Holy Tuesday Children´s Retreat

We had a fun (and slightly chaotic!) time Holy Tuesday with about twenty children from the parish, taking a walk through the events of Holy Week. They had experienced Palm Sunday dramatizing the triumphal entry, so we started with Jesus in the Temple at the entrance to the church, where I charged a ¨temple tax¨ for the kids to enter the church, and ¨Jesus¨ did away with that! Subsequent stations included Judas betraying Jesus, the Last Supper with communion (with sweet bread and orange juice) and foot washing, the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus before Pilate (the kids washed their hands and felt a crown of thorns). Then we followed Jesus as (s)he carried the cross, stumbling. We all helped carry the heavy cross, and found it was much easier when we all helped. Real nails were driven into the cross, as we recited the seven last words of Jesus, and then we returned to the church to ¨bury¨Jesus (the crown of thorns and ¨Jesus¨ sign wrapped in a white sheet) behind the altar. After talking about what death is like, and what Jesus´death means, we told the resurrecction story, complete with the ¨Aleluia¨ sign the kids had made. Thanks so much to +Steve Kelsey for sharing his Children's Good Friday service with me!