The Nativity Season

Opening Prayer

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Thy nativity, O Christ our God,
Has shown to the world the light of wisdom.
For by it, those who worshipped the stars
Were taught by a star to adore Thee,
The Sun of Righteousness,
And to know Thee, the Orient from on high.
O Lord, glory to Thee!

Discussion Questions

Begin by asking the following:

• When have you had to wait for something to happen?
• What are some things you could hardly wait to receive?

Talk about the words of the Troparion. Make sure children know that "nativity" means birth, and that the Feast of the Nativity is the feast day of the birth of Jesus Christ as a child on earth. Ask: What other name do we give this feast day? (Christmas.) Then ask: What is a feast day? (A special day that we celebrate in church.) Explain that Magi were wise men and astronomers from far away countries.  Point out that the Magi, who studied the stars, were led by a special star to Jesus Christ, the holy baby being born in a cave.  Point out that the Sun of Righteousness Is Jesus Christ. (Note: You may want to review these words and meanings each week as you go through the unit lessons.) For this lesson, ask:  Did the Magi have to wait to see the Sun of Righteousness? (Yes, they traveled a long way from the far countries they lived in.)

Nativity Icon

Put out the bowl of treats, making sure that you have something appropriate for any child with allergies or dietary restrictions. Tell the children that you are going to wait until the end of class to share the treats. If children become upset at not having the treats right now, put them away and say that you will bring them out at the end of class. Discuss how we have to wait for many things: for mealtime, our turn during games, our birthdays, etc.

During the Nativity Fast, these weeks before Christmas or the Nativity of Jesus Christ, we are waiting for a special birthday, the birthday of God's Son, Jesus. Help the children identify the various figures in the Nativity icon: Mary, Joseph, the animals, the shepherds, the magi, and especially the anticipated baby Jesus. How does it feel to have to wait for something you want to happen? Is it difficult to wait?

We wait through the weeks until Christmas Day when we celebrate the birthday of Christ. Not until the day of Christmas will we hear the priest exclaim, “Christ is Born!” And we will answer, “Glorify Him!” But what does it mean to “glorify” Him? When we answer back, “Glorify Him,” we rejoice and celebrate with all of creation (and all those in the icon) that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father, has been born so that God could be here in our midst to help and save us.

Say: As you can see in the icon, the Magi had to wait and follow a star to the cave where Jesus lay. Likewise, the shepherds, hoping and waiting for Christ, went with haste to Bethlehem praising, rejoicing, and celebrating the upcoming birth of Jesus. We also should go through these days of Advent as the shepherds did and arrive at the feast of the Nativity.   Ask the children: How can we go through the days of Advent waiting as the shepherds did to greet the feast of the Nativity? (They can try to help others, be cheerful, and be ready to greet the birth of Jesus Christ with joy.)

Share these thoughts with the childre in your own words.  Ask:  How can we like the Magi, praise His glorious and miraculous birth so that on Christmas day we may sing with the angels, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men!”  What do we say when our priest says, “Christ is Born!”? We answer, “Glorify Him!”

Note: Practice with the children by exclaiming, “Christ is Born!” with them answering each time “Glorify Him!”

Resource Project: Advent Calendar

Discussion Starter

Talk with younger children about calendars: how they help us to keep track of important days/dates to remember, e.g., birthdays, anniversaries, important events, etc.

• Ask if their mother or father writes important things on a calendar at home. Are their birthdays marked in a special way on a calendar?
• Distribute empty calendars (see list of dates and commemorations provided with calendar).
• Discuss a different commemoration each week and give each child a sticker to paste in their calendar.
• For more information on individual saints see www.oca.org Feasts and Saints.

Wrap Up

As students are cleaning up and preparing for closing prayer, ask the following:

How will the Advent calendar help you wait for the Birth of Christ?

Sometimes, does waiting for something make it even better when it comes?

Before you say the words of the closing prayer, the Kontakion of St. Romanos, make sure the children know that "the virgin" refers to Mary, and that “transcendent” means greater than any others. 

“Unapproachable” does not mean that Jesus is frightening or that we cannot be near Him. In this context “unapproachable” means that He deserves our respect and love more than anyone else because He is God.

Closing Prayer

Opening Prayer

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Thy nativity, O Christ our God,
Has shown to the world the light of wisdom.
For by it, those who worshipped the stars
Were taught by a star to adore Thee,
The Sun of Righteousness,
And to know Thee, the Orient from on high.
O Lord, glory to Thee!

Discussion Starter

Begin by asking the following:

• St. Nicholas was a great bishop. He lived a long time ago. Do we still have bishops today? (Let children name any bishops they know of.)
  
• What is a bishop? (Let children give ideas; tell them that a bishop is in charge of many parishes in an area. He helps the priests in his parishes, and makes sure things in the parishes are being done in the right way. You might say, "Our bishop, who is Bishop (name) is in charge of all the parishes in________" , and then name your diocese. Make sure children know that a parish is the group of people who are members of a certain church. Say, "We are members of  (name) Orthodox Church. That is our parish."
  
• Who is our bishop and why is a bishop an important part of our parish family? Let children give the bishop's name, and their ideas about why he is so important in the parish family.)
  
• Can you recall a time when the bishop visited our parish?

Story of St. Nicholas

Read the Resource Story Story of St. Nicholas.  Pause often to emphasize his good deeds, kindness and generosity.

Discussion Questions

Pause often to ask students to make text-to-self connections--times in their lives when they helped someone or did acts of kindness and generosity, as the story is describing.

• Discuss how St. Nicholas often gave gifts to others and no one knew who gave them. 
• Ask students to “say something” in response to key points in the story, which you will have marked ahead of time. These are special points in the story at which you would like the children's reactions.
  

Nativity Charity Boxes

As described in the Resource Activity attached to this lesson, decorate the charity boxes (which can be any size and shape you choose) with bright colors to attract attention, or use holiday stickers for decoration.

Extra Activity: St. Nicholas Shoes

Wrap Up

As students are cleaning up and preparing for closing prayer, review the following:

• Who is our bishop?
• What does a bishop do? 
  Use the Resource Link The Orthodox Church in America Episcopacy attached to this lesson obtain a picture of your diocesan bishop.
  
• What is one thing that Bishop Nicholas of Myra did to help others?

Closing Prayer

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

Today the virgin gives birth to the transcendent one,
And the earth offers a cave to the unapproachable one.
Angels, with shepherds, glorify Him.
The wise men journey with the star,
Since for our sake the eternal God was born as a little child!

(Review words as needed; see previous lesson.)

Opening Prayer

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Thy nativity, O Christ our God,
Has shown to the world the light of wisdom.
For by it, those who worshipped the stars
Were taught by a star to adore Thee,
The Sun of Righteousness,
And to know Thee, the Orient from on high.
O Lord, glory to Thee!

Discussion Starter

Begin by asking the following:

• Have you ever tried to do something that you really wanted to do well, but that you were not very good at? 
• Do you think there could be any saints who also tried hard to do something, but failed?(Make sure children know that saints are people who tried very hard to pray, to do as God wants us to do, and who lived good and holy lives. But saints failed at things sometimes, too.)
  

Activity

Tell the children that today we have a story about a saint who gave a lot to the Orthodox Church, and that his story has special meaning for us during this Nativity season. Then play a recording of the Christmas hymn. Ask the children to listen for what is being said. Read the following story about St. Romanus to the class:

Romanus was born many years ago in the country of Syria. He moved to the city of Constantinople and became a helper to the priests and bishop in the great church of Hagia Sophia. But he spent his nights praying alone, sometimes in a field or in a smaller church outside the city.

One Christmas Eve, the eve of the feast of the Nativity of Jesus Christ, Romanus read some of the prayers and verses in church. But he was a terrible reader! Nobody could understand what he was saying, and another reader had to take his place. People even laughed at him.

Romanus was miserable, embarrassed, and very unhappy. But the next day, the Mother of God, Mary, spoke to him in a loving and gentle voice as he prayed before her icon and told her how sad he was. She gave him a scroll ( rolled-up paper with musical notes on it) and told him to eat it. That may seem strange to us, but it was her gift to the young man. Once he ate the scroll, he was able to sing and to write hymns (which are prayers in music).

That evening at the service, Romanus was able to sing in a beautiful voice. What did he sing? The very first hymn he wrote, the Nativity hymn that starts, "Today the Virgin gives birth to the Transcendent One..."

Romanus became a deacon in the church, and a teacher of singing and songs. He wrote so many beautiful hymns and lived such a good life that many years later the Church made him a saint. Romanus did what he loved most, thanks to the loving kindness of the Mother of God.

Today, in our churches, we still sing many of the hymns that this great saint wrote. They are called "kontakia"

Note: You may wish to consult the Resource Handout The Life of St. Romanos for more details. Attached to this lesson is an MP3 file of the Nativity kontakion which you can download and burn to a CD for use in class. Also in the Resource section is the lengthy Kontakion on the Nativity of Christ. The children are too young to study this, but for your own edification and interest you may wish to look through it, and note its many Biblical references, as an example of other hymns written by St. Romanus.

Discussion Question

Discuss the story of St. Romanos using the following questions as a guide:

• Did anything in the story surprise you? What did Romanos have to wait for?
• In what way was he given a gift? How did he use that gift to help the Church? (He used the gift of singing and hymn writing which he received from the Mother of God to write hymns that make our worship services in church beautiful.)
• Do you think that the saints were human, with their own disappointments, limitations, and sometimes even embarrassment? (Yes, as St.Romanos shows us.)
• Suppose St. Romanos had said, “It is too embarrassing to sing in Church with this horrible voice! People make fun of me. I’m going to quit!” What would be different about his story?
• What do you think makes a saint a saint? (Let children give their own ideas.)
  
• Someone a long time ago said that a saint is someone who falls down and gets up, and falls down, and gets up, and falls down, and gets up again. What do you think this means? How does it apply to St. Romanos? How could it apply to you, or other people? (Let children give their ideas. Of course this means that we all do wrong things, or try and can't do what we want to do. But we don't give up, we try and try again, asking for God's help.)
  

Saint Romanos Prayer

Students will compose a prayer to St. Romanos asking him to help them.   For example: 

Dear St. Romanos,
Help me to be nice to my friends.
Love,

Color The Image of St. Romanos

Students can color the image of St. Romanos from the primary resource website above. As they do so, ask them why they think St. Romanos is holding a paper in his hand. What is it? (It is a scroll with old-fashioned musical notes on it, like the one the saint was told to swallow by the Mother of God.)

Extra Activity

Consider performing a play, based on the story above, of the life of St. Romanos. Use a tortilla for the scroll. This could be a Christmas Program for the entire parish, or for the rest of the Church School children. If you do this, you could  invite the choir director (well ahead of time) to come to this class session and tell something about other music written by St. Romanus. The director could also teach the children to sing the Nativity Kontakion.

Wrap Up

Closing Prayer

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today the virgin gives birth to the transcendent one,
And the earth offers a cave to the unapproachable one.
Angels, with shepherds, glorify Him.
The wise men journey with the star,
Since for our sake the eternal God was born as a little child!

Opening Prayer

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Thy nativity, O Christ our God,
Has shown to the world the light of wisdom.
For by it, those who worshipped the stars
Were taught by a star to adore Thee,
The Sun of Righteousness,
And to know Thee, the Orient from on high.
O Lord, glory to Thee!

Discussion Starter

Begin by asking the following:

Did Jesus have a family? Who were his mother and earthly father? Who were his grandparents? (Mary and Joseph; Joachim and Anna were Mary's parents.)

Identify different members of your family. Add their names to the branches of the trees (with assistance). Find and add small pictures that could represent each family member: mother, father, brothers, sisters, etc. For example, a picture of a camera might represent someone who is a good photographer; a picture of a pool might represent someone who is on swim team, etc. Stress to the children, “This is your family.”

Tell the children: Just as you have a family, Jesus’ family was very important to Him.  We remember Jesus’ family in our church services. Just as we made the trees showing our families, Jesus also had grandmas and grandpas.

Activity

Add to the family tree small drawings of Jesus, Mary, Joseph, Joachim and Anna. Tell the children that we read the names of all of Jesus’ grandpas and grandmas and great-grandpas, etc. in church on the Sunday before the Nativity Feast.

Extra Activity

Story Reading

Wrap Up

Who were Jesus’ ancestors? Who are your ancestors?

Closing Prayer

Opening Prayer

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Thy nativity, O Christ our God,
Has shown to the world the light of wisdom.
For by it, those who worshipped the stars
Were taught by a star to adore Thee,
The Sun of Righteousness,
And to know Thee, the Orient from on high.
O Lord, glory to Thee!

Discussion Starter

Begin by asking the following: Where was Jesus born? Who was present at His birth?

Activity

Using the icon of the feast as a reference point, read the book Prepare O Bethlehem: The Feast of the Nativity. Illustrated for Children by Niko Chocheli. St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2000. Point out the main figures in the icon as they occur in the story. Or, you could read the story of the birth of Jesus written for young children based on Luke 2: 1 – 20 as told by Sophie Koulomzin.

http://dce.oca.org/Sections/Resources/Resources/97.pdf

As you read the story, have a child point out the main figures, including the angels, the shepherds, Mary, the Christ child, the cattle, the sheep, the Magi, the Star, the handmaidens washing the child, and Joseph. The old man or bent-over figure talking to Joseph is not a good person--he is the devil, trying to tell Joseph not to worship God or His Son who is being born. The baby Jesus appears more than once in the icon. Ask students to tell you where (lying in the manger, and also being washed--this shows that He was a real baby who needed to have baths as we do!)

Alternate Activity

From the hymn on page 44 of the book The Services of Christmas: "What shall we offer Thee..." Make a collage of the different offerings or “offerers” in the hymn. Younger children can memorize the phrases for the different gifts, and make colorful cardboard cut-outs to correspond with shapes in the different parts of the Nativity Icon. (Note: The outline of each piece can be traced on a large sheet of poster board, which is available in white or various colors.Then older children can help the younger ones tape their "gifts" in the proper places. The older children can also write on the poster board words from the hymn: thanks, wonder, manger, etc.

Matching Game

Another idea for the “What shall we offer Thee…" (see below) verse, for middle elementary children: Create a matching game. Cut seven strips of green paper or stiff card stock (about 1” by 3”) and put one word on each: hymn, star, gifts, wonder, cave, manger, Virgin Mother. Attach them with adhesive-backed Velcro strips to a felt board (or attach seven envelopes to a piece of poster board like seven separate “pockets.). On seven strips of red card stock, write these words: angels, heavens, wise men, shepherds, earth, wilderness, we (ourselves) and attach Velcro to them also. Have the students try to match the gifts with the persons or elements of creation that are making the offering. [Note: This same activity may be used with younger children if the strips have pictures of the objects or persons that are mentioned in the hymn.]

Activity

Practice the Nativity greeting: Christ is born! Glorify Him! Several times. Each time, ask the children who is glorifying Christ in the icon of the Nativity.

Wrap Up

As children are cleaning up and preparing for the closing prayer, review the following:

• What is the special greeting that we in the church use for Christmas?
• Who was present at the birth of Christ?

Closing Prayer