Year A
Thirty-first
Ordinary Sunday
Images
The teacher
Points to note
The teacher is a very central role model to
children. For the younger children, we
could concentrate on the importance of the teacher to the children and how
Jesus is the most important of our teachers.
For older children, we could go into the core of the
passage: how do we react if the teacher fails us as role models. For us as adults, the failure of a particular
role model can be an excruciating experience.
If this is to be discussed with the children, it will have to be handled
very sensitively.
If you wish to explain some of the words used in the
passage, please refer to the adult’s leaflet.
Liturgy
Acclamation before the Gospel
Alleluia!
Alleluia!
Speak, Lord, your
servant is listening:
you have the
message of eternal life.
Alleluia!
Gospel
Explain that after the
attempts that we have seen in the past two weeks by the Pharisees and the
Saducees to trap Jesus, it is now Jesus’ turn to denounce the Pharisees.
The
Lord be with you.
All: And also with your spirit.
A
Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Matthew
All: Glory to you O Lord
(Mt 23: 1-12)
Jesus said to the people and his disciples, “The
scribes and the Pharisees sit at the priestly seat in the synagogues. You must do what they tell you and listen to
what they say; but do not follow by what they do: since they do not practice
what they teach. They tie up heavy
burdens and lay them on men’s shoulders, but will they lift a finger to move
them? Not they! Everything they do is done to attract
attention, like wearing broader prayer boxes and longer tassels, like wanting
to take the place of honour at banquets and the front seats in the synagogues,
being greeted in the market squares and having people call them Rabbi.
“You, however, must not allow yourselves to be called
Rabbi, since you have only one Master, and you are all brothers. You must call no one on earth your father,
since you have only one Father and he is in heaven. Nor must you allow yourselves to be called
teachers, for you have only one Teacher, the Christ. The greatest among you must be your
servant. Anyone who exalts himself will
be humbled, and anyone who humbles himself will be exalted.”
This is the Gospel of the Lord.
Discussion
Who is your favourite teacher in school? What’s he/she like? Get the
children to talk about why they like that particular teacher. Bring the discussion round to the point of
respect for the teacher.
For younger children
Is it important to have teachers? Why? Discuss the wider implication of having
teachers. It is not just a matter of
having someone to teach us. Teachers
also often set good examples for us. What
are the qualities that you respect most in your teachers?
Can teachers only be found in schools? Where
else do we find teachers? What do we
call people who teach in the Church? Catechists.
Note that anyone who teaches us is a teacher. Even people younger than us can be our
teachers. At LSW, the children can
sometimes be the teachers to the facilitators.
That is why we don’t call ourselves teachers.
For older children
Have you ever have a person you respect a lot and one
day find out that he/she is not the type of person you thought he was. Don’t
push the question too far. Most children
have not had a failure in role models.
If so, limit the discussion to friends who turn out to be different from
what you thought they were. How did
you react when you found out? Take them through how they felt. Remember, there is no right or wrong way of
feeling. Ensure that that is
respected.
Bring the discussion round
eventually to what Jesus said in the Gospel.
If an advice that was given by a person was a good advice, does it
become a bad advice if the person eventually turn out to be a rogue? Jesus said Do what they say but not what they do. Isn’t
that a good advice?
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