“No,” replied Sister.
Another child raised his hand. “Thanksgiving,” he said.
In a scornful voice, a classmate commented, “What a dumb answer. The pilgrims never went to Jerusalem.”
Guest Appearance
As a family with a small boy was walking by the school chapel, the mother said, “Let’s make a visit to Jesus.” Inside the chapel, the mother pointed to the tabernacle and whispered to her son, “Jesus is in there.”
Curious, the boy whispered back, “When’s he coming out?”
Mixed Vegetables
Father was reviewing the story of Our Lord’s passion with the children. He asked, “What was the name of the garden Jesus and his apostles went to after the Last Supper?”
A boy raised his hand and waved it wildly. He was not one who usually knew the answers.
“Do you really know?” asked a surprised Father.
“Yes,” said the boy confidently. “The Garden of Pickles.”
“Close,” granted the priest.
A God Like Jonah
Melinda was quite impressed with her teacher’s revelation that God dwelt within her. That evening at dinner she shared this information with her parents. Then she swallowed a spoonful of peas and commented, “When those peas get down to my stomach and God tastes them, he’ll say, ‘Oh, Melinda. I just love peas.’ ”
The Ultimate Evil
Father presumed that the first-graders knew a lot of theology. “Does anyone know who the leader of the bad angels was?” he asked. Sister was surprised to see one little boy’s hand shoot up.
“Yes?” Father asked.
“The boogeyman,” the boy declared emphatically.
Ending with a Bang
While visiting the second-grade class, Father invited the children to ask him questions. One lad raised his hand and asked, “Father, do you really believe that Jesus is in the tabernacle?”
“Why, yes,” Father replied.
“Do you really believe that Jesus is in the tabernacle?” the youngster persisted.
“Yes,” Father repeated.
“Then why do you slam the door of the tabernacle?” the boy asked innocently.
From that day on, Father always closed the tabernacle door gently.
Morale Support for a Bishop
To welcome the new bishop, Sister Josephmarie invited the students in her school to write him letters. At the end of the day, among the letters piled on her desk she found an intimate one from a fourth-grader. It read, “Now I know you are a new bishop and so you are probably very nervous. But don’t be. I’ll tell you a secret. I’m praying for you.”
Omnipresence
“Do you know where God is?” Sister asked her first-graders.
One boy confidently answered, “In our bathroom.”
Curious, Sister inquired, “How do you know?”
“Because every morning my dad pounds on the door and asks, ‘My God, are you still in there?’ ”
Experiential Lesson
Carrying out the God Lab lesson with her new, challenging high school class, Sister Dion found out just how different the students were from others she had taught. For the first project, the students were to create something out of play dough. As one boy worked, he commented, “I’m making a devil, and I’m naming it Dion.”
The students set their creations on the teacher’s desk. Next the lesson plan called for the teacher to smash the work to illustrate how sin destroys creation. Previous students had always calmly absorbed the lesson. However, this time, as Sister began crushing their masterpieces, the students rebelled. The room was in an uproar. One boy called out, “You murderess.”
Sister never forgot, or repeated, the lesson.
The Living Dead
Assuming her students learned about vocations in previous years, Sister Bernadel asked them to name the states in life. One seventh-grader supplied the answer, “There are three states in life: religious, married, and dead.”
Trapped
While studying about religious life, the eighth-graders encountered the word cloister. Sister explained, “A cloister is a monastery where outsiders do not enter and the religious usually do not leave.”
On hearing this, Dan, the class clown, quipped, “Gee, Sister, don’t they get cloisterphobia?”
A Promotion
Father Paul visited the kindergarten class for the first time. He asked, “Does anyone know my name?”
“I know. I know,” one child replied with exuberance. “It’s John Paul II.”
Mary, a U.S. Citizen!
The sixth-graders were practicing for a May crowning. Luckily, the lad reading the Gospel passage about the Annunciation had the chance to be corrected. He proclaimed that the angel Gabriel was sent to a Virginian betrothed to a man named Joseph.
2. The Bible
“Jesus was walking along. He saw ten men who were very sick. Umm … they had a bad disease…. They were all leprechauns!”
Divine Tricks
Sister finished telling her first-graders the marvelous story of creation according to Genesis. Awed by the account, a little fellow concluded, “Gee, God must be a magician!”
The First Stork Story
The fourth-graders were studying the story of Adam and Eve. One thoughtful boy asked Sister Helen Louise, “Were Adam and Eve the only two people around?”
“Yes,” Sister replied.
“And did Eve have a baby?” the boy continued.
“Yes.”
Perplexed, the boy asked, “Then
