Mags GarganMags Gargan speaks to people involved in an Irish initiative supporting families in passing on the Faith
Interest was piqued in the offices of The Irish Catholic when a rather large and colourful box recently arrived on my desk. Some early Christmas shopping, my colleagues wondered? No, this was a sample of the Jesse Box – an initiative that combines arts and crafts with scripture stories to encourage family liturgy.
The box includes a diorama kit which provides tools for children who, with the help of their parents, can create and act out different stories from the Old and New Testament, such as Creation, Exodus, the Nativity and Pentecost. The diorama is a folding box with three sections that stage the separate sessions of the stories.
It includes 11 wooden cones (support for all characters) and nine wooden animals, which can be used over and over again, allowing the children to literally make the story come alive while parents use the accompanying study manuals and activity books to guide the children through each story.
The team behind the Jesse Box is Paul Barnes, Gerry Malone and his son-in-law Sebastian Kraszkiewicz. Paul worked in stationary and approached Gerry with an idea to make the Christmas crib more interactive.
“Paul wanted to make a crib something more aesthetically attractive that the children could use,” Gerry explains. “He could see the children were not using the crib and it was becoming like a family heirloom. He suggested the idea to me and I said why not do all of salvation history and all of the Bible stories using the same idea. We started from Genesis and went right through to Pentecost with a different activity each week for six weeks sessions.”
Faith development
After a period of development, where the team sought advice and feedback from parents, teachers, priests and catechists, the Jesse Box is now being rolled out to families through parishes as a form of faith development. The box, which is distributed by Veritas, is currently being used in four Dublin parishes and will be introduced to Navan parish in Co. Meath this week.
The aim of the project is that a parish would gift a group of parents with a Jesse Box and story manual, preferably at a Sunday Mass celebration or children’s liturgy. The families come together once a week over six sessions to support each other by discussing how they are getting on, to prepare for the next session and to keep motivated.
When the families complete the first story they purchase the next story from the parish, which is again presented at a parish celebration where the parish priest asks the children some simple questions on the story they have completed.
The children then receive a blessing and the next story to work with. In this way families are not only supporting each other, but are supported by the parish and feel part of the Church community.
Feedback
In Johnstown parish in South Dublin the Jesse Box is being used as part of a family faith formation initiative. “We are trying to encourage families to connect with people and it was a way of outreaching to younger families,” says Fr John Sinnott. “The feedback has been very good. We had two families last year and now we have 10 families using it. The parish sponsors the boxes for the first 10 families and they were presented at family Mass on a Sunday. I explained to the congregation what it was about and then the families came up to get the boxes. It is very much a parish event,” he says.
Each parent knows their own children’s ability and uses the resources accordingly. Some may only use the arts and crafts as a family activity with focus on the Bible story. Others may want to use this time together to deepen family prayer time. Either way, Gerry says, they are focusing on scripture and developing an understanding of family as domestic Church.
“They don’t have to be scripture scholars or theologians. By investing time with their children they will pass on the Faith naturally,” he says.
Clodagh Dunne from Johnston parish says what she likes about using the Jesse Box is the fact that it is faith development at home as a family. “When we are doing it, we have it out on the counter in a prominent place almost like a little prayer space in the home. Even when you are not using it you see it,” she says.
“We have a big range of ages in our family from 15 down to three and a half, and they can all engage at a different level. It is very tactile and visual, which works well for younger children. Our seven-year-old wants to cut out and make it, whereas the older ones engage better with questions and discussions.”
Clodagh also found the weekly meetings a great support in terms of the practicalities of how to approach each story. “There was a learning curve and the parents were learning at the same time as the children,” she says.
Debbie Johnson, from Fairview parish, also says she learned more about scripture from the experience of using the Jesse Box. “I thought I knew the stories really well, but even in the discussions questions came up that I hadn’t thought of or a different angle to the same story.”
Activity-based
Her four boys find it difficult to sit still, so the fact that it is activity-based suits them well. “They took to it very quickly. They dressed the cones and we read the Bible story as they cut out and glued the characters. This helped them to listen to the story better. If they had to sit and listen, that would have been a turn off for them. As it is hands on they did engage and listen, and they were able to answer their questions,” she says.
“Our oldest lad is 15 and we did Bible stories with him as a child and he thought it was just a story. He didn’t connect with how it was relevant to his life today. With the questions in story manual we found they were able to give back to us the relevance in their own lives.
“We did Adam and Eve and all about temptation. Then we were having dinner one day and I said they could have a treat after dinner and left it on the table. When they were nearly finished one of the eight-year-old twins was going for it before he finished dinner and the other put his hand over it and said ‘Temptation, fight it. It’s only until after dinner’. The other lad didn’t take it. It is nice to see them relate stories to everyday living like that.”
Debbie was originally introduced to the Jesse Box through a friend in Rathmines and agreed to bring it to her own parish. She found this gave her the confidence to approach other families in the parish
“I had to come out of my comfort zone because there are families I say hello to at Mass but I don’t know, and I approached them for the first time,” she says. “Bringing it to a parish level was really good as a community to build on the Faith. We interacted and got to know each other better. We also supported each other. It’s a nice link between family and parish. It encouraged me that I don’t need special training to be part of the Church. As Pope Francis says we need to go out and invite people in.”
For more information see www.jessebox.com email info@thejessebox.com or call 01-5592522.
