Gathering activities

For children

Order

Using the collection of natural objects decide together whether they are alive or dead. Begin to bring some order into the jumble. You could make an arrangement on a small table with different coloured cloths to show the difference.

What’s inside?

Unwrap the gifts from Prepare the space , talking together about what might be inside. What does it feel like eventually to remove the final wrapping?

Your colour

Invite the children to look at the collection of fabrics. Ask them to share their reactions to the colours and consider what emotion might be linked to each colour. Suggest that today these colours are a length of dark fabric for the cave, brown for the earth, gold for the divine resurrected life of Jesus, white for the wrapping around Lazarus, green for our humanity, red for the passion of the sisters and blue for the tears and weeping.

In the picture

Look at the collection of pictures of the ‘Raising of Lazarus’. What can you see? What catches the eye? What is the same in each picture? What is different? Two useful questions that seem to unlock a lot of discussion when using pictures like this are: I wonder who you think is in this picture? I wonder what you think is happening here?

Journey map

If you are using the Lent journey map review the previous weeks and then look ahead to where the path will end up. The path leads to Easter and the new life of Christ. Prepare signposts pointing to the end of the journey.

For young people

How can I help?

Suggest situations such as ‘someone has broken their arm’ and then ask the question ‘How can I help?’

Being human

Invite each person in turn to name a characteristic that is unique to humans — ‘I am human because…’. Others can challenge if they can think of any other creature that shares this characteristic.

The last time I saw someone cry

Invite each person in turn to describe the last time that they saw someone cry. It can be in real life or on tv or film.

Fear

Invite the young people to think about the things in their life that make them happy, sad, apprehensive or excited. Invite them to share these things with one other person in the group. Invite those who so wish to share with the whole group. They may well discover that others share their fears and concerns. One of the things that may come up is the fear of death — or of the death of someone they love. Allow time for them to discuss this and support each other.

Don’t leave the conversation here but take it further with the rest of the session.

Being human

Take the exercise from the magazine further. Ask the group to identify the things which mark humans out as distinct from the rest of creation.