Saturday, September 19, 2015

27th Sunday in Ordinary Time


Year B

Twenty-seventh Ordinary Sunday



Images

Welcoming the family


Points to note


This week’s reading has two parts.  As the first part (vv 2-12) deal with divorce, you may wish to leave it out and just have the second part read.  The second part (vv13-16) is the favourite children’s story of Jesus blessing the little children.  In a way we can interpret a common strand through both seemingly different parts:  the family.

The focus on this reading is welcoming a member of the family, like a new baby.  Which raises a question: when does a baby become a member of the family?  The ancients believe that the soul of a baby waits at the opening of the womb to inhabit the baby at birth, and there is a supply of souls waiting for babies to be born.

Scripture, however, tells us that we are made in the image of God and that God is love.  We are, therefore, created out of love.  I believe that a baby’s soul is created out of two persons love, when they started to love each other and to prepare for the coming of the baby.  That will be before the baby is born and may even be before the baby is conceived.

So, we existed when we were first loved.  We joined our family at home when our parents made a place in their hearts for us.



Liturgy

Gospel Acclamation
Alleluia!  Alleluia!
Your word is truth, O Lord,
make us holy with the truth
Alleluia!

Gospel
Jesus was on the way to Jerusalem, which is a long way from Galilee.  He stops along the way every now and then to rest.

The Lord be with you.
All:   And also with you.

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Mark
(Mk 10: 2-16)
People were bringing little children to him, for him to touch them.  The disciples turned them away, but when Jesus saw this he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.  I tell you solemnly, anyone who does not welcome the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.”  Then he put his arms round them, laid his hands on them and gave them his blessings.

This is the Gospel of the Lord


Dialogue

How many of us have younger brothers or sisters?  Those who have none, may think about how their older brothers and sisters related to them.  Or younger cousins or friends.

What did your parents do to prepare for the baby’s coming?  Did you get involved in the preparations?  I always find the reaction of older children to the coming of younger ones interesting to observe: the uncertainty, the jealousy; the fascination; the ‘now I am a big boy/girl’ syndrome.  You may get some of that in your discussions.

Those without younger siblings may talk about the preparations that their parents or elder siblings did for them.  Sometimes, parents or older siblings may tell them about it.  Those who are an only child may talk about preparations for the coming of younger cousins.

Discuss about the fact that we belong to two families:  God’s family and our family at home.  How does somebody join God’s family?  Baptism.  Discuss what happened when someone is baptised.  Draw out from those who remembered their baptism or those who remembered witnessing someone’s baptism.

When people are baptised, they are welcomed into the Church.  The welcoming is done by the community at large.  So, it is not just the parties and the family and friends at home.

What do we need to do to prepare for a baptism?  How do we welcome a new member of the Church?  Explain that there are classes to go to.  Get children who have attended any Rite of Initiation of Children, or RCIC, to share what they have attended.  At the RCIC and the corresponding RCIA for adults, the beliefs and the practices of the Church are explained to the children.  They are also introduced to other Church members, especially those in their communities and BECs so that they can join in the life of the community.

Also important in welcoming is the role of the godparents.  Get the children to talk about their godparents.  Even people who are baptised as adults have godparents.  Officially, in the Church, they are called sponsors.  Their role is twofold: (i) they stand in for the parents if anything happens to the parents; and (ii) they ensure that their godchildren are brought up well in the faith and are faithful to God.  Sponsors of adults who are baptised also introduce them to other Catholics and ensure that they are happy, comfortable and faithful in their Catholic lives.

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time


Year B

Twenty-sixth Ordinary Sunday



Images

Tolerance
Different people


Points to note

The word Catholic means universal.  It refers to the Church that is the Church of all peoples and in all nations.  It refers to a Church where people could speak different languages and be of different races but bound together by a common faith.  The most evident expression of this catholicity is seen in the masses held in international conferences of Catholic bishops or leaders.

The Catholic Church in some places is in some ways more Catholic than the rest of the world.  There are some parishes where we have masses in a different language every Sunday.  There are some parishes or chapels where only one Sunday mass is held, but in multiple languages. 

Our expression of catholicity is more than just in language, but also in our tolerance of different ways of praying.  Greek Catholics in Eastern Europe and Maronite Catholics in Lebanon, for instance, owe the same allegiance to the Pope but have masses that are very different.  Even within Roman Catholicism, there are very different ways of prayer:  a Charismatic renewal prayer session and a Latin language Tridetine mass are poles apart in atmosphere but neither can deny the Catholicism of the other.


Liturgy

Gospel Acclamation
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Your words are truth, O Lord,
consecrate us in the  truth.
Alleluia!

Gospel
Last Sunday, we saw how Jesus dealt with those who were arguing about who was the greatest of the disciples, while they were on the way to Jerusalem.

The Lord be with you.
All:   And also with you.

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Mark
(Mk 9: 38-43, 45, 47-48)
John said to Jesus, “Master, we saw a man who was not one of us casting out devils in your name; and because he was not one of us, we tried to stop him.”  But Jesus said, “You must not stop him: no one who works a miracle in my name is likely to speak evil of me.  Anyone who is not against us is for us.

“If anyone gives you a cup of water to drink just because you belong to Christ, then I tell you solemnly, he will most certainly not lose his reward.

“But if anyone who is an obstacle to bring down one of these little ones who have faith, would be better thrown into the sea with a great millstone round his neck.  And if your hand should cause you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life crippled, than to have two hands and go to hell, into the fire that cannot be put out.  And if your foot should cause you to sin, cut it off; it is better for you to enter into life lame than to have two feet and be thrown into hell.  And if your eye should cause you to sin, tear it out; it is better for you to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell where their worm does not die nor their fires go out.”

This is the Gospel of the Lord.


Discussion

What languages do we speak at home?  List the languages used.  Highlight especially the more unusual languages encountered.  Are we able to say that just because some people do not speak the same language that we speak, God does not listen to them?  Discuss if God is limited to one language or one race.

Emphasise that most of us are different in one respect or another.  Some of us are quiet and some of us are exuberant.  Discuss if God prefers one type of people to another.  Discuss the difference between the apostles.  See if any of the children can identify the type of persons they are.  There is no right or wrong answer to this one but draw out the impression the children have of the personalities of the apostles from the stories they know.  For instance, I think Peter is brash, John is young, Thomas is tough, Andrew is trusting.  Discuss if God loves any of them more than others.

Go through the first part of the reading again and discuss the impressions of the apostles:  they went to another town and found other people casting out devils, when they thought that they and only they, being the friends of Jesus are able to do that.  Did Jesus think that they were right to think in that way?

Discuss the implications of what Jesus said.  Are we able to say that just because some other people are different from us, God loves them less?  What about different ways of praying?  Discuss the different ways of praying that we encounter in the church:  youth masses, prayer meetings, rosaries, charismatic, etc.  Can we say that any of them is better than the others?

Discuss also people who do not belong to our church.  Are those people in other parishes any better than us or any worse than us?  We all still belong to the Catholic Church worldwide.  Explain the meaning of the word Catholic.

What about those Christians who are not Catholics?  Are they any less Christian than we are just because they are not Catholics?  What about those who are not Christians?  Are non-Christians bad people just because they are not baptised?

In this age of Ecumenism, we have to redefine the limits of tolerance.  It will be too advanced for the children to go into the intricacies of it all, but we aim to impart on the children that they are other ways of being praying to our God, and for Christians, many ways of expressing our Christianity.  That God loves us all even if we are different.

Say Amen
When you go up for communion, the communion minister says "Body of Christ" and you say "Amen" (which means 'I agree', not 'I believe'), have you ever thought about what exactly it is that you are agreeing to?  Yes, at one level, we are agreeing that the piece of bread is now the body of Christ.  But at another level, we are also agreeing to the two of us in that dialogue are in the same Body of Christ.  And for me something magical happens: two persons who never met and didn't know each other suddenly becomes one family, bound in the same faith by Jesus Christ, in whose body they were part of.  And so, I know wherever I am in the world, I say Amen and I know I am home.

25th Sunday in Ordinary Time


Year B

Twenty-fifth Ordinary Sunday



Images

Servants


Points to note

The story goes that the Patriarch in Constantinople, who was the leader of all Eastern Orthodox Christians, at the time of Pope St Gregory declared himself the Ecumenical Patriarch, which means the Patriarch for all Christians in the world.  Pope St Gregory got upset over this as he felt it was unbecoming for a Christian leader to take on such a title.  He then added a new title to the many that popes already have:  Servant to the servants of God.  We see that title today when they list all the titles of the Pope: it is still there to this day.

The session therefore concentrates on the third of our three anointing we received at our baptism:  as priest, prophet and king.


Liturgy

Gospel Acclamation
Alleluia!  Alleluia!
I am the light of the world, says the Lord,
anyone who follows me
will have the light of life.
Alleluia!


Gospel
Jesus is on the way to Jerusalem from Galilee, passing in and out of Jewish territories.  After Peter’s profession of faith, he explained the conditions of following him and about the coming of the Son of Man.

The Lord be with you.
All:   And also with you.

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Mark
(Mk 9: 30-37)
After leaving the mountain Jesus and his disciples made their way through Galilee; and he did not want anyone to know, because he was instructing his disciples; he was telling them, “The Son of Man will be given up to some men; they will put him to death; and three days after he has been put to death he will rise again.”  But they did not understand what he said and were afraid to ask him.

They came to Capernaum, and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the road?”  They said nothing because they have been arguing which of them was the greatest.  So he sat down, called the Twelve to him and said, “If anyone wants to be first, he must make himself last of all and servant of all.”  He took a little child, set him in front of them, put his arms around him, and said to them, “Anyone who welcomes one of these little children in my name, welcomes me; and anyone who does not welcome me, will not be welcoming the one who sent me.”

This is the Gospel of the Lord.


Discussion

Do you know that when we were baptised, the priest puts oil on our forehead?  Encourage the children to talk about the baptisms that they may have attended and describe what they see.  The oil is there to symbolise strength and the putting of the oil is called ‘anointing’.  People get anointed to do certain tasks.  David was anointed to be the king of Israel, for instance.

We too are anointed at our baptism, using the oil of catechumens, which has been blessed by the Bishop on Maundy Thursday.  At our baptism, we were anointed priest, prophet and king.  Discuss each of the three anointing in turn.  Discuss briefly what we should be doing in our three roles.  Our anointing as priest calls us to prayers.  Our anointing as prophet calls us to be teachers and proclaimers of the Word. 

Our anointing as kings calls us to be servants.  Explain that the structure of Jesus’ kingdom is such that the least will be greatest and whoever wants to be a leader has to be servant to all.  Note the washing of the feet at the Last Supper.

Discuss what we could do to answer our calling to be king-servants:  caring for others, helping, etc.  Discuss the people who we know have answered the call to be servant to all and how they have done it.  Do not limit to people whom the children know personally, but broaden it out to others in the world.  Mother Teresa is a good example.

Other than caring for others personally ourselves, is there anything else we can do?  Contribute money and material to charitable groups.  Or we can even join such groups ourselves.  Name some of the groups and discuss what they do.  Start with the groups the children may know in our parish.  There are those that are part of the caring ministry: SVP.  There are also those that take on a caring ministry as part of its activities; for instance, when a youth group visits a old folks home.

You can also discuss other groups within the Church: the orders of nuns and priests dedicated to hospitals, hospices, teaching, orphanages.  There are also orphanages run by lay-people.  What about non-Church organisation?  Peace Corps and Medicins sans Frontieres are examples.


Discuss again how the children can be king-servants.  Do the caring ourselves or help these organisations by telling others about it, help in support/fund-raising activities, contribute your time and money.

Saturday, September 5, 2015

24th Sunday in Ordinary Time


Year B
Twenty-fourth Ordinary Sunday


Images

 

The Pope and his election


Points to note

 

There is a board inside the Westminster Catholic Cathedral in London, which lists down the names of all the Popes and next to them, the list of the leading bishops in England at that time.  There are two ideas here that are important.  Each bishop is consecrated a bishop by another bishop, who has been consecrated by another bishop, who has been consecrated by another bishop, and so on, until you reach a bishop, who has been consecrated by one of the Apostles.  This is known as the Apostolic Succession, the principle that every Catholic bishop traces his lineage back to the Apostles and we have the list of bishops to prove it.  Every diocese in the world keeps such a list of its own line of bishops.  This list that traces back to the Apostles is our proof that what our bishops teach is the same as what the Apostles, and Jesus, taught.

The other is one of communion.  Every Catholic owes allegiance to his or her local bishop.  We are said to be in communion with our bishop.  Each bishop is in turn in communion with the Pope.  Therefore, each Catholic is communion with each other through his or her communion with the local bishop who is in communion with other bishops through his communion with the Pope.

In Year A, we discuss the structure of the Church while, in Year B, we explain how the Pope is elected and, in Year C, we discuss the Apostolic Succession.  You can refer to the leaflet for Sunday 21 Year A for the structure of the Church.

Before this session, there are a fair bit of preparation to be done.  Run through the dialogue below and do your research to fill up those bits in square brackets.  You should know most of these but may need to check your diocesan directories for the others.  You could learn a thing or two!!


Liturgy


Acclamation

Alleluia!  Alleluia!
I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, says the Lord;
no one can come to the Father except through me.
Alleluia!

Gospel
Explain that Jesus is travelling around some areas outside of Israel on the way to Jerusalem and has reached a place where people there worship many other gods.  So, with so many gods around, Jesus wants to know who his disciples think he is.

The Lord be with you.
All:   And also with you.

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Mark
(Mk 8:27-35)
Jesus and his disciples left for the village round Caesarea Philippi.  On the way he put this question to his disciples, “Who do people say I am?”  And they told him.  “John the Baptist.” They said, “others Elijah; others again, one of the prophets.”  But you, “he asked, “who do you say I am?”  Peter spoke up and said to him, “You are the Christ.”  And he gave them strict orders not to tell anyone about him.

And he began to teach them that the Son of Man was destined to suffer grievously, to be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes, and to be put to death, and after three days to rise again; and he said all this quite openly.  Then taking him aside, Peter started to remonstrate with him.  But, turning and seeing his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said to him, “Get behind me, Satan!  Because the way you think is not God’s way but man’s.”

He called the people and his disciples to him and said, “If anyone wants to be a follower of mine, let him renounce himself and take up his cross and follow me.  For anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

This is the Gospel of the Lord


Discussion


Who is the head of the Church?  Jesus.  Explain that Jesus does not want to take care of the entire Church by himself and so he has a lot of people to help him.  He has the Pope to help him.  The Pope helps Jesus to take care of all Catholics throughout the world, all 1.1 billion of us.  The Pope wears white and lives in Rome.  He has a huge church called St Peter’s Basilica.  This is because the first Pope was St Peter.

The Pope could not possibly take care of all Catholics, too.  So he has over 5,000 bishops to help him.  Most of these bishops take care of an area called a diocese.  Some dioceses are larger than others and are called archdioceses.  We are in the Diocese of [name of diocese], which includes [the areas under the diocese}.  There are more than [xx],000 Catholics in our diocese.  The bishop who is appointed to help the Pope take care of all Catholics in our diocese is Bishop [name of bishop].  Bishops wear purple.  Bishop [name of bishop]’s church is called [name of cathedral] Cathedral.

Even Bishop [name of bishop] needs help to take care of so many Catholics in the diocese.  So, there are over [xx] priests to help him.  There are 400,000 priests helping bishops throughout the world.  Many of these priests help take care of a parish.  We are in the parish of [name of parish] and there are [x],000 people in our parish who comes to our church for mass.  Priests normally wear black except in hot countries where they wear white.

Sometimes, priests may have religious brothers and sisters (not siblings at home) to help them do God’s work.  These brothers and sisters run schools, orphanages and hospitals or they may do other work like praying for us in monasteries.  There are about 800,000 of them throughout the world.


Explain how the Pope is elected.  When a Pope dies, cardinals from all over the world meet in St Peter’s Basilica within three weeks to vote for the next Pope.  Cardinals are very important bishops who represent almost every country in the world.  Many of the cardinals run dioceses all over the world while others act like ministers in the Vatican government.  Only cardinals below the age of 80 may vote and there can only be a maximum of 120 of such voting cardinals at any one time.  Cardinals wear red.

When a Pope dies, the cardinal who heads the Pope’s household staff, known as the camerlengo, calls out the Pope’s baptismal name three times.  He also taps the forehead of the dead Pope with a silver hammer.  This will confirm the Pope’s death.  The body of the Pope is taken away to be embalmed so that it could last until the funeral and the dead Pope’s apartment is sealed up.  The ring of the Pope will be smashed up to prevent anyone using the ring as a seal for any official documents.

The eligible cardinals are locked up (literally!!) in the Vatican for duration of the conclave to elect the Pope.  No one or any communication is allowed in or out and the cardinals are only allowed doctors for those who need one.  Food goes in and out through a window.  They will hold voting sessions twice a day with very strict rules as to how the voting should be conducted.  If no candidate gets a majority, the voting papers are burnt with powder to give black smoke.  If the voting is successful, the papers are burnt to give white smoke.

The new Pope will be asked if he consent to be Pope and then asked what name he will adopt as Pope.  He will then put on one of the three sets of new papal vestments (S/M/L) and is introduced to the world.  He will also be given a new papal ring with the insignia of a fisherman as he is now a successor of St Peter, who was a fisherman.