Choosing Classroom Patron Saints
Lucienna Guess is entering her junior year at the University of Kansas, majoring in English and Philosophy. She has also served as a student assistant at the St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center, participating on the OCIA team. This summer Lucienna is working as a curriculum intern at Ave Maria Press. She offers this year-long classroom activity in which students choose their own class patron saint who will accompany them in their studies and in their community participation. This past new year, my home parish took part in the annual drawing of a patron saint in which every parishioner draws a slip of paper with the name of a saint and then entrusts themselves to the saint for the year. This activity is inspired by the similar practice of St. Faustina Kowalska who annually selected her own patron saint. Here’s a way to incorporate this idea for your classroom: Print the name of a saint on a slip of paper with a quotation from the saint or what the saint is the patron saint of or something similar on the back of the slip. Repeat this using different saints up to the exact number of students in your class. Fold the pieces of paper in half and place them into a basket. Place the basket next to the door, so that as students walk into the classroom you can have them grab a slip of paper. After everyone has a slip of paper with their saint, explain that they have selected their “classroom patron saint” for the school year. You may wish to use all or part of a class period to have the students do brief research on the saint that they selected and to talk to their peers about what they have learned. Encourage them to ask their saints to help them grow closer to God throughout the year. Throughout the school year, you can always come back to their patron saint. You can ask your students to read about the saint, to make their own prayer cards with their patron saint, or even do a bigger research project over the saint they selected. You can also assign one student per period to develop an opening or closing prayer service for the class features their saint. Below is a starting point for the possible slip options: St. Catherine of Sienna | “Holy Spirit, come into my heart, and in your power draw it to you.” (Source) St. Clare of Assisi | “Live and hope in the Lord, and let your service be according to reason.” (Source) St. Jerome | “I am like the sick sheep that strays from the rest of the flock. Unless the Good Shepherd takes me on His shoulders and carries me back to His fold, my steps will falter, and in the very effort of rising, my feet will give way.” (Source) St. Alphonsus Marie Liguori | “"Realize that you may gain more in a quarter of an hour of prayer before the Blessed Sacrament than in all the other spiritual exercises of the day." (Source) Photo Reference: Francesco Botticini, The Assumption of the Virgin, 1475-76 (Photo: Public Domain)
