Hello hello!
I'm having a delightful weekend and just found a few moments to blog about the other day in class. I'll keep it short and simple. At least attempt. We are now at the point where my students are going deeper and not just nodding their heads and asking technical questions-now they are demanding answers that apply to their lives.
Let me give you some context first. On Friday my first class decided to take the initiative and hide in the Couch Room (even though I heard them since I was washing my hands in the bathroom right next door). This group has tried to sneak in and scare me a number of times but my bionic teacher ears have yet to have failed me! (I'm just nervous I will not only jump out of my skin but that a not so teacher-friendly word will rupture right out of my mouth.) Back to what I intended on telling you- we were starting to talk about the Sacraments of Healing (Reconciliation and the Anointing of the Sick). I found a number of healing passages in the Bible. We did not get to as many as I wanted (no surprise!) because great discussion in both classes took over. It was like an actual Bible Study! My students were so engaged and really did a good job of asking questions, answering my questions, and really for the first time experienced what a Bible Study can be like. I asked questions about the passages (who is present, where are they, what do you think the scribes were thinking, how would you react if you saw a paralyzed person healed within moments, etc) -so more basic questions to understand the context, shared with them how in the Old Testament sick people we shunned because they believed that person was cursed because of his or her sins or the sins of a family member. Jesus cleared up that misconception! I also asked them questions to get them to know who Jesus is and what is required for healing to take place. Here are the main conclusions we came to:
- Christ came to comfort the poor and sick.
- Healing can be of body (physical) and soul (spiritual), but the most important is of the soul.
- Faith is required of us in order for any kind of healing to take place.
- Jesus doesn't want us to suffer and we were never intended to suffer (death was never in the original plan).
- Healing is not magic.
- Jesus is longing for each and every single one of us to respond to His call. He wants to care for us, and He already made the first move by conquering death on the cross.
I have 2 main statements/questions that I'd like to share:
"Miss Sexton, I get so frustrated when novels or the Bible hardly give any details about a person. So Jesus tells the paralytic, 'Rise, pick up your mat, and go home' and so he does and that's it?! In the Bible, we get to see Jesus and know what he does, but who can we EVER know Him?!? I don't think we ever can. Maybe that's why there are so many different translations of the Bible. Can we ever know Him?"
This student is soul searching people!!! She wants so badly to know Jesus. She went on to compare how she knows stuff about one of her classmates and she asked him, "But do I really know you?" and he said, "Uhhh, no?" She then said, "See! It's just like that."
I know that she has witnessed and experienced a lot of pain and suffering, and she's not the only one searching to know Jesus. I remember calming her down and telling her that if you couldn't have a personal relationship with Jesus, then I never would have moved to a small town in Iowa to do this job. No young man would give up his life for the Church and answer the call to the priesthood. No woman would ever dream of entering religious life. No Christian would have hope is we couldn't actually know Jesus on a personal level. I told her that knowing Christ as a best friend takes a lot of prayer, patience, and time, and for each person that relationship might look different. There are so many different ways to pray and so many different personalities, so obviously our friendship may not look the same even though we all have Jesus as a friend (at least we're getting there!) I told them that it doesn't necessarily click at your first communion, or your confirmation, or your 18th birthday. There isn't a set day that everyone truly understands or knows Jesus on a personal level. I also told her that the Scripture does tell us a TON about Jesus. We can know his heart, however, there isn't narration or quotation marks pointing to His thoughts, the things he didn't say. I told her, and the entire class, that we must first make an effort to pray, asking Jesus to help us know him, try to see the good in every day and recognize that that is where He is, see the good in people and that is Him, and even see the good in the hard times (which is much more challenging, but that He never leaves us, and that He is there through it all). I told them we can only do so much in class to get to know Jesus, so it takes a personal effort. I told them to pick one of the Gospel stories and ask themselves the same kinds of questions I asked them to start analyzing the scriptures and what God is telling us.
"Ok, this may be a little off topic, but how do you ever know what God is calling you to? Like, everyone says I should start praying about what college God wants me to go to, but how will I ever know? It's not like He's literally going to write it down on a piece of paper for me."
I've gotta get ready for mass, but I gave her/the class some starting points and reminded them that any questions regarding faith can be asked here! It's such a privilege that they are asking me these types of questions.
Trust has officially been established in both of the classes I am teaching. It took one student in each class to ask a more personal question. I asked them if they liked the way we went through the healing passages together and one student said, "I loved going through it together. It made so much more sense! I feel like now I can actually get to know Jesus when reading Scripture alone and not get confused."
And this is why I love my job.
Happy Sunday!
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