Christian Life

Refer to our Sunday Experience pages to find different prayers to pray as a family sometime during the week as well as setting up a prayer space and other activities as a family.

For the Learn do the following:

1. Watch Video at the top of the page. (if you want more resources, or are interested in learning more about the topic click on the Extra tab).
2. Click on the appropriate grade for your child.
3. Read the "relates to..." section at the beginning.  This is helpful to understand what to convey to your child is important about this lesson.  It will        help make the lesson both an intellectual and a lived lesson.
4. Read through and familiarize yourself with the sample script. 
5. Teach your child the lesson, either using your own words or the sample script.
6. Either discuss the questions with your child (best option), or have your child write out answers to the questions.
7. Have your child do the activities and/or do the activities with them.  
8. If working with a parish return the appropriate material in the way they have requested.

All Content for "The Way", Learn, is original content and copyright of the Diocese of Kalamazoo and may not be copied, reproduced, or used without prior written consent of the Diocese of Kalamazoo.   © 2020 Diocese of Kalamazoo

Relates to Jesus: Jesus is the Law, the ten commandments and all laws point to Jesus.  He desires that we are able to be with Him and so He embodies what the ten commandments are.

Relates to my faith: Following the ten commandments is a path to get to know who God is and what He wants in our lives. The Ten Commandments are not negative laws meant to restrict us, but are positive laws showing us how to truly live for God.

Sample Script:

In our Christian life, we are assured of the presence of God walking alongside of us and confident in His loving attention given to us. He doesn’t leave us alone and doesn’t want us to experience life without Him. He wants to give us loving direction that allows us to live a life that is filled with happiness, peace, joy, love, and kindness.

In the book of Exodus 20:1-17 in the Old Testament, God reveals to Moses one of the ways that God wants us to lovingly walk with Him through this life. The Ten Commandments offer us an important teaching that tells us how to go about life, namely to love God and love thy neighbor. These commandments allow the people of God to take steps in living rightly and to practice being holy people just like the saints. Let’s take a look at the Ten Commandments and see how these help us to guide our choices.

The first three commandments focus on God and our relationship with Him. The first commandment says that God is God, He is one – You shall have no other gods. This commandment tells us that there is only one God of the universe. To have anything else in our life “as a god”, meaning anything else that we hold to be the most important thing in our life, we are offending God who asks to be first and center. The second commandment says that we are not to take the Lord’s name in vain. We are to use God’s name with respect and reverence and certainly not as a common word or expression or a “bad word”. The third commandment says that we are to keep the Sabbath day holy. Here, we are to make our Sabbath, Sunday, a holy day in which we go to Mass to worship God and make it a day focused on God, resting from the tasks and duties of our life so we can refocus God as the center of our life.

The final seven commandments focus on our neighbors and how we are to relate to them. The fourth commandment is honoring your father and mother, which asks us to respectfully treat and care for our father and mother who helped to give us life, raising us and teaching us the ways to live this life. The fifth commandment tells us to not kill meaning just that; we must respect life and care for others in our words and actions. Jesus will later say we shouldn’t even be angry with our neighbors. The sixth commandment tells us not to commit adultery, meaning that we need to honor the covenants or commitments we make with our husband/wife and treat one another with love. The seventh commandment is to not steal, meaning that we are not to take anything that isn’t ours. The eighth commandment tells us not to bear witness, which is to say that we need to tell the truth at all times as the truth is from God and the truth will make us free. The ninth and tenth commandments tell not to covet our neighbor’s possessions or wife, saying that we need to recognize how God is blessing us through what we have and to find Him in and around us.

 The Ten Commandments help us to keep our hearts focused on God so that we might love God and love neighbor. When we make good choices in following the commandments we don’t just do right, but we allow this same love of God and neighbor to come forth and inspire other people to follow the commandments just the same.

Questions:

How does God walk with us through our life?

Practice learning the Ten Commandments. How many can you name?

How can the Ten Commandments be summed up?

Who do the first three commandments talk about?

Who do the last seven commandments talk about?

Activities:

Together, as a family, read the Exodus 20:1-17 passage. Commit to learning and memorizing the Ten Commandments.

Together, as a family, discuss ways that you love God and love neighbor. What could you take on as a family to love God and love neighbor in additional ways?

Relates to Jesus: Jesus is our supreme role model in how to live a Christian life. Following Jesus provides the map for how to live a life of selfless love shown towards God and others.

Relates to my Faith: The more we come to know God through prayer and our neighbor through service, the more we come to know and live the mission of the Church to proclaim the Kingdom.

Sample Script:

Our Christian life usually begins with our baptism, in which our parents offer us into the hands of Jesus Christ and ask that we be made a child of God through the Sacrament as offered through the Catholic Church. The reality received in our baptism unites us to Jesus in a special way but also calls us to take an active role in developing, supporting, and living out our relationship with Jesus Christ. Our Christian life needs to be practiced so that we can come to know the One who calls us His child.

Being baptized into the Church, the Church offers us a number of ways to stay in relationship with Jesus. The four points below are of particular importance, especially as you prepare to take the next step in being initiated into the Church through reception of the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

First, we need to make sure that we are praying daily. Prayer is a communication between the individual and God. Prayer involves both an offering of the things that are on your mind and heart and also consists of being quiet and listening to what God has to say to you. When we pray, we should be able to tell God everything – saying thank you for the many blessings in your life, saying sorry and asking forgiveness for the bad, sinful choices that were made, offering God worship for being God who loves us completely, and petitioning or asking God to heal the hurts in your life, to cure the sick family and friends that you know, to have knowledge to know Him more fully, etc. Like children to a parent, we should trust in God and go to Him with what’s on our heart.

Second, we need to listen to our parents/guardians. The fourth commandment tells us to honor our father and mother and our Christian life needs to reflect this. Our parents/guardians love us and have brought us into this world, with the help of God, so that we can experience love and live a life that leaves the world in a better place. We owe our guardians respect and love for the blessings that have been given to us. This respect and love that we show them is to be the same love and respect that we show to God.

Third, we need to help others. Throughout the history of the Church, the holy men and women who make up the list of Saints, not to mention Jesus Christ Himself, have spoken of the importance of assisting and helping others in selfless love. When we help others, we don’t just help them by taking care of the need in front of us, we communicate to them the love God has for them by saying you are worth my time and I want to help you have more peace in this life. Our help to others offers a great moment for others to encounter God and allows us to grow closer to God ourselves in our life.

Fourth, we need to go to Mass every Sunday. The Mass is so important as it is the way that we worship God best. God comes to us in the Mass through word and sacrament, meeting us where we are at, and inviting us into His life. We need to pay attention and offer ourselves back to God and state with our mind, body, and soul that “you are God of my life”! The Eucharist, the Body and Blood of Jesus, is the most intimate and real way that we invite Jesus into our life. Through the things listed in this lesson, if we practice these with our whole heart, we will come to invite Jesus in the Eucharist into a place of residence in our body and soul, enabling us to live a truly authentic Christian life.

Questions:

What usually gets us started in our Christian life?

What is one thing about prayer that I would like to do more of?

What is one thing about listening to my parents/guardians that I want to do better at?

What is one thing about helping others that I would like to do more of?

What is one thing about going to Mass that I want to do better at?

Activities:

As a family, discuss Mass and share what are some of your favorite parts. Discuss too what are some of the most difficult parts. In prayer, talk to God about both the favorite and the difficult, and as you to Mass each week, take note of any changes.

As a family, talk about how you each can help each other around the house. Make a list and commit to the list!

Relates to Jesus: Jesus loves each of us, as His life details how He met people were they are at and guided them to finding wholeness in their situation.

Relates to my Faith: Our Christian life calls us to love God and love neighbor, which fulfills all the Law and all the Scriptures.

Sample Script:

When God creates us, He creates us as individual people that are meant to live and experience life in relationship with others. Our points of relationship come at us in a number of different ways: we have a relationship with ourselves in that we learn how to use our body in rolling over, crawling, walking; discovering our hands and feet and how to use these, etc. We come to know and relate to the world around us by exploring our space and learning the rules of how to appropriately work in this area; don’t climb on this, might need to reach for that, etc. We learn how to relate to others by communicating to them with our bodies and words and actions, learning about ourselves as we learn about them. We learn how God relates to us through the love and kindness and joy we encounter and how these inspirations point us to the deeper reality of things.

The point is that we as humans are created for relationship; to lovingly encounter the other in love so that together we might experience community and live the life of the Trinity as a foretaste of the perfect unity with God that awaits us after our death. Our relationships that we have with one another are perhaps the best example of how we can show and imitate God’s love present among us.

How can we see God’s love present among us? One way that seems to be most helpful is the fruit that is kindness. St. Paul says in his letter to the Philippians, “Your kindness should be known to all. The Lord is near. Have no anxiety at all, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God. Then the peace of God that surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus” (4:5-7). Kindness is that gift that is due to every person because it recognizes one of our deepest realities; namely that as people who are created in the image and likeness of God, we are created with a dignity that is written on our hearts. Kindness respects this dignity by showing forth the necessary care and attention that God Himself shows to us. We must treat one another with kindness!

Treating one another with kindness shows forth the love of God that He has for each of us. Kindness reminds the other that he or she is worth the respect that we hear about when at church. Kindness speaks to the heart of the other, bringing that gift of the “peace of God” St. Paul mentions in the 7^th verse to the Philippians, and communicates the deeper truth that we are loved as a child of God and that this love calls to us throughout our lives.

So, your life and my life need to communicate kindness to all that we meet. We need to practice being kind to one another and realize that when we do even the smallest act of kindness, we are saying to the other person that they are loved and worth the time to be cared for in such a way. When we do this, we act as we are called to act and we reveal to both ourselves and the one that we are being kind to that God in the blessed Trinity is present as the cause of this loving act, calling us to be in greater relationship with Him.

Questions:
What are some ways that you come to know God?
How does our relationship with God help us to be friendly to our brothers and sisters?
Name some of the things you learned about being kind.
Why is it so important to be kind to one another?
What are some ways that we can be kind to others? How does being kind to others remind us of God?

Activities:
Make a phone call or Zoom call to your grandparents or a family member who lives far away. Spend time talking with them, asking how they are doing and what they have been up to. Make sure you tell them that you love them when the conversation is over!

As a family, discuss ways that you can practice being more intentionally kind to one another around the house. Create a chart to track progress and to serve as a reminder for your goal to be kind.

Relates to Jesus: Jesus calls us to love God and to love our neighbor. Our Christian life is centered on the Commandments and Beatitudes as Jesus mandates for His disciples to follow.

Relates to my Faith: When we charitably serve the other, we are a witness to the love and concern that our faith asks us to remember for the other.

Sample Script:

Being made in the image and likeness of God, having dignity and worth beyond anything that the world could offer, we are each thus an unrepeatable gift that offers something unique to this life. Isn’t that amazing to think about! You and only you have something to offer this life that only you can offer. If we all saw ourselves as gifts, what a difference it would make in how we treat ourselves and take care of ourselves!

Recognizing that we are gifts from God, this then allows us to see the other person as a gift from God. Here, we can better celebrate the others' gifts and talents as these reflect the gift God has created in this particular person. Showing love and kindness and joy towards the other, and not feelings of jealousy and resentment, allow for the love of God to build-up the community and bless all with the bonds of relationship that are fruitful.

I think this is why we hear a lot in the Church of the importance of the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy. These works of mercy point us and direct us to recognizing the giftedness that the other person is by treating that other as Jesus and communicating the value that that person has. The care for the entire person that the works of mercy ask for show forth the dignity and respect that each life has before the eyes of God. “Even the hairs of your head have all been counted. Do not be afraid. You are worth more than many sparrows” (Luke 12:7).

The giftedness of the human person is something that God has constantly communicated to His people. In the revelation of the Ten Commandments, in which God presents the foundations for loving God and loving neighbor, we find how God’s desire for communion with His people is meant to show us how to return the gifts we have been given to God to build-up the community He asks for while also using our gifts so others can be invited to see their own giftedness. By using our gifts to build-up others we show that our center or our focus is rooted in God, giving Him thanks for the gifts that He has given to us.

A further extension of how we can show God’s love for us and for others through our gifts exists in the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:3-12). Jesus gave the Beatitudes to the disciples at the Sermon on the Mount. These 9 ways show the inner workings of God’s heart, showing that those most in need hold a special place for the love of the Lord. As His followers seeking to live a Christian life, we are called to live the Beatitudes in our daily life, being aware of and reaching out to people who are most in need, being an image of God’s love for others to encounter.

Questions:
What are some of your gifts and talents?
How do you celebrate the gifts and talents of others around you?
What is your favorite Work of Mercy? What do you like most about it? (A list of these can be found here: Corporal Works of Mercy and Spiritual Works of Mercy)
How do the Ten Commandments remind us of the importance of living a Christian life?
How do the Beatitudes remind us of the importance of living a Christian life?

Activities:
Make a list of the gifts and talents that you have. Next to each gift/talent, write how you use this gift/talent to praise God and serve others.

As a family, read Exodus 20: 1-17 and Matthew 5: 1-12. Talk briefly about each Commandment and Beatitude. What do these mean? Did you notice anything new or challenging? Practice as a family coming to learn and memorize these.

Relates to Jesus: Jesus is clear that those that serve the poor are serving Him and that those that have no concern for the poor have no concern for Him.

Relates to my Faith: The Catholic Church holds firm the importance of the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy and what the practice of these mean for our relationship with God and with our brothers and sisters.

Sample Script:

In living the Christian life, we are called to be a living witness to Jesus Christ. So, in all that we say and do in loving service to God, we need to do in loving service to our neighbor. We have to do more than just be nice to someone or to serve someone like a check box on a service hours worksheet. We need to serve the other as Jesus would; seeing the dignity of the other as a brother or sister that is due the same amount of love and kindness as anyone else. The Christian serves the other to give glory to God, out of love and compassion for the other, so that the other can experience the dignity that is theirs as a child of God.

Jesus reminds us of this in two very important ways: the Beatitudes and the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy.

The Beatitudes consist of the following: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; Blessed are they who mourn, for they will be comforted; Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the land; Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied; Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy; Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God; Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God; Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute your and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. The Beatitudes serve as holy reminders that the poor and those that go without and are suffering are very close to the heart of God. We need to study and know these so that we can come to know more fully the heart of God and pray and practice that these Beatitudes will lead us to see the face of Jesus Christ in the poor around us.

The Spiritual Works of Mercy consist of the following: Counseling the Doubtful, Instructing the Ignorant, Admonishing the Sinner, Comforting the Sorrowful, Forgiving Injuries, Bearing Wrongs Patiently, and Praying for the Living and the Dead. These particular works of mercy help us to focus on the spiritually poor in our daily encounters and offer these particular souls the grace of being drawn closer to God through spiritual needs. I’d like to offer one example that stands out; namely Comforting the Sorrowful. Often, when we see a family member or friend who is sad and sorrowful, we can feel awkward not knowing what to say or do in their presence. But know that it is often the case that when someone is sad or sorrowful, like when someone they love has died unexpectedly, that they don’t need words or great theological advice. Rather, they just need to have someone present to be with them to listen to their cries. Here, we are witness to and make present the loving God to the other, who walks alongside us providing loving comfort with His presence.

The Corporal Works of Mercy consist of the following: Feed the Hungry, Give Drink to the Thirsty, Shelter the Homeless, Visit the Sick, Visit the Prisoners, Bury the Dead, Give Alms to the Poor. The Corporal Works of Mercy or those works that deal more with the physical side of things, offers godly aid to care for the more immediate needs in one’s life. We often think of these as being more material in action, providing resources and material assistance and time to help the other and bring a witness to the love of God in their life. Visiting the Imprisoned offers a very good example here. When visiting those who are in prison, you can’t bring with you much more than yourself and your own personal time. Prisoners know this and it is often such a blessing for them to have another spending time with them, especially knowing that the visitor can choose to spend his or her time in any way that they wish. Sacrificing one’s time to spend with someone else communicates the dignity and worth that another has who may not feel like they have much dignity and worth.

Questions:
Talk about three ways that you are a living witness of Jesus Christ.
Why are living the Beatitudes and the Works of Mercy important for the soul seeking to live the Christain life?
What Beatitudes are you practicing and living well?
What Corporal Work of Mercy are you practicing and living well?
What Spiritual Work of Mercy are you practicing and living well?

Activities:
Choose a Beatitude as learned in this lesson and make a goal to practice this once a week. How does performing this Beatitude show you the presence of Jesus Christ? How do you see the dignity and worth of the person(s) you are serving?

As a family, choose a Work of Mercy, one Corporal and one Spiritual, and make a plan to live these out at least once a month. How do you see Jesus in the other that you serve?

Relates to Jesus: Jesus lives out the the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy by centering Himself in the will of God. God's love is available to all and Jesus gives us the Works of Mercy as the delivery vehicle by which His love comes to all.

Relates to my Faith: Living out the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy allow us to participate in the life of grace that brings forth fulfillment and holiness in our lives as Christians.

Sample Script:

The Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy offer a roadmap for loving our neighbor and loving God as well through the process. When we intentionally reach out to our neighbor in love, we give praise to God for living the holy Christian life that He calls us to live. A plan to live out the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy will assist both our Christian life and our sisters and brothers in need.

Examples of ways to live out the Spiritual Works of Mercy could look as follows:

Counseling the Doubtful: Counseling the doubtful consists in working with those who are struggling in their faith. We need to learn to listen to family and friends and others in need and offer hope to the other, either through our words or our deeds, so that their doubt can tend towards assurance of the living and loving God.

Instructing the Ignorant: Instructing the ignorant allows us to offer insight to those that might have a misunderstanding or misconception about the faith. This is done in a loving and gentle way that doesn’t make one feel low, but rather offers direction and insight that builds on the truth that the ignorant party may already possess. The greater clarity that you can offer affords the receiver more clarity regarding the things of this life.

Admonishing the Sinner: Admonishing the sinner calls forth, in a spirit of fraternity, friendly correction that something that is being done or willfully omitted is wrong. True care for another’s soul is evident here as this correction seeks to help the other walk the path of righteousness by changing one’s ways towards that of Jesus.

Comforting the Sorrowful: Comforting the sorrowful yields a spirit of presence with the other that allows the other to know that he or she is not alone. Further, it offers the reminder that Jesus walks alongside us in our sufferings, as He Himself suffered so much for us. Comforting the sorrowful offers the other a message of hope that all we endure for the Lord is a moment of grace.

Forgiving Injuries: Forgiving injuries allows for the grace to let go of any hanging on of past hurts and, in freedom, to truly forgive the other as a brother or sister. It is an appropriate moving on and commending the situation and all involved to God, who has the power to do what needs to be done. In forgiving injuries, we reflect the love of God in a special way and truly treat the other as we want to be treated.

Bearing Wrongs Patiently: Bearing wrongs patiently finds us working through any difficulties with grace and walking with God who meets us where we are at. While wrongs are difficult to bear, the virtue of patience and the presence of God lets us continue on with strength and reminds us that God deals the same way with us.

Praying for the Living and the Dead: Praying for the living and the dead lets us unite with our brothers and sisters in the Church to assist them by storming God with our desires. Here, more and more grace is able to intervene for a soul and in a real spiritual sense, we are connecting with and accompanying the other through their time of need.

Examples of ways to live out the Corporal Works of Mercy could look as follows:

Feed the Hungry and Give Drink to the Thirsty: While not always put together, for our purposes these allow us to nourish the other who is hungry or thirsty in any way. Through a conscious effort to being present to and listening with our ears and heart, we can hear and possibly satisfy the hunger and thirst of the other.

Shelter the Homeless: Shelter the homeless allows us to provide a place of refuge for those without a home. I think as a sixth grade student we can shelter the homeless by inviting the lonely kid at school into our life (sitting with them at lunch, for instance). Jesus is always calling us into His home and we can do the same for others.

Visit the Sick: Visiting the sick allows us to give our time and attention to another who is ailing in mind or body. Loneliness is a common feeling for others in such states and our presence can be a God-send for folks, lifting their spirits.

Visit the Prisoners: Visit the prisoners allows for the ministry of presence, or simply spending time with another, to be a great offering of one’s self. Prisoners have very little; visitors offer such a gift of their time freely given so that the prisoner can have their burdens mercifully lifted just a bit.

Bury the Dead: Bury the dead is the corporal work of mercy that shows the dignity of the human person all the way until the end. The body is created by God and is the temple of the soul, so reverence and respect for the body of the dead offers God a pleasing sacrifice as the soul returns home. This preparation of the body is truly a preparation for the resurrection as foretold by Jesus.

Give Alms to the Poor: Give alms to the poor reminds us of our call to give to others so that they may have life. We are called to share our blessings, for all things in one way or the other come from God. We thus cannot withhold from our brothers and sisters who have not.

These Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy show forth the presence of God in all of our lives and call us to serve the less fortunate with love and service as they are children of God with the same dignity as you and I. We are called to see the face of Jesus Christ in every soul, no matter the situation. These Works of Mercy are to be memorized, practiced, and prayed over so that we can excel in being givers of these gifts so all can encounter the love of God present and guiding our life.

Questions:
What about Counseling the Doubtful is easy for you? What is difficult? Consider a way or two that would help you to grow in performing this Spiritual Work of Mercy.
How should Admonishing the Sinner be handled, with gentle kindness or with charitable pushing? Briefly describe why you chose what you chose. Why is it important, especially for a Christian, to Forgive Injuries?
Explain how Sheltering the Homeless could look for a sixth grade student.
What is the idea behind Visiting the Imprisoned? What is our faith teaching us by respecting those imprisoned?

Activities:
Research different Catholic or Christian organizations that do intentional outreach with the Corporal Works of Mercy. How do these talk about seeing Jesus Christ in the other? If they don't speak of this, write how their service points to the loving presence of Jesus to those in need.

Call your parish church and ask the pastor or appropriate parish staff member to tell you about the Spiritual Works of Mercy performed. Ask how does this work support the christian life of the souls involved? Consider these works yourself with your parents and with their approval and participation, find a spiritual work that you can participate in.

Relates to Jesus: Jesus is our example of a Christian, who lived a life totally focused on God and carrying out His will that sought to bring forth the best in others by loving them in thought, word, and deed.

Relates to my Faith: We are called to model our life after our Lord by being people of worship, prayer, and service, coming to know and love God and offering His love and mercy to all that we meet.

Sample Script:

Living the Christian life is no easy task. We are blessed to have a number of things on our side: we are created to be with God, to desire Him and be in His image and likeness, know we are dignified and worthy and that He Himself wants to walk alongside us through each and every moment of our life. We have Jesus Christ who is the supreme example of how to follow the will of God and how to love our neighbor as ourselves. We have the Holy Spirit who offers us the grace to adhere to the Trinity through the Sacramental life of the Church. We have a whole host of teachings and holy men and women who show us how to live holiness, even overcoming great sins and trials to do so. Yet the Christian way of life is not easy. Why?

We live in a world that is, and truly has always been, poised against Christianity. Our world, since the dawn of humanity, has had to deal with the wickedness of sin, which distorts and throws everything off of center. Christianity calls for a radical center of operation being first in God and then in the other, these being placed ahead of the self. The world is all out of sorts, calling for a center in the prideful self with the other being in there if convenient and God often tucked away in a pocket, to be brought out only when needed at best.

When we live in this world and see a fair number, if not a majority, of peers and friends and even family members living the worldly life, Christianity becomes very hard to live. But, we know, we are called to live this Christian way of life. It is what we are baptized into. It is what we know that brings about fulfillment in this life. It is not impossible to live, many have done it and many have even excelled at it, reaching holiness and becoming Saints. So, if Christianity is so hard to live, how do we be like those holy men and women and live this Christian life in a world that is opposed to it?

The Christian must be a person of prayer. Prayer is that critical communication piece with the Divine that opens one’s heart and mind to listen to the voice of God in our life and invites God to know about all that is going on in one’s life. Prayer begins as simply as waking up in the morning and saying, in a heartfelt way, “Thank you God for another day”. And just like a new relationship, we need to seek to pray often, many times and as often as possible, to come to know God and what He has in store for us. Most especially, regular attendance at Sunday Mass opens ourselves to worship the Divine Other and not ourselves, while also intimately receiving Jesus Christ and His very Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity.

The Christian must be a good steward. Giving our time, talent, and treasure in service to the Church for her well-being and building-up is a pivotal point of selflessness that continues the mission of the Church and keeps the selfish ego at bay. Answering the call to be a good steward often comes from one’s devotion to Mass and prayer, recognizing that you yourself are a member of a living Body, a member of the Church, that in order to live needs to have the gifts and talents of yourself in order to continue on and inspire the faith of others.

The Christian is active in the works of mercy. The Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy point to the reality that loving God and loving God through the love we show our neighbor is at the center and helps to keep the selfish “I” in its proper place. Encountering others in their need and doing what one can through the works of mercy to assist our brothers and sisters shows the love God has for His people, especially the downtrodden and those most in need.

The Christian is an evangelizer. Being an evangelizer, or sharing the Gospel message of God’s love for us, is an important part of being a Christian in the world. We can probably all create a list of family and friends who are in need of hearing the message of the Gospel. In order to keep the mission of the Church alive, we must proclaim Jesus and Him Crucified to all by how we live and by what we say. The light that is Jesus penetrates into the darkness found in the self-absorbed world, bringing hope and fulfillment to a place in which none existed.

By learning, engaging, and practicing these hallmarks of the Christian life, we live a life that is a witness to the reality that is Jesus Christ. And while it is true that the Christian life is not easy, we are assured that our efforts will be graced by the One who conquers all things and brings them, including your life, into fulfillment.

Questions:
How does the Trinity walk with us in living our Christian life?
Why is the world opposed to what we believe in as Christians?
How do you remain Christian in a world where the news, friends, and even family live against the beliefs of the faith?
Why is prayer so important in living a Christian life?
How do the Works of Mercy keep us focused on Jesus Christ in our life?

Activities:
Find 15 minutes of quiet prayer and consider what a Christian looks like or what a Christian does to be a Christian. What characteristics does he/she have? What practices does he/she perform? Write these out and find what characteristics that you have. What characteristics are you strong in? What do you do well? What could you grow in?

Part of our Christian call is to spread the Gospel as an evangelizer, sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ by how we live our lives. Make a plan that includes how you can be a witness to Christ by your life when you are at home, at school, at your extracurricular involvements, etc. Write down and plan to practice how you speak, how you act, how you relate to others and pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit to help you carry this plan out in love of God and love of neighbor.

Relates to Jesus: Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit to reside in the Catholic Church to continue to inspire and grow the grace necessary to fully live out the Christian vocation of holiness.

Relates to my Faith: Our personal call to be holy is lived out by participating in the life of the Church and actively praying to God and practicing the virtues by being kind to our brothers and sisters. Here, we find fulfillment in this life and prepare ourselves for life eternally with God .

Sample Script:

In order to live an authentic Christian life, we need to do our best to live a life rooted in prayer and service focused on loving God and loving our neighbor. And even with this knowledge and as well intentioned as our practice might be, left to our own best efforts, we will ultimately fall short. In order to get to living the fullness of the Christian life, we need to have the presence of the Holy Spirit. As you prepare to receive the Sacrament of Confirmation, you are preparing in a special way to receive the Holy Spirit and the seven gifts of that same Spirit.

The Gifts include wisdom, knowledge, understanding, counsel, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord. These gifts strengthen the individual and provide a supernatural boost that allows the presence of God to be active throughout the individual’s life. Wisdom affords the soul an enhanced knowledge and judgment about the things of God and sees with greater clarity the truth of things in human interactions and situations. Understanding allows for a depth of things to be reached and to be able see things with a Divine vision. Counsel gives us the grace to be directed not by our own guidance but by the holy direction of God. Fortitude has one’s heart focused on God and thus provides the firmness necessary to always choose good and avoid evil no matter the situation. Knowledge is correct judgment in matters of faith and morals and helps to keep one on the straight path of life. Piety is holding God in loving reverence through worship and a life lived for Him. Finally, fear of the Lord is loving fear and respect for God that inspires us to not want to damage our relationship with Him.

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit also allow us to more intensely embrace a life lived with the focus on carrying out the spiritual and corporal works of mercy. One can see wisdom helping the individual recognize the need of another person and with greater clarity, assist with greater clarity in helping the other have their need met. You can see how knowledge affords the individual a greater ability to admonish the sinner or instruct the ignorant so that the other can grow in both faith and morals. The witness of the individual living a life of piety can serve to inspire others in their own pursuit of God and lead them to revere Him with greater intention and respect.

It is important to talk about the role of being a witness. The Gifts of the Holy Spirit and the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy are both important aspects of what is needed to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. These graces are not to be kept in a bubble, for you to use for your own or to just use these whenever you feel like it. These graces are meant to be shared and dispersed for the entire world to experience the presence of the Lord active, calling others to encounter the Gifts and the Works of Mercy so their lives can be enhanced.

As witnesses, which is to say as disciples, we reflect Jesus Christ in our words and actions. We proclaim Him confidently in our speech and share Him in our daily interactions. We allow the traits of Jesus, which include love, joy, peace, kindness, to shine forth in what we say and how we say them. We speak of the hope that belongs to Him when encouraging others to overcome difficulties and struggles.

Our actions tell of the presence of Jesus in our life in the attention we show the other that is before us. We show Jesus’ presence in how we recognize and reach out to others in need, not just family and friends, but with strangers who are in need of assistance. We show that Jesus is alive by choosing to put the things of God ahead of the things of the world, choosing to go to Mass or to say our prayers when it is not convenient or conflicts with something else in our schedule. Witnessing to the truth of God in our daily lives shows the presence of the Holy Spirit leading and guiding us, proclaiming the glory of God.

Questions:
How does the Sacrament of Confirmation assist you in living a Christian life?
What are the Gifts of Holy Spirit?
Briefly explain what each Gift of the Holy Spirit does?
How can you use your Christian faith to be a witness of Jesus Christ's love and truth to your family and friends?
Name some ways that you can practice daily to know and love God and allow yourself to serve others in sharing God's love and mercy to those that you meet.

Activities:
Take time looking over the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. With your family, talk about ways that you can intentionally practice and live these while at home with each other.

Talk about the Fruits of the Holy Spirit and how these speak to the presence of God within a given situation. Have your parents/guardians and other family members share their stories of how they have experienced God in their lives. What Fruits of the Holy Spirit did they experience? Be attentive to the present of these Fruits within your own life.

Scriptural References

Catechism References

Videos

Extra Narrative (For Deeper Study)
The Christian life begins with an attitude of trusting, child-like faith in God and is rooted in the basic beliefs of the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed (i.e. The Nicene Creed is the one we recite each Sunday at Mass as opposed to the Apostles' Creed which is the shorter version), but the Christian life is far from limited to a set of beliefs. Rather, the heart of the Christian life is one of an ever-deepening relationship with the Holy Trinity, with Jesus Christ as the second person of that Divine Trinity, being the vehicle of our travel to the "Heart" of the Trinune God. Additionally, it begins with an understanding and complete appreciation for God as our creator and the "Supreme Being" who sustains our very being, without Whom we would not exist. Furthermore, we understand that this Supreme Being is one of complete love of His creation, and in fact, created us out of love, not because God is lonely and needs creatures to love him--no, for God is completely happy within the fullness of his own Trinitarian being--but rather because if our limited ability to love cannot keep to itself, how much more can complete, total, and infinite love keep to itself?  

If God is not only the divine author of love, but is Love itself in all its infinite perfection, and love cannot keep to itself, than we, as finite creatures, can come to know something of why God creates--because he desires that which He creates share and participate in his own complete and total Divine happiness. This is why St. Thomas Aquinas defines love as that which "seeks the total good of the other" (notice it is not self-seeking nor does it consist of underlying self-serving motives). Love gives. Perfect love gives completely (consider this in light of every action we do--is the action about us or is our action completely and without thought of how it may benefit us for the other? Is it an act of loving sacrifice in nature, or is my motive to get out of something that requires sacrifice on my part?). This is what Jesus did on the cross. This is what Jesus calls us to, and it is what he means when he says, "If anyone wants to be my disciple he must pick up his cross daily and follow me" (Lk 9:23). While all this is offered to us freely, it does require a positive reponse on our part, because of Christ's sacrifice of love to restore us to God. This sacrifice was necessary because of the role of sin, not only in our original parents (Adam and Eve) who separated us from God because of their disobedience, but because of our own sin which also separates us from God. We cannot expect to see God or participate in his eternal happiness if we remain aloof, apathetic or antipathetic to God, or complacent in our own selfishness believing we are the center of the universe, taking for granted our eternal future or not caring about it or not believing what God has revealed to us about life after earthly death. 

God's Love and Mercy are Inexhaustible
Although we are separated frrom God by sin, Jesus's death on the cross always offers us the chance to be reconciled to God for the cost of the asking and making reparation in union with Christ's death on the cross. So long as we have our life's breath left in this world, the path to salvation remains open to us. However, we must also be soberly aware that if we neglect to respond to God's offer of salvation in a positive manner, he will not twist our arm at the end of our life and make us live with him. Therefore, eternal life or eternal death is always our choice in this life. If we die in this life separated from God for all eternity, we have no one to blame but ourselves because right up to the moment of our death, He continually offers us the chance of reconciliation and eternal life with Him. If we have sinned, Jesus Christ is the remedy in the sacraments of baptism (when we are incardinated into his Divine life) and Reconciliation (when we are restored to it for sins we commit after baptism). 

In what, then, does the Christian Life consist?
Beginning with the preusmptions of faith outlined above as the underpinning of our life in Christ, that is, that we understand who Christ is and all our beliefs and understanding of our being are rooted firmly in Him, we work on our relationship with Him beginning with our communication with God, learning to hear his voice. This is the essence of prayer (see the lesson on Prayer in this series).       

The Spirituality of the Saints
We look to the Gospels, the New Testament writings (Epistles) and the lives of the Saints for the "how to's" of living a life in Christ--a life in whom we must all live if we expect to enter Heaven. Jesus makes it clear what we must do to enter Heaven, and what we must do to be perfect in this life. The standards are high, but enitrely possible. Yet, it is not possible without assistance from the Holy Spirit. Drawing close to God by asking Him his help in growing close to Him is key to the whole process. Far from seeing us as little insects to be squashed under the mightiness of his diving foot like Godzilla stomping on Tokyo--which is the way too many people imagine God to be--God loves it when we call upon him in humility to assist us--probably because so few people do! Keeping close to God in the daily dialogue of prayer is one of the important first steps in this process. 

The lives of the Saints show us that there are many different ways to be in relationship with God while doing his work in the world. We call any way of relationship with God a "spirituality". While the Church has formally approved a very limited number of "rules" for religious orders, which esentially equate to types of spiritualities unquie to that order (such as Franciscan, Dominican, Bendictine, Cistercian, Carmelite, etc), the ways we relate to God are as many as there are the number of people God has ever created, because each of us His unique, unrepeatable creation. That said, there are spiritual principles at play which can guide and assist us in developing a spirituality to help us remain always close to God. Many Saints have developed their own ways and have shared them through their writings. Some of the most popular and famous spiritualities are those of St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Therese of Liseux, Saint Benedict, Saint Ignatius Loyola, Saint Dominic, Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis DeSales, and others. The principles of spirituality can be boiled down as follows:

1. Prayer. A daily rhythm of prayer (dialogue with God) that includes both formal and informal prayer and incorporates the different and various types of prayer (verbal, meditative, contemplative, communal, individual, praise, adoration, petition, penitential, thanksgiving, etc.), with Mass of course, being the greatest and highest form of prayer.  

2. Fasting. In our fat, rich, and indulgent culture, the last thing we want to hear about is fasting. It was no different in the Roman times of the early Church. We all grew up with the notion that unless we eat three meals a day, we'll starve to death. Yet, Jesus himself for 40 days in a harsh desert environment, as well as the Saints after his example, all showed us that fasting---even total abstinence of food for a full day or several--enables us to focus easily on God, and by it combined with prayer we can even cast out demons (Mt 17:19-21; Mk 9:28-29).

3. Almsgiving and Corporal Works of Mercy. "He who is gracious to the poor one, lends to the Lord" (Proverbs 19:17). This is one of many verses throughout the whole of the Scriptures, both old and new testaments that speak to this aspect of our relationship to God. In fact, in reading through the 25th chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, especially verses 31-46, doing the corporal works of mercy (i.e., feeding the poor, giving drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, visiting the ill and infirm and those in prison, etc.) are a condition for entering Heaven wherein Jesus says if you have done this for others, you have done this for him. For those who have done so are welcome into the Kingdom, and those who have not are cast out. In this spiritual principle, God asks us to remember that everything we have, every privilege, our health, our talents, skills, and abilities, all of which contibute to our personal well-being, were given to us by God when he created us in our mother's womb. None of it is ours to keep to ourselves, but to share awith ans assist others for the building up of God's Kingdom (1 Cor 12). So, too, must we understand that the monetary talents we have and that which we earn, we do so by virtue of our own hard work, yes, but always remembering that God has placed us the circumstances which enable our personal financial gain, and so we are obligated to God to give back to Him. This is the essence of the "tithe"--giving back ten percent, off the top, off our best, recognizing that God has given this all to us first (cf. Gen 4:3-16). The Church recognizes this and codifies it in her Precepts. 

4. Spiritual Works of Mercy. Not everyone can participate in the Corporal Works of Mercy. Shut-ins, those who have physical or mental handicaps, those without means, those whose circumstances or daily duties limit their abilities, etc. all fall into this category. However, anyone who has the mental capacity to do so, can participate in the Spiritual Works of Mercy. So, while we may have a good excuse as to why we could not participate in the corporal works of mercy, far fewer of us will have an excuse not to do things as simple as praying for the others living and dead), providing an ear to listen, providing counsel to the doubtful, instructing those who do not know anything of God or of even practical skills, etc. 

5. Living a life in union with the sufferings of Christ. Like fasting, this principle is not very well-known by many Catholics, yet many of the Saints to whom the Lord or the Blessed Mother has appeared, as well as what is said by Jesus in the Gospels, and the apostles in the New testament writings is absolutely critical to our relationship with Christ.