Page 55 - Lessons and Activities on Prayer

Teaching young children to meditate is simple if done in small steps. e rst step is to get children comfortable with short periods of silence. one way to do this is to introduce students to a new classmate, “Pat Penguin.” Pat can be a drawing or a stu ed animal. whenever the penguin is present, everyone is going to be very quiet. dim the class- room lights, put on soft music, and ask children to lie down. invite them to listen for the sounds around them. what classroom noises do they hear? what people noises do they hear? ask them to breathe deeply and begin to relax. is simple exercise needs to be done four or ve times or until you sense the children are comfortable with this routine. e second step is to give each child a “prayer mat.” inexpensive place mats make won- derful prayer mats. explain to the students that whenever we get ready to pray in a very special way, we will use our prayer mats and Pat Penguin will be with us.
iMAginAtive PrAyer LeSSon PLan 1
Catechist background
we live in a very rational, systematic world. Many of us make to-do lists. ere’s a sense of accom- plishment as we nish jobs and cross them o the list. we move quickly from one task to another. deep within us, our souls long for stories in which we can identify with the characters as they expe- rience despair and hope, cowardice and courage, hate and love. our minds are lled with images, sounds, smells, and memories that God uses to open our hearts. Praying with our imaginations al- lows us to take familiar scripture stories and let them ow through our hearts.
st. ignatius loyola used the imagination to help people know and love God. imaginative prayer is at the heart of the spiritual exercises that he de-
veloped. ignatius presents two di erent ways of imagining in the spiritual exercises. e rst way is to “enter into the vision of God.” during this prayer experience, ignatius asks us to put our- selves in God’s place and look at our world lled with natural disasters, with people who make good choices and not so good choices, and feel the con- cern God has for our world. when praying, we try to see everything from God’s perspective and take on God’s qualities of love, gentleness, compassion, understanding, and patience.
Objectives
□ To see the world through God’s eyes
materials
□ Amy Grant’s song “My Father’s Eyes” (optional)
□ White drawing paper □ Crayons
□ Markers
lesson
▪ Gather the students around you and begin to discuss what it means to imagine or pretend. Talk about things students like to imagine or pretend.
▪ discuss what it means to look at something through another person’s eyes. For example, if one is a teacher and one of the teacher’s students gets an a, how do you think the teacher feels? why? if one is a reman and goes to put a re out at someone’s house, how do you think the reman feels? how does
the person whose house is burning feel? ▪ let’s pretend you are God and you are
looking at the earth from heaven. what
do you see? how does it make you feel? ▪ discuss how some people can see
the good in someone when other
meditative prayer
125
imaginative PrayerS
55
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