The Kinder Report - Day 4

We got two new boys today, brothers who were just Baptised last week. Very cute and clever. We spread the boys out through the classroom and the *insane level of mind splitting energy* died down a good bit. :)

The Gospel today was Mark 10: 2-16:

2 Some Pharisees came and tested him by asking, "Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?" 3 "What did Moses command you?" he replied. 4 They said, "Moses permitted a man to write a certificate of divorce and send her away." 5 "It was because your hearts were hard that Moses wrote you this law," Jesus replied. 6 "But at the beginning of creation God 'made them male and female.' 7 'For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, 8 and the two will become one flesh.' So they are no longer two, but one. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let man not separate." 10 When they were in the house again, the disciples asked Jesus about this. 11 He answered, "Anyone who divorces his wife and marries another woman commits adultery against her. 12 And if she divorces her husband and marries another man, she commits adultery." 13 People were bringing little children to Jesus to have him touch them, but the disciples rebuked them. 14 When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, "Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. 15 I tell you the truth, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it." 16 And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them.

Deb didn't want to read the Gospel to the kids today because it's about divorce/adultery and some of the kids may have divorced parents. I don't think that shielding the kids from what the Bible says about things is doing them any favors. We did read the Gospel, and I explained that divorce is a *last resort* - it's necessary in some cases, but it's not a desired outcome to a marriage. Marriage is supposed to be forever. The kids, I think, understood.

The nice thing about verses 13-16 was that before we read the Gospel we had been discussing the blessing that the priests give kids who haven't received their first communion yet and this tied in nicely, showing that they were carrying on a tradition that Jesus had begun.

Our words of the day were 'homily' and 'heaven'. When we were discussing heaven we went around the room and asked each kid what they thought it was like. There were a lot of 'fluffy clouds' and angels involved, as you might guess. :) One of the girls, E, asked what happened to dinosaur's souls. :) I'm not kidding, I swear. I said that because they weren't people, we don't know what happens to animals souls when they die. It's not the same thing as what happens to us, but it's something that we haven't been told. From there we diverged into alligators and crocodiles and what to do if one was chasing you on land.

We spent *a lot* of time on the 'Why Go to Mass?' booklet, so we didn't get to read from the other books.

Oh! To help teach the kids how to use their Bibles, I wrote the Gospel on the whiteboard thusly: Mark 10: 2-16 and we had them find it, so they can learn what that means when they see a reference like it. :)