First, I established with the children that they all probably knew the 3 people of the Trinity, because they all know the sign of the cross. We did the sign of the cross together to be sure. Then, parents and children split into groups of 6-9 people and stood in a circle with their group. One adult from each group was chosen to be the "Messenger from God" and came forward to get the message. The message was a fairly long Bible passage written on a beach ball:
The Kingdom of God will not come in such a way as to be seen.
No one will say, Look! Here it is!
The kingdom of God is within you.
The messengers took the balls back to their groups but were not allowed to show anyone the message. Instead, they whispered it to the person next to them, who did their best to pass it on to the person next to them, and so on and so forth - the old "telephone" game. Of course, by the time the message got around the circle, it had lost all meaning.
Next, the messengers tried a different way to spread the message. They passed the ball to a child in their group, who read the passage with their parent. The ball was passed from child to child until everyone had the chance to read it for themselves. In this way, everyone got the right message.
So what does that have to do with learning about the Trinity?
Well, we talked about God our Creator (sort of a review from our first session this year), also known as God the Father. We talked about how in the Old Testament, God sent messengers - or prophets - to spread God's word to the people. But sometimes the messages didn't get through correctly, like in the telephone game. Then, God sent Jesus. This was like when we tossed the ball around - the message, or the Word, came right to the people. "The Word became flesh," and the message was clear.
Lastly, I asked the kids if the ball would travel on its own, and as an example I held one up and let it drop. Nope! When we toss the ball, there are forces at work that we can't see carrying that ball to the other person. This is like the Holy Spirit - by whose power Mary conceived Jesus, and who Jesus promised would be with us as an advocate between heaven and earth. All 3 work together to keep the Word of God alive in our world!
Craft: Holy Water Fonts
After the game, we talked a little bit about how the Holy Spirit was with us at baptism, and through our baptism, we all have the power to bless in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The kids made holy water fonts to take home, and we had water that had been blessed by our parish priest for them to take as well. Our fonts were pretty fancy this year, as we had a GIFT parent who brought me cool little 4" square blank plaques that her company was going to toss out. To these we added small works of art - the kids drew a picture that they felt symbolized God - and a little cup to hold the water. Our cups were actually baby bottle tops leftover from a Respect Life fundraiser. However, I have made fonts with kids in the past using simpler materials. Plastic dessert plates and condiment cups work fine.
Prayer: Build-A-Blessing
We ended our session with parents and kids writing blessings for each other. I handed out a simple worksheet to help them build their prayer. It went something like this:
God Bless ________________
Clothe him/her in _____________,
and crown him/her with ________________.
May he/she never be afraid to __________________________________.
And may Your Spirit give him/her the gifts needed to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. Amen.
At the bottom of the page were fill-in-the-blank options, such as love, kindness, and wisdom for first 2 lines, and things like "speak your truth" and "share your love" for the last blank. Feel free to email me at desire.sobiech@risensavior.org to request a copy of the Build-A-Blessing worksheet.
