Grade 8
NEW LIFE AFTER DEATH
Purpose:
To relate our own suffering and redemption to Christ’s paschal mystery.
Lesson Focus:
- Explain how Joseph’s suffering and redemption foreshadows Christ’s Paschal Mystery.
- Relate the pattern of death and resurrection to their own lives, both spiritually and physically.
Grade 10
DOES SUFFERING HAVE MEANING?
Purpose:
To explore Catholic teaching on the purpose and meaning of suffering.
Lesson Focus:
- Discover that suffering has meaning and irreplaceable value.
- Critically engage with different views on suffering, and their ethical ramifications.
Grade 11
SECULARISM AND THE CHURCH
Purpose:
To explore the origins of secular humanism, and the threat that it poses to human dignity (in life and at death).
Lesson Focus:
It is intended that students will…
- Connect present-day offences to human dignity with their philosophical roots in the Age of Enlightenment.
- Discover that a culture’s funeral rituals reveal the essence of a culture’s worldview.
Grade 12
THE VALUE OF HUMAN LIFE
Purpose:
To stimulate student interest in the value and dignity of the human person.
Lesson Focus:
It is intended that students will…
- Develop an interest and curiosity in the value of human life.
- Critically engage with different worldviews pertaining to human dignity.
Pre-K through First Grade
PREPARATION – DEATH AND THE RESURRECTION
Purpose:
While there are many fine catechetical resources for children and teens, many do not adequately address death and dying nor explain the Catholic funeral liturgy and its role in providing grace for the deceased and comfort to the mourning. The following are age-appropriate lesson plans.
Lesson Focus:
Each grade level provides a 30-45 minute lesson focusing on a different theme and can be used each successive year to increase your student’s knowledge oF this aspect of the Faith.
Grade 2
PRAYING FOR THE DEAD
Purpose:
This session is meant to reaffirm and encourage the practice of praying for the dead and to teach the special ways that we pray for the dead in the funeral liturgy and at each Mass during the prayers of the faithful.
Lesson Focus:
The importance of prayer, remembrance, honor and seeking the Lord’s mercy.
Grade 3
CHRISTIAN BURIAL
Purpose:
This is mean to teach students the central aspects of the Catholic burial rite and how it both honors the deceased and offers consolation to the family.
Lesson Focus:
Catholics have understood burying/interring the dead as a corporal work of mercy and celebrated a distinct liturgy for the deceased. There are three parts to the funeral liturgy, the Vigil, Funeral Mass and the Rite of Committal.
Grades 4-6
CORPORAL WORKS OF MERCY: BURYING THE DEAD
Purpose:
Burying/interring the dead is one of the corporal works of mercy, and is a central part of the faith community
Lesson Focus:
Students will learn how families and the Christian community participate in the corporal works of mercy when they bury/inter the dead.
