Worship

In a child’s words. The Church’s prayer shows what she believes; it does not settle arguments. In a rite the things, the words, the rules, the time and the whole person all count.

The Institute habit

The Whisperer was a rite turned inside out: a chair, two helmets, set phrases repeated until the mind gave itself over, and a comfort that hid the fear instead of healing it. It would not work for a liar. Reynie beat it by facing his fear, and Constance by shouting her friends’ names.

The book

The end: Mr. Curtain in prison, S.Q. visiting him every day, and Mr. Benedict laughing freely for the first time.

Week 1 · the kind of answer

Matter and form. For baptism, water and the words “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Visit the font at your parish. Draw the liturgical year as a wheel: Advent, Christmas, Lent, the Paschal Triduum, Easter and Ordinary Time.

Week 2 · the essay

The Rented Hour, in the register of G. K. Chesterton, read whole. Keep one white rectangle this week, an hour nobody may book, and write afterwards what happened in it.

Week 3 · the case

“We baptize.” In 2020 the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith answered that a baptism given with “We baptize you” in place of “I baptize you” is not valid, and that those so baptized are to be baptized. Where no one is sure which word was said, the baptism is given conditionally: the doubt is kept open both ways and never guessed. The words of the rite are not ours to change.

The workshop · suggested

For a child taking the workshop strand, the last weeks, the machine runs. The child’s own program, assembled by hand, on the computer they built from NAND, shown to the family. Nothing new is built and nothing is graded.

The end first

Honour passes through the icon to the one it shows (Nicaea II); worship given to the image itself stops there, and that is the idol. Then look at the wall map, gold lines and all, and trace where every “for” goes.

Fridays

On the last day, read Christ in the Carriage again. It points to people from many of the year’s essays: let the child find the ones they have read. Then the final trial.