Sightseeing - A Reconciliation Lesson

Sunday December 9th was our thirteenth session together. This week we had a lesson dedicated to learning more about the Sacrament of Reconciliation. In preparing for the session, I decided we would go over to the church and see the confessionals, talk about them, and talk about what goes on during the sacrament. I put together a pamphlet that walks through the steps of the sacrament, which you can find here. I did not develop a formal lesson plan for the session.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned Earnest Eagle would not be joining us. We missed him, but hope he had a terrific time on his special camping trip!

The children were very excited to be taking a field trip to the church! We went to see the confessional (aka the Reconciliation room). They were completely fascinated with the room! We looked at the side that had two chairs. We learned how the priest sits in one of the chairs, and then when we come in we sit on the other chair and we see and talk to the priest while we have our Confession.

Then we saw another door and looked in there. No chairs, only a place to kneel. What was that for? I explained that if we want to use this side, we do not see the priest. We have our confession by having the same conversation, we just are not face to face. The children were amazed! Why would anyone want to do it that way! I explained that was the way everyone used to do it, and today we have a choice of how we want to participate.

We all went back to the other side and climbed in (yes, we are happy we are a small class!!). First, we talked about Father's homily today. He had talked about how when he first joined the Holy Ghost Fathers, he learned that part of their credo was that they had to be true to go to Confession every week. He told how he was challenged by that and thought it was "just a rule in the book". After all, he was studying to be a priest, he was harmless... why would he need to go to Confession every week? He went on to discuss how he came to have a change of heart and challenged us to think about how we feel about the sacrament and how true are we? (He picked a perfect day to have this topic and couldn't have given a better discussion about why to go to Confession if we had planned it! The Holy Spirit is certainly with us!).

Then, we took turns reading sections from the Reconciliation pamphlet, and learning more about exactly what goes on in there. We read the Act of Contrition together.

We wrapped up the time by talking about how we felt about what we are learning about the Sacrament of Reconciliation. Do we have questions? The children had LOTS of questions. And a couple of interesting observations as well:

• Rocking Horse noted that she finally figured out that the sacrament has 3 names: Confession, Penance, and Reconciliation.
  
• Effusive Jaguar said this sacrament uses a lot of big words.
  
• Fair Cheetah said we shouldn't be scared.
  
• Courtly Polar Bear said we shouldn't be sad.
  
• Pragmatic Tiger said he isn't sure how he feels about this whole thing.
  
• Sweet Pea Elephant said she needs to think it over some more.
  

Next week we will be joining the parish for our Christmas party and then we have a break until after the new year. Enjoy this time with your family and with the Holy Family! Merry Christmas!