wonderful story! I’m glad your gift box idea went so well. Have a blessed Holy Week!
And a blessed Holy Week and Easter to you, too! Thank you for your 40 Activities posts. Between my kids being sick and having Religious Ed. canceled for snow (and I think there was a federal holiday in there somewhere), I only got to see my class for two sessions during Lent. Two weeks ago, the 2nd-6th grade classes celebrated the Stations of the Cross together, and when we gathered back into the classroom I used your Sorrowful Mysteries idea to pray the Rosary with them. I had each child pick a partner, and each pair of students looked up the mysteries in their assigned Gospel book. We only had time to pray two mysteries, but it was quite moving! At the beginning of each mystery, each group read their verse for that mystery. The kids want to do it again with another set of mysteries. Then last week we watched the last hour or so of the movie “Jesus of Nazareth,” from the agony to the resurrection. I reminded the kids to look for the sorrowful mysteries.
Thanks again, and have a happy Easter!
Sharon Babineau
Sharon this is a beautiful summary of what you accomplished with your kids in the short time you had them. Thanks for sharing and have a Happy Easter!