3rd Grade Religious Ed:Spiritual Works of Mercy

Class 18 was a continuation of the Works of Mercy, but this time with the Spiritual Works.  I was absent for this class, but I planned it and the Emperor did it for me. But we're short on photos. :)

We started with a discussion of the Divine Mercy Image and the Year of Mercy.

The image shows Jesus pouring his mercy on us: the red rays symbolize his sacrifice, the blood He shed for us, and the blue rays symbolize the healing waters of baptism and grace.

This all ties back in to the kerygma!  Jesus died and rose and invites us into his new life!

Because we had done the Holy Door craft last time, we had a short video of Pope Francis opening the Holy Door in Rome.  We also had a 60 second Lego explanation of the Year of Mercy. Pretty fun!

The book theme this week was "Jesus Gives Us the Holy Spirit, " so we talked about the Holy Spirit
and the Trinity.  I'm always surprised at how few kids seem to understand that the Holy Spirit is God.

After Jesus was raised he took his glorified body back to heaven, but He promised to send us a helper: the Holy Spirit. How does He help us?  He helps us to be who God created us to be, to be holy! He speaks in our hearts and helps us act in ways that show God's love.

We call some of those ways of showing God's love the Works of Mercy.  Last time we had looked at the some of the ways we show God's love using our bodies (the Corporal Works), but we can also show God's love using our hearts (the Spiritual Works).

For the Spiritual Works, we colored and made these mini books by Look to Him and be Radiant.

Then we had the kids come up with and act out scenarios for each Spiritual Work. I had a nice list, also from Look to Him and be Radiant, in case we couldn't come up with anything.

I have to admit that I completely underestimated the time this would take, and we didn't get through all the works, but they did get to take home their mini books and the list.

Class 19 Was "We are Part of the Kingdom."  I had planned to connect the Gospel (the Prodigal Son) to the theme of mercy, specifically asking who showed mercy in that parable, have we been shown mercy in our lives, and how do we show mercy.  That would bring us back to the Works of Mercy, and I thought we could finish up the Spiritual Works.

We also were going to talk about the Communion of Saints with a special focus on Our Lady of Guadalupe... and this was where I got pneumonia, so I wasn't actually at this class either. :(