The different seasons in the liturgical year help us relate to God in different ways and prepare for and celebrate the various great events in the history of the Church.
In Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, we have a special puzzle of the liturgical calendar, but long before we get to that, we introduce the different liturgical colours and what they represent.
(Normally this presentation would be done later on in the year, but we’re about to change seasons again and would like to highlight that. There is a special ceremony for changing from purple to white at Easter and decided that it would be useful for the children to have been introduced to the concept already. We’ve also started with quite a large group all at once and it’s tricky keeping them away from everything but the preliminary works. And plus we need to learn to observe our children and make decisions accordingly and how better to learn than to try the occasional experiment? This paragraph serves as a disclaimer that we might not know what we’re doing so don’t necessarily copy us!)
The children will probably already have noticed the colour of the prayer table cloth. The ones in our group will probably also have had the different colours of the vestments etc pointed out to them during the year by their parents, but many children wouldn’t have.
The presentation is quite short.
Chasubles and stoles in the four main liturgical colours are kept in a basket in the altar area.
During the presentation, the chasubles are placed on stands and the meaning of each colour is given. The catechist can also employ the three period lesson to help the children remember which colour is for what.
Then the chasubles are placed back in the basket, the basket is placed back on the shelf, and the stands are put away. The children are told they may use them at any time and to put everything back ready for the next person when they are done.
We’re also introducing pasting this week. The basic presentation for pasting involves cutting strips of paper into small pieces and pasting them onto paper in whatever manner pleases the child.
Once the presentations have been done (it’s so hard getting a balance of not doing too much in a session and making sure they have enough to work with!), we may introduce individual children to an extension of both pasting and the liturgical colours presentation: the liturgical colours pasting work.
Control chart, template, basket of cutouts, cutouts needed for this work. The children will be shown how to choose what they need to replicate the control chart.
Some children have also been introduced to tracing already, and a tracing and colouring work (using the same basic template) will also be available for the children to work with.
As with all the works in the atrium, once a child has been presented with one they are free to use it whenever they want to (as long as no one else is), so they can assimilate and ponder the reality it represents and the meaning it contains.
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