Father Damian

Tonight is our last class and I am so sad to see it end. I have really enjoyed the students and blogging about my class. We only have class for about 20 minutes then we gather for May Crowning. I am serving pizza and wings while we play hangman, choosing who our favorite person was that we talked about. I am choosing Hannah because of her deep desire to have a child and how she gave him back to God at such an early age.

Yesterday, May 10 was the feast of St. Damian, so I am also serving pineapple macadamia cookies to honor him. Last year when I was in Hawaii I saw his monument on the same square as King Kamehameha at the Judicial Office and I was pretty excited that a religious person was honored.

Father Damian came to Hawaii in 1864 as an ordained priest. In 1873 he moved to the leper colony in Molokai. It was hard for him to see the suffering of the lepers and how they were ostracized from the rest of the world. He knew he could not heal them and realised why they needed to be quarantined, so he spent his time making there life more meaningful. There were times when he celebrated the Mass that he had to hold out from vomiting because the stench of the leprosy was so strong. He eventually contracted the disease himself and died. There is finally a cure for Leprosy or Hanson's disease as it is now called, so the Island of Molokai is no longer a leper Island. As Father Damian was caring for the lepers he was really caring for Jesus, he is truly a great saint and someone we can model our life after.

The Promised Land at Last

Moses is now 112 years old and because of his disobedience to God, striking the rock so that the water would flow out and not speaking to the rock, he is not the person God chooses to bring the Israelites into the Promised Land. God does give Moses a view of the Promised Land though. Moses climbs to the top of Mount Nebo alone and sees how great the land is, that it is indeed flowing with milk and honey and has the largest figs and pomegranates he has ever seen. Moses then dies on Mt. Nebo. The Israelites mourn him for 30 days. Then Joshua, the person chosen by God to be the new leader, brings them into the Promised land.

So for my treat I made ice cream drizzled with honey to represent the milk and honey. I also have pomegranate seeds and fig newtons.

Bronze Serpent and Jelly Bean Prayer

As the Israelites are on their 40 year journey into the Promised land they continue to complain about Moses and even about God. They are sick of eating manna and quail and are sick of wondering around. For their punishment God sent serpents among them. The bites of these snakes caused death. Only after many people had died from the bites did the Israelites realize their sinfulness. The people went to Moses and admitted that they had sinned. They asked Moses to intercede for them so that God would save them from the snake bites. God told Moses to place a bronze snake on a pole and place it where the people could see it. The people who had been bitten by the snake came to see the bronze serpent. They had faith in God's power to heal them. These people lived and were healed of the terrible snakebites. In the book of John, Jesus says, "Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life." In this way Moses prefigures Jesus. So for my treat I tied pretzels together with dental floss to from a cross, then I tied a gummy worm to the cross.
Who knew that eating jelly beans could be a form of prayer. Each color represents something about Jesus. For my second treat I gave the students jelly beans.
Orange for the edge of night.
Pink is for a new tomorrow.
White is for the life he gave.
Purple is for his hour of sorrow.
Black is for the sins we made.
Green is for the grass he made.
Yellow is for the sun so bright.
Red is for the blood he gave.

Seder meal

A Seder meal is a Christian Passover. The Catholic Mass is modeled after the Seder Meal. After every Seder Meal I seem to have a better understanding of our mass, so I guess all of the work is worth it. I use a Seder celebration that I got off the Internet several years, it is a very structured celebration. We begin with the symbolic foods and then a meal and close with a blessing.

The symbolic foods are:

4 glasses of grape juice for the 4 promises God gave the Israelites; I will bring you out of Egypt, I will free you from slavery, I will save you by my own hand, and I will take you to be my people and I will be your God.

Parsley representing new life, salt water for their tears.

Matzoh the unleavened bread.

Horseradish (bitter herb) representing the bitterness in Egypt.

Haroset (chopped apples and walnuts with cinnamon and honey) representing the mortar used to make bricks.

Lamb bone representing the passover lamb.

Egg representing the offering brought to the temple. I have deviled eggs instead of boiled eggs because they are less messy.

For our meal we have lamb, mashed potatoes and gravy, noodles, creamed corn and for dessert carrot cake.

Part of the celebration is for the teacher to hide a piece of matzoh representing Jesus being hidden for 3 days. Whoever finds the hidden Matzoh gets a prize. Since I have new students each year I can use the same hiding place every year, which is in the tree with the serpent. The prize this year is jelly belly jelly beans.

The students enjoyed the celebration and did a wonderful job participating. Have a very blessed Easter.

The Spies

After spending about a year at Mt. Sinai, where Moses received the 613 laws that the Israelites were expected to follow it was time to enter the Promised land. So Moses sent 12 spies, one from each of the 12 tribes, to check out the land. They spied the land for forty days. When they returned to Moses everyone agreed that the land was flowing with milk and honey. They commented on how great were the figs, pomegranates and grapes. It actually took two people to carry the grapes on a pole they were so large. Even as they agreed on how great the land was all of the spies except for Caleb and Joshua thought the Canaanites were too fearful. They said the Israelites seemed liked grasshoppers next to them. Caleb and Joshua agreed the Canaanites were a fearful people but the Israelites had God on their side and He would help them attack the enemy. The Israelites decided that they would not march into Canaan. God was not happy with their decision and wanted to destroy them, but Moses interceded for them and God did not destroy the Israelites, but told them they would have to wander in the dessert for 40 years and only the young children would live to enter Canaan.

So for my treat tonight I have grapes, fig newtons and pomegranate juice. I sure am glad that Jesus came and died for me so I don't have to follow the 613 laws!

Manna in the desert

Reading about the Israelites reminds me of my children when they were bored, no matter you had for them to do, they complained. I'm sure Moses got pretty tired of hearing the Israelites complain. Two months after they had left Egypt they were complaining they had nothing to eat. So Moses asks God for his help; he sent quail in the evening and manna in the morning. Manna were sticky white flakes with a sweet taste. Because it tasted like wafers the Israelites called it "bread from heaven." They were only to collect enough for one day, so they would learn to trust God that he would supply their needs every day. The day before the Sabbath they were to collect enough for that day and the Sabbath.

So for my treat, the stickiest thing I could think of was marshmallow cream. So I made sticky rice Crispy treats with speckled eggs to represent quail eggs. I know the speckled eggs are stretching the quail a bit, but my daughter is due any day and I wanted to plan something easy in case I need to make a quick trip to see my new grand baby!

Penance service

Tonight we are having a penance service and we will be in church the whole evening so I did not make a snack. Tomorrow is half way through lent and I was thinking about two of the things I gave up. I gave facebook up for lent and at first I really missed it, but I am missing it less each week. During the time that I would have checked facebook I am reading the book of Sirach. It is one of my favorite books and it is so full of wisdom that I need to hear. I also turned my radio off in the car and since I am usually alone when I am going somewhere it gets pretty lonesome. But I find myself paying more attention to the surroundings, and it brings to mind peoples needs, which causes me to pray for those needs. Have a good week!