14th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Year C

Fourteenth Sunday In Ordinary Time

Theme

The harvest is rich but the labourers are few

Points to note

This is a very vivid passage on missionary work.  We can either convey to the children the drama, the tension and the enthusiasm of the early church in spreading the Gospel message.  Or, we could translate passage into a commitment to proclaim the message in our daily lives.  The latter requires very concrete examples of how we are to practise our faith with this missionary intent.  Care must be taken to draw on the vividness of the passage and lead it into our ordinary lives.  Otherwise, the session could get stuck in between, leading neither into the former nor the latter.

This is a shorter of the two versions available in the Missal.  The full reading contains much negative images, which may be a little too difficult a concept for the younger children to grasp within context.  Even the shorter reading we have below does contain negative images (eg., ‘sending you out into a dangerous world’, etc.), which may have to be explained carefully to the children.

Liturgy

Acclamation before the Gospel

Alleluia!  Alleluia!

I call you friends says the Lord,

because I have made know to you

everything I have learnt from my Father.

Alleluia!

Gospel

Explain that Jesus has just begun his final journey to Jerusalem.  Remember how he was greeted as a king when he entered the Holy City.  Obviously, a king will have his heralds and messengers to prepare his way before him.  This is how Jesus sent his heralds ahead of him before entering the Holy City, instead.

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 10: 1-12,17-20)

The Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them out ahead of him, in pairs, to all the towns and places he was going to visit.  He said to them, “The harvest is rich but the labourers are few, pray to the Lord of the harvest to send labourers to his harvest.  Start off now, but remember, I am sending you out into a dangerous world.  Carry no purse, no backpack, no sandals.  Waste no time on long greetings when you meet strangers on the road. 

When you first go into a house, say “Peace to this house!”  And if peaceful people live there, your peace will go and rest on them; if not, it will come back to you.  Stay in the same house and eat whatever food and drink they are offering, for you deserve your wages for all your hard work.  Do not move from house to house.  Whenever you go to a town where they welcome you, eat what they give you.  Cure those in it who are sick, and say, “The kingdom of God is very near to you.”

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

Dialogue

There was much enthusiasm in the early Church on the call to spread the good news to all nations.  This is evident from the stories from the Acts of the Apostles.

There is also a sense of urgency, as you can see in the passage. Some people think that the early church expected Jesus to return within a few years after the ascension.  That could explain the urgency.  But, there is also urgency in people who have a piece of good news to tell.  After all, no child with good marks in the exams would delay telling their parents of it.

Retell the story, highlighting the drama and the tension in it. Convey the enthusiasm and urgency in the calling.  Stress that Jesus would like to have a lot of people to help him.

Few, however, do so.  Get them to point out those people they know who have helped spread the good news. Ensure that the people they mention are not too remote from them.  Do they think it is important that there are such people?  Would they have known about Jesus if there were no such people?

What do you call people who spread the good news and tell people about Jesus?  Missionaries.  Explain the role of missionaries and what they do.  They are sent out to spread the Gospel as priests, preachers, catechists and pastoral workers.  They may be ordained priests or lay people.

Link it up with the sacrifices that missionaries are supposed to make if they are to work to spread the good news.  Remember the session last week when we talked about the sacrifices a priest has to make to be a priest?  Go through again with the children on the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience that they made. 

Discuss the triple prohibitions that Jesus gave to the disciples.

No purse – this means no money.  So, how would they get food?  They have to ask people for it or work for it.  If they have to ask people, wouldn’t they need to be nice to people?  It wouldn’t make sense would it for a missionary to be nasty to people and then ask them for food?  Missionaries therefore have to show the qualities of Christ to the people they meet.

No backpack – this means no additional supplies.  So, where would they get medicine if they fall sick, etc.  Jesus wanted the missionaries to depend on God.

No sandals – Can you imagine them walking with no sandals?  It must be rather painful.  What Jesus was saying was that they will need to be prepared for suffering if they are truly committed to the Gospel.  Some of them were martyred for the faith while all of them were rejected or made fun of.

Discuss how the children in turn could help spread the message.  Make the task that they could do as simple ones.  It is often the small deeds that remind people that Jesus loves them.  It is important to translate the enthusiasm of the seventy-two disciples into the small deeds that they could do.

 

11th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Year C

Eleventh Sunday In Ordinary Time

Theme

How much do you want to sacrifice

Points to note

There are two versions to this reading and I have taken the longer one as it is the one with the story of the penitent woman but I have dropped the last paragraph from Ch 8 for brevity.

This has been a rather controversial story due to the nature of the woman and Jesus seeming to condone her past.  This, however, is Jesus’ way of turning the world upside down.  With Jesus, forgiveness looks not at the past, but at the future.  Once a person seeks forgiveness, the past is irrelevant and the forgiveness is received on the promise of future behaviour.  The session will focus on such future acts.

An interesting historical note:  some recent authors claimed that the Catholic Church has defamed Mary Magdalene throughout history by incorrectly naming her as the prostitute in this story. And has done so as part of a power struggle in which the Popes eventually triumphed over the followers of Mary Magdalene by the third century. 

This is what actually happened:  You can see from the reading that the penitent woman was not named, though the reading did note her to be a prostitute (or at least, a woman with a bad name).  For some reason, very likely because the reference to Mary Magdalene came immediately in the next passage, Pope Gregory in the seventh century, referred to the penitent woman as Mary Magdalene.  Even more confusingly, he also referred to Mary, sister of Lazarus as Mary Magdalene.  The Church was aware of the error for some time, but being the Catholic Church, only corrected it in the early twentieth century.

So, you can see that the error to make a prostitute out of Mary Magdalene, was made centuries after her death and could not be part of a power struggle in the early church and it was corrected decades before any of these authors has started writing about it.

Liturgy

Acclamation before the Gospel

Alleluia!  Alleluia!

God loved us when he sent his Son

to be sacrifice that takes our sins away

Alleluia!

 

Gospel

Explain that Jesus has just begun his final journey to Jerusalem. 

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 7:36-50)

One of the Pharisees invited Jesus to a meal.  When he arrived at the Pharisee’s house and took his place at table, a woman came in, who had a bad name in the town.  She heard he was dining with the Pharisee and had brought with her an alabaster jar of ointment.  She waited behind him at his feet, weeping, and her tears dell on his feet, and she wiped them away with her hair; then she covered his feet with kisses and anointed them with the ointment.

When the Pharisee who had invited him saw this, he said to himself, “If this man were a prophet, he would know who this woman is that is touching him and what a bad name she has.”  Then Jesus took him up and said, “Simon, I have something to say to you.” “Speak Master”, was the reply.  “There was once a creditor who had two men in his debt; one owed him $5,000 and the other $50.  They were unable to pay, so he pardoned them both.  Which of them will love him more?”  “The one who was pardoned more, I supposed” answered Simon.  Jesus said, “You are right.”

The he turned to the woman.  “Simon”, he said, “You see this woman?  I came into your house, and you poured no water over my feet, but she has poured out her tears over my feet and wiped them away with her hair.  You gave me no kiss, but she has been covering my feet with kisses ever since I came in.  You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.  For this reason, I tell you that her sins, her many sins, must have been forgiven her, or she would not have shown such great love.  It is the man who has forgiven little who shows little love.”  Then he said to her, “Your sins are forgiven.”  Those who were with him at table began to say to themselves, “Who is this man, that he even forgives sins?”  But he said to the woman, “Your faith has saved you; go in peace.”

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

Dialogue

What is the gift that you want more than anything else?  Let the children bring up their wish list.  Focus on the physical gifts that they would want for their birthday, etc.  The bigger, the better.

If Mom or Dad says that you must work for it, what are you willing to do for it?  Go through the work, either schoolwork or household chores that they would do.  Highlight the difficulties in doing those jobs.  See if you can put them off.  There has to be a point where the work is not worth it.

Link this up with the two stories.  Start with the second story where the woman who sinned was willing to wipe Jesus’ feet with her hair to obtain forgiveness for her sins.  Explain that people couldn’t understand what she did,  But these were the people who were too proud to do the same.

Contrast this with the first story where the first servant was not even willing to do a little to forgive the second servant even though God forgave him so much.  In the biblical times, people often use the imagery of a financial debt to explain spiritual forgiveness.  The larger the financial debt the larger the spiritual debt that God had to forgive.

While forgiveness was the objective that is used for this Sunday, the concept can be extended to anything that a person seeks.  How much do you want something?

End the discussion with examples of people who wanted something so much that they are willing to do that extra for it.  People like Helen Keller who was deaf and blind but wanted so much to be educated; the many people who had both legs amputated but can climb Mt Everest or swim the English Channel.  Get the children to imagine how difficult it is and how much they must have wanted it to be able to complete such difficult tasks.  There are also a lot of very ordinary Christians who wanted so much to be forgiven that they traveled the last km of the pilgrimage on their knees (on their knees upright in prayer stance).