No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. - Aesop

Term 3

RE Tasks

Week 3

Week 4

Week 9

Gospel Unpack

Week 10 - ‘Being tolerant'

Jesus wants us to learn to be tolerant of both other’s faults and their gifts – that means celebrating their successes and forgiving their failings. Being tolerant can sometimes be tough.

Gospel - Mark 9:38-41

The disciple John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw a man using your name to force demons out of people. But he was not one of us, and we told him to stop.” Jesus said to his disciples: “Don’t stop him! No one who works miracles in my name will soon turn and say something bad about me. Anyone who is not against us is for us. And anyone who gives you a cup of water in my name, just because you belong to me, will surely be rewarded.

In the Gospel, Jesus warns his disciples against becoming a closed, exclusive and narrow-minded group. Jesus rejects nothing and no-one who contributes to the well-being of humanity.

Q & A

Have you ever felt jealous of someone else, maybe even complained to your parents about them, maybe you feel that they think they are better than you? Jealousy tends to have a negative connotation - When do you think can jealousy be a good thing?
Sometimes people only want to hear their own side of the story, and they think everyone else has got it wrong. Why is it important to understand where other people are coming from?
How do you know the difference between doing right and wrong?

Week 4

The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary

God chose Mary to be the mother of his son, Jesus. Mary was always ready and willing to do whatever God wanted. Because she was so special she was taken up body and soul to be with Jesus in heaven – this is what ‘Assumption’ means.

The Assumption of Mary Explained

Mary, the mother of Christ, was taken body and soul (i.e. both physically and spiritually) into heaven to live with her son (Jesus Christ) for ever.

Human beings have to wait until the end of time for their bodily resurrection, but Mary's body was able to go straight to heaven because her soul hadn't been tainted by original sin.

Catholics celebrate the Feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary on August 15th each year.

Luke 1:39-56

Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your voice, the child in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed there would be a fulfilment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”

And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has looked with favour on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on, all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name. His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm, he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and his descendants for ever.” And Mary remained with Elizabeth about three months and then returned to her home.

Q & A

What is a promise? Do you think it is important to keep a promise? Why? How do you feel when someone keeps a promise made to you?

God wanted to keep a promise to his people to send us a Saviour. Both Elizabeth and Mary were helping God to keep his promise. He gave them special gifts because they said ‘Yes’ to helping that promise come true. Can you recognise those gifts in this story?

Mary teaches us how to be a follower of Jesus and we know she is in heaven because she was true to God in her life and a wonderful mother to Jesus. This feast, the Assumption, is a special day in our Church year. It is the day when we remember and celebrate that God took Mary into heaven, body and soul, to be with Jesus forever because she helped him to keep his promise.

Mary is so important to us that we use some of the words from our Gospel story today in our prayers and our hymns. Did you recognise some of those prayers or hymns?

What qualities of Mary would we like to grow in our lives?

Week 3

‘I am the living bread’

Over the past two weeks we have heard how God feeds his people and takes care of their needs. Today we listen to a story about the prophet Elijah, who lay weak with hunger, feeling totally hopeless until God saved him.

Jesus says “I am the living bread come down from heaven.”

Gospel Reading:

John 6:48-51

Jesus said to the crowd:

“I am the bread that gives life!

Your ancestors ate manna in the desert, and later they died.

But the bread from heaven has come down, so that no one who eats it will ever die.

I am that bread from heaven! Everyone who eats it will live forever.

My flesh is the life-giving bread that I give to the people of this world.”

Read the following before answering the questions:

God wants us to know him and that is why he sent Jesus to us. We know something of what God is like because we know what Jesus is like. In the first reading, Elijah was feeling that he had failed to bring the Chosen people back to God. He was feeling down and lost – as if he wanted to stop trying and just give up. God was very gentle with Elijah when he felt like that. Jesus tells us that we know God through him and that he is always with us, especially in the Bread of Life that we receive in the Eucharist.

Q & A

Do you ever feel like giving up if you keep losing? Maybe you have failed at something that you have tried, or your sports team loses its match.
1. What have you failed at?
2. How does it feel?
3. What do you do if you fail?
How have you felt God's love in your life? Was it during your initiation into the church or another time in your life?
What is the significance of the the Eucharist and when we receive the Eucharist how does this bring us closer to god?

Week 2

John 6:24-29 ‘What do you believe about Jesus?’

After the Israelites had fled from Egypt into the desert, God took care of his people and made sure that they did not go hungry. Jesus tells us it is his life within us that is the food that keeps us going

John 6:24-29 ‘What do you believe about Jesus?’

The people saw that Jesus and his disciples had left. Then they got into the boats and went to Capernaum to look for Jesus.

They found him on the west side of the lake and asked, “Rabbi, when did you get here?”Jesus answered, “I tell you for certain that you are not looking for me because you saw the miracles, but because you ate all the food you wanted.

Don’t work for food that spoils. Work for food that gives eternal life. The Son of Man will give you this food, because God the Father has given him the right to do so.”

“What exactly does God want us to do?” the people asked. Jesus answered, “God wants you to have faith in the one he sent.”

Q & A

1. Were the people right to follow Jesus, why/why not?

2. What does this part of the gospel mean : Don’t work for food that spoils. Work for food that gives eternal life ?

3. What does the expression ‘food for thought’ mean?

Week 1

John 6:1-15 ‘Feeding many people’

This Gospel story challenges us to respond to the stark reality of one person dying from hunger every 3.6 seconds. This Gospel story is a story of abundance.There is more than enough food available to feed the world. What is needed is for more people to follow the example of the child in the story who gave Jesus the food he had to be shared with those in need.

John 6:1-15 ‘Feeding many people’

Jesus crossed Lake Galilee, which was also known as Lake Tiberias. A large crowd had seen him work miracles to heal the sick, and those people were with him. It was almost time for the Jewish festival of Passover, and Jesus went up on a mountain with his disciples and sat down. When Jesus saw the large crowd coming towards him, he asked Philip, “Where will we get enough food to feed all these people?” He said this to test Philip, since he already knew what he was going to do.

Philip answered, “Don’t you know that it would take almost a year’s wages just to buy only a little bread for each of these people?” Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, was one of the disciples. He spoke up and said, “There is a boy here who has five small loaves of barley bread and two fish. But what good is that with all these people?’

The ground was covered with grass, and Jesus told his disciples to have everyone sit down. About five thousand people were in the crowd. Jesus took the bread in his hands and gave thanks to God. Then he passed the bread to the people, and he did the same with the fish, until everyone had plenty to eat. The people ate all they wanted, and Jesus told his disciples to gather up the leftovers, so that nothing would be wasted. The disciples gathered them up and filled twelve large baskets with what was left over from the five barley loaves. After the people had seen Jesus work this miracle, they began saying, “This must be the Prophet who is to come into the world!”

Jesus realised that they would try to force him to be their king. So he went up on a mountain, where he could be alone.

Q & A

1. What were the important actions of Jesus in this Gospel?

2. Why do you think Jesus wanted to be alone?

3. What does this sentence mean to you?

Only when we share the little we think we have, will we discover how much we have left over.

Gospel Week 1.m4a

Prepared by the Liturgy Centre, Catholic Diocese of Auckland

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