The Found Coin, a moral parable in Level II

The Found Coin

The three room building and figures were purchased unfinished and I painted them, stained, and decorated the inside of the building.  This parable is given in conjunction with The Found Sheep and very beautiful.

I bought a handicraft kit at Walmart which contained sequence and used a soft gold wire to make a necklace.  I then put one on another gold wire to represent the lost coin.  I made a small black pouch to keep them in so they don't get lost.








I glued down the little stools, tables,
basket, cup and bowl.  Only the basket where I put the lost coin is not glued down.  This is optional but it means a much bigger box.  Also, the older children read the Scripture and want to set up the coins and figures.  I think its distracting to fiddle around with all the furniture.  My husband made the tables and benches.

It said in the scripture that it was an earthen floor, so I spread some dirt in the paint and swept the
excess out.

This is the box where the materials are kept.

The Real Presence of the Good Shepherd, American and International - Level II

The Real Presence figures (2 sets) were cut out by my talented husband.   In addition were two sets of International figures.  These were purchased.  Two sets for two atriums.

Getting all the little pieces such as the chalices, patens, loaves of bread, altars, altar cloths for all four sets takes a while to do.  That plus painting and labeling boxes where they will be kept and a couple of sheepfolds really adds to the time spent.  If you don't stick with it until it is done, it gets too unorganized for storing and remembering where it is, for that matter.  

I am really excited to get all of this out of the house today and into the atrium.   This will complete the goals I made for myself this year.  Now I can enjoy my family this summer.

I really love the multicultural city where I live.  I realized in painting these that I had to represent almost as many different cultures as I did in the international set, so it was a challenge.

Speaking of different cultures, I had an interesting experience when putting these materials into the atria.  A young and obviously homeless man was laying asleep on one of the three benches that my husband had built in front

of the atria.  My approach startled him and he sat up immediately.  I asked him if he were homeless.  He didn't speak a word of English.  However, with some body language and a few Spanish words of my own I found out he was from Honduras and was 21 years old. He looked a lot younger.  I gave him a couple dollars, all I had, and asked him if he wanted me to help him.  He said, "yes."  I thought I'd call the Neighborhood Alliance which I thought housed people temporarily in need and fed them.

He was an illegal and that raised a question in my mind whether I am legally allowed to help him.  However, as a Christian, I am certainly going to as it is my moral responsibility.  But now I am curious as to how far we can go to help an illegal immigrant.  I need to look into that issue.

Father Marco appeared and said he was helping him but I couldn't get too much information from him, so I simply said to Father, "If you need anything, please call me."

The Insistent Friend/The Ten Bridesmaids - Level II

The Insistent Friend (The Sacrament Retreat presentation)

  As we begin our discussion, I first ask, "Do you know what Insistent means?"  It's the same as being persistent.  You are being persistent when you keep asking your mother over and over for something you want.  "Mom, I want to go to the movies, please?"  She may say you are being a pest. That's what persistent means.  Well, God wants us to be persistent in our prayer always.  He doesn't mind but he might take time to answer and we have to be patient.  So keep this in mind as we listen to the story.

The background information I review with the children once again on how the people traveled at night back 2,000 years ago and so it wouldn't be out of the ordinary for a person to knock on your door to ask for food or shelter.   So this traveler knocks on the door but the man invites him in but has no food.  He goes to his neighbor's house to ask him for food and the man says his family is sleeping and doesn't want to be disturbed.  (Now I light the candle and read the Scripture.)

"Who knows the story of the Good Shepherd?"  My children always do because I refer to this story all year by asking, "Who is Jesus in this story?"  "Who are the Sheep?"  "What is the Sheepfold?"  It's the first Bible Story I read so I can have this advantage to explain parables.  I refresh their memory and it helps the others to understand.  I tell them that I'm going to ask the same question for this story and there are no wrong answers because every time you read a Bible Story something new is learned  that you never thought of before.  That is the beauty of the Bible.  No wonder these stories are so wonderful after thousands of years.  So when I ask, "Who is Jesus in this story?" I never know what they are going to say.  This year most thought it was the stranger.  So when they choose him, I show them a picture I have of Jesus knocking on the door.   I tell them that this shows Jesus knocking on the door of our hearts wanting us to love Him and pray to Him.  So that could very well be Jesus, I tell them.  Then another child says it's the man who opens the door and goes to the neighbor to ask him for food.  Then I tell them about something only Catholics do, which is "Intercessory Prayer."  That is when we pray to Mary or the Saints to go to Jesus and ask Him for help.  So this gives an opportunity to discuss prayer at length.  Finally someone chooses the neighbor who didn't want to be disturbed and seemed annoyed.   Well, I tell them that this is truly Jesus in the story because Jesus tells us in His parable that "Truly I tell you, that if the person doesn't answer him because of their friendship, he will certainly answer because of his persistence."  So the lesson here is that God will eventually answer your prayers if you just keep praying.  Never give up He's telling us.

Now I ask them who has the Maxim which applies to this story?  There are two maxims which apply perfectly and they are: "Ask and you will receive; Seek and you will find; Knock and the door will be opened unto you."  The second Maxim which applies is: "When you pray, go to your inner room, shut the door, and pray to your Father in Secret."  However, if any other children volunteer their Maxim I still accept it and explain it so that they understand the meaning.

The Materials:  My husband made the buildings on all of these parables and I stained them, also painting the figures and I made the Scripture booklets.  He made a decision on his own to open the door to the outside when it is actually supposed be like the door on the left, however now I can't use the rug in that room as the door won't open with the rug in the way.   So we may have to change that later.  The small rugs are actually small pouches from Indonesia which I cut in half.  The parable speaks to being "insistent" in prayer.  It also addresses "intercessory prayer" - praying for others or through others, such as the Blessed Mother and the saints.  I am always in awe along with the children at these messages coming directly from Jesus, himself, in such a personal way.

The Ten Bridesmaids, or "The Wise and Foolish Virgins."   The manual suggested painting an oil lamp on the top of the box.  I suppose this is to distinguish it from The Wedding Feast.  I also followed directions on what colors to use.  The same wedding banquet hall is used for both parables.  

I tell the children how the bridegroom would be walking most of the night to come to the wedding and it was the tradition that the bridesmaids would wait for him at night until he got there.  They feel asleep and half of them had their oil lamps go out and had to go to the store to get more oil.  But when got back the Bridegroom barred the door and only the bridesmaids that planned ahead with their extra oil pouches got into the wedding feast.

This parable is beautiful and hence makes it very clear that we need to be prepared and alert for His coming.  Don't wait until the last minute it teaches.  When my class heard this parable, one boy started squirming in his seat and his face was contorted in misery.  I asked him what was wrong.  He said, "Oh no, I do this all the time.  I always wait until the last minute for everything!"  So funny how these Bible stories really do speak to the children.

Liturgical Calendar

    
 2018 Revision

This photo is the corrected version of my Liturgical Calendar since writing this article five years ago.  Big difference and I like it so much more now.  It's much easier for the children.
I glued a very small shint of wood on the board to separate the large arcs separating "The Christmas Cycle" from the "Easter Cycle"  Where you see the "1st Sunday of the year" is where it's placed.  It's so helpful to the children so they understand the calendar.  Also, underneath the arrows I've painted the colors you see in the control above the calendar.  

   To present this work, I use plastic food storage containers and I'll ask each child to take out a certain number of green prisms making sure there are some for each child to place in their container.  I explain that the Calendar represents the Sundays we go to mass and explain the colors.  Then I have each child place their prisms back on the calendar.  This gives them the practice to do the work.  The containers make all the difference for efficiency and so they use them while they do this work independently.   I find that even Level I will try to do this with the containers while working alone.  Otherwise it's confusing and very awkward. 

There is also an artwork drawing of the calendar that they can color we keep under the table.  I have found that this year 2019 there are eight more "Ordinary time" (green) weeks before the "Preparation time" (purple) before Easter.  It apparently changes from year to year and this year it happens to be eight.  This was the direction we received to make this liturgical calendar to make only five.  I believe that I've seen there are a few more "Ordinary time" (green) weeks in the Easter Cycle as well.  I was disappointed when we realized this because it was so much work for my husband.  It isn't an easy project to make.  However, it gives the basic idea to the children.  I like to show them which green week we're on as we approach Lent and point to it as it is to the right of our prayer table.

I stained the entire project with an oak stain before painting the colors.  If you take the colored prisms out of the puzzle, it looks identical to the control calendar in the lid.