Advent in the Atrium

We are having a really lovely advent in the True Vine Atrium! The children have been working so well with real focus and joy. All of the History of the Kingdom of God work that we did this fall has made a big impact on how we are seeing the infancy narratives and prophecies. I've been amazed by the depth of the connections the children are making.

On Advent two, we took a look at the prophecies we learned in Level One of the Catechesis and began to synthesize them. I wrote about this presentation and a bit about the role of prophecy in a previous post. The conversation was so rich this year - and the children quickly pointed out several themes they saw in the prophecies. They talked about "little and big," the presence of light and darkness, and the Kingdom of God in the prophecies.

Later in the morning two children presented the scripture and material telling of Mary's visit to Elizabeth to the group. As we pondered what more we might learn about Mary from this moment, we compared the very humble way that Mary saw herself with the amazing role she was given by God. One child connected our work with the prophecies and our thoughts about Mary together in a beautiful way: He said that God took all of that light and the whole kingdom of God and put them in Mary! I've been thinking about his words ever since. What a blessing it is to be in the atrium in advent!