Mark 13: 24-32

Watch for the signs of the coming of the kingdom.

Catholic Culture

A beginning point for discussion of this week's Gospel with children:

Today’s Gospel talks about the end of the world and sounds frightening, but it also tells us that the word of God will last forever, even longer than the earth and the sky will last.

Have you ever felt God’s love? How did that feel?

God wants us to be ready to meet him at any time. How can you do that?

REFLECTION by Fr Michael Tate

Have you ever seen those pictures of angels? They are like babies with delicate gossamer wings. How sentimental, how pathetically trivial, how untrue. Angels are more like the light-swords wielded by Luke Skywalker in Star Wars. The good angels are lightning flashes of energy serving God’s purpose in the battle against evil forces which can seem to dominate our worlds, private and social.

God loved us into existence in order to share in his life, but there are forces at work trying to frustrate that. There is a cosmic-scale battle going on. Who is on our side in that battle? The angels. Who are they?

They are non-bodily beings of great intelligence and power. Those are the angels, and those who have chosen to love and serve God are on our side.

Some are archangels with a cosmic-scale brief. We hear of one in the first reading: ‘Michael, the great Prince who stands guard over your people’. Others are our individual Guardian Angels so that when powers of darkness seem to engulf us, we can turn to our Guardian Angel and say: ‘Fight for me’, and that light-sword of God will engage in battle because that is that sort of angel’s way of serving God.

We could pause a moment to pray, thanking God for the Archangels who guard our church community and for our personal Guardian Angels, and asking our Lord Jesus Christ to command those angels to gather us as his chosen to share His glory.

R.E News:

RE: Giving tree

We will be finishing our learning for Advent with a special Action. This year students are asked to bring the following items to place under the giving tree. These items will then be made into Christmas hampers as a sign of hope for to those in need in our society, just as Jesus brought hope to us 2000 years ago.

Every year we get a wonderful response to our giving tree appeal. If you are able to purchase the following it would be greatly appreciated. Place the items under the tree in the school foyer or in your classrooms and they will be collected by St Vincent De Paul society members and made into hampers:

Chocolates.
Coffee
Tea
Mince Pies
Cakes
Biscuits
Tins of Ham
Puddings
Lollies
Tin fish
Jam .

In keeping with the theme of sustainability this year we are also collecting good reusable toys between the ages 0-10 that can go to another child.

God Bless you for your continued support and generosity.

Religious Education Leader

Mrs. Dawn Heldt.

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