Religious Education
You are invited!
The year 6 students have been preparing the re-enactment of the 14 stations of the cross, from Jesus' arrest to his passion and death on the cross. With costumes, props, narrations and prayers, we would love for you to come along and encounter Jesus' passion in our school's dramatisation during this time of Lent. We have two session times available for classes to rotate around the stations on the oval. All families and friends are welcome.
St Patrick
Happy St Patrick's Day! I know we are all counting down the days until our St Patrick's Festival. This Friday the students will be learning about the life of St Patrick in their classroom, his trials and triumphs, love, courage and wisdom including the famous example of teaching about the Holy Trinity using the shamrock. We ask that students come dressed in green and we invite all families and friends to join us on Tuesday 19th March (St Joseph's feast day) for our end of Term school mass @ 9:15am.
May the spirit of St Patrick inspire us all to grow closer to God. As his breastplate of protection prayer says:
Christ with me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ in me, Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Christ on my right, Christ on my left, Christ when I lie down, Christ when I sit down, Christ when I arise, Christ in the heart of every man who thinks of me, Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, Christ in every eye that sees me, Christ in every ear that hears me.
Gospel Reflection
Gospel Reading
Jesus predicts his death
Unpacking the Scriptures
The Gospel of John we read this Sunday is the story of Jesus fortelling his death to come. Chapter 12 of John is a preparation for the beginning of the Jesus’ arrest, passion and death story to come. Later we'll read that the Sanhedrin met after this event and made plans to kill Jesus.
Jesus uses the metaphor of a single grain of wheat that dies to the ground and becomes something new, sprouting many seeds and compares it to his ministry. At the time of his arrest, passion and death many will turn against or desert him. He will feel alone like a single grain of wheat. His resurrection however will bring many back and provide a new basis of faith. Jesus also uses this idea to explain dying to our selfishness, not always thinking of ourselves but thinking of others first. This is what he asks of his disciples and what he asks of us, to sacrifice ourselves for others by our deeds of love.
In the final part we hear God telling us that he has not come to judge the world by his death but to save it. Let us take time in prayer to thank God for his amazing mercy and love. In our last few weeks of Lent we can pay more attention to how we treat one another, try our best not to judge, accuse or lose our temper, but act with kindness, generosity, patience and forgiveness towards others.
Family Connection
Family life is a balancing act where we attend to a variety of competing needs. It's the place where we learn the value of putting others' needs before our own. We can see this most potently with the dependency of a newborn baby. Motivated by love, we all learn in family life that we need to make personal sacrifices to serve others and gain more than we may have lost. Discuss together about how important it is to your family life that you serve one another and share a memory or example of this.
Pray
Read together John 12:20-33 and ask your child, how would Jesus want to respond when one of us asks for help? Make a resolution to each commit to responding cheerfully to requests for help as you say St Ignatius' prayer:
Teach us, good Lord, to serve you as you deserve; to give, and not to count the cost, to fight, and not to heed the wounds, to toil, and not to seek for rest, to labor, and not to ask for reward, except that of knowing that we are doing your will.
Amen.
God bless,
India Mitchell-Fletcher
Religious Education Leader