Blessed Sacrament students celebrate the Epiphany

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Courtesy of Blessed Sacrament Catholic School

On Jan. 6, Blessed Sacrament Catholic School’s French teacher, Kealey Johnson, hosted an all-school assembly to celebrate the Three Kings and teach students about the French tradition of la Fête de Rois – the celebration of the Epiphany.

This is the first year Blessed Sacrament has offered French as the school’s foreign language. Johnson, who has a Bachelor of Arts degree in French and spent a year teaching in rural France before coming to Blessed Sacrament in 2017, teaches a curriculum that focuses not only on grammar, parts of speech and vocabulary, but also on French culture and customs.

The Jan. 6 event was held in conjunction with First Friday Prayer, an all-school prayer assembly hosted by students on the first of the month. During the celebration, students learned all about galettes de rois (king’s cakes), and how they are filled with la fêve, or the bean, which symbolizes baby Jesus. La fêve has now been replaced by a figurine of a baby instead of the traditional unbaked bean but the result of finding it is still the same – you are crowned La Couronne or royalty.

That day Blessed Sacrament honored five queens and kings among the students from the fêve they found in the traditional galettes de rois that Johnson got for the whole school. The students thought they were très bien, very delicious!

Blessed Sacrament Catholic School looks forward to hosting more cultural celebrations rooted in Catholic teaching in the future and integrating French into our school curriculum.