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<\/a>Classics Day Feast<\/em>, c. 1836 <\/p>\n A joyous Eastertide! As the academic year is drawing to a close, many schools offer celebrations as a way to draw the community together one last time before summer vacation begins. It is to punctuate the year with an exclamation point! Yet, is there something more to these celebratory year-end gatherings at our liberal arts schools that goes even deeper than the lovely display of the culmination of the students\u2019 hard work and the bidding of farewell? We believe so.<\/span><\/p>\n In the Catholic liberal arts tradition, schools have taken The Holy See’s Teaching on Catholic Schools<\/em><\/a><\/span>\u2019 directive that the education program be \u201cimbued with a Catholic worldview throughout the Curriculum\u201d with history<\/em> in mind. We understand that history is in fact salvation history. It is His Story<\/em>, to be told and retold across the years at every grade level! This is a beautiful way for schools to incarnate God\u2019s becoming Man in a time-honored fashion. As Christ\u2019s story becomes the central figure in our children\u2019s own life stories throughout their education and upbringing, schools do well to recreate His Story throughout the years. They do this through the means Christ Himself modeled: through time (history) and the beauty of incarnation (method).<\/span><\/p>\n In many of our member schools, history is often divided into four distinct eras of study centered on the Incarnation\u2013 those centuries leading up to the Birth of Christ (Ancient civilizations including Greece and Rome), the Incarnation itself and spread of Christianity (the fall of Rome, early Christendom and the Middle Ages), the latter time periods following the spread of Christianity (the Renaissance, Reformation and Counter-reformation), and lastly, the Age of Discovery and the Modern Era.<\/span><\/p>\n Christ\u2019s Incarnation is present when we learn any truth. To incarnate a truth is to embody it, to know it so deeply that the truth itself is inextricably bound to our minds, hearts, and souls. Likewise, how we end the school year as a community can and should be an act of embodiment. When we take time to celebrate the culmination of our academic year with expressions, productions, and incarnations of the truths learned, we are giving children something for their souls to embody, and therefore, remember. Indeed, we imitate Jesus\u2019 words at the Last Supper, \u201cDo this in memory of me.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n What are some of these ways our students embody their learning, and therefore celebrate, remember, and rest in an imitation of the Incarnation of Christ? Plan an annual spring celebratory event! The whole school attends with their families, and students shine in representing their hard-earned wisdom at the year\u2019s end. Begin with a promenade of students in costume representing each grade level\u2019s historical time period. For individual classroom presentations, here are some embodied examples with different time periods and age levels in mind:<\/span><\/p>\n End the school year with incarnation<\/em> and bestow upon students the embodiment of Christ\u2019s story in all its glory across the centuries at your school!<\/span>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.24.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”4.24.2″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content”][et_pb_gallery gallery_ids=”52422,52420,52419,52417,52428,52372,52368,52371″ posts_number=”8″ show_title_and_caption=”off” show_pagination=”off” _builder_version=”4.24.2″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ global_colors_info=”{}” theme_builder_area=”post_content” sticky_enabled=”0″][\/et_pb_gallery][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Historical and Incarnational Possibilities of Year End Celebrations A joyous Eastertide! As the academic year is drawing to a close, many schools offer celebrations as a way to draw the community together one last time before summer vacation begins. It is to punctuate the year with an exclamation point! Yet, is there something […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":52418,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"[caption id=\"attachment_51727\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"750\"]
Photo Credit: St. Augustine Academy, Ventura, CA<\/p><\/div><\/p>\nThe Historical and Incarnational Possibilities of Year End Celebrations<\/h4>\n
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\"We don\u2019t want to be so familiar with Christmas that it becomes foreign. The fulcrum of all of history rests on this singular event when God, who has no beginning or end, began. \"
\u2014Noelle Mering, Theology of Home: Finding the Eternal in the Everyday[\/caption]\r\n\r\nFor centuries, Christians have looked forward to Christ\u2019s promise to come again. This hopeful stance of the Church in anticipation of meeting her bridegroom has its greatest expression during Advent when we not only celebrate the anniversary of Christ\u2019s birth, but prepare our own hearts and minds for His glorious second coming.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nYet, with the annual circus-like display of material goods in storefronts and online, the call to make ready our own hearts and minds becomes ever more challenging and outside the normal routine. As teachers, we have the beautiful opportunity to do things a little differently during Advent. We have the time and space to bring the discipline of Advent into the classroom, punctuating the preparation of our own souls, and those of our students and families. We look to the<\/span> liturgy of Adven<\/span><\/i>t as our guide.<\/span>\r\n\r\nLiturgy calls us to duty, to action, to practice, to prayer. Liturgies are also communal. The Catechism calls us during Advent to participate in this special way,\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nWhen the Church celebrates the<\/span> liturgy of Advent each year, she makes present this ancient expectancy of the Messiah, for by sharing in the long preparation for the Savior's first coming, the faithful renew their ardent desire for his second coming. By celebrating the precursor's birth and martyrdom, the Church unites herself to his desire: \"He must increase, but I must decrease.\" (CCC 524)<\/span>\r\n\r\nDid you catch that? The Church<\/span> makes present<\/span><\/i> this ancient expectancy of the Messiah! Making a truth present in oneself or in the world is an act of humble embodiment. Analogously, this is precisely what we mean when we speak of <\/span>Imitation<\/span><\/i>. And through imitation, we can fully enter into the graces of the Advent season, uniting ourselves with the desire of the whole Church.<\/span>\r\n\r\nA quick recap: Imitation is one of the <\/span>Seven Foundations of Pedagogy,<\/span><\/a> which rests on the fact that truth is knowable; in fact, Truth came to us as a Person, and is coming again!\u00a0 It is in His image and likeness we are made. To be an \u201cimage\u201d of something is to imitate it. We recognize that the first step of knowing and learning is this step of attentive imitation. Imitation, then, is not mere copying, but <\/span>embodying<\/span><\/i>.\u00a0<\/span>\r\n\r\nSome classroom practices that encourage imitation and the embodiment of the Advent anticipation of Christ\u2019s birth and second coming are the following:<\/span>\r\n\r\n \t