Parousia: Clues to the Mystery Found in the Bible

Two weeks ago, in our combined level 2 and level 3 atrium, some of the 3rd, 4th and 6th graders were with me doing a review of the gestures of the Mass and their significance. We made some connections between the gestures and what we pray for in the Our Father when we pray, "Your Kingdom Come."

The children then said, "This reminds us of the Parousia - that we are praying for Parousia to come now."

WELL. Our emphasis has always been that this history is a mystery - and any real mystery has clues to guide us. The clues for THIS mystery are found in the Holy Bible.

A small group of the children were really intent on studying Parousia. They asked so many questions and one of the children asked, "What other clues do we have about the Parousia?" AH! I have a material to answer just that question - I, as catechist, do not need all the answers - I just need to connect a child with a material and get out of the way of the Holy Spirit!

So, for those 4 children, a work called "The Holy Bible and Parousia" was pulled off the shelf and they explored it. This material is a set of Scripture verses from various books of the Bible, both prophets and apostles. The children are to match the Scripture passage with a title that seems to fit it. They can read them all from the Bible or all from the cards; there is one card that requires going to the Bible because it is quite a bit longer than the paper holds. The children chose to read them all from the Bible.

The prophets have no hair, the apostles do.
Why? Just to keep the symbols different. 

This work was not complete by the end of atrium, so they pulled it out again the following week. One boy made this chart as they worked:


He differentiated between the prophets and the apostles and he just wrote the titles. So as soon as I take back to the children photocopies of this chart, they will have a chart showing what topics the prophets and apostles spoke on when it comes to Parousia.

There are MANY more passages in the Scripture as clues to the Parousia - these are the twelve most prevalent.

I wonder how many more there are!






Sample of the material in another atrium - same idea: