Source: (consider it)
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Thread: St Catherine for small children
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latecomer
Apprentice
# 8966
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Posted
This month's family service falls on our patronal festival - St Catherine of Alexandria. Does anyone have any good resources to help make St C a suitable subject for very young children? I'm not sure torture and mystical marriage will work too well!
-------------------- Keep it simple - I can do simple
Posts: 27 | From: Somerset | Registered: Jan 2005
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dj_ordinaire
Host
# 4643
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Posted
At the risk of being flippant, why would torture be a major issue? Presumably the children are familiar with the idea of Christ being nailed up on the Cross?
-------------------- Flinging wide the gates...
Posts: 10335 | From: Hanging in the balance of the reality of man | Registered: Jun 2003
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Custard
Shipmate
# 5402
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Posted
The whole fictionality thing might be an issue too...
If you gave each saint a rating for fame, and another for historical evidence for their existence, I suspect St Catherine would be near the top of the fame/evidence scale.
-------------------- blog Adam's likeness, Lord, efface; Stamp thine image in its place.
Posts: 4523 | From: Snot's Place | Registered: Jan 2004
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
That hymn that contains the phrase, "when her head from her body was separated, outwith milk did flow" (or phrasing to that effect) is most jolly for the wee ones.
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote: When her head was amputated, Milk flowed forth instead of blood: Then her body was translated By the angel multitude, And on Sinai's Mount located At its highest altitude.
I can just see the looks of delight on the faces of my little ones now. And the questions we'd have over Sunday lunch following...
-------------------- mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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ardmacha
Shipmate
# 16499
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Posted
I had better be careful here. Can anyone give me the source of this hymn ; is it a send up ? Remembering how close fact/fiction in hymns can be: e.g.
Blest is the man whose bowels move And melt with pity for the poor His soul in sympathising love Feels what his fellow saints enure
Posts: 56 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2011
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
(I don't see the feast of St Guy and St Catherine catching on). [ 12. November 2012, 15:39: Message edited by: mdijon ]
-------------------- mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by leo: Something to do with wheels and fireworks?
I thought that fireworks were for Saint Barbara?
Well, little girls love princesses. And since she was known to be particularly smart, and someone tried to marry her off against her will, Belle of Disney's Beauty and the Beast comes to mind. Frankly, both girls and boys would probably like the whole milk-from-the-neck thing. And you don't have to explain how a breaking wheel works, just that it was miraculously broken.
-------------------- "Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
The hymn is not a send up. We have sung it at St Clement's Philadelphia, whose minor patron Catherine of Alexandria is.
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
You have to respect something that rhymes "amputated... translated.... located" for 1,3 and 5, with "blood.... multitude.... altitude" for 2,4 and 6.
They don't write them like that any more.
It has all the ingredients of a St Catherine's Gangsta rap.
-------------------- mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433
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Posted
I must say (without a hosty hat on) that we're not helping Latecomer much
That said, the bowels-moving line is one I use quite often, to remind peeps the degree to which we sanititize the bible. JC was forever being splagnidzomai-ed - moved to the bowels. Hats off to the hymn-writer who recognized that visceral response in the Incarnation to human poverty.
All of which does little for the OP.
-------------------- shameless self promotion - because I think it's worth it and mayhap this too: http://broken-moments.blogspot.co.nz/
Posts: 18917 | From: "Central" is all they call it | Registered: Sep 2004
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latecomer
Apprentice
# 8966
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Posted
thanks Zappa, but actually being made to giggle about it IS helping (and I'm conscious this was very close to being a homework thread too).
I can feel a game coming on here - which saint would you least like to deliver a child-friendly talk on?
-------------------- Keep it simple - I can do simple
Posts: 27 | From: Somerset | Registered: Jan 2005
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Digging through my copy of Seasons, Saints & Sticky Tape
In fairly garbled paraphrase, suggestions for children's activities for All Saints:
- chain of saints - concertinaed paper to make four shapes of people holding hands, first is saint of church dedication, second is a saint they particularly like, third is someone they know who is a good example, fourth is a picture of themselves.
- Saints lantern, glue the chain around a clean jam jar and place a candle inside - use to light the parish party celebrating your saint!
- skipping lightly over the paper flags with a saint drawn on each side;
- A Woven Banner - use a large bamboo cane top and bottom and tie warp threads between them, make a hanger using a loop at the top, weave a banner out of fabric strips, using paper chains of saints as above from 4 colours of sugar paper, put Jesus at the top, 11 disciples, then the people who found the church, saints, patrons, etc, then last row is the people of the church. It's to show how all Christians are knitted together in God's family.
The Patron Saints ideas suggest you do an ecclesiastical "house that Jack built" and suggests that you've started a couple of weeks in advance making t-shirts, ten people help narrate this one, giving the first couple to give a flavour (copyright, pm me if you want more):
- This is the church where we go
- This is the lady who cares for the church
where we go (brush) - This is the person who visits the village/town
who thanks the lady who cares for the church Where we go (camera)
Children make their own patronal t-shirts using symbols of the saint. (You can see why I look at All Saints - it's John the Baptist here, beheading is the usual date)
-------------------- Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
Oooo! Good game! If you start it in the Circus, I'll come and play.
ETA: For latecomer, of course. Although I'm enjoying Curiosity killed...'s ideas, too. [ 13. November 2012, 07:24: Message edited by: Lyda*Rose ]
-------------------- "Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
-------------------- "Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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Bishops Finger
Shipmate
# 5430
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Posted
I can't help feeling that one's Patronal Festival (especially if it's of an....er.... awkward saint) is a time, not for a Family Service, but for a full-on Solemn High Mass (preferably with a tame Bishop celebrating) with children being deputed to do lots of jobs before, during and after said Mass............
Ian J.
-------------------- Our words are giants when they do us an injury, and dwarfs when they do us a service. (Wilkie Collins)
Posts: 10151 | From: Behind The Wheel Again! | Registered: Jan 2004
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ardmacha
Shipmate
# 16499
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Posted
Thanks fot the link mdijon, a really good hymn.
Posts: 56 | From: England | Registered: Jun 2011
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
I certainly had St. Catherine explained to me as a young child in terms of the Catherine Wheel firework. It made perfect sense in that context (perhaps we were more au fait with those sort of fireworks back in the 1960s, as our dads used to set them off in the back garden and children were therefore able to see them close up).
Since then, when visiting churches and cathedrals, I have seen many stained glass windows and other pictures portraying St. Catherine, which usually have the wheel symbol somewhere in the portrait. Perhaps a google of those examples could bring up some you could print off for the children to find the symbol?
-------------------- Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by Chorister: I certainly had St. Catherine explained to me as a young child in terms of the Catherine Wheel firework.
I generally think visual aids are over-done, but in for a penny in for a pound... a Catherine wheel at the front in the family service would definitely be memorable. Or if health and safety insist at least a sparkler or two. That would make the children sit up.
-------------------- mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
Posts: 12277 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2004
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Chorister
Completely Frocked
# 473
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Posted
quote: Originally posted by mdijon: I generally think visual aids are over-done
Now that is a very interesting statement in itself. Perhaps some of us are more visual learners than others, but I do remember as a child finding the visual symbolism in any school lesson or church sermon so much more meaningful than words alone. Some concepts are so difficult to understand and, as children don't normally become abstract learners until at least the age of 11, pictures and objects are so important.
(But maybe a detailed examination of that would belong on another thread.)
-------------------- Retired, sitting back and watching others for a change.
Posts: 34626 | From: Cream Tealand | Registered: Jun 2001
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
A St Catherine pageant might be fun. Like a church Christmas pageant, but with devices of torture and damsels in distress.
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
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