Very little is known about Jesus’ life when he was a boy. We have only one story about Jesus between his birth and life as an adult. In the Gospel of Luke, the boy Jesus is accidentally left in Jerusalem by his parents. They later find him listening and teaching in the temple as if [...]
Every year that I teach young people, I’m amazed by how little they know about the Bible. I’ll say, “turn to Luke, chapter fifteen” and wait for four or five minutes for students to find the right page. It doesn’t matter what age group it is. High school juniors seem to take just as long [...]
Forty days after Easter Sunday is the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord celebrating Christ’s ascension into heaven recounted in Mark 16:19-20, Luke 24:50-53, John Acts 1:6-12. There are a number of Ascension activities that you can do in your classrooms or at home with your children from various websites below. Get ready because [...]
Check out the following New Testament lesson plans taken from various religious education websites including The Religion Teacher. Lesson Plan: Development of the New Testament Canon (Engaging Faith) Birth of Jesus Lesson Plan (Catholic Mom) Feast of the Epiphany Lesson Plan (The Religion Teacher) Baptism of Jesus Lesson Plan (Catholic Mom) The Temptation of Jesus Lesson [...]
The ten commandments are such an important topic in Catholic religious education curricula. They have a place in almost every year’s course. This Ten Commandments activity asks students to creatively interpret and understand these great laws. An important disclaimer: the risk of using this activity is that students lose an appreciation for the Scriptures as [...]
The first three chapters of the book of Genesis relate important truths about ourselves, our humanity, and our relationship with God. A common pitfall we can run into when teaching about these chapters is the differences between the first chapter and chapters two and three. In this lesson plan, students will compare the first two [...]
Spirit Juice Studios and Outside da Box Productions have developed an incredible new video for Palm Sunday and Holy Week. If you teach teens or middle school students, this Palm Sunday video is spectacular. The video depicts two young men and their mother listening to the long Palm Sunday Gospel reading. One of the two [...]
Occasionally you will have the opportunity to meet with students either before or after mass. As I mentioned in my post on CatholicMom.com, “How to Get Teens to Participate in Mass,” it is critical that we help young people connect their personal experiences with the Liturgy (“find their feelings”) and learn more about the God [...]
The Vatican has added another interactive feature to their website. Have you ever been to the Sistine Chapel? Have your students been? With so many things to see in Rome, I was never able to block out the time to wait in line to see it. A “virtual” tour may not be as good as [...]
Background to the Feast of the Epiphany The Epiphany is a celebration of the ‘revelation’ of God in human flesh. Today the Epiphany is celebrated on the Sunday between January 2nd and 8th while the actual feast day occurs on January 6th. In many European countries it is the Epiphany, rather than Christmas (Feast [...]
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