Welcome to Middle School Religion

Mrs. Barbara Manley
I've lived Lake View since I was six years old! My family belonged to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church, and I attended Pinehurst Elementary School and Frontier Middle School before graduating from Immaculata Academy. I graduated from Buffalo State College with a dual B.S. in Ex.Ed/El.Ed, and then married a Lake View boy I'd known since I was seven!. We lived in Houston,Texas for eight years, where our son was born, and where I taught in a public junior high school. After returning to the Buffalo area, our daughter was born, and I began teaching the Third Grade at Southtowns Catholic School. I moved up to Fourth Grade, and later Seventh Grade, before accepting the position of Director of Religious Education at OLPH in 1998. Since stepping into that position, I've  earned a Master of the Arts in Pastoral Ministry from Christ the King Seminary. Since  2009,  I've been teaching Middle School Religion classes  at Southtowns, a school of which I am proud to be a part!

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 Recent News
February 7, 2018
The school year is racing by! Just a short time ago it was Christmas, and next week we'll already be into the liturgical season of Lent. Before you know it, school will be over!
In the meantime, here are a few updates on what's happening in our Middle School Religion classes:
7th Grade: We've been discussing "Jesus's Public Life", the three years when Jesus was traveling throughout Galilee preaching, teaching,healing and forgiving. Today we read John 2:1-12 which tells about Jesus's first miracle. The class learned that John's Gospel is called the "Book of Signs" because the first half of the Gospel contains seven signs that reveal God's glory and give us a glimpse of what God's Kingdom is like.
8th Grade We're currently learning how and why the Church, and particularly the Papacy, grew in stature and prominence during the Middle Ages. The students have learned about the Papal States; between 754 and 1871 these lands owned by the Church had grown to over 16,000 square miles, covering much of Italy and Sicily. Today all that remains is the Vatican, which accounts for only 0.17 square miles! It is the smallest internationally recognized state in the world...but just look how many people worldwide look to the Vatican and the Pope for spiritual guidance!
6th Grade:  YAY! We finished reading the book of Genesis! We watched the movie "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" and compared it to our reading of Genesis 37-50. We'll be concluding tomorrow by discussing the parallels between the story of Joseph and the story of Jesus, as we head into the story of Moses and the Exodus. i'm looking forward to sharing a Seder/ Passover Meal with the class!
5th Grade: We are diving into a study of each of the sacraments. We discussed the idea of "vocation", and began with the sacraments of Holy Orders and Matrimony. The students learned about the "domestic church" and how interconnected our family life is with the life of the Church. Presently we are looking at the "matter and form" of Baptism...the signs and words that reveal to us what God is doing in the sacrament.



November 2017
Happy Veterans Day to all of our friends and family members who have given of themselves to serve in all the various branches of the military! We were very proud and happy to welcome the veterans to our school yesterday, to share lunch with them and to hear their stories. Thank you all for your service to our country!
Father Peter and I visited classrooms yesterday to talk with our students about how our words and actions should always be chosen wisely, and used to help the people and situations we encounter rather than to tear down and cause hurt. We enjoyed the students' stories and their feedback as we went from classroom to classroom. They are very sincere about wanting to be kind and to do the right thing! (Side note: It's amazing how well they have our school pledge memorized! Part of our talk was about why we have the pledge and what it means when we recite it each day.)
Classroom news:
Come and see the saint banners made by the 6th Graders as part of our study of the saints. Also, the 5th Graders made cute paper towel-tube models of saints and wrote a short report about each one.
The 8th Graders learned about holy relics and how pilgrimages to see relics led to the building of the great cathedrals of Europe during the Middle Ages. Father Peter also came to our classroom to talk about relics, in particular the relics of St. Pope John Paul II that are here at the parish. Did you know there is a relic embedded in our altar?
In 7th Grade the students learned about the canonization process and how a person becomes an "official saint" of the Church. In particular we discussed where our local area's own Father Nelson Baker is in that process (His cause has been accepted by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, and he has been declared "Venerable", or worthy of admiration for the holiness demonstrated during his life on earth. He is now in the second stage of the process; if a miracle can be attributed wholly to the intercession of Father Baker, he can be "beatified". After that, one more posthumous miracle will help him reach the last step of canonization!
BIG REMINDER: NOV. 20TH IS THE DEADLINE FOR 5TH AND 6TH GRADERS TO TURN IN THEIR "TIC-TAC-TOE" PROJECTS!!!






October 31, 2017    HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Please join us tomorrow morning (Nov. 1) at 8:30am for All Saints Day Mass in the main church. The 8th Graders will be ministering as greeters, gift bearers, and lectors, and the 5th Graders have a saintly surprise for the end of Mass, too!
This week all of the classes have been studying the saints. We've been researching to find information about particular saints, learning about how someone becomes an "official" saint in the church, and talking about the role of relics in the Catholic Church.
Next week, we will be talking about our own personal call to holiness and vocations. Father Mike and Deacon Neal will be doing a talk for the students. They'll be answering questions from the students about church vocations and Holy Orders.




October 12, 2017
Please join us tomorrow (October 13) for 9:00am Mass and the recitation of the Rosary immediately after Mass. We will be joining parishioners to honor Our Lady of Fatima, who appeared to three shepherd children in Fatima, Portugal six times between May 13 and October 13 in 1917.
Grades 5, 6, and 7 each have a quiz Monday 10/16 during class. Study guides should go home over the weekend! There will be extra credit questions about our Memory Verses and Our Lady of Fatima.
Grade 8 Students: Nice work on your Saint Peter essays! I hope to see that quality of work (and better) all year. I was very proud of all of your efforts.
Grade 5 and 6 TIC-TAC-TOE projects : Everyone should have at least one project completed by the end of next week (10/20).
Grade 7 students are creating posters to illustrate ways to demonstrate care for God's Creation. This is an off-shoot of our recent introduction to the seven core principles of Catholic Social Teaching. The students have also been paying attention to current events in order discuss how the seven core principles are reflected in the issues we hear about every day. 

COMING SOON: ALL ABOUT THE SAINTS!




October 6, 2017
8th Grade - Your Saint Peter Essays (final copy) due on Tuesday, October 10
7th Grade - Over the next week (10/6 to 10/12), keep your eyes and ears open to learn about problems, concerns and issues in the local, state, national, and world community that challenge the 7 Catholic Social Justice principals we discussed in class. Next Friday, we'll be talking about the principles involved in each situation, and how individual Christians and the Church as a whole might respond.
6th Grade - Excellent job today at Mass! The greeters were cheerful, the readers were well-practiced, the altar servers were very attentive, the gift-bearers were on the ball! Remember - we are the choir for the 5th Graders in two weeks.
5th Grade - Thank you for singing at Mass today in place of 6th Grade. We'll be happy to trade places on October 20 and sing for your Mass. 

October 2, 2017
Today is the Feast of the Guardian Angels.
"For unto His angels He's given a command
To guard you in all of your ways." - Psalm 91-11
God has assured us that we will always be cared for by assigning to each of us a special Guardian Angel.

8th Graders will be learning about two important early Church figures this week: St. Peter and St. Paul. In class we'll be discussing the qualities that made each a good disciple, even though they were imperfect human beings. The old saying comes to mind: God doesn't call the qualified; He qualifies the called.
7th Grade is beginning a unit on Catholic Social Teaching. We will be learning about the seven main themes of Catholic Social Teaching, and evaluating problems in our neighborhoods and in the world in light of that teaching.
6th Graders will be studying the story of Adam and Eve this week. We will be asking the question, "What does God really want us to know from this story?". We will be discussing how the Genesis stories at first were transmitted via oral tradition, and how the Jewish priests began writing them down when the Jews were living in exile in Babylon.
5th Graders today discussed the "human condition", and how we are inclined to do wrong because of the Original Sin of Adam and Eve.  The students learned that rejecting God was the personal sinful decision of the first couple, and that when we say "No" to God, it results in personal sin that can lead us to reject God.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 3:
"Glorious Mysteries of the Rosary" presentation @7:00pm in the church at St. John Paul II- Come pray the Rosary with us!
ALL 5TH -8TH GRADERS WHO ATTEND WILL RECEIVE EXTRA CREDIT!!!



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