Saturday, October 29, 2016

32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time


Year C
Thirty-second Sunday in Ordinary Time


Images

Death and resurrection


Points to note

It may be morbid but I think it is very Christian to talk about death.  Our culture is unfortunately still not Christian enough to talk about it openly and if we do, death is seen as an end in itself.  Is it?  Christianity teaches us that death is only a passage to better life and there is no fear of death.  Somehow, we do not seem to have taught our Christianity very well.

Due to this, we need to take this discussion sensitively.  There could be a bit of discomfort, particularly among some younger children.  The discomfort could be` so strong that other children could end up picking it up.  While you will need to work out how to deal with it, based on your own level of comfort and the situation with the children, my preference is to deal with it: stop the discussion and get the children to talk about their fears, which is usually what they have heard.  This will be a good opportunity to launch into the planned discussion.  If you do not deal with it immediately, try to ensure that at least the fears of the children with discomfort are dealt with during the planned discussion.

Be sensitive.  Children normally would not experience any loss and mourning until they are old enough or the deceased is close enough to them.  So, while younger children may not feel the loss of an uncle who they have not met, any child of Children Liturgy of the Word age certainly feel the loss of a doting parent.



Liturgy

Acclamation before the Gospel
Alleluia!  Alleluia!
Stay awake, praying at all times
for the strength to stand with confidence before the Son of Man
Alleluia!

Gospel
In Jesus’ days, belief in resurrection of the dead was not an article of faith.  Some did and some did not and they then to argue a lot about it.  Sadducees were a group of high-profile people who did not and they were found among high priests.  They generally fought (in debates) the Pharisees but were largely unpopular with the people.

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

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Luke
All:   Glory to you O Lord

 (Lk 20:27-38)
Some Sadducees – those who say that there is no resurrection – approached Jesus and they put this question to him, “Master, we have it from Moses in writing that if a man’s married brother dies childless, the man must marry the widow to raise up children for the brother.  Well, then, there were seven brothers.  The first, having marries a wife, died childless.  The second and then the third married the widow.  And the same with all seven, they died leaving no children.  Finally, the woman herself died.  Now, at the resurrection, to which of them will she be wife since she had been married to all seven?”

Jesus replied, “The children of this world take wives and husbands, but those who are judged worthy of a place in the other world and in the resurrection from the dead do not marry because they can no longer die, for they are the same as the angels, and being children of the resurrection they are sons of God.  And Moses himself implies that the dead rise again, in the passage about the bush where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.  Now he is God, not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all men are in fact alive.”

This is the Gospel of the Lord


Dialogue

It may be a strange time but let’s talk about Easter?  What is painted, hidden, and associated with Easter?  Easter eggs!!  Why do we have Easter eggs?  Look at an egg (it would be good if you have an egg handy).  Is it alive?  No.  But what happens if the mother hen sits on it for 21 days.  It hatches and new life comes out.  Something that looks dead comes alive.  So it is with Jesus on Easter Sunday.  He who looks dead is actually alive.

Jesus says the same thing about seeds.  Does a seed look alive?  (It would be good if you have a seed handy).  Does it move or jump about?  But what happens if a seed is planted in the ground and watered?  It sprouts and new life emerges.

Let’s put that aside for a while.  Has anyone attended a funeral?  Children may not be allowed to attend the funeral but they would have witnessed the stress from the loss and mourning at home.  Ask them about what they see from others.  If they have seen a corpse, let them talk about it.  Let them talk about the sorrow and the negativity that they saw.  If someone had a positive incident to talk about, bring it out and highlight it.

Where do you think people go after they die?  Other than the standard answers about heaven, be prepared for fanciful ideas.  Explain that death is the start of a journey to somewhere else and that other place is a better life for all who have been good.  Get them to imagine what heaven looks like and what happens there.  Older children may be ready to talk about heaven as a state of mind as opposed to a physical place

What do you think happen to the body after death?  Yes, it decays, etc.  Christian doctrine teaches us though that, at the end of time, Jesus will return and all Christians will be resurrected.  This means that we will get our clean and uncorrupted bodies again.  We will all get to live with Jesus in an earthly paradise forever.  Like the egg and seed, bodies of Christians who have died, which look dead now but will come back to life again.

This teaching of death as only a passage is why we celebrate the feast-days of saints on the anniversary of their death, not their birth.  That is their day of glory when the enter paradise, their birthday in heaven so as to speak.

31st Sunday in Ordinary Time


LSW

children

Year C
Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time


Images

The disadvantaged gets ahead


Points to note

This is the favourite story of a priest I used to work with.  It is because he was short, short like Zacchaeus!  All of us are like that – we try to identify with someone in the Bible story that we hear about, someone like us.  And that’s the key to facilitating with children: getting them to identify with a character in the story and this week Zacchaeus is someone whom children seem to identify well with – because if Jesus turned up, the children would also need to climb a tree to get a glimpse of him.


Liturgy

Acclamation before the Gospel
Alleluia!  Alleluia!
Blessings on the King who comes, in the name of the Lord!
Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heavens!
Alleluia!

Gospel
Remind the children how a tax collector is often treated as an outcast of society in Jesus’ times because they work for the Romans, who are foreigners and because they tend to collect more than their due.  Remind the children of the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector in last Sunday’s reading.

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

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Luke
All:   Glory to you O Lord

 (Lk 19:1-10)
Jesus entered Jericho and was going through the town when a man whose name was Zacchaeus made his appearance; he was one of the senior tax collectors and a wealthy man.  He was anxious to see what kind of man Jesus, but he was too short and could not see him for the crowd; so he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to catch a glimpse of Jesus who was to pass that way.  When Jesus reached the spot he looked up and spoke to him: “Zacchaeus, come down.  Hurry, because I must stay at your house today.”  And he hurried down and welcomed him joyfully.  They all complained when they saw what was happening.  “He has gone to stay at a sinner’s house,” they said.  But Zacchaeus stood his ground and said to the Lord, “Look, sir, I am going to give half my property to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody I will pay him back four times the amount.”  And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man too is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek out and save what was lost.”

This is the Gospel of the Lord


Dialogue

How many of you is a younger child in the family?  Do you feel like the elder one gets all the chances?  Get ready for a lot of complaints!!  Get the children to talk about situations where they have been overlooked when going out (because the movie is ‘not for little children’, for instance).  How did they feel about it?  Careful that it doesn’t get to be a gripe session.  Focus on feelings of disappointment, neglect, abandonment or even despair.  How did they respond to the situation?

It may also be a good idea to explore the reaction of the elder siblings to such a situation.  Were they aware that the younger brother or sister was unhappy about it?  Did they do anything about it?  Promise to bring something back, for instance?  Yeah, sure there will be some kids who rejoiced that the younger sibling got their just desserts in being left behind!!

Discuss whether the state of affairs ever last?  How did the younger child feel when they got all the attention again (eg., when everyone got back home), especially when they got some compensation for being left behind (eg., a little gift)?  Happy, satisfied, redeemed. He who laugh last, laugh loudest.

Explain that this was what happened to Zacchaeus.  He was short and never got the best vantage points.  He was probably bullied in school because he was short.  He seems to have been short-changed in life (excuse the pun).  Jesus, however, always had a soft spot for those who are disadvantaged, particularly those who called on his help in the midst of their problem.  Those whom we think are losers are often loved even more by Jesus.  Draw the parallels with our discussion: those whom we think have lost out often end up with a better deal.

Explain also that Zacchaeus was not just short but also disliked by people because of his job.  He was an outcast and has been pretty much a sinner.  Jesus however loved him because he invited Jesus not only into house but also into his heart.  He said sorry and invited Jesus to change his life and Jesus loved him all the more for it.  Similarly, those of us who are in the doghouse because of something wrong we did can often change our fortunes by saying sorry and change over a new leaf.

Help the children to conclude that we should not be looking down on people who seem to have lost out because in losing, they often win Jesus’ heart.

Sunday, October 9, 2016

30th Sunday in Ordinary Time


LSW

children


Year C
Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time


Images

Bargaining with God


Points to note

The dialogue for this session revolves around leading the children to discuss what they think God owes them as a result of their good works.  Inevitably, the children may already know that God does not owe them anything.  As a child, I knew that but I was a little devious in suggesting to God that the good deed I did that day was not done with any motive but I will leave it up to God how he intends to respond to my good deed!

The idea is that God does not owe us anything and we cannot bargain with God but we try to contrast between what the children think and what we then lead them to realise.  The contrast is, then, between the Pharisee and the tax collector.


Liturgy

Acclamation before the Gospel
Alleluia!  Alleluia!
Blessed are you, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth,
for revealing the mysteries of the kingdom to mere children.
Alleluia!

Gospel
Explain what a Pharisee is.  They are members of a group within Judaism who believe that salvation lies in being faithful to God by scrupulously following the Law to the letter and that anyone not following the exact wording of the law is condemned.  A tax collector, on the other hand, is treated as an outcast of society because they work for the Romans, who are foreigners and because they tend to collect more than their due.

The Lord be with you.
All:   And with your spirit.

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Luke
All:   Glory to you O Lord

 (Lk 18:9-14)
Jesus spoke the following parable to some people who prided themselves on being virtuous and despised everyone else.  “Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector.  The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, “I thank you God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here.  I fast twice a week; I pay my Temple taxes on all I get.”  The tax collector stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but he beat his chest and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”  This man, I tell you, went home again at rights with God; the other did not.  For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted.

This is the Gospel of the Lord


Dialogue

Have we all done good things at home?  For Mom and Dad.  When we do good things, will Mom and Dad do anything in return for us?  Have we ever had an arrangement with Dad so that he would buy us, say, a bicycle if we pass the exams?  Discuss how parents would ‘owe’ children things if they do good.  Extend the discussion to bargaining with God.  If we do certain good things, what does God owe us?

Discuss the parable again.  Discuss what the Pharisee and the tax collector were thinking.  Ask the children what the Pharisee thought he has done right (look at what he said) and what God owes him for it.  Ask the children what the tax collector thought he has done wrong and how he thinks God will deal with him (not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven).  Spend more time on the reading as there is a lot there that tells us what the Pharisee and the tax collector said.

So, does God owe anything to the Pharisee?  So it is with us: does God owe us anything for all the good things that we have done?  Contrast that with the answers that the children have given to the question at the beginning of the session.

What about the tax collector?  Was God happy with him?  If so, was God happy with him because of the bad things that he had done or was it because he humbled himself and acknowledged it?

Link it to what is expected of us.  Do we think we owe everything to God or that God owes us something.  The thing the Pharisee did wrong was to think that he earned his rights to heaven because of what he did by himself, not that God who has full rights to decide who is saved and who will not, has given him the grace to be saved.  The tax collector who knows he is totally useful without God’s mercy has something that God liked which the Pharisee did not – the awareness that he (the tax collector) is totally reliant on God.

Saturday, October 8, 2016

29th Sunday in Ordinary Time


LSW

children

Year C

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time



Images

Perseverance


Points to note

This Sunday’s reading is a parable that can be a little abstract for children.  Sometimes, it can be a little abstract even for us adults.  As usual, we will try to reduce it to simple terms that children experience.  For instance, we use examples in the children’s domestic lives.  We should be careful, however, that the examples we use are not interpreted in a way that encourages the children to persevere in pestering their parents in a negative way.


Liturgy

Acclamation before the Gospel
Alleluia!  Alleluia!
May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ
enlighten the eyes of our mind,
son that we can see what hope his call holds for us.
Alleluia!

Gospel
The Lord be with you.
All:   And with your spirit.

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Luke
All:   Glory to you O Lord

 (Lk 18:1-8)
Jesus told his disciples a parable about the need to pray continually and never lose heart.  “There was a judge in a certain town,” he said, “who had neither fear of God nor respect for man.  In the same town there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘I want justice from you against my enemy!’  For a long time he refused, but at last he said to himself, “Maybe I have neither fear of God and nor respect for man, but since she keeps pestering me I must give this widow her just rights, or she will persist in coming and worry me to death.”

And the Lord said, “You notice what the unjust judge has to say?  Now will not God see justice done to his chosen who cry to him day and night even when he delays to help them?  I promise you, he will see justice done to them, and done speedily.  But when the Son of Man comes, will he find any faith on earth?”

This is the Gospel of the Lord


Dialogue

How many of you have younger brothers or sisters?  Have you noticed the way they ask things from Mom and Dad?  They keep asking and asking until Mom and Dad agrees to give it to them.   It should be interesting that children will be quicker to claim that younger siblings unfairly get things because they are persistent.  Be careful that this does not become a grouse session and that we do not convey the impression that this is acceptable.

Explain the meaning of the words, persistence and perseverance.  Explain how we use them, in language and the context that it is used.  Older children may be able to differentiate between persistence and pestering.  Persistence is when we do it while pestering is when someone else gets something unfairly simply because they are persistent.

What is your record for the longest you have to ask before you finally get what you want?  Is it easier to be persistent if you get what you want quickly?

Go back to the reading.  Note how Jesus explains the concept of persistence.  Ask if the children have encountered any examples of such persistence where the person persisting is asking for something someone else unreasonably but will not give.  There should be examples at home and in school.  There are also examples of people who persist in fighting for freedom:  Gandhi, Mandela, Aung San Su Kyi.

Translate these into our spiritual lives.  How do we persist in our spiritual lives?  When we ask for things from God, we constantly pray to him.  Care should be taken that we do not convey the impression that God is someone unreasonable whom we have to keep bugging to get what we want. 

Some people say that if we pray hard enough, God will give us what we want and we do not get what we want when we ask God because we did not pray hard enough.  Do we agree with that?  Explain that it is not how hard we pray but also that what we pray for must be something good.  Therefore, we must be persistent in wanting the right thing. 

Also, in praying, we don’t just ask God for things.  We also make sure that we live good lives.  It is of no use if we pray to God everyday but do not behave as good Christians do.  Therefore, we must be persistent in living good lives because our lives are also a part of our prayers.

Most important of all, we pray to trust God.  We leave it in his hands that he knows best what is good for us.  So, we pray for the calm to accept his will.  I find it odd that people pray for their exam results on the way to school to pick it up.  The results are already printed and are they expecting God to change the pattern of ink on the paper from an F to an A?  Or should they be praying to be able to accept whatever results God has set up for them and to take it as a lesson in their life.


Saturday, October 1, 2016

28th Sunday in Ordinary Time


LSW

children




Year C

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time



Images

Thank you


Points to note

All masses are thanksgiving masses.  In fact, the word ‘Eucharist’, which we sometimes use as another word for mass, means ‘thanksgiving’ in Greek.

Thanksgiving is important in our daily lives as it is a way of expressing our gratitude for something received.  At this point of the three-year cycle, the children should be aware of the salvation, among other things, that we have received from God.  And prayer, most especially at mass, is one way of thanking God for what was received.

The stress is on the fact that thanksgiving to God extends beyond prayer, in that an important facet of thanksgiving is care for what is given.  If we do take care of what we have been given, it can only mean that we value it.


Liturgy

Acclamation before the Gospel
Alleluia!  Alleluia!
Your words are spirit, Lord,
and they are life:
you have the message of eternal life.
Alleluia!



Gospel
Explain what lepers are.  They are people with terrible skin diseases.  In those days, lepers were not allowed to live anywhere near healthy people (Remember in Ben-Hur, lepers lived in caves outside the city).  They may come into the town and beg for food.  If they do, they are required to ring a bell and shout, “Leper! Leper!”, to warn other people of their coming.  Lepers are outcasts and no one wants to be near them.

The Lord be with you.
All:   And with your spirit.

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Luke
All:   Glory to you O Lord

(Lk 17:11-19)
On the way to Jerusalem Jesus travelled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.  As he entered one of the villages, ten lepers came to meet him.  They stood some way off and called to him, “Jesus! Master! Take pity on us.”  When he saw them he said, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”  Now as they were going away they were healed.  Finding himself cured, one of them turned back praising God at the top of his voice and threw himself at the feet of Jesus and thanked him.  The man was a Samaritan.  This made Jesus say, “Did I not cure all ten?  The other nine, where are they?  It seems that no one has come back to give thanks to God, except this foreigner.”  And he said to the man, “Stand up and go your way.  Your faith has saved you.”

This is the Gospel of the Lord


Dialogue

If we were to receive something, what would Mom and Dad make sure your do?  Say “thank you”.  How?  Discuss the ways that thank you’s are given.  The longer this list is, the longer should be the list for the ways of giving thanks to God, when we come to it later.  Discuss also how thanks should be given - with a smile, eyes on the person, etc.

Discuss the fact that we continue to express our thanks even after we have said thank you.  After all, we don’t stop being grateful once we have said thank you.  We continue to express our gratitude by taking good care of what we have been given.  When the giver comes round again, surely he/she will be pleased to see that we have taken good care of the gift as it means that we appreciate it.  Imagine how your uncle would feel if he sees the toy he gave you for Christmas lying broken abandoned on the driveway of the house.

Have we all received things from God that we are thankful for?  What?  Let the imagination run wild.  Have we ever said thank you to God?  How?  Make sure that the list is at least as long as the earlier one.

Also, another thought.  Sometimes, we pray very hard to get something that we wanted, maybe even months.  Finally, our prayers were answered.  So, we say a thank you prayer to God. But often, we only thank him once.  Maybe, we should say as many thank you prayers to him as we did asking prayers when we asked him for those things.  If we have been asking God for a month, we should be thanking him for a month.

Does our gratitude end the moment we tell God that we are thankful?  How do we still continue to show that we are thankful?  By taking care of whatever he has given us.  It will be interesting to see how they propose taking care of their parents.

In particular with the teaching of Laudato Si, the Church calls us all to be thankful for God’s creation by taking care of it.  We can also discuss how to be thankful for God’s creation.  This is often a topic children seems to have an affinity with.