Third Sunday in Advent

LSW children

Year C

Third Sunday in Advent

Images

Cleaning our hearts

Points to note

This story follows on from last week’s reading. We take the theme of waiting just that one step further.

The concept of repentance that forms the basis of this reading is not easy to explain.  As adults, we too may end up grappling with the idea and it really is part of a very personalised life-long journey.  Mine started as a child and I believe if done right, the children is then started off on their own life long journey starting with the first steps that we help them along today.

Again, we focus on drawing parallels with the aspects of life for the children.  From ideas that they are familiar with, we move to concepts that they would understand but may not appreciate the depth of meaning.  In years to come, we hope they will return in their mind to what we discuss today and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit for the treasures of Jesus’ teachings to be opened to them.

Liturgy

Acclamation before the Gospel

Alleluia!  Alleluia!

The spirit of the Lord has been given to me.

He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor.

Alleluia!

Gospel

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 3:10-18)

When all the people asked John, ‘What must we do?’ he answered, ‘If anyone has two tunics he must share with the man who has none, and the one with something to eat must do the same.’ There were tax collectors too who came for baptism, and these said to him, ‘Master, what must we do?’ He said to them, ‘Exact no more than your rate.’ Some soldiers asked him in their turn, ‘What about us? What must we do?’ He said to them, ‘No intimidation! No extortion! Be content with your pay!’

A feeling of expectancy had grown among the people, who were beginning to think that John might be the Christ, so John declared before them all, ‘I baptise you with water, but someone is coming, someone who is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fan is in his hand to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.’ As well as this, there were many other things he said to exhort the people and to announce the Good News to them.

This is the Gospel of the Lord

Discussion

Have you ever have someone from far away coming over to your house to stay?  What preparation did you do?Discuss the coming of a favourite aunt or grandparents.  Focus the discussion on the preparation of the guest bedroom and the cleaning of the house.  I am sure Mom and Dad wouldn’t want grandpa and grandma to see how messy the house is.

 

Discuss the anticipation the children feel when preparing the house.  Isn’t it fun to do all that cleaning when someone is going to be coming?  Somehow, cleaning the house without anyone coming doesn’t seem to be so fun, does it?

 

Explain someone is coming soon and we in the Church are preparing for that someone to come.  Discuss the preparation we do for Christmas but do not spend too much time on it. You can discuss instead what the children will do if Jesus would be coming to stay in their house – what preparation would they make to clean out the house.

 

Explain that when we invite Jesus to come on Christmas Day, we are really inviting Jesus to come into our hearts.  Discuss how we make our hearts ready to meet Jesus. Discuss how we clean out our hearts if we were to invite Jesus in there just as we clean the house if we were to invite Jesus into our house.  

 

If Jesus were to come into our hearts, our hearts must be made pure.  Discuss how to purify our hearts.  Be sorry for the wrongs we have done and for those old enough they can go for confessions. More importantly, we do not repeat our wrongdoings if we were to keep our hearts clean.

 

If you have time, discuss how we prepare for Jesus coming in light of John the Baptist’s answer to the first question in the reading.  What is the children’s equivalent of giving up one of two tunics?  Discuss how they can welcome the Jesus who is in those who are less fortunate than we are?

Third Sunday in Advent

Year B

Third Sunday in Advent

Images

Spreading the joyful message

Points to note

This Sunday is Gaudete Sunday, or Joyful Sunday. Instead of the purple that has been used in all the previous Sundays, this colour for this Sunday is pink.  This is thus scheduled by the Church as a respite from the more sombre penitence of the long season of reflection.

We move on from last week’s theme of our mission of having been anointed as a prophet to the message of joy that we are to bring to the world.  In this discussion, the joyous nature of the message is more important than the details of the message.

Liturgy

Acclamation before the Gospel

Alleluia, alleluia!

The spirit of the Lord has been given to me.

He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor. Alleluia!

Gospel

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

(Jn 1:6-8, 19-28)

A man came, sent by God.

His name was John.

He came as a witness,

as a witness to speak for the light,

so that everyone might believe through him.

He was not the light,

only a witness to speak for the light.

This is how John appeared as a witness. When the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ he not only declared, but he declared quite openly, ‘I am not the Christ.’ ‘Well then,’ they asked ‘are you Elijah?’ ‘I am not’ he said. ‘Are you the Prophet?’ He answered, ‘No.’ So they said to him, ‘Who are you? We must take back an answer to those who sent us. What have you to say about yourself?’ So John said,

‘I am, as Isaiah prophesied:

a voice that cries in the wilderness:

Make a straight way for the Lord.’

Now these men had been sent by the Pharisees, and they put this further question to him, ‘Why are you baptising if you are not the Christ, and not Elijah, and not the prophet?’ John replied, ‘I baptise with water; but there stands among you – unknown to you – the one who is coming after me; and I am not fit to undo his sandal-strap.’ This happened at Bethany, on the far side of the Jordan, where John was baptising.

This is the Good News of the Lord

Dialogue

How are your Christmas preparations coming along?  Get the children to discuss the plans.  Lead the discussions to a sense of anticipation of the event.  Note that preparations, while tiring, can also be fun.  Some people say that the preparation is more fun than the event itself.  I think they could be right.

What is a message?  Discuss the nature of a message.  It

·       Given by a person

·       Comes from a person

·       About something that has happened or about to happen

Discuss who was the one bringing the message in today’s reading – John the Baptist.  Explain who was John the Baptist – a cousin of Jesus, older by just a few months.  He was sometimes called the last of the prophets.

Who did the message come from – from God. Messages carried by prophets all come from God.  That is their job, their role.

What was the message about – the coming of Jesus.  Explain that John the Baptist was sometimes called the forerunner of Jesus.  That he was the one who went ahead of Jesus to tell them of his coming.

Notice that the message of one of expectation.  In those days, the people were oppressed under the rule of the Romans and the cruel King Herod.  There were looking for someone to take away their problems.  Nobody knew who Jesus was but there was something there in what John said that made it worthwhile to look forward to it.  They knew something wonderful was about to happen.

Discuss when someone was going to have a surprise birthday, whether the birthday child was told about it or not.  Think of the anticipation and how much they were looking forward to it – wasn’t it fun to look forward to something wonderful.  Explain that for the people who heard John the Baptist, it must have been the same sense of expectation.

Discuss how we could bring the same sense of joyful message to people today.  Remember the message was for the people who were oppressed and needy.

Third Sunday in Advent

LSW children

Year C

Third Sunday in Advent

Images

Cleaning our hearts

Points to note

This story follows on from last week’s reading.  We take the theme of waiting just that one step further.

The concept of repentance that forms the basis of this reading is not easy to explain.  As adults, we too may end up grappling with the idea and it really is part of a very personalised life-long journey.  Mine started as a child and I believe if done right, the children is then started off on their own life long journey starting with the first steps that we help them along today.

Again, we focus on drawing parallels with the aspects of life for the children.  From ideas that they are familiar with, we move to concepts that they would understand but may not appreciate the depth of meaning.  In years to come, we hope they will return in their mind to what we discuss today and seek the guidance of the Holy Spirit for the treasures of Jesus’ teachings to be opened to the,

Liturgy

Acclamation before the Gospel

Alleluia!  Alleluia!

The spirit of the Lord has been given to me.

He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor.

Alleluia!

Gospel

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 3:10-18)

When all the people asked John, ‘What must we do?’ he answered, ‘If anyone has two tunics he must share with the man who has none, and the one with something to eat must do the same.’ There were tax collectors too who came for baptism, and these said to him, ‘Master, what must we do?’ He said to them, ‘Exact no more than your rate.’ Some soldiers asked him in their turn, ‘What about us? What must we do?’ He said to them, ‘No intimidation! No extortion! Be content with your pay!’

A feeling of expectancy had grown among the people, who were beginning to think that John might be the Christ, so John declared before them all, ‘I baptise you with water, but someone is coming, someone who is more powerful than I am, and I am not fit to undo the strap of his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fan is in his hand to clear his threshing-floor and to gather the wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.’ As well as this, there were many other things he said to exhort the people and to announce the Good News to them.

This is the Gospel of the Lord

Discussion

Have you ever have someone from far away coming over to your house to stay?  What preparation did you do? Discuss the coming of a favourite aunt or grandparents.  Focus the discussion on the preparation of the guest bedroom and the cleaning of the house.  I am sure Mom and Dad wouldn’t want grandpa and grandma to see how messy the house is.

 

Discuss the anticipation the children feel when preparing the house.  Isn’t it fun to do all that cleaning when someone is going to be coming?  Somehow, cleaning the house without anyone coming doesn’t seem to be so fun, does it?

 

Explain someone is coming soon and we in the Church is preparing for that someone to come.  Discuss the preparation we do for Christmas but do not spend too much time on it.  You can discuss instead what the children will do if Jesus would be coming to stay in their house – what preparation would they make to clean out the house.

 

Explain that when we invite Jesus to come on Christmas Day, we are really inviting Jesus to come into our hearts.  Discuss how we make our hearts ready to meet Jesus.  Discuss how we clean out our hearts if we were to invite Jesus in there just as we clean the house if we were to invite Jesus to our house. 

 

If Jesus were to come into our hearts, our hearts must be made pure.  Discuss how to purify our hearts.  Be sorry for the wrongs we have done and for those old enough they can go for confessions.  More importantly, we do not repeat our wrongdoings if we were to keep our hearts clean.

 

If you have time, discuss how we prepare for Jesus coming in light of John the Baptist’s answer to the first question in the reading.  What is the children’s equivalent of giving up one of two tunics?  Discuss how they can welcome the Jesus who is in those who are less fortunate than we are?

3rd Sunday in Advent

LSW children

Year A

Third Sunday in Advent

Images

Spreading the joyful message

Points to note

This Sunday is Gaudete Sunday, or Joyful Sunday. Instead of the purple that has been used in all the previous Sundays, this colour for this Sunday is pink.  This is thus scheduled by the Church as a respite from the more sombre penitence of the long season of reflection.

We move on from last week’s theme of our mission of having been anointed as a prophet to the message of joy that we are to bring to the world.  In this discussion, the joyous nature of the message is more important than the details of the message.

Liturgy

Acclamation before the Gospel

Alleluia, alleluia!

The spirit of the Lord has been given to me.

He has sent me to bring the good news to the poor. Alleluia!

Gospel

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

(Jn 1:6-8, 19-28)

A man came, sent by God.

His name was John.

He came as a witness,

as a witness to speak for the light,

so that everyone might believe through him.

He was not the light,

only a witness to speak for the light.

This is how John appeared as a witness. When the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem to ask him, ‘Who are you?’ he not only declared, but he declared quite openly, ‘I am not the Christ.’ ‘Well then,’ they asked ‘are you Elijah?’ ‘I am not’ he said. ‘Are you the Prophet?’ He answered, ‘No.’ So they said to him, ‘Who are you? We must take back an answer to those who sent us. What have you to say about yourself?’ So John said,

‘I am, as Isaiah prophesied:

a voice that cries in the wilderness:

Make a straight way for the Lord.’

Now these men had been sent by the Pharisees, and they put this further question to him, ‘Why are you baptising if you are not the Christ, and not Elijah, and not the prophet?’ John replied, ‘I baptise with water; but there stands among you – unknown to you – the one who is coming after me; and I am not fit to undo his sandal-strap.’ This happened at Bethany, on the far side of the Jordan, where John was baptising.

This is the Good News of the Lord

Dialogue

How are your Christmas preparations coming along?  Get the children to discuss the plans.  Lead the discussions to a sense of anticipation of the event.  Note that preparations, while tiring, can also be fun.  Some people say that the preparation is more fun than the event itself.  I think they could be right.

What is a message?  Discuss the nature of a message.  It

·       Given by a person

·       Comes from a person

·       About something that has happened or about to happen

Discuss who was the one bringing the message in today’s reading – John the Baptist.  Explain who was John the Baptist – a cousin of Jesus, older by just a few months.  He was sometimes called the last of the prophets.

Who did the message come from – from God. Messages carried by prophets all come from God.  That is their job, their role.

What was the message about – the coming of Jesus.  Explain that John the Baptist was sometimes called the forerunner of Jesus.  That he was the one who went ahead of Jesus to tell them of his coming.

Notice that the message of one of expectation.  In those days, the people were oppressed under the rule of the Romans and the cruel King Herod.  There were looking for someone to take away their problems.  Nobody knew who Jesus was but there was something there in what John said that made it worthwhile to look forward to it.  They knew something wonderful was about to happen.

Discuss when someone was going to have a surprise birthday, whether they were told about it or not.  Think of the anticipation and how much they were looking forward to it – wasn’t it fun to look forward to something wonderful.  Explain that for the people who heard John the Baptist, it must have been the same sense of expectation.

Discuss how we could bring the same sense of joyful message to people today.  Remember the message was for the people who were oppressed and needy.