Thirty-first Sunday in Ordinary Time

LSW children

Year B

Thirty-first Ordinary Sunday

Images

Commandments

Promises

Points to note

This passage is one that children can easily identify with.  To take the idea further, we should attempt to concentrate on the concept of commandments and covenants.  You may wish to look at the first reading for the covenant that God made with the people of Israel.  

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

The Lord be with you.

All:   And also with you.

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Mark

(Mk12: 28-34)

One of the scribes came up to Jesus and put a question to him, “Which is the first of all the commandments?” Jesus replied, “This is the first: Listen, Israel, the Lord your God is the one Lord, and you must love the Lord you God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this:  You must love your neighbour as yourself.  There is no commandment greater than these.”  The scribe said to him, “Well spoken, Master; what you have said is true:  that he is one and there is no other.  To love with all your heart, with all your understanding and strength and to love your neighbour as yourself, this is far more important than any holocaust or sacrifice.”  Jesus, seeing how wisely he has spoken said, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” And after that no one dared to question him anymore.

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

Discussion

What are laws? What kind of laws are there?  Who makes them?  What happens when you break a law?  Explain that laws are things that we have to do or to follow.  Get the children to discuss in practical terms about the laws they have encountered: those in school and those at home.

Explain that sometimes we have to do things not because there is a law that says we have to do it but because of a promise we made.  Discuss about promises and how they work. Introduce the idea of a contract or a covenant.  A covenant is just a fancy way of saying a contract.  A contract or a covenant is where two persons promise to do certain things for each other.

God made a covenant with the people of Israel.  Do you know where was that covenant made?  In the wilderness of Sinai.  The covenant that God made was not just with Moses but with the whole people of Israel and in a way, with us as well.  What were the promises that God and the people of Israel made to each other?  The people of Israel promised to keep God’s laws and God promised to keep the people of Israel as his people.

What were the laws that God wanted the people of Israel to keep?Keep in mind that although we think largely of the Ten Commandments, the laws that the people of Israel were to keep can be found in the second to the fifth book of the Old Testament.  These laws cover a wide range of areas and involve the whole of the people’s daily lives.

Do you know that someone has counted all the laws that God all?  Do you think anyone can remember all 613?  That is why the laws were summarised into the simple Ten Commandments.  Discuss what a commandment is.  Can anyone tell us what all the Ten Commandments were?

Summarising into the Ten Commandments was still not enough for some people, and there were people who tried to summarise them into one commandment.  If Jesus had to have only one commandment, which would he have picked?  You may wish to discuss how the Ten Commandments can be summarised into the commandment of love.

Who would you love?  You can put everyone into two categories: (i) God; and (ii) people around us. The Ten Commandments, for instance, can be split accordingly: the first three deals with (i) and the others deal with (ii).  

Some people say that the cross symbolise this idea as well: the vertical line (loving God) and the horizontal line (loving each other).  We should always be reminded that the two directions of love must always go together, otherwise there is no cross!

Is it possible to love God without loving the people around you?  Is it possible to love people around you without loving God? Why do you say that?  While it is clear from 1Jn that ‘whoever who says he loves God but does not love his brother is a liar’, you may get very interesting ideas from the children.  You could expand on it by discussing God being upset at how we fight each other and being mean to one another, very much like how Mom gets angry when we fight.

Discuss the practical ways of how we love God by loving one another. How does it make God happy that we love one another.

Thirtieth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Year B

Thirtieth Ordinary Sunday 

Images

Helplessness of a blind man

Points to note

Here is another vivid story told by Mark.  This is one of the few stories that centres so much on the person who was healed instead of on Jesus.  Much has been said about the response of Bartimaeus on hearing that Jesus was to come into Jericho.

It may therefore be an idea to centre the session around Bartimaeus.  For starters, a variant of the game of blind man’s buff could be fun, especially for the younger ones:  Get a volunteer, preferably one who is not told what will happen next.  Have him or her blindfolded.  Turn the volunteer round several times to disorientate him or her.  Rearrange the room to place as many obstacles as possible. Then, the volunteer is to make his or her own way to the door.  No one is allowed to give instructions.  Watch the fun.  Try it again a second time.  This time, the other children are, then, to guide the volunteer to the door or some other object.

The point of this little game is to bring out the idea of helplessness and the availability of some one to help and guide.  This will link up with the idea of being poor in the spirit and being totally reliant on God. This is the situation that God wants us to be in, and this is the situation that Bartimaeus was in.  God is a little bit of a jealous kind.  He wants us to be like a new-born babe and to be the only one we can turn to in our helplessness.

Liturgy

Acclamation before the Gospel

Alleluia! Alleluia!

I am the light of the world, says the Lord,

anyone who follows me will have the light of life.

Alleluia!

Gospel

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Mark

(Mk10: 46-52)

As Jesus left Jericho with his disciples and a large crowd, Bartimaeus (that is, the son of Timaeus), a blind beggar, was sitting by the side of the road.  When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout and to say, “Son of David, Jesus, have pity on me.”  And many of them scolded him. And told him to keep quiet, but he only shouted all the louder,  “Son of David, have pity on me” Jesus stopped and said, “Call him here.” So they called the blind man. “Courage,” they said, “get up; he is calling you.”  So throwing off his cloak, he jumped up and went to Jesus.  Then Jesus spoke, “What do you want me to do for you?”  “Master,” the blind man said to him, “let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has saved you.”  And immediately his sight returned and he followed him along the road.

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

Discussion

(Assuming that you have played the game above)  Get the volunteer to describe how he or she feels about volunteering or being volunteered.  What did the other children feel about this one child volunteering/being volunteered?

Get the volunteer to describe how he or she feels when blindfolded, and then turned around several times, had the room rearranged and then told to make his or her way to the door?  Was it easy to find the door the first time?  Was it frustrating?  How did the other children feel when they could see him or her heading the wrong way but could not give any guidance?  What about the second time?  How did the volunteer feel about getting all these guidance?  Was it easier?  What did the others feel?

Explain that the whole idea of this little game is to show what is meant by being poor in the spirit.  Being poor in the spirit, as the Beatitudes had wanted us to be, means that we are so totally helpless that we have no one to rely on.  When we are poor in the spirit, we therefore have to rely on no one but God and God alone. 

(If you did not play the game, take the children through the scene from Bartimaeus’ point of view: the dust in the hot sun, the noise, the crowds, lots of movement)

Back to Bartimaeus:  put ourselves in his shoes, if he had any, that is.  Discus how helpless he was in his blindness.  Discuss how he felt when he heard that Jesus the master healer was coming to town.  He decided that he would ask Jesus to heal him.  Discuss what else he could have done instead: he could have felt that his problem wasn’t big enough to bother Jesus with.  He could have felt that he wasn’t important enough to get Jesus’ attention.  He could have felt that there are others who may also need to ask Jesus.  He could have felt embarrassed to ask Jesus in front of so many people.  He could have felt that other people may not like him to cause a commotion in public.

But Bartimaeus did not do any of these things and he was healed. Discuss how Bartimaeus must have felt after he was healed.  Parallel all these discussions with how the volunteer in the earlier game felt.

Discuss how we should be praying to God in our nightly prayers tonight.  How could we be poor in the spirit like Bartimaeus and yet, persistent like he was? Surely we must have things that we would like to ask Jesus for.

Twenty-ninth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Year B

Twenty-ninth Ordinary Sunday 

Imagery

Humility

Being a leader

Points to note

According to the Missal, the first paragraph of this reading is optional.  I would feel that the first paragraph is essential for us for several reasons.  One, it is a narrative and narratives go down well with children.  Narratives also help give background to the discourses.  This particular paragraph echoes another reading about humility a few weeks back (cf. Sunday 25).  You may wish to revisit this reading.

This Sunday’s reading takes the concept a little further in that it applies the ideas of humility to leadership.  Some of the older children may have had some position of responsibility, either in school activities or over younger brothers and sisters at home.  This will provide some material for you to work on during the sessions as you draw out of these children their idea of leadership.

Liturgy

Acclamation before the Gospel

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

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Mark

(Mk10: 35-45)

James and John, the sons of Zebedee, approached Jesus, “Master,” they said to him, “we want you to do us a favour.”  He said to them, “What is it that you want me to do for you?”  They said to him, “Allow us to sit one at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”  “You do not know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them.  “Can you drink the cup that I must drink, or to be baptised with the baptism with which I must be baptised?”  They replied, “We can.”  Jesus said to them, “The cup that I must drink you shall drink, and with the baptism with which I must be baptised you shall be baptised, but as for the seats at my right hand or my left, these are not mine to grant; they belong to those to whom they have been allotted.”

What we discussed in Sunday 25 At our baptism, we are 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 king 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.

When the other ten heard this, they began to feel indignant with James and John, so Jesus called them to him and said to them, “You know that among the pagans their so called rulers lord it over them, and their great men make their authority felt. This is not to happen among you. No; anyone who wants to become great among you must be your servant, and anyone who wants to be first among you must be slave to all.  For the Son of Man himself did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

This is the Gospel of the Lord.

Discussion

Do you have prefects and monitors in school? What are their jobs? To get everyone to keep the school rules. Have you noticed that different prefects and monitors have different ways of doing their jobs? Discuss how monitors and prefects carry out their tasks as monitors and prefects.  BE CAREFUL!! Some of the children could be monitors and prefects themselves.  You don’t really want a slanging match in the middle of your session.

Discuss the different styles of leadership.  Some people are strict.  Some people use reason.  Some people use charm.  Get the children to talk about the teachers they like.  Each would have a different style of leadership.  Which type of teacher would they like?   The one who bosses everyone about because he is the teacher or the one who is willing to do things with the children?  Extend the discussion to the monitors and prefects that the children like.  Extend the discussion to how they would like to be a monitor or prefect if they were appointed one and still keep the rules.

Jesus expects his disciples to be leaders in the Church.  But he expects them to be a different type of leader. Discuss the concept of the inverted pyramid of the Christian hierarchy (one of the titles of the Pope is ‘servant of the servants of God’ – the idea that he is at the bottom of the hierarchy as servant to all).  You may want to bring in what we discussed four weeks ago about our anointing as a king at our baptism

With this in mind, how do the children think Jesus would like them to be if they were to be a monitor or a prefect?  Discuss also broadly how we should act when we meet people less fortunate than us or weaker than us.  We should remember that these people may be closer to the kingdom of God than us if they approached their misfortune and their weakness in the Christian spirit. Therefore we should not lord over them.

Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

LSW children

Year B

Twenty-eighth Ordinary Sunday 

Imagery

Sacrifice

Points to note

Although this may seem quite a vivid narrative, the concepts that underlie it are a little advanced.  They revolve around the idea of possessions.  Some younger children have very weak grasp of the concepts of personal possessions.  They tend to be the ones who would be more willing to share rather than hoard.  As such, care may need to be taken to avoid introducing an alien concept to them, especially one that may weaken the sharing instincts.  Facilitators would need to be alert to such situations and adapt the session accordingly.

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

Jesus has just welcomed the little children into the kingdom of God while he was on the way to Jerusalem, as we saw in last Sunday’s reading.

The Lord be with you.

All:   And also with you.

A Reading from the Holy Gospel according to St Mark

(Mk10: 17-30)

Jesus was setting out on a journey when a man ran up, knelt before him and put this question to him, “Good master, what must I do to inherit eternal life?”  Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good?  No one is good but God alone.  You know the commandments:  You must not kill; You must not commit adultery; You must not steal; You must lie; You must not cheat; Honour your mother and father.”  And he said to him, “Master, I have kept all these from my earliest days.”  Jesus looked steadily at him and loved him, and he said, “There is one thing you lack. Go and sell everything you own and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”  But his face fell at these words and he went away sad, for he was a man of great wealth.

Jesus looked round and said to his disciples, “How hard it is for those who have riches to enter the kingdom of God!”  The disciples were astounded by these words, but Jesus insisted, “My children,” he said to them, “how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.” They were more astonished than ever. “In that case,” they said to one another, “who can be saved?”  Jesus gazed at them.  “For men,” he said, “it is impossible, but not for God: because everything is possible for God.”

This is the Gospel of the Lord

Discussions

What is your most prized possession?  Get each child to describe the most valuable thing that they have.  Try to limit them to more tangible possessions and leave out the intangibles like love, etc. They can include people as the most valuable thing that they have, such as parents and families.

Does anyone have the right to ask you to give up your most prized possession?  Would you? Discuss what the children would do if they were asked to do this, extending the discussion to whatever will make them give up the most prized possession. Maybe, that depends on:

·    who asked them:parent; priest; God?

·    how they were asked: nicely; not given a choice?

·    for how long do they to give it up: a short while; forever?

·    for what it would be used: given to one more in need than them?

·     what the most prized possession was:can they get a replacement?

Discuss the idea of sacrifice that Jesus wanted in the reading.  What does sacrifice mean?  Basically, a sacrifice would be something you give up.  Describe various types of sacrifices - fasting, etc.  Would it be a sacrifice if you were to give up something you didn’t like?  Would it be a bigger sacrifice to give up something you cherish very much, like your most prized possession?

Why did Jesus wanted his disciples to give up so much?  Was it easy to give up their possessions and families to follow him?  Do people still do such things today?  Discuss about the priests and religious who have given up things. For instance, Jesuit fathers (or any other religious groups, monks and sisters) do not own anything by themselves. Everything they have is in the name of their Order or Congregation (that is the group or society that they belong to). If they were to earn anything, say by teaching, they would need to give everything they earn to the Jesuit community. They would of course get some pocket money to spend each month.

We do not all of course need to make such a sacrifice.  Discuss the little sacrifices that we can make.