Virtues and Parables

You've got to love when there's a beautiful intersection of real life and what's happening in the liturgy. More times than I can even remember, the Readings from Mass have directly related to what is going on in my life- sometimes so obviously that it is like Jesus is up on the altar saying, "Hey, told you I was here!" ;)

Point and case are the Sunday Gospels from this month. I am in my second year of teaching the Education in Virtue curriculum to my 6th-8th graders, and since the resources are not grade specific and I repeat students, I can't teach with the same method as last year with my 7th-8th graders. I'm still working on exactly what that will look like all year, but this month solved itself.

Our virtues during this month include:
Obedience
Responsibility and
Respect

And the Gospels from the Sunday at the beginning of that week are:
The Prodigal Son
The Dishonest Steward and
The Rich Man and Lazarus

Each of those parables is a perfect example (or non example) of living out that virtue. Not to mention that I am in the middle of a unit on the Parables and I couldn't have asked for better source material. (Thanks, Jesus!)

So even though it is pretty unlikely that all of those contributing factors are true for you, I thought I'd still share the study we are using to compare the virtue and the parable, which would be perfect to use for Mass prep or followup, or as a study any time.

Click on each of the images below for the two page booklets: