Wednesday, March 25, 2020

Lent and Prayers post 2

Father Max and Father Dan have live-streamed masses and prayers and some are uploaded on the St Michael You Tube Channel. 

Do you remember we prayed the Chaplet of Divine Mercy in class one day?  One of the video’s is the Divine Mercy Chaplet.  Another video is the Stations of the Cross.

HERE is a link to the ST Michael You Tube channel. 




We can still do Kahoot games if you’d like.  I can upload a code here on the same day, same time as the weeks you have online class.  Do you want to do that???



We have 4 online classes, so after today, 3 more left.  I hope you are all well- miss seeing you in classes!  I pray you and all of your families are well.



Mrs Cannova is having a rough time, please keep her in your prayers!!!



Mrs Schmidt

Lent and Prayers post 1

 
In our last class, we spoke about Lent- we used a Scripture book of the bible and talked about how it related to Lent. Specifically, we spoke about Jonah and the whale. In this book of the bible, we learn that God asks Jonah to go to Nineveh and warn the people there of the consequences of their sinful behavior. Jonah did not think the people of Nineveh were ‘worthy;, so he ran off in a different direction.  A great storm began and the ship he boarded was being tossed about in the waves.  The crew believed this was the wrath of God, and it even had Pegan sailors praying for God’s Mercy!  Finally, Jonah dove overboard as he was the cause of the turmoil! 

 It was God’s mercy that a big whale came and swallowed him, saving him from drowning.  He was in the belly of the whale for 3 days…..  The whale spit him out on the shore of Nineveh, and he warned them that in 40 days they would experience God’s wrath for their sinful ways.  The emperor took this very seriously and ordered the people to wear sack cloths  (very scratchy) and cover themselves with ashes.  Because they repented, their empire was saved. 

 In this story, we see similarities to Lent in that Nineveh had 40 days to repent, they used ashes as the people were repenting, and Jonah was in the belly of the what for 3 days. They were saved by turning to God and repenting of their sinful ways.


**Today, we are going to talk about Praying. In addition to scripture, a form of prayer that is more prevalent in Lent than in other times of the church calendar, and that is the Stations of the Cross.

 Father Max shared that in the days right after Jesus crucifixion, the people would walk the ‘steps’ of Jesus and his steps on the way to the cross and pray.  As the world expended and people could not make ‘Pilgrimages to the site of the crucifixion, images were created and placed in churches and that is how the Stations of the Cross began.  The Stations are in the church all year long and we can pray them anytime, but in Lent, we can gather at the churches and pray them together on Fridays.  That is because Jesus died on the cross on Friday.

Another custom that began was fasting- and in the days before the 1800’s, people abstained from meat, dairy and fish during Lent. The 40 days of Lent represent the 40 day fast Jesus had in the desert. We abstain from meat, as Jesus gave up his ‘flesh’ for us to redeem us from our sins. There was no dairy consumed and no fish as well.  Only one meal was allowed in the 40 days of Lent, and it was after sundown.

When Lent was about to end, the kids would decorate eggs and exchange them with each other : ) 

In those days, they did not have constant bombardment of ads for delicious and fast foods on TV and billboards.

In the three video’s we will watch today, we will talk about Praying.