Trip Down Memory Lane - We Receive the Gift of Jesus

Sunday March 30th was our twenty-fourth session together. This week we covered Unit 4, Chapter 14 "We Receive The Gift of Jesus." In preparing for the session, I established the focus that in the Eucharist, we remember the life, death, and Resurrection of Jesus and nourish our union with him. The lesson plan for the session includes the topics discussion, the activities worksheet, and craft activity.

Packing Light: If you just want the activity sheet for this session, you can find it here. It has a coloring activity, word search, crossword and maze activity.

When we met in the common area for the whole group activity, we learned that Pragmatic Tiger, Fair Cheetah, Effusive Jaguar, Sweet Pea Elephant, and Rocking Horse would not be joining us, so we were a small group!

We started by reviewing a little:

Who is Jesus?

"God's son!"

What happened to Him?

"He died on the cross!"

Why did He do that?

(various expressions of 'hmmm' and 'I don't know' and then...) "for us?" (asked Courtly Polar Bear quite timidly)

Absolutely! He did it for us, to save us from our sins. He showed us the greatest love. And he also showed that God has power even over death. How did He do that?

"He rose up again on Easter!" (said Ingenious Giraffe triumphantly)

So then we spent a bit of time talking about the Last Supper, and how Jesus blessed the bread and wine and said "Do this in memory of me."

Why do you think he told them to keep doing that in memory of Him?

"Because He knew He was going to die?" (said Ingenious Giraffe)

That's true, He did. But let me ask you something. What did you have for dinner last night?

(various responses, but all quite confident)

OK, and what did you have for dinner last Saturday night?

(a couple of guesses, but not very confident)

OK, what did you have for lunch last Monday?

(again, a couple of guesses, but not very convincing!)

How about last Friday?

(a nearly unanimous PIZZA!)

And how do you remember that?

Because we ALWAYS have pizza on Fridays at school!

So then we talked about how it was easier to remember about dinner last night because it was more recent - it was close to us. And we could remember Pizza on Fridays because we do it every week. It's easier for us to remember things we do often. That's why when people want to remember something, they might keep a note and make sure to read it, or keep it near them, or make sure to put it where they can see it. So we decided that Jesus asked us to "do this in memory of me" because he wanted us to make sure to remember it and to keep Him close to us where we can see Him.

We talked about how today we still celebrate the Last Supper and the priest blesses the bread and wine too, just like Jesus did. We talked about how we believe that Jesus is present in the bread and the wine after the priest blesses it, and that is how we keep Jesus close to us. We remembered that the bread has many names after it is blessed, like "Holy Communion", or "Eucharist" or "Blessed Sacrament". We remembered that we have talked about Jesus in the bread and wine before, but it is still hard to understand, we decided we would talk about it more next time.

So then, we made little memorial ribbons to help us remember how Jesus blessed the bread and wine. As usual, the children did an amazing job decorating them and then they even wanted to wear them!




















We wrapped up the day by making birthday cards for the Pope...





















Side Trips: if you want more information, activities, and games...

• If you just have a bit of time, definitely go for the online activity for this chapter at Blest Are We
• If you have two-bits of time, check out the "Jesus is always with us" activity on Blest Are We
• For more in-depth activities, check out some of the links in the lesson plan there are many coloring pages of Psalms