3 Ways Into Sunday’s Stories for Children: Enter Into Holy Week

The Sixth Sunday in Lent

The Lenten practice this week is Enter. This is our final Sunday of Lent this year. It is also known as Palm Sunday, as we enter into Jerusalem with Jesus — into Holy Week and the story of Jesus’s Passion, which means suffering in Latin. It is a serious time, and we don’t always think that suffering and seriousness is for children. But the story is also about great love and hope. And its upside down ending next Sunday is really a beginning of new joy!

In hearing and participating in the stories of Holy Week, Easter makes more sense and meaning of everything: why it takes so long to get ready, as we say in Godly Play, why we “practice” ways to be close to God, why Easter always lands in the first month of spring when new life is visible everywhere. Below are ways to make or use the Children’s Time materials to enter into the stories of Holy Week.

This Sunday, please join the Children’s Time tweens class in a dramatic reading of the whole story, shared in a pilgrimage to different locations for each scene or “station”. Immediately following the 9:15am Family Service, families are invited to follow the readers and leaders and enter into our dramatic story of faith.

This is what we’ll be doing instead of drop-off Children’s Time this Sunday. All children must be accompanied by their parent/guardian.

Next Sunday, following the 9am Easter Festive Liturgy in Trinity Church, families are invited to join our Egg Hunt and Celebration in the churchyard and Parish Hall.

1. Sing and Dance

Sing along with Kathy Bozzuti-Jones: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” This is a song that repeats these same words over and over.

Find something that is heavy and safe to hold or carry. Sing a line while holding or carrying it as you walk very slowly around a room or in place. Then set it down and sing a line without it. Feel the weight and the extra breath you need to hold the item. Does it make it harder or easier to sing? Feel the lightness in your shoulders, arms, and whole body without it. Do you sing louder or more softly when you aren’t carrying extra weight?;

2. Play and Pray

Play Role Reversal. On Maundy Thursday of Holy Week, we commemorate Jesus’s last supper with his disciples. As his friends arrived, Jesus washed their feet. (It was a common form of hospitality in those days because they wore sandals and walked on dirt roads and paths.) They were surprised because usually servants did this, and Jesus was their teacher. But Jesus wanted them to understand that leading is serving and serving is leading. What can you do this week to serve someone? Is there someone who usually does things for you, or leads you, who you could serve in some way?

Pray this “snappy” mealtime prayer:

3. Create

Create time and space for making and using the objects below to enter into the stories of Holy Week at home with family.

Older children, use the Tenebrae Candleholder that you made with clay, or simply use seven candles of any kind. Follow the instructions for a Holy Week Tenebrae using readings from the Palm-Passion Story script each day of Holy Week.

Younger children, make or use your Holy Week box to illustrate and share a story from the devotions booklet each day of Holy Week.