In Unit 1 the participants will come to understand the meaning of a sacrament, and they will learn the seven sacraments of the Church. They will talk about how these sacraments reveal God’s presence to them. They will realize the importance of following Jesus’ teachings about living and finding real happiness in God’s kingdom.
		God's Wonderful Creation (Sacraments of Creation) Prior to presenting each chapter, refer to the TAKE HOME FAMILY TIME pages in your child's book, or print out these pages from TAKE HOME FAMILY TIME. Learning Focus This chapter will help the children • recall that God is all-powerful and all-loving. • learn that God created every human being in his divine image. • appreciate the life of Blessed Damien of Molokai. Background The sacraments are signs of God's deep and abiding love for us. The Church - the People of God - always celebrates God's love in the sacraments. This love embraces us now and always. God never withholds love, waiting for us to become this or that. God's love is constant. When we celebrate the sacraments, we come together to remember that deep and abiding love, that unconditional "yes" that God utters in us each and every day. Sacraments Make Us Aware of God's Presence We know that sometimes we lose our awareness of God's presence. The sacraments help us overcome our distance from God so that we may become more aware of God's love. When we celebrate the sacraments, we bring ourselves into God's presence, into the fullness of love. Through the gift of God's grace in the sacraments, we are reminded that God is always present to us. In Chapter 1 of this unit, we find God's love in all the gifts of creation. We see an immense love for humanity in creating men and women in God's own image and likeness. God's love reaches out to embrace each of us and to beckon us to become sacraments ourselves, signs of God's love in the world.
		The Seven Sacraments (The Church Is the Sacrament of God's Life) Prior to presenting each chapter, refer to the TAKE HOME FAMILY TIME pages in your child's book, or print out these pages from TAKE HOME FAMILY TIME. Learning Focus This chapter will help the children • understand that the Paschal Mystery is the suffering, death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ. • learn that we receive sanctifying grace in the sacraments. • appreciate the life of Blessed Miguel Pro. Background With this chapter, participants begin a fifth-grade level study of the seven sacraments. They have studied the sacraments before, but now they bring new maturity to their studies. Throughout the year you will help them relate their new experiences to the study of the sacraments. The Greek word for sacraments is mysterion, which means "mystery." The Latin word is sacramentum, which means "oath" or "pledge." During the third century, men took an oath, or sacramentum, when they entered the Roman army. Sometimes the Roman army branded soldiers as a sign of their pledge. The Christian writer Tertullian wrote that in Baptism a Christian made an oath, or a pledge, to serve God by becoming part of Christ's Paschal mystery. Living Our Baptism In Baptism we pledge ourselves to deliver good news to the world. Our news is that God loves us and has shown us love through the Incarnation and by raising Jesus from death to new life. Daily we live our pledge as the Holy Spirit inspires us to follow Jesus in word and deed. In the sacraments, God makes a pledge to us. God pledges to give us unconditional and unending love. This love comes to us through the Paschal mystery. That is, it comes to us through the life, death, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ.
		Living the Beatitudes Prior to presenting each chapter, refer to the TAKE HOME FAMILY TIME pages in your child's book, or print out these pages from TAKE HOME FAMILY TIME. Learning Focus This chapter will help the children • learn that the Beatitudes show how to live as Jesus' disciples. • realize that Jesus began the Kingdom of God by establishing the Church. • understand that the Beatitudes are the path to true happiness. Background The New Testament gives us two versions of the Beatitudes: Luke 6:20-26 and Matthew 5:1-12. This chapter focuses on Matthew's version, which contains eight Beatitudes. With these blessed and joyous suggestions, Jesus tells us how to live so as to reveal God's love to others. God brings rightness into the world by working through us. Accepting and living this truth makes us happy, or blessed. Of course, the truth here is that God is the sum total of our beatitude, our blessedness. God works in and through us. God uses our hearts, minds, and talents to touch the lives of others. As we choose to live the Beatitudes, we help to build up the kingdom of God. The Mountaintop According to the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gave us the Beatitudes on a mountain. This is reminiscent of God's giving Moses the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. The commandments are guidelines for how to live our lives. The Beatitudes show us why we choose to live virtuous lives. By choosing to be instruments of God's peace, we bring justice into our world. We think of Moses as the great lawgiver and Jesus as the blessed Word of God. In Moses' law and in Jesus' Beatitudes, we meet the love of God - the God who builds the kingdom through the virtuous actions of the People of God.
		Sacramentals: Signs of God's Love (Sacramentals, Prayer, and Devotions) Prior to presenting each chapter, refer to the TAKE HOME FAMILY TIME pages in your child's book, or print out these pages from TAKE HOME FAMILY TIME. Learning Focus This chapter will help the children • understand that sacramentals are sacred signs instituted by the Church. • realize that sacramentals prepare us to receive the grace of the sacraments. • learn that blessings are the most important sacramentals. Background The word saint comes from the Latin and means "to consecrate" or "to make sacred." Saints consecrate, or dedicate, themselves to living God's love for others. Their lives are centered on giving God glory through work and prayer and, we hope, through laughter. For Catholics, saints are role models. They show us how to follow Jesus. Their lives differ, just as various kinds of vegetables differ. Some of us like broccoli; others can't abide it. So with saints. Some appeal to us; some don't. But all found a way to imitate the actions of Jesus. Some established hospitals where healing could take place. Some set up schools. Some went out and preached the good news in faraway lands. Others stayed home and prayed for the good of the universe. All lived the Beatitudes. They tried to show God's love to the world, just as Jesus had done. Veneration of the Saints We pray with the saints to God. We believe that all healing and forgiveness come from God, not the saints. But the saints, our good friends in heaven, carry our petitions and cares to God. When we honor saints, we really praise God, who gave them the gifts they used to follow Jesus. When we honor saints, we really honor God, whose great and good presence shone through these holy people and their loving actions.