Ascension Church Tuesday Grades 7/8 Religious Education

Advent Greetings everyone! Happy New (Liturgical) Year! The Advent wreath inside Ascension Church, with the first candle lit In our most recent class, we celebrated and learned more about Advent, the start of this new liturgical year. At the start of class, everyone created a hand turkey as a way for us to continue giving thanks to God for all His gifts to us, as we are called to live a lifestyle of thanksgiving day after day. We also spent a little bit of time on St. Mother Katharine Drexel. And we continued learning about the Eucharist, by looking more closely at the words of the Eucharistic Prayer II, and then I shared a story about a bishop who used some analogies to explain the mystery of the Eucharist. Thanks to those of you who submitted your donations for our class Christmas Angel project. If you haven't already, you have until December 6 to submit your minimum donation of $5.  Please remember you can't just ask your parents, or other relatives, for the money.  You may...

Greetings everyone! It was great to be back in class with you again. We spent some time remembering those we know who have passed on from this life, which is customary to do during the month of November as we reach the end of the liturgical year. I'm glad that I had the chance to incorporate the celebration of 100 years since my Grandpa José's birth during class time, and it certainly seems like you enjoyed the pan dulce. I also took some time to address some of your questions from previous classes, and it's good that you are all thinking deeply about questions pertaining to faith. In the spirit of remembrance, we shifted focus toward the end of class on the Eucharist, when we remember and re-present the sacrifice of Christ and encounter His living presence. We are off from class on November 22, and we resume on November 29. Our class is going to make a contribution to this year's parish-wide Christmas Angel project. We agreed each student in our class will contribute a...

Greetings everyone! While I was absent from our most recent class on November 8, I had the chance to speak with Matt Goto, the substitute teacher.  It sounds like you all had an interesting class and posed some good questions about the existence of God, which is the focus of chapter 5 "Divine Activity" in the green book Christ Reveals God's Mystery. Through our senses and intellectual abilities, we come to see how God reveals Himself in the world around us, and through His work in salvation history, especially in the covenants, by which He brings us into relationship with Himself. Thank you, Matt, for substituting while I was doing the incredible work of serving the community at a polling place on Election Day. As a reminder, there is a Scripture reflection activity due by class time on November 15. 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 i...