Then from John 3: “Jesus and his disciples went into the land of Judea; there he remained with them and baptized. 23 John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because there was much water there; and people came and were baptized.”  John continues to baptize, and Jesus baptizes in the company of his disciples.

“25 Now a discussion arose between John’s disciples and a Jew over purifying. 26 And they came to John, and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you beyond the Jordan, to whom you bore witness, here he is, baptizing, and all are going to him.”  Why is John ok with his ministry winding down?

“27 John answered, “I am not the Christ/ Anointed/ Mashiah, but I have been sent before him.” I get three volunteers up to the front, and we act this next bit out as I read, “29 He who has the bride is the bridegroom; the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice; therefore this joy of mine is now full.” Once the best man has given the groom the ring, he’s done, and all attention goes to the wedding couple. The best man is ok with that.

“30 He must increase, but I must decrease.” Remember, the daylight decreases after John’s birthday on June 24; and daylight increases after Jesus’ birthday on December 25. Are those really their birthdays? I think so; if not, they are very close. Calendars aren’t perfect. But I believe God coordinated their birthdays with the natural cycle of the Sun. You know: we say Jesus is the Light of the World, like…the Sun! Yes.

A mere two paragraphs later in John 4: “Now when the Lord knew that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John, although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples, he left Judea and departed again to Galilee.”  A big deal in our class, this passage shows that Jesus has already stopped baptizing. He has handed that authority over to his disciples. That is, Jesus is starting to set up his Church. If you want Christ’s baptism, you get it through his intermediaries.

2.  The kids explain the top picture and the idea of intercession, which leads into the Wedding at Cana. They can tell the whole story and I just have to direct the discussion and read only a couple of lines from John 2. I add a J(esus) & M(ary) over Solomon and Bathsheba. The kids explain how both Mary and Bathsheba interceded; but like all intercessors they didn’t demand, they just asked. We connect the abundance of wine to the abundance of Peter’s catch after he meets Jesus.

Then I read, “Every man serves the good wine first; and when men have drunk freely, then the poor wine; but you have kept the good wine until now,” and the kids figure out the wine had alcohol in it (In the Bible Belt this datum matters).

And, “This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory; and his disciples believed in him.” Oh well, even a dog could taste and see that water went in and wine came out. People will always believe what they see with their own two eyes (well, most of the time). People love visible miracles…they don’t require much faith.

3. Between John the Baptist making a fuss over him, and this wine miracle, people are getting fired-up about Jesus. He visits the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4), and reads from Isaiah; then: “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” The men puff up with pride at the local boy made good: “And all spoke well of him, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth; and they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?” Good times a-comin’ for the Sons of Abraham! But I read this bit: “I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land; and Elijah was sent to none of them but only to Zarephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha; and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” The kids remind me that both the widow and Naaman were pagans who did God’s will. Jesus means that being a Son of Abraham is no guarantee of receiving God’s blessings: in fact, sometimes the whole lot of Chosen People are left out. Maybe everyone in the synagogue should get busy repenting and doing good works as John the Baptist told the know-it-alls at the Jordan.

Then, “When they heard this, all in the synagogue were filled with wrath. And they rose up and put him out of the city, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their city was built, that they might throw him down headlong. But passing through the midst of them he went away.” Jesus has barely started his ministry and his own people find him so aggravating that one minute everybody loves Jesus, and the next minute they are ready to kill him. As he said, “no prophet is acceptable in his own country.” Just like Elijah, Jeremiah, and Isaiah, he says things people don’t want to hear. It’s a dangerous habit.

4. With five volunteers we act out the Healing of the Paralytic. This story is thematically very dense, but one thread that’s emphasized is that the Paralytic’s friends intercede for his healing. Also, Jesus pairs a dog miracle, one that even a dog can perceive (Imagine if the paralytic had a dog all these years…he’d freak out when his master started walking around.) with an invisible miracle, forgiving sin. If the crowd sees Jesus do A, can they take on faith he also did B? Apparently so.

Class ends two minutes late. If the kids are engaged in the material they won’t look at the clock.

Some observations:

Reading aloud is done in short bits, and each bit is always followed by questions and discussion.

Old info illuminates new info. Secular info illuminates religious info.

Old Testament bits such as Zarephath and Naaman have to be taught earlier so the kids can figure out the point of what Jesus is saying when he refers to them now.

Physical variety: reading, questions, answers, discussion, acting, drawing.

No dead time.

P.S. Here’s a terrific post by a priest on Catechesis.

The January 4 class included a review of the Hail Mary prayer via the Annunciation, the Visitation, and the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. We had already treated the Annunciation and Visitation in the December 14 class, but without a couple of instructive artworks. [The class calendar is deliberately scheduled to finish the Old Testament in time to coordinate Mary Stuff with the Church feasts of Dec 8, Dec 25, and Jan 1.]

First I showed the kids this miniature of the Isenheim Altarpiece, explained how big it really is (about 9′ x 16′) how the panels work, etc. My sister got this for me as a Christmas gift when she was in Colmar, France last summer. Which was way before my wife told me a few weeks ago that the Annunciation I liked so much but couldn’t name was the Isenheim Annunciation. More than coincidence?

We then focused on the Annuciation panel, which isn’t visible in the photo above, using this color handout:

Our discussion was very close to what I anticipated in an earlier post. The kids recalled Gabriel’s greeting to Mary, and saw that it was directly quoted in the Hail Mary. The kids then recounted the Visitation, and recognized Elizabeth’s greeting in next bit of the prayer.

I then asked the kids to guess the Catholic significance of January 1. None could, but that was OK. I told them it was the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. To add dimension to this feastday, we reviewed a handout of this ikon:

The common name for this ikon type is Platytera, Πλατυτέρα, meaning more ample, broader. That’s short for “more ample than heaven.” It means that Mary, by containing the Creator of the Universe in her womb, was figuratively larger than infinity. Or as an old Greek hymn puts it, “He whom the entire universe could not contain was contained within your womb, O Theotokos (God-birther).” It’s a terrific teaching tool that illustrates an aspect of Jesus’ humility, and that Mary was the mother of not only Jesus’ human nature, but of his entire person, comprising both his human and divine natures. That is, Mary is the Mother of God- just as the Hail Mary says. [Plat is related to English flat, German platt, and French platte, as in the Platte (broad) River] That literal womb makes this a very unusual Platytera, which was completed in January 2011 by the ikonographer Tom Athanasios Clark in the apse of St. George’s Orthodox Church in Shreveport, La.

Most Platyteras look like this one:

Which is fine as far as it goes…whose lap is Jesus sitting on- his babysitter’s? Just kidding, but sitting on a lap isn’t what I’d call compelling visual testimony to the intimate prenatal relationship between God the Son and his momma. By the way, the Greek is Πλατυτέρα των Ουρανών, Platytera ton Ouranon, Wider than Heaven.

Or they’re like this one:

This Platytera’s better because it’s a bit more expressive (although in an abstract sense) of Jesus being physically inside Mary. But neither of these is as effective as that cutaway pink uterus in the first example. The kids get that one right away: Mary’s tummy, her womb.

We may as well learn some more Greek while we’re at it:  those letters in the above ikon are M-R and Th-U. The squiggies above the letters mean those are abbreviations. They’re short for Μητηρ Θεού/ Mitir Theou/ Mother of God. I always wonder: if you’re going to spend a couple thousand hours or so on a mosaic, why cut corners with abbreviations?

To finish our Marian train of thought, I bring out a chair that my kids sat on when they were practically toddlers- a chair like one of these…

…and demonstrate how Mary was more spacious than a tea party.

The audio of the November 9 class whose whiteboard is discussed at Pitchers 4:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3