Grade 4’s Receive Their “Good News Bible”

At the altar of the October Liturgy: Father Isadore Dziadyk, the school’s chaplain, and Msgr. Michael Buyachok, the priest at Sts. Vladimir and Olga Cathedral

 

As students progress through the grades at IHMS, they eventually reach a point where they’re independent enough to use a bible on their own for scripture reading and research. That point of independence is reached by grade 4 when they receive their own personal bible, the “Good New Bible” during the school’s October Liturgy.

Grade 4’s experienced a sense of community

For some of the grade 4’s, this is their first personal bible. For many others, however, it isn’t. Students attending catechism classes often receive a similar bible a month earlier in September. But the October Liturgy is special because the grade 4’s experience a sense of community with their classmates and with the rest of the school by receiving their bibles together as a class.

This is similar to the sense of community that the grade 2 students experience after receiving their first communion as a class in June, even though by that time most of the grade 2’s have already received Holy Communion in their respective parishes a week or two earlier.

 

Receiving the “Good News Bible” is a milestone event for the grade 4’s. It’s a requirement for their religious program, and is used by the students throughout their stay at IHMS. For many students, it’s their first personal bible, so in addition to being a useful tool for religion classes, it also carries a lot of sentimental value. When they finally leave IHMS at the end of grade 8, the graduates take their bibles with them.

 

Most people would probably agree that the Bible can sometimes be difficult and complicated to read and understand. For younger and inexperienced readers, this is even more of an issue. To solve this problem, a simpler, modern translation called “The Good News Bible” was created for this purpose.

 

A page from “The Good News Bible” The “Good News Bible” is a modernized English translation that does not follow the vocabulary and style of historic versions of the Bible. The Good News Bible “is written in a simple, everyday language, with the intention that everyone can appreciate it, and so is often considered particularly suitable for children and for those learning English.”

 

The grade 4’s were presented with their “Good News Bible” on Thursday, October 24th during the school’s monthly Divine Liturgy at Sts. Vladimir and Olga Cathedral (photo below). It was an important day for the grade 4’s – they had practised and anticipated this day for a long time.

A page inside the GNB

 

What About Non-Christian Students? IHMS was founded in 1963 as a private school offering parents from Ukrainian Catholic parishes a cultural and religious alternative to public school education. Since then, the demographics have changed quite dramatically, and many of the students currently enrolled at IHMS are neither Ukrainian nor Catholic. For example, 6 of the 15 students in this year’s graduating grade 8 class are Sikh.  So what does Mrs. Wdowiak do with her non-Christian students during the October Liturgy? Do these students still receive a copy of the “Good News Bible” along with the rest of their classmates? The answer is “Yes” – every IHMS student receives a personalized copy of the “Good News Bible”  in grade 4, and that bible is used as a source of reference in every Religion class from grade 4 to grade 8.

 

Sts. Vladimir and Olga Cathedral – approximately a 3-4 walk from the school

Mrs. Wdowiak and the grade 4’s spent a lot of time preparing for the October Liturgy. First of all, they made a list of intention topics for each class from grade 1-8. Each homeroom teacher then chose and wrote an intention based on the topic selected (this is typical for all monthly Liturgies). Also, a student from the class responsible for the Liturgy usually reads the Epistle, but in this case the entire grade 4 class recited the Epistle together from memory. At the end of the Liturgy, everyone sang the lyrics to the song “Good News”.

 

The presentation of the bibles took place after the Epistle. First of all, Msgr. Michael Buyachok blessed all the bibles. Next, Mr. Picklyk, the school principal, called the students individually to come forward to receive their bibles – “the Good News of Jesus Christ”. Finally, a preselected grade 4 student read the special intention about the class receiving the Good News Bibles.

 

Grade 4’s receiving their “Good News Bible” at the altar from Father Isadore Dziadyk and Msgr. Michael Buyachok. Each student received their own personalized copy

 

Since the presentation of the bibles is such an important milestone event in the lives of the grade 4’s, there were a lot of parents and grandparents present at the Liturgy. Every bible was personalized with an individually created bookplate on the inside listing the student’s name and date of presentation.

 

 

The grade 4 students enjoyed preparing for the special occasion, and at the end of Liturgy, the entire class posed in front of the altar to have their photo taken with their “Good News Bibles”.