This Issue

• Dwelling Places for the Lord
• For Principals and School Boards
• For Educators
• For Parents
• Forming Adult Faith
• Compendium Corner

Dwelling Places for the Lord

In his homily at St. Peter’s Basilica on November 26, 2005, Pope Benedict XVI stated, “Are you willing to give me your flesh, your time, your life? This is the voice of the Lord who also wants to enter our epoch, he wants to enter human life through us. He also seeks a living dwelling place in our personal lives. This is the coming of the Lord. Let us once again learn this in the season of Advent: the Lord can also come among us.”

—Pope Benedict XVI, Spiritual Thoughts—In the First Year of His Papacy

Throughout the world, the Advent Season celebrates our preparation for the coming of the Lord, and the opportunity for each of us to invite and prepare for Jesus to “enter human life through us.” The Advent Wreath’s circle of evergreen branches with three violet candles and one rose colored candle represent the four weeks of Advent, and serve as a symbol of expectation and hope. They remind us that this season is a new moment to reflect on this precious gift in order to prepare ourselves as living dwelling places through which the Lord may enter.

All Christian cultures celebrate their hope during the Season of Advent. The Filipino preparation for the coming of Christ includes the 400-year-old tradition of Simbang Gabi, or “Mass of the Night”, celebrated as a nine-day novena of very early morning Masses, beginning December 16 and ending on Christmas Eve. Introduced by the Spanish friars to allow the farmers to hear mass before going to the fields early in the morning, Simbang Gabi is also known by its popular Spanish name as the Misa de Gallo, or ``mass of the rooster.''

Hispanic Catholics celebrate Las Posadas. A religious and social celebration dating back to the sixteenth century, Las Posadas (meaning “the inns” or “the shelters” in Spanish) takes place for nine nights, from December 16th to 24th. It commemorates Joseph and Mary's journey to Bethlehem and their search for shelter prior to the birth of Christ. The traditional celebration includes a procession led by children, followed by adults and musicians. They travel to a different house in the community or neighborhood each night looking for lodging. When they enter the designated house, they begin the evening with prayer, followed by music, fireworks, food, candy, and treats for all. Children and adults alike anticipate this joyous religious occasion.

Advent is also the time when we celebrate Mary’s “YES!” as the first disciple and her role in the history of salvation. Pope Benedict, in his address at the close of the 2006 papal spiritual exercises stated, “[Mary] lives her whole life in the Word of God. It is as though she were steeped in the Word. Thus, all her thoughts, her will, and her actions are imbued with and formed by the Word. Since she herself dwells in the Word, she can also become the new ‘Dwelling Place’ of the Word in the world.” Let us use this season of Advent as a renewed opportunity to shout our “Yes!”, as Mary did.

This issue of To Teach offers suggestions for preparing for and celebrating the season of Advent, Christmas, and the new liturgical year.

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For Principals and School Boards

• Use Pope Benedict XVI: Spiritual Thoughts—In the First Year of His Papacy as a resource to share a “quote of the day” with teachers and staff and invite their reflections at the end of the week.
• Enlist the help of staff, administrators, board members, and parents to host a school-day luncheon for teachers that celebrates and highlights cultural foods within the school community.
• Invite teachers and staff to share their Advent celebrations and highlight them in the school newsletter.
• Host a meeting with community leaders to identify the various cultures present in the community and invite their input on how your school can creatively celebrate the diversity of the community during the coming year.
• Identify individuals in your school and acknowledge the diverse gifts they bring to the community.
• Adopt a school from another city or community that is culturally different from yours and commit to learning how each celebrates the liturgical seasons from each another.
• Post an Advent Calendar in the school with suggestions on how students and families can reach out to others.
• Begin meetings with one of the prayers or litanies from the Book of Mary.
• Invite other churches in your faith community to a discussion on an ecumenical community recycling effort and use any financial savings to develop an environmentally friendly area for children.

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For Educators

• Encourage re-cycling contests in classrooms. Publish the results—how much you recycled, which classrooms recycled what—in the school newsletter and local community paper.
• Invite older classes to write a “Prayer For Our School” and post it in the classroom, the school’s newsletter, and on the school website.
• Use this season as an opportunity to begin a discussion on poverty in your community and have a class develop a plan based on Grades K-8 Poverty USA Student Action Project.
• Discuss what it means to be good stewards of God’s creation. Use Parish and Local Community Groups: Outreach and Charity to begin a discussion on various ways communities and families can get involved in projects that connect our concern for the environment with concern for the poor and vulnerable.
• Provide the prayer card Prayer For Families to your classes. Encourage them to begin a family tradition at home of praying the prayer together as a family each week.
• Use the document Called and Gifted for the Third Millennium to highlight the ways each of us can live out God’s call in our life during the coming year.
• Begin morning announcements at school with one of the prayers from the Book of Mary.

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Parents

• As a family, make an advent wreath and place it wherever the family gathers. Use the blessing in Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers and ask a relative or neighbor to preside.
• As a family, make a second advent wreath for another family in your school, parish, or neighborhood. Celebrate the “Blessing of the Advent Wreath” in Catholic Household Blessings and Prayers with that family.
• Ask your parish staff to identify a family in need in your community. Then, as a family, make a series of small gifts for the family during Advent and deliver the gifts to the family right before Christmas.
• With your family, discuss your cultural heritage and then identify important foods, traditions, and celebrations from your own childhood.. Be sure to include them in this year’s observance of Advent and Christmas. Begin the tradition of decorating and blessing of a Christmas tree. Invite your youngest child to illuminate the tree at the end of the blessing.
• Begin a tradition of giving an ornament to each child that celebrates an important element of your culture.
• As a family gift to grandparents, aunts, and uncles, give them the Book of Mary and invite them to pray various prayers in the book with grandchildren, nieces, and nephews.

Forming Adult Faith

"Forming Adult Faith" includes suggestions from the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults (USCCA) on how to promote ongoing faith formation among the adults in your school community.

The following chapters touch on different aspects of social ministry:

• Chapter 7. The Good News: God Has Sent His Son
• Chapter 12. Mary: The Church’s First and Most Perfect Member

Ideas and suggestions on how to use these chapters for your individual and group reflection can be found online and in the Reader's Journal for the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults.

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Compendium Corner

"Compendium Corner" usually provides a list of questions and answers in the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church that are related to this month’s topic. The following questions relate to this month's topic.

• Review the questions and answers in preparation for your class.
• Consider how to use appropriate questions and answers as part of your lesson plan.
• Develop learning activities that help youths and young adults learn this information by heart (memorization).

140. What does it mean that the Spirit has spoken through the prophets?
141. What did the Holy Spirit accomplish in John the Baptist?
142. What is the work of the Spirit in Mary?
143. What is the relationship between the Spirit and Christ Jesus in his earthly mission?
378. What are the human virtues?
381. What is justice?
385. What are the theological virtues?
386. What is the virtue of faith?
387. What is hope?
388. What is charity?
401. In what does the social dimension of man consist?
402. What is the relationship between the person and society?

The Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church summarizes the foundations of Catholic faith. So, select one question a week (8-12 questions for the whole summer) to learn and memorize. Choose questions on topics that are of great interest, that you struggle with and want to understand better, or that you find arise in your classroom repeatedly.

• Review the questions and answers.
• Consider how to use them in the coming year as part of your lesson plan.
• Develop learning activities that will encourage you and your students to learn the teaching by heart (memorization)

To obtain a copy of the Compendium of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, visit www.usccbpublishing.org or call 800-235-8722.

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