Today I am teaching my daughter's third grade Catholic Faith Formation class. My topic is the four Marks of the church. When I saw that, I thought, who knew. I always assumed there was only one Mark -- the gospel writer.
But these are different Marks, like marks on a wall sort of Marks. These four Marks are: One, Holy, catholic and Apostolic church. With third graders everything is learned at the end of a crayon. This tends to be true for sixth graders too -- but I digress. When I was reading about One, that famous Three Dog Night song popped into my head, and there it has remained. I pictured a tall skinny very lonely one. But then I have another One in mind, and that is a big fat one full of people and faces. The One of the church means we are all one church, welcoming to all (I know... what's written isn't always done with open arms), but for third graders I will forget my own political commentary. So today I will show them a skinny lonely one, and then a big fat one and have them draw faces to fill it.
We will move onto Holy, catholic -- which means universal in this sense and Apostolic, and call it a day as we drawn our way through religious ed. I'm looking forward to the class. I hope the kids enjoy it.
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