Women of Faith

We begin our class reading the gospel for the coming Sunday as our opening prayer. The gospel for this Sunday is the story of Zacchaeus, (Lk 19:1-10), in the Gospel Zacchaeus repents of his dishonesty and says he will give half of his possessions to the poor, and to all who he extorted he will repay four times over, so I gave the students 4 butterscotch disc to represent four gold coins that Zacchaeus gave as repayment.

Here are the Women of faith that we learned about:
Eve-The Mother of all the Living
Eve, our first mother brought death and division into the world through her sin.

Sarah-The Mother of Israel

Deborah-The Judge of Israel

Ruth-The Righteous Gentile

Hannah-The Mother of Samuel

Esther-The Courageous Queen
The Jewish people have a Feast of Purim to celebrate how Esther saved their lives. The feast is very elaborate with rich foods, so I made thumbprint cookies for a treat for the students.

Judith-The Heroine

Mary-The Handmaid of the Lord
The second Eve, Mary, the mother of Jesus, brought life through her obedience to the call of God.

Feast days of Mary

The Feast days of Mary is one of my students favorite classes. There are many feast's of Mary and these are the ones we are going to celebrate tonight. I have a symbol for each feast and here they are:

January 1 is The Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God. This feast is the oldest and the most important of all her feasts. Because of her motherhood to Jesus Christ, God's Son, who came to deliver us from sin, makes us children of God. When Jesus is hanging on the cross and tells his beloved disciple to behold his mother He is also giving Mary to us as our mother. My item is a noise maker since the Feast is Jan. 1 when we celebrate the new year.

February 2 is The Presentation of the Lord in the Temple. Mary and Joseph brought the infant Jesus to the Temple of Jerusalem to present him to God according to the Jewish custom. The aged Simeon and Anna are in the Temple awaiting the Messiah. Simeon foretells to Mary that her son "would be the downfall and the rise of many in Israel, a sign that will be opposed - and you yourself shall be pierced with a sword - so that the thoughts of many hearts will be laid bare." My item for the presentation is 2 chicken drumetts to represent 2 doves, because when you were poor like Joseph and Mary, you offered 2 doves instead of the 2 lambs.

The Annunciation of the Lord is March 25. On this Feast the Angel Gabriel announces to Mary God's invitation to be the Mother of Jesus. Mary's response was "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; let it be done according to your word." My symbol is a blue candy cigar announcing It's a boy!

May 31 is the Visitation. When Mary enters her cousin Elizabeth's house Elizabeth's son John the Baptist leaped for joy in her womb. Elizabeth says "Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb." So my treat for the visitation is fruit snacks.

The Assumption of Mary is August 15. This feast celebrates Mary's body and soul going into Heaven to share in the glory of her Son's Resurrection. My symbol for this feast is cotton candy symbolizing the cloud that Mary floated on as she went to Heaven.

The Coronation of Mary is August 22. We celebrate Mary as Queen of Heaven and Earth. A golden crown sugar cookie is my treat for this feast day.

The Birth of Mary is Sept. 8. I made a white angel food cake, to show her purity, with blue icing, to show her royalty, to celebrate this Feastday.

September the 15 is the Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. The first sorrow of Mary is Simeon's prophecy, the second is when Mary and Joseph flee with Jesus to Egypt to protect the baby Jesus from King Herod. The third sorrow is when Jesus was 12 years old he is lost in the temple for 3 days. Mary's fourth sorrow is meeting Jesus on the road to Calvary, her fifth is standing beneath the cross of her son. Her sixth sorrow is when she receives the body of Jesus after it is taken down from the cross, and her final sorrow is when she sees her Son's body placed in the tomb. My item for this feast day is a pack of tissues because when we are sad we cry and need a tissue.

Our Lady of the Rosary is October 7 and since there are 59 beads on a rosary. one for the Apostles creed/Our Father, 3 for the increase of faith, hope, and charity, 5 for the mysteries of the rosary and 50 Hail Mary's, I gave the students 59 Trix. I chose Trix cereal because it is round and has many colors and there are many different colors of rosaries.

The final feast that we celebrate is The Immaculate Conception of Mary which is celebrated on Dec. 8. To fulfill her unique role in the mission of Jesus, Mary was conceived free from original sin through the foreseen merits of her Son. My treat for this feast is a white chocolate baby with marshmallow filling to show that Mary was pure throughout her whole body.

The Rosary and review

October is the month of the Rosary so we reviewed how to pray the rosary and spent alot of time talking about the mysteries and how meditating on the mysteries it should draw us closer to Jesus and His mother. After studying the rosary we reviewed everything we have studied this year. I like to ask review questions in a form of game to make it more interesting and since it is baseball play-offs we played baseball. I ask a question and if they answer the question correctly they get to go on base. If you answer the question incorrectly you get a strike. Three strikes and your out. We had two teams the boy's were the Cincinnati Reds and the girls were the Washington Nationals. For my snack the song take me out to the ballgame kept coming to mind and in the song it says "buy me some peanuts and crackerjacks" so I made caramel corn for the crackerjacks and since crackerjacks has a prize, the prize was a rosary ring. I have a student who is allergic to peanuts so we had circus peanuts instead of fresh ones. The Cincinnati Reds won 6-1, too bad the pro team could not play that well!

Adam & Eve

Tonight we learned how sin entered the world through Adam and Eve's disobedience. Since most people associate the apple as the forbid fruit my treat was an apple along with gummy worms to represent the serpent. I also told the stories of Cain and Abel, The flood and The tower of Babel.