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2006 Back to School
Children Talking with God
Leading Children to Sunday with Angels, Saints and Kings
A Liturgical Classroom Promotes Christian Values
Teaching Children To Love All God's Creatures

Mary Catherine Berglund

After a set of late-summer Gospel readings from John 6 inserted neatly into our Year B semi-continuous reading of Mark, the church, on Labor Day weekend this year, returns us to the stories of Jesus in Mark. During the fall we continue to read from Mark until the Feast of Our Lord Jesus Christ the King, when we read again from John. The following Sunday, December 3, is the First Sunday of Advent and marks the commencement of the Luke-centered lectionary Year C. An overview of the fall Gospel readings shows Jesus as compassionate and loving, perceptive and responsive, courageous and powerful. Add that Jesus several times shows striking concern and respect for children and what we have is a text portrait of a person in whom children, as well as adults, ought to take delight.

Preparing the Gospel
A constant challenge of the Sunday Gospel presentation is that it offers a series of clips about Jesus and not a continuous story. In preparation for their ministry with children, as well as for their own spiritual enrichment, leaders of children's Liturgy of the Word might read all of Mark 7—13, a project not requiring an extensive time commitment, to experience Mark's story without the Sunday gaps. Older children in religion class might like to do the same. It is always interesting to speculate on why certain texts are omitted from the lectionary. Sometimes the reason is simply to avoid repetition of a Matthean or a Lukan text from lectionary Year A or C; sometimes the reason is less evident, and less compelling. It seems rather a pity that children do not hear the stories of the cure of two children, a girl (Mark 7:24–30) and a boy (Mark 9:14–29), or the charming story of the cure of a blind man in stages (Mark 8:22–26). The first story, in its Matthean parallel, is a Year A reading. The other two stories do not occur in the Sunday lectionary.

Presenting the Gospel
We can present the fall Gospels to children as mini-portraits of our beloved champion and model, taking each Gospel from the perspective of children. There are good ways to unify these mini-portraits across the weeks. Use the same set of figures, even simple paper cutouts, to tell all the stories. Ask the children the same two or three questions each week. Ask, for example, whom Jesus made happy, how a child who was present might have responded, or what would they say about Jesus to a friend who does not come to church? Focus on a single child-friendly characteristic of Jesus each week, encapsulate it in a word or a symbol, and create a growing collage recalling all the characteristics. Compose petitions based on the actions of Jesus, one each week, and include all the petitions, perhaps grouped, in the general intercessions; or compose an accumulating litany of thanksgiving based on instances of the kindness and compassion of Jesus we hear proclaimed. As a take-home project, children might create a collage of portraits of the face of Jesus as he reaches out to others to ease their burdens, to heal, to encourage, to embrace or to offer a kind word. Leaders who take turns leading children's Liturgy of the Word might plan such a fall project together.

Jesus Blesses the Children
The Gospel for October 8 (the Twenty-seventh Sunday in Ordinary Time) merits special comment. The Lectionary for Mass offers the option of omitting Mark 10:13–16. This includes Jesus' words that all who would enter the kingdom of God must accept the kingdom like a child, and his touching act of embracing and blessing the children around him whom the disciples were reprimanding. Isn't it essential that adults ponder these words and actions of Jesus that specify a necessary condition for living in God's presence? Leaders of children's Liturgy of the Word would never omit proclaiming these verses and respond to the option of omitting them with sadness and, yes, indignation. Leaders of children's Liturgy of the Word, quite to the contrary, rejoice with special enthusiasm over these words because our ministry with children and God's word takes profoundly to heart the example of Jesus' kindness and concern for children. Indeed, the Directory for Masses with Children cites the text in encouraging the liturgical care of children (DMC 3). All who proclaim or teach God's word to children benefit from reading this short, sensitive document published now more that thirty years ago by the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship (now part of the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments). This document is available from OCP's Liturgy Documentary Series, Volume 12: Masses with Children, (OCP 8102)

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Mary Catherine Berglund has a doctorate in theology and is an experienced teacher, ministering with children in the Liturgy of the Word at Saint Bridget Parish in Richmond, VA. She is married and has three children.