To relate our own suffering and redemption to Christ’s paschal mystery.

• Explain how Joseph’s suffering and redemption foreshadows Christ’s Paschal Mystery.
• Relate the pattern of death and resurrection to their own lives, both spiritually and physically.

To discover the rich symbolism of Ash Wednesday, and understand its biblical roots.

• Articulate why we wear ashes on Ash Wednesday.
• Connect their Lenten sacrifice with the meaning of ashes on Ash Wednesday.

To explore Catholic teaching on the purpose and meaning of suffering.

• Discover that suffering has meaning and irreplaceable value.
• Critically engage with different views on suffering, and their ethical ramifications.

To explore the origins of secular humanism, and the threat that it poses to human dignity (in life and at death).

• Connect present-day offences to human dignity with their philosophical roots in the Age of Enlightenment.
• Discover that a culture’s funeral rituals reveal the essence of a culture’s worldview.

To stimulate student interest in the value and dignity of the human person.

• Develop an interest and curiosity in the value of human life.
• Critically engage with different worldviews pertaining to human dignity.

While there are many fine catechetical resources for children and teens, many do not adequately address death and dying nor explain the Catholic funeral liturgy and its role in providing grace for the deceased and comfort to the mourning. The following are age-appropriate lesson plans.

• Each grade level provides a 30-45 minute lesson focusing on a different theme and can be used each successive year to increase your student's knowledge o this aspect of the Faith.

This session is meant to reaffirm and encourage the practice of praying for the dead and to teach the special ways that we pray for the dead in the funeral liturgy and at each Mass during the prayers of the faithful.

• The importance of prayer, remembrance, honor and seeking the Lord's mercy.

This is mean to teach students the central aspects of the Catholic burial rite and how it both honors the deceased and offers consolation to the family.

• Catholics have understood burying/interring the dead as a corporal work of mercy and celebrated a distinct liturgy for the deceased. There are three parts to the funeral liturgy, the Vigil, Funeral Mass and the Rite of Committal.

Burying/interring the dead is one of the corporal works of mercy, and is a central part of the faith community

• Students will learn how families and the Christian community participate in the corporal works of mercy when they bury/inter the dead.