A Little Project: Jesse Tree Week 1 Day 6

Eventually Isaac marries and has two sons, Esau and Jacob. Again and again we hear from God his promise to Abraham, and then to his son Isaac, and now to his grandson Jacob - the promise to be the father of a nation so large and diverse it will be like the stars in the sky and the grains of dust in the desert.

Esau and Jacob were twins, born at the same time. Esau was the oldest, bigger and more rugged. Jacob's name means "the cheater," because when he and his brother were born, Jacob came out clinging to his brother's foot, in his attempt to be the oldest.

God does not base his love on whether or not a child is the oldest, or youngest, or middle child of his or her siblings, but in these ancient times the first son was considered to be the heir - meaning he would inherit all of his father's possession and his favor. Jacob was clever, and he wanted to be the one to inherit his father Isaac’s blessings rather than Esau. So he went out into the fields and made a pot of beans, and when Esau came by after working, Esau was very hungry. So he asked Jacob for some beans, and Jacob agreed to give him some – in exchange for his right as firstborn! And Esau agreed, took the beans, and gave his birthright to Jacob.

Jacob was now to inherit God’s blessing to Abraham, and so he needed to find a wife. Isaac made a command to his son Jacob that he was to go back to the land where their extended family lived to find a wife, to protect Jacob from Esau. So Jacob started to travel to their old land,

One night while traveling, Jacob had an important dream which was sent to him directly by God the Father. He dreamed that a ladder resed on the ground and went up to the heavens; and God's angels were going up and down on it. And the Lord stood beside Jacob and promised him that the land on which Jacob was sleeping, and the rock he was using as a pillow would become a pillar on the land of his descendants. A new promise was made to Jacob - not only that he would have many descendants who would spread throughout the earth like dust, but also that through his family all people of the world would be blessed. Finally, he promised that he, the Lord, would never leave him.

Jacob made a vow in return, that he would be sure to make God the Father the Lord of his heart and his life.

Connection & Reflection: This story shows us two things - first, that the Lord doesn't care as much about how someone was born, but what they are willing to do to be close to him. Jacob was a go-getter, someone who wanted the Lord's blessing more than anything else. In the end, this desire God the Father honored by granting the blessing to Jacob. Secondly we learn from Jacob's dream that not only would his family descendants be as many as the stars in thy sky, but that through his family ALL people of the world would be blessed - that no one, no matter how you would be born, would be left out of the opportunity to be blessed by God the Father. 

Prayer: Lord, thank you for loving each one of your people, each one of us. You love us before we even can make Jacob's vow to be faithful to you - and you offer us blessing no matter who we are. Help us to remember that Jesus is the one who brings us this blessing, and give us the strength to search after him the way that Jacob did.

Q: Jacob was using a rock for a pillow when the Lord promised to bless the land that he was laying on. What other thing did the Lord build a rock upon?

Q: What is something you can do tomorrow that will help you seek being closer to God the Father?







It may have seemed to both Abraham and Isaac that God was not fulfilling His promise with so few children. Isaac did not even live to see the day when Jacob was married

A Little Project: Jesse Tree Week 1 Day 5

Ornament: Ram

The Lord had promised to Abram and Sara that he would give them a son, and from him make descendants as countless as the stars. When Abraham & Sarah decided to put their faith in this promise, the Lord gave Abram and Sara new names. If you say the sound that "H" makes loudly, you end up breathing out very loudly. The new names that the Lord gave this couple were similar to their old ones, but names that reflected His own breath, the breath that created life on Earth: Abraham and Sarah.

Years later, God the Father did grant a son to Abraham ans Sarah, and they named him Isaac.

When Isaac was a young man, God spoke to Abraham. He told him that Abraham would have to make a sacrifice like the one he had made long ago - but this time instead of offering animals, Abraham would offer his own son, Isaac instead.

Immediately, Abraham made the preparations. Abraham loved his son, and did not understand how God could promise a great nation to him but also require that he take the life of his only son. But Abraham was faithful and trusted God, and so he went with Isaac to the mountain of Moriah. On the way there, Isaac himself asked to his father where they were going to get the lamb for the sacrifice, since they did not bring a lamb with them. Abraham answered "God himself will provide the lamb."

They arrived, and Abraham prepared the altar. Then tied up his son as well. He place Isaac on the altar and as he raised his knife to his only son, Abraham heard a voice from heaven:

“Do not lay your hand on the boy!. “Do not do the least thing to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you did not withhold from me your son, your only one.”

Abraham and Isaac rejoiced, and in thankfulness to God for his graciousness, Abraham offered a ram that he found caught in the bushes to the Lord instead of his son.

Reflection & Connection: God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac to test Abraham's faithfulness, but he also did it to demonstrate to us how he, the Lord, would keep his promise to make Abraham the father of nations.  This story of Abraham and Isaac's sacrifice is very similar to the story of Jesus. Abraham is a loving father who is willing to give up the life of his only son. Isaac, who is probably much stronger than his elderly father at this age can see clearly what is about to happen to him - especially when Abraham lays him on the table.  Isaac, just like Jesus, was willing to make the sacrifice that the Lord asked of him. Also, in the end Abraham made a substitute sacrifice of the ram, just as Jesus is a substitute sacrifice for each one of us. 

Prayer: Jesus we ask that you would be with us now as we prepare to receive you at Christmas. Please make our hearts as selfless and trusting as the hearts of Abraham and Isaac. Thank you for the love and protection that you have always given us. 

Conclude with your favorite family prayer or an Our Father, Hail Mary & Glory Be. 

Q What kinds of sacrifices do we find hard to make for others?  What can we do to be as faithful as Abraham and Isaac when we need to give up something?

Q Parents - The Lord knows that we love our children. Sometimes in our day to day duties we put our children before anything else. In what ways do we need to put God the Father before everything else?

A Little Project: Jesse Tree Week 1 Day 4

Ornament: The night sky/sky full of stars

Abram and Sara were a married couple that lives thousands of years ago. They were descendants of Noah, and Abram also was a faithful man of the Lord. Up until this point in history good had not given any commandments or guidance to his children, so God wanted to show the world what faithfulness was through Abram.

Abram and Sara were old, about seventy five, and they had never had any children. They had always wanted children, and at the time having children was considered a huge blessing by everyone. So to not have had a child was very, very difficult for Abram and and Sara. Abram cried prayers to God that he would have to make someone else who was not his own child his heir when he died, and no one would remember him.

But because the Father knew Abram was faithful, he took Abram outside one night and made him look up into the sky. He said "count the stars, if you can!" If you have ever tried to count the stars, even if you live in the city, you know that it is very hard because there are so many. Back in Abrams' time there wasn't electricity or a lot of lights at night, so anyone could see even more stars than we can now, (unless we live very far away from any towns). Good knew there were this many (because He had made them all!), but still asked Abram to count them. When Abram tried and couldn't, God said to him "as many stars as there are, that's how many descendants you will one day have."

"Look up at the sky count the stars of you can: so too will your descendants be."

Abram could not believe this, since he and his wife were so old and still didn't have any children. He asked his how he could really trust this promise, how could he know now what he would never live to see happen, even if he could have a child before he died.

The Lord had Abram lead a ritual that was very old - he had him make an animal sacrifice, with five animals which he cut in half and placed next to each other on an altar. The Lord asked this because making sacrifices of animals, was very symbolic for people of that time because meat was very valuable to men for food and produce, These sacrifice made God's words understandable to the people living at that time.

Abram made the sacrifices, and the Lord came in what looked like a flame and walked between the halves. This said to Abram - "I promise this to you, so that if I must, I will join these animals and become like them in order to fulfill what I have said to you."

Connection & Reflection: Have you ever seen the night sky full of stars? There are so many it is hard to even see them all, and especially to try and count them. The Father makes a HUGE promise to Abram! To a man who has no children and is too old to have any more, he says that he will have as many descendants as the sky has stars, billions! He also makes the promise of becoming like a sacrificed animal in order to accomplish it. That is another big promise, because the Father is the source of all life, and yet he tells Abram that he will take away his own life in order to give Abram descendants.

Today we can see that the Lord DID fulfill this promise. Think about how many people follow their faith through Abram - as of today there is estimated about 2.2 BILLION Christians, 1.6 BILLION Muslims, and 6.8 MILLION Jews. That should be enough descendants for you, right Abram?

Prayer: Father in Heaven, you love us and have made a plan for our lives. Just as you planned for Abram what seemed impossible and made it happen even by sacrificing your own life, we ask that you would help us to trust you with the plans you have made for our own lives.
Conclude with your favorite family prayer or an Our Father, Hail Mary & Glory Be.

Q - How do you think God fulfilled his promise to Abram by being sacrificed like an animal and giving up his life?

Q - When has it been hard to believe the Lord's plan for you in your life? What happened in the moments you did trust the Lord?

A Little Project: Jesse Tree Week 1 Day 3

Ornament: Rainbow or Ark

After Adam and Eve, human kind grew and grew. More and more humans were born with their original sin, their fallen nature. Most of them lived a life of not being afraid of evil or knowing the Lord, and they did evil things for many generations. This broke the Lord's heart. He had intended for men and women to live lives in a joyful relationship with Him, flourishing in the mysterious union of stardust and Breath that made up their being, and caring more about one another than themselves. But they didn't, and the Lord hurt so badly that He thought it might have been better to have never created human kind at all. He thought that he should wipe out the earth.

Only one man, named Noah searched for God the Father, the Lord. He was properly afraid of evil, and he faced it with bravery rather than giving in to it. And the Lord was relieved that there was one human with a heart like His own still. God the Father knew that Noah didn't do things perfectly, but that he didn't deserve death.

And so the Lord decided to help Noah survive what was coming. The Lord spoke to Noah seven times, telling him to build an Ark - something like a very large boat with a tight lid on it. The Ark would keep Noah, his wife, his sons and their wives safe while it rained for forty days. The Lord also told Noah to take animals in couples on the Ark, one male and one female if each kind, and to wait for the storm to be over beefier they left it again.

"Then the Lord said to Noah: Go into the ark, you and all your household, for you alone in this generation have I found to be righteous before me."

And so Noah did this without questioning God because he was faithful to him. It happened like the Lord said it would: it rained for forty days and nights, and the animals and Noah family waited. Finally, the rains stopped and to test of there was dry land, Noah sent out a dove from the ark. When it did not come back Noah knew it was because there was dry land for the bird to rest on.

But the flood had made the Lord sad, and he was brokenhearted that there had been so much damage and so much death. So he promised Noah and his family to never destroy the earth with water again, and as a sign if that promise her made the rainbow: light bending through the mist of rain, creating a beautiful arch of colors.

Reflection & Connection: In the story of Noah and the Ark we see humans making choices that hurt the Lord, our Father. This story of Noah could have happened this way, but it is more importantly a story of how the evil actions of humans cause destruction in our own lives and in the lives of others. It teaches us that a life lived without the Lord in it hurts others, and hurts those around us - and can also hurt the earth and the planet we live on.

But again, we see the Lord making us a promise after showing us the hurt our sins can cause. He gave us the rainbow! Rainbows are created when the light from the sun is bent while passing through a lot of water - usually rain. This represents the light of Jesus Christ - and how when he is involved in something as ordinary as water - or our everyday lives - that something beautiful and mysterious is created. Even this old story shows us that Jesus loves us and "makes all things new."

Prayer: Jesus - please be with us this Advent. Show us how we have turned away from being with you and talking with you. Help us to recreate our hearts to be more like yours, and to accept the love you have for us. 

Conclude with your favorite family prayer or an Our Father, Hail Mary & Glory Be.


Q Can you see all seven colors in a rainbow? What are they?
Q Why do you think the Father was heartbroken? What do you think this tells us about the Lord?
Q How does Jesus help make your life new?

A Little Project: Jesse Tree Week 1 Day 2

Jesse Tree, Week 1 Day 2
Monday

Scripture summary: The Lord who made all the heavens and the earth, all the stars in the sky and the trees and birds that we can see out our windows, also made the very first man and the very first woman. He carved them out and planned their souls and bodies the same way that he planned our own souls and bodies today.

Their names were Adam and Eve, and they were husband and wife. The Lord would walk with them every morning and evening in a beautiful garden, and Adam and Eve would eat whatever fruit they wanted. They would talk to the animals as if they were friends. The squirrels and bunnies wouldn't run away when they got close. Adam and Eve didn't even need to wear clothes because the weather took care of their needs. But the garden had one tree in it that the Lord had told them they should not eat from, or they would get sick and die.

One day Adam and Eve came upon a snake, and it told them that the Lord hadn't been honest with them, and that if they ate the fruit they would be like God Himself, who made the heavens and the earth. So they took the fruit and ate it,

Then, The Lord God then called to the man and asked him: Where are you? He answered, “I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid.” Then God asked: Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat? The man replied, “The woman whom you put here with me—she gave me fruit from the tree, so I ate it.” The LORD God then asked the woman: What is this you have done? The woman answered, “The snake tricked me, so I ate it.”
Then the Lord told Eve that even though having children was a gift, that carrying them would be a huge burden and would hurt. And Adam, who used to be able to command the animals and the weather to do what he needed, would have to work hard and sweat in order to feed and clothe himself and his wife. And both the man and the woman would have a hard time getting along with each other.

But, the Lord also made them promises, that the bread that Adam sweated for would become an amazing gift one day, and that the children that the woman suffered for would one day give life to someone who could defeat the snake that tricked her.

Reflection & Connection: This part of our story we call "The Fall." We humans had written in our nature - in our genes and in our souls a beautiful harmony between us and the Lord. Our bodies and souls also worked together perfectly. When our first parents, Adam and Eve made a decision to turn away from God, it changed their very nature - their genes, their "what they are." And so when they had children, their "fallen" nature was passed on to us. And when our nature fell from the high status we had with the Lord, to something less, things changed about how we would live - those we call the "curses" but really they are just the natural consequences of a different, lower nature.


Q: Why do you think Adam and Eve decided to eat the fruit? What kinds of difficult things in your life do you see as similar?
Q: Adam now has to work the land to make food - and especially bread. Where do we see that bread has become a blessing directly from the Lord?
Q: Eve was promised that one of her childrens' children would be able to defeat the snake that tricked her - who do you think that person is?
Q: Even when the Lord is slowly losing us because we were disobedient, he makes us promises to help save us and bring us back to Him. Why do you think he does this?

Prayer: Father in heaven, we know that we have a difficult time seeing you in our daily lives and remembering you. We ask that you would help us to remember Jesus' birth in all the excitement of the Advent season. Help us to remember that you love us each individually and have made a plan for our lives.

Conclude with your favorite family prayer, or an Our Father, Hail Mary & Glory Be.

-RMVZ

A Little Project: Jesse Tree for toddlers

One day, I plan on writing a more extensive book that can be used by us parents who have a hard time praying out-loud with their children. The book will have each day of the Roman Catholic Advent calendar outlined with Scripture summaries, reflections, connections and activities. I hope that it will be amazingly illustrated (not by me!), include other beautiful things like poetry and song lyrics, along with discussion questions for a family to answer together.

Hopefully this book will grow with a family and even teens will be happy to read through it with their parents once they get older - even if just for the holiday nostalgia.

Essentially I wanted to find something like this out there, a beautiful Jesse Tree guide friendly to kids but also younger children/toddlers that a family could pull out every Thanksgiving with their Christmas/Advent decorations and use at night before bed or at dinner time. But I couldn't find it, at all! Some were beautifully illustrated, but too sappy and lacking in substance. Others were WAY over any child's head. Some just seemed to be excerpts from Scripture, but lacked any sort of interpretation or meditation for children and the family as a whole. Most of them were not really for Catholics because they simply covered December, and Advent mostly begins before December does, even if only by a day or two.

I'm certainly not an expert on catechesis, childhood development or psychology. Nor am I a Scripture buff or a outstanding theologian. Hell, I can't even use my "I'm a mother" card to really show superiority on this book (example: I just used the word "hell."). But I was too irritated to wait for someone else to write me what I wanted. So here it is.

Over the next few weeks, (and I hope I can keep up with it) I will be writing nightly reflections for just the toddler version  - so everything will be shortened and simplified. But I think that will be sufficient for now, because it's a really good starting place.

Some of the challenge for me will be taking the IMMENSE amount of meaning of each day and making it appear simple, while still leaving room for depth and mystery. (It helps that I can just write this for what my almost-2-yr-old daughter will understand, or at least listen to.)

I hope you benefit from this project as much as I will. Please, please feel free to leave comments to help me along this journey. I can't promise to listen to all of you - but I will at least hear all of it and let it help form this book for the better.
-RMVZ



Jesse Tree Week 1, Day 1
Sunday

Ornament: Tree

Scripture summary for toddlers: He Lord spoke to the prophet Samuel in a special way. The Israelites prayed to God for someone to lead and protect them. When their first king failed in his task, he sent Samuel to give a special marking and blessing to a young shepherd boy named David, the youngest of 12 brothers. He would one day lead and protect the Israelites and show faithfulness to the Lord. 

Samuel was told to go to Bethlehem to meet the sons of a good, faithful man named Jesse. Telling Samuel that he would let him know when he had met the one he should anoint, Samuel was introduced to all of the sons of Samuel (there were 12!) starting with the oldest and strongest. But the Lord did not tell Samuel to anoint any of them. Samuel was confused and asked the father, Jesse,

-" Are these ALL of your sons?"

-"Yes, except for one, the youngest and smallest who is still out shepherding the sheep in the hills for the season."

So Samuel asked Jesse to send for him and after a long wait, they saw the youngest son, David, walking toward him. And the Lord spoke to Samuel, telling him "This is the one!"

So Samuel anointed David by pouring oil on his head, and the Spirit of the Lord rushed upon him.

Connection & Reflection: Why is the ornament a tree today? The Lord gives us trees, especially "evergreens" to remind us of his constant love, protection and care during the long and cold months of winter. We use this Jesse Tree to remember that the Lord has been preparing for Jesus to come since he created the world - and we can see that very clearly with Jesse & his son David because Jesus would be born generations later as a descendant of Jesse - and also as a king, like David.  Just as our trees made roots and grew from those roots, our faith has a deep history and has grown from those roots - and in the end we receive Jesus, God himself in the Eucharist. Just as trees outlast the winter cold and darkness, our faith in Jesus keeps us strong in our suffering and gives purpose to it. 

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for showing us your love through your created world. Help us to remember by looking at our Christmas Tree that your love is constant for us, and that you have given our lives meaning by planning it from so long ago. 

(Conclude with your favorite family prayer, or an Our Father, Hail Mary & Glory Be)

Family Questions: Why do you think we celebrate Advent for weeks before Christmas? What is your favorite part of these celebrations and why?