A Catholic A-Z, Part 2

Week 2 of our Lenten Thematic Unit (F-I)

F - St. Francis and Fortitude

We read the lovely story of St. Francis of Assisi. He is my patron Saint and I absolutely love him.

The kiddies drew Italy and located Assisi. It ties in nicely with our study of St. Clare of Assisi.

"The seven gifts of the Holy Spirit are wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord."

"While counsel is the perfection of a cardinal virtue, fortitude is both a gift of the Holy Spirit and a cardinal virtue. Fortitude is ranked as the fourth gift of the Holy Spirit because it gives us the strength to follow through on the actions suggested by the gift of counsel. While fortitude is sometimes called courage, it goes beyond what we normally think of as courage. Fortitude is the virtue of the martyrs that allows them to suffer death rather than to renounce the Christian Faith."

I hired my beautiful eldest to 'tattoo' the word fortitude on the littlies' arms.

G - God, Gospel, Gregorian chant and the Genealogy of Jesus 

A morning of writing to God. Using green card to symbolise us all on Earth and silver envelopes for Heaven, the children wrote one word to God on each card. Each word represents a way we can talk to Him each day, whenever we can.:

Thank you: for my day, my family, my friends, fun times, safety, security, food etc.

Sorry: for mucking up, being unkind, getting angry, being hurtful, inconsiderate etc.

Wow: I had the most amazing idea, I had a great day, I learnt something new just now etc.

Help: me to be wiser, kinder, find the courage for that appointment, slow down when I shouldn't rush. etc.

We 'sent' them via our heart card holder to symbolise God in our heart.

We learnt that the word Gospel originates form the Anglo-Saxon word God-spell which means Good News

We listened to Gregorian chant from the Franciscan monastery in Assisi.

And Panda Girl drew the Genealogy of Jesus - right back to Abraham. Historically fascinating.

H- Holy Spirit, St. Helen, Hope and Host

The Holy Spirit, the third person of the Holy Trinity is the breath and vitality of God. The children represented this with a red flame and blue breaths, quoting Holy Spirit references from the Bible.

We also read about St. Helen of the True Cross, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, we talked about Hope (my favourite virtue) and the Host.

I - The Israelites and IHS

We spent a fun half hour watching the story of Moses and consolidating our knowledge of how he freed the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and took them to their homeland, parting the Red Sea and receiving the Ten Commandments.

Making the Ten Commandments.

IHS and XP are symbols we often see on the Host, vestments, missals etc. We learnt how IHS are the first three letters of Ihsous which is Jesus in Greek. XP is the Greek Ch and r from the word Christ. Both symbols were used by the early Christians during the Catacombs. 

The children made a simple information sheet to help them explain the symbolism to their other siblings.

A Catholic A-Z, Part 1

Lent has arrived and I wanted our thematic unit this month to include some significant faith-based work. I decided on a Catholic A-Z because we can cover all sorts of cross-curricular parts of our faith, from the saints to historical artefacts, from parts of the Mass to the geography of the Holy Land.

A - The Acts of the Apostles

The kiddies grabbed duvets for an introduction to St. Luke's Acts of the Apostles. We have continued to read a chapter a day and it's getting all very exciting.

Making parchment to re-create their own Acts of the Apostles.

An attempt at writing Ancient Hebrew. I'm not sure St. Luke would have worn a Spiderman hoodie but it was fun all the same.

B- The Bible, Bethlehem and St. Brigid

We have a daily prayer book which includes quotes from the Bible. The kiddies searched through our lovely family bible for the quotes, learning the names of each book as they did so.

We watched a short video on the Bethlehem today - vastly different to the small, silent Bethlehem of the first Christmas. 

St. Brigid is one of our new favourite saints. Stubborn and steadfast and kind and generous.

St. Brigid crosses

C - The Catacombs, Calvary and St. Clare

After morning prayers we sat under the table. I always keep the kiddies in the dark (no pun intended) about each morning's work because it keeps them enthusiastic and curious. Hilariously nobody thought it was that weird when I told them to sit under the table. I read them the history of the Catacombs in Rome and it opened up a whole new world of adventure and understanding of the early Christians.

Copying the symbols found in the Catacombs - representing among others, everlasting peace, hope and Jesus.

Chiselling the symbols into bricks

And reading books with Sunbaby in the new den :)

We researched correlating Bible verses about where Christ died. All four gospels say he died at the 'place of the skull', which, in Aramaic, is Golgotha. In Latin this translates as Calvaria which in the King James Bible became 'Calvary'. The Bible also offers clues as to its whereabouts: outside the city walls of Jerusalem and near a public road from where passers-by could shout insults. From this we looked at images of possible 'Golgothas' - just spine tingling.

We also read about St. Clare - friend of St. Francis of Assisi. Panda Girl is going to read a longer version of her life.

D - The Dead Sea Scrolls, St. Dominic Savio and St. Dominic of the Rosary

The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection of manuscripts discovered to the north west of the Dead Sea in and after 1947, when a shepherd boy threw a stone into a cave in search of a lost sheep and it hit an earthenware jug. Cool story! The scrolls date back to shortly before Christ and are works of the Old Testament, psalms and prayers. It seems the community to which they belong had journeyed into the desert in preparation for the coming of the Messiah. Such an historically fascinating find!

So we made them and found north west in dining room :)

We also read the lives of Dominic Savio and St. Dominic of the Rosary

E - Edward the Confessor, Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament and St. Elizabeth of Hungary

Edward the Confessor replaced an Anglo-Saxon church with the breathtaking Westminster Abbey because he was unable to keep a vow to visit St. Peter's once he had returned to the English throne. The Pope requested he build a monastery instead. It has seen the coronation of the English monarchy since 1066! We You-Tubed our way around the cathedral and spent some quiet time drawing the cathedral.

Ballet Girl's and Monkey Girl's study room was invaded by workmen so they (the girls, not the workmen) joined us for the story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary, one of Ballet Girl's favourite saints.

Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament was introduced in the 1300s after the Elevation at Mass increased the faithfuls' understanding of the Body of Christ.

The Boy made a beautiful monstrance to complete our week. Watch this space!