PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT AND
FAITH IN THE DOMESTIC CHURCH
The role of parents in the Christian education of their children is of vital importance. The starting point for faith at home is the daily activities of the family. How family members interact, communicate, make decisions, solve problems – all these are the domestic church in action.
Faith which is celebrated and lived out within the family has certain characteristics:
1. Spontaneity – Moments of learning and growing come when they will. Expressing faith at home is best done by making the most of the present. For example, a visit from a friend or relative is an opportunity to practice Christian hospitality.
2. Sharing – The dinner table, the family room, the family car, vacations – these settings bring parents and children together intimately and often evoke earthy and honest sharing. Faith happens in the midst of it all.
3. Awareness – For faith to thrive in the domestic church, each person must be aware of the needs of the others. Our program aims at increasing faith in the family by developing the awareness and sensitivity of family members.
4. Knowledge – It is important for parents to know what the Melkite Greek-Catholic Church is all about – teachings, traditions, worship and morality – in order to share faith in the family.
5. Patience - Developing faith at home requires a great deal of patience. Both parents and children need patience with themselves and with one another. All must learn from mistakes and make strides together.
6. Celebration – In a family marked by the spirit of celebration, family meals, holidays, days of joy and days of sadness are celebrated as rituals that reinforce faith and love.
7. Prayer – Faith in the domestic church is characterized by an atmosphere of prayer and a spirit of growing together.
It is our hope that the
religious education program here at Holy Transfiguration will provide a link
between children and parents to help the family grow in faith.
SUNDAY SCHOOL 2008 – 2009
The following is the Sunday School year-end report, presented
to the Holy Transfiguration Parish Council on May 24, 2009
The final day of Sunday School was May 17, 2009.
The following is summary of the accomplishments of each class.
Toddler
Class - Maria Cowen, Teacher
This past school year the
Toddler Class covered the “Reaching for Jesus” toddler course book. We started off learning the Sign of the Cross
and the story of creation and that God made everything and we thank God in
prayer for all His gifts. We sang a song
about some of the things that God made and gave us and then sang to thank Him
for all His gifts. We talked about
prayer – in Church; at home – when we wake up, eat, at bedtime, etc; for family
and friends; anytime, like when we are afraid or upset or happy or it’s a
beautiful day or rain for the flowers.
We went over many Bible stories including but not limited to Noah’s Ark,
Daniel and the Lions’ Den; Jonah and the Whale.
We did a lot of the stories using sticker sets and coloring pages. We discussed the Church Holy days and to
listen when the Gospel is being read and Father’s Homily. We went over some of the Bible readings for
that day and colored pictures that would help us remember. We talked about behavior in Church and at
home. We did counting exercises – 12
apostles, 40 days, 2 of each animal. We
talked about how each of us is different and are gifts from God. We identified our eyes, nose, ears, mouth,
hands, etc. and why God gave us these gifts.
We went over basics – please, thank you, may I please, no thank you,
sharing, caring, helping, etc. Rules at
home, in church, and that God gave us rules – the Ten Commandments. Which then led into the importance of saying
“I’m sorry” when we do something wrong (breaking a rule) and to try not to do
it again. We practice prayers. At then end of the school year we talked
about the importance of going to Church on Sunday’s and Holy days and praying
everyday and remembering our manners.
Pre-K and
K Class - Michele Poynton, Teacher
2008-2009 was a good year
for the Pre-K and Kindergarten Sunday school class. About fourteen children were enrolled, and
the class size each Sunday averaged around seven. Most will continue to the First grade next
year. My guiding principles were to help
them understand basic aspects of our Christian Faith and life, love of God and
neighbor, in its eastern expression.
Using the text What We See and Do in Church as the basis of
instruction, I supplemented with many activities, as young children learn
better through doing: field trips to the church, lighting candles,
acting biblical stories, class discussion/questions, and craft projects related
to the lesson. Given the short
time we have the children for instruction, I sent them home with a review sheet
to color and to have the parents read, since reinforcement and continuation at
home is crucial.
In the overall context of our Faith being about God’s love
for us and our love in return, we covered areas of liturgy, morals, spiritual
life, and scripture. I placed a great
emphasis on the Divine Liturgy and the things in the church that help us pray,
liturgical seasons and feasts, saints and angels, and the holy mysteries of
Baptism and Eucharist. In terms of moral
life, the children should now understand the importance of following God’s
commandments, forgiveness, sharing, and helping. To develop a prayer life, we practiced
various prayers, hymns, intercessions, and the Jesus Prayer. Lastly, we often covered stories of the Old
and New Testament, building familiarity with our forefathers, the Apostles, and
the life of Jesus. By God’s grace, the
children will continue to grow and deepen in their love of Him and the Faith,
through the life of the Church
1st Grade
- Mary Battey and Barbara Fleshman, Teachers
What First Grade
accomplished:
Class made individual
prayer books.
Lessons based on first
grade book – Me and My World. We were
able to go thru most lessons.
Made Ikons
and discussed what they represented.
Learned
vocabulary words pertaining to the Liturgy, our faith and Icons by using cards
and a learning tree.
Kept a
prayer board to help learn prayers.
Made a
St. Nicholas garland showing his gifts.
Made a
prayer chain for the Christmas tree.
Prayed
for our clergy during Great Lent.
2nd Grade
- Victoire deLeusomme, Teacher
What the children learned
this year:
That
they are made in the image and likeness of God, that they are an Icon of God
and to think of others as Icons of God, too.
They learned they are old
enough to be responsible for how they act toward others and how to question
their own behavior.
The children learned ways
to question themselves and examine their behavior with family, school mates and
society in general as well as how they care for themselves.
They learned they should
be responsible for their own prayer time and to pray for others, including
those who may be a problem to them (i.e. bullies, siblings and those who temp
them to anger.)
The class studied the
commandments in class and emphasis was on those the children at this age can
easily understand. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 7
have received the most time in class.
They have learned that “we
sin when on purpose, we choose not to show love for God and others.
Most importantly, they
know there is a path to forgiveness when they make a mistake and are truly
sorry for not treating others and themselves as God’s laws teach us to behave.
The children made prayer
baskets to put in their Icon corners at home.
This exercise was meant to help them remember to pray for others and for
themselves. They wrote the names of
those they wanted to pray for on hearts – put the hearts in the basket – to be
taken out a prayer time to remind them to pray for those people.
The children learn they
should be responsible for their prayer time that along with family prayer they
should develop the habit of personal prayer and review their day each
evening. To help them the children were
given a mini Icon corner in the form of a wooden box with a hinged lid. Inside the box was a battery powered votive
light, flowers, golden cross, 2 mini Icons of Jesus and Mary, prayer rope, holy
water, laminated cards with – commandments, beatitudes and the prayer of St.
Ephraim.
3rd Grade
- Judy Handal, Teacher
The 3rd Grade
focused on learning, understanding and appreciating the celebration
of Divine Liturgy: the liturgical items used, priestly vestments
worn, the order of prayers in the liturgy, the
historical tradition and purpose of the prayers used in the
liturgy. The Divine Liturgy Activities booklet provides the children with
various activities to make their learning fun. Throughout the year,
emphasis has been on how God has revealed His love for us and how we are to
more attentively, fervently and devoutly approach and participate in Divine
Liturgy, the greatest way to show our love for God. Finally, to encourage
appreciation of the Word of God, the children memorized and reflected on 5
scripture verses pertaining to the greatest commandment (Mark
12:30-31), prophesy regarding the Incarnation (Matthew 1:23), God's love
and the sending of His Son (John 3:16) and the gift of the Holy Spirit (Acts
1:8).
4th Grade
- Joseph Korban, Teacher
1. We
completed the course of the first 4 Units of the book "Growing with
God" in detail with reviews, then we continued the last 2 Units in a
summary fashion.
2. We learned
how to use the bible covering all the scripture readings of the Sundays during
the school year, by reading all the Epistles and Gospels.
3. We also
learned about the Sundays during the school year by identifying each particular
Sunday. We also learned about the major feasts of the church for the entire
year. We also learned about Great Lent
and how important this time is for us.
4. We learned
the prayers for the Mother of God and Psalm 50. We learned how to remember
things.
5. We did
various activities and homework that reinforced what we covered in class.
6. We
emphasized the importance of Repentance and worked to improve on our
preparation for Holy Confession.
5th Grade
- JoEllen Quint, Teacher
This past
year my class spent several weeks studying the Liturgy in detail. We
learned the parts of the church, the icons and their placement on the
iconostasis, and we took the Liturgy piece by piece and discussed it so
that the children are familiar with our customs and how and why we do what we
do.
We talked
about faith and believing. We spent every Sunday that we had confession
going over behavior and thoughts so it could be "real" and not
just mechanical, confessing the same thing i.e. "I fight with my brother
all the time".
As Lent
approached we took each Sunday of preparation and discussed it in detail,
including the theme of repentance. We practiced Psalm 50 and
the Prayer of St. Ephraim. When Lent began we took each week and
discussed why Lent is so important to us and why we do what we do. During
the weeks of preparation and during the Great Lent we read the Gospel for each
Sunday and made sure we understood what it was about.
6th
& 7th Grades - Philip Battey, Teacher
In the 6th
and 7th Grades Class, we covered the sacramental life of the Church within the
framework of the shift from the legalism of the 10 Commandments and the Judaic
law of the Old Testament to the Life in the Holy Spirit of the New Testament.
In addition, we spent classes discussing charity in the
context of the Feast of the Nativity, genocide in the context of the experience
of Greek and Armenian Christians in the late Ottoman Empire, St. Patrick in
preparation for St. Patrick's Day, and a short history of the Church from c. 33
A.D. to the present.
Finally, we spent two classes preparing for Great Lent and
two classes preparing for Holy Week and Pascha.
8th
& 9th Grades - Linda Black, Teacher
This is our year to focus
on the Bible and help the kids become comfortable reading it. Opening prayers are always from the Psalms,
and the kids are encouraged to memorize Psalm 50, which is always the opening
prayer on days we go to confession.
We start the year with an
introduction to the structure of the Bible and making sure the kids can find
their way around the Old and New Testaments.
We read the creation story in Genesis very closely, paying special
attention to what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God. At this time we also read excerpts from
Archbishop Cyril’s book on the Creed.
We then read the Ten
Commandments in Exodus and Deuteronomy, and these become our focus for
preparation for confession on those Sundays when it is our turn for the
sacrament. On those Sundays the kids
copy out one or two of the commandments while others in class copy out other
scriptural references pertaining to that command, preferably something Jesus
has said, and this is followed by discussion.
On all other Sundays we
read the Gospel of Mark closely, along with commentaries by the Church Fathers
on what we read. Special emphasis is
given to the structure of the Gospel, Mark’s use of particular words
(immediately, astonished, amazed, authority, the way), theophany
in Mark, the disciples, Jesus in relationship to the Pharisees, the biblical
basis for the sacraments, how long it takes for the disciples to understand who
Jesus is, that Christ’s 3 predictions of his passion are followed by His
calling us to carry our cross and serve others, and then a very close reading
of His final days in Jerusalem.
At the beginning of the
year I had lots of quizzes, with results sent home by email, which is a good
way for the kids and their parents to realize that Sunday School
requires their active participation and that I take it seriously. During the week I would always email a review
of the lesson so they would have notes from which to study. Unfortunately I had parents tell me that with
my good notes they did not always make the effort to bring the kids (one parent
told me he preferred to sleep in on Sunday morning) because they could just
read through the notes with them at home.
I found this tremendously discouraging and stopped
sending detailed emails. The kids
are very bright, but this year’s class had spottier attendance than previous
year’s classes, and this slowed us way down and we were not able to complete
the Gospel. If
anything can be done to impress upon the parents the importance of bringing
their children regularly and on time that would be extremely helpful. For a variety of reasons I firmly believe
that those kids who are regular Sunday School
attendees become active and faithful parish members.
10th,
11th & 12th Grades - Phillip & Anne Benedicto, Teachers
Our identity as Melkite
Christians is always the theme for grades 10-12. From year to year, only
the materials and approach are altered. This is our last chance to strengthen
our children's foundation as members of the Holy Transfiguration family before
they go out on their own.
This year 10-12 grade Sunday School spent their time
addressing our identity as Melkite Christians. We covered "how we
relate to" and "how we are different from" other faiths.
Using the book For the Life of the World by Schmemann,
we discussed the context for our beliefs and how we, as Melkite Christians,
understand the role of our church. We discussed how our church is more
than just a ceremony that we attend. It is left here by Christ to do
God's work and to spread the joy of our salvation to the world. This
curriculum was also supported by our weekly review of the Gospel for each week,
discussing traditional Eastern Christian understanding of the scriptures.
Occasionally, we would use clips from movies (rated PG-13 or under) to show
examples (positive or negative) of the concepts being covered.
Every 6-8 weeks, we conducted an open forum session to discuss any other
questions that the students may have about how to respond to trials and
conflicts of everyday life. These classes are very popular with the
students, but are most effective when the students have had a chance to spend
time with each other outside of class (such as during youth group activities)
so they feel free to exchange ideas.
Sunday School will resume on September 20, 2009
(S)Georgianna
Kostak
Sunday School Coordinator
Holy
Transfiguration Melkite Greek-Catholic Church · 8501 Lewinsville Road · McLean,
Va. 22102 · 703 734- 9566
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