When tomorow I say my rosary, I will have something more to think of...
In class I was teaching about the rosary. It's not on the curriculum* but hey our 'terrain' is: "pain", what better 'teaching start' is there than the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary, right?
Now, I was trying to bring the point home to the students that the rosary wasn't vain repetitive mumbling of meaningless words. ((4 students in that class, 3 immigrants who know the our Father and Hail Mary, etc. but not in Dutch, 1 Belg who couldn't recite it.))
I managed to capture their interest -God be praised- and I was discussing the mysteries, before we would pray a decade of the rosary together. First mystery of the agony in the garden. I tried to impress them of the fear, the pain, the knowing, etc.
Second mystery: scourging at the pillar. Trying to give their minds something to focus on later on, I explained the mystery again. And in the midst for a moment I fell silent after I had asked, rhetorically, now none of us has ever been whipped before, have we. And one of my students hesitantly lifted his hand. Idahossa is from Nigeria, and he has felt the whip. I know this still happens... but the idea of it happening to the young man in my classroom makes it all much more close by.
When next you pray the sorrowful mysteries, perhaps you could add an intention for all those today who are still suffering under the whip and the scourge.... I know I will.
*trust me, if you all would see the 'aproved curriculum, you'ld tear your hair out.
In class I was teaching about the rosary. It's not on the curriculum* but hey our 'terrain' is: "pain", what better 'teaching start' is there than the sorrowful mysteries of the rosary, right?
Now, I was trying to bring the point home to the students that the rosary wasn't vain repetitive mumbling of meaningless words. ((4 students in that class, 3 immigrants who know the our Father and Hail Mary, etc. but not in Dutch, 1 Belg who couldn't recite it.))
I managed to capture their interest -God be praised- and I was discussing the mysteries, before we would pray a decade of the rosary together. First mystery of the agony in the garden. I tried to impress them of the fear, the pain, the knowing, etc.
Second mystery: scourging at the pillar. Trying to give their minds something to focus on later on, I explained the mystery again. And in the midst for a moment I fell silent after I had asked, rhetorically, now none of us has ever been whipped before, have we. And one of my students hesitantly lifted his hand. Idahossa is from Nigeria, and he has felt the whip. I know this still happens... but the idea of it happening to the young man in my classroom makes it all much more close by.
When next you pray the sorrowful mysteries, perhaps you could add an intention for all those today who are still suffering under the whip and the scourge.... I know I will.
*trust me, if you all would see the 'aproved curriculum, you'ld tear your hair out.
I will do that.
