Me: Ben, do you know what happens on Easter? (expecting an answer referencing the Easter bunny).
Ben: It's when Jesus rises from the dead.
Me: (a little surprised, but ready to make sure he knew the story) That's right. And do you know what happened on Good Friday?
Ben: That's the day Jesus died. Then we wait 3 days in our countdown to Easter. Mom, did you know that Pontius Pilot didn't really want to put Jesus to death, but everyone was yelling at him to do it so he had to do it? And did you know that Jesus told Judas that he was going to tell the army where he was before he even did it?
Me: (At this point, my mouth about hit the floor) Ben, that's right! Have you been discussing Easter at school?
Ben: Yeah. And whenever we have free reading time at school Michael and I go read the Bible.
We went on to discuss what else he knew and what questions he had, but I was very impressed with his knowledge on the matter. Here I was about to tell the high level story of what happened, and here he was telling me all the minute details! I think Catholic school is worth every penny! It's not that I wouldn't teach him these things, but he learns about these things as part of his school curriculum and then it becomes something that isn't just thought about on Sunday or on holidays, but something that is discussed and practiced every day so it becomes a natural part of life. And when it comes to discussing God and Jesus and what we believe, I think we could all use as much help as we can get when it comes to teaching those things to children and helping them to understand what we believe.
Anyway, I asked Ben if he wanted to go to Good Friday services with me and he said he really did. He also told me he was looking forward to Easter mass. Unfortunately, services on Good Friday were not until 7:30, which is around his bed time. But I did find out that our church had a Live Stations of the Cross where the teen group at our church put on reenactment of the Stations with thoughtful prayer discussion about each one. So Ben and I went to that while the girls were napping at the house with Paul. We both enjoyed it and found it to be pretty moving. After it ended (it only took about 30 minutes) we all went up to venerate the cross. Ben went up with me, we knelt by the cross with our hand on it and thanked Jesus for his sacrifice for us. Ben said he wanted to do it again next year. I was so proud of him.
Well after we did that, it was time to come home and dye the eggs for the Easter bunny!
Juju liked checking to see if the eggs were done yet.
Abbey really concentrated on making sure the color of her eggs was just right.
Good one Abbey!
Nice work Ben!
Our little ham...
Here is Juju "writing" her name on her egg...
One of the eggs cracked so we gave it to Belle. She wasn't quite sure what to do with it - she played with it for a while before getting a bite and realizing it was food and not a toy!
No comments:
Post a Comment