Ascension Church Tuesday Grades 7/8 Religious Education

Greetings everyone! In our last class, we explored Scripture, the subject of chapter 3 in the green book Christ Reveals God's Mystery :  The Bible is a canon, or collection, of books.  The author of each book was inspired by the Holy Spirit.  And the Holy Spirit guided the church leaders centuries ago in compiling the collection of books that we have as our Bible today. We also watched a couple of videos that speak about faith and sports, with gymnast Grace McCallum and Cubs chaplain Father Burke Masters.  If you want to watch them again, the links are below my signature. I hope you also enjoyed the treats I brought in celebration of my Grandma's birthday. For the weekly activity, please take time to reflect on Scripture. Visit this link  with the Scripture readings calendar on the USCCB website and pick any Scripture passage for any day of the week.  (Please note the psalms are written in a responsorial form, so it's a different format than the other readi...

Greetings everyone! At the start of our most recent class, we welcomed Gabby, our class aide this year, for the first time. She is a third-year OPFHS student and one of my former students.  Welcome Gabby and thank you for volunteering for our class. After having a little celebration for the 17th anniversary of my Confirmation, it was story time as we focused on God's work of salvation through hand motions. Below my signature is a video of the hand motions. God created us, saved us from sin, and sent the Holy Spirit to guide us in fulfilling God's purpose for us. Theology of the Body, a series of talks by Pope St. John Paul II, describes what that purpose is.  We are created in the image and likeness of God, Who is love, because He gives Himself in total gift to us, ultimately in Jesus Christ. We are called to reflect God's character by giving ourselves as gift to one another. For this week, there is an activity for you to do. Visit the website on Eucharistic miracles creat...

Greetings everyone! In our most recent class, we focused on the mission we have as people of faith. We looked at several different Bible passages that speak to what our mission is: Matthew 28:18-20 Mark 16:15-18 Luke 4:16-21 Luke 10:1-9 Acts 1:8 2 Timothy 4:1-2 Jesus Christ established the Church through His Paschal Mystery of dying and rising.  He has given us a mission to proclaim the love He has for the world and that the Kingdom of God is coming into our world. At the end of class, our closing prayer time included 2 prayers.  One is a "Fragrance" prayer offered up by the Missionaries of Charity, led by St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta, each morning before they went to serve the poorest of the poor. The other prayer was the St. Francis Prayer --his feast day is October 4.  Everyone wrote a phrase from that prayer on a slip of paper.  During this week, the activity is to keep that slip someplace where you'll see it regularly and be reminded of this prayer.  If y...