Rite-13
6th-7th Grade

 Rite-13 celebrates the gift of gender and provides the foundation for the remainder of The Journey to Adulthood Program. Rite-13 and J2A explore the liminal space between childhood and adulthood, focusing on the swirl of issues that surround young adolescents as they attempt to define themselves as individuals. The curriculum points out that manhood and womanhood are the inevitable results of growing older, but adulthood bears with it an added set of responsibilities. As is the case with each level of the program, Rite-13 focuses on all aspects of the individual: self, society, sexuality, and spirituality. Lessons include numerous games and fun activities, but they also address more serious issues regarding Scripture and its relevance, meaningful prayer, and the role of material goods in our lives.

One of the primary goals in this initial stage of The Journey to Adulthood program is building community. As a result, the Rite-13 students are given several opportunities to join together for fellowship outside the Sunday morning classroom. Teachers (with the help of parents) will organize social activities that might include cookouts, hiking, a scavenger hunt, tubing on the river, or a game and pizza night. The Rite-13 Year II class will also have an opportunity to stay as a separate, chaperoned group during the Parish Retreat at Shrine Mont the weekend of October 21-23, 2005.

The second year of Rite-13 culminates in a liturgical celebration that is integral to the program. Based loosely on the Jewish bar mitzvah, the ceremony acknowledges each young person’s move out of childhood upon turning the age of 13. The group of new teenagers stands before the congregation – first with their parents, then as a separate group – and reads Psalm 139 together before being seated across the aisle of the church in their own pews. Symbolically, this last step of the ceremony represents the separation from family highlighted in the rites-of-passage steps.

The Rite-13 classes meet weekly during the Christian Education hour on Sunday mornings.

RITE-13
J2A