Religious Education 

GOSPEL          Mk 10:2-16 

A reading from the Gospel according to Mark 

What God has joined together, no one must divide. 

Some Pharisees approached Jesus and asked, ‘Is it against the law for a man to divorce his wife?’ They were testing him. He answered them, ‘What did Moses command you?’ ‘Moses allowed us’ they said ‘to draw up a writ of dismissal and so to divorce.’ Then Jesus said to them, ‘It was because you were so unteachable that he wrote this commandment for you. But from the beginning of creation God made them male and female. This is why a man must leave father and mother, and the two become one body. They are no longer two, therefore, but one body. So then, what God has united, man must not divide.’ Back in the house the disciples questioned him again about this, and he said to them, ‘The man who divorces his wife and marries another is guilty of adultery against her. And if a woman divorces her husband and marries another she is guilty of adultery too.’ 

People were bringing little children to him, for him to touch them. The disciples turned them away, but when Jesus saw this he was indignant and said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. I tell you solemnly, anyone who does not welcome the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’ Then he put his arms round them, laid his hands on them and gave them his blessing. 

CHILDREN'S DISCUSSION STARTERS 

In today’s gospel some people brought their children to Jesus and he blessed them. 

• Have you ever received a blessing? 
• Who blessed you? How did it make you feel? 

Jesus said we will get into God’s kingdom if we accept it the way a child does. 

• What do you think it will it be like to live in God’s kingdom? 

We pray that we will always follow Jesus with the simple faith of a small child.