Religious Education News
Jesus the vine, the Father, the vinegrower.
Formation:
John 15: 1-8
Live in me and let me live in you, says the Lord;
my branches bear much fruit.
A beginning point for discussion of this week's Gospel with children:
What are some types of fruit that grow on vines?
Which is your favourite?
What do vines look like when they grow?
Why do the branches need to be pruned or trimmed?
In today’s gospel Jesus tells us that he is the vine and we are the branches.
How are we Jesus’ branches?
How can we produce lots of fruit?
We produce much fruit when we show that we are Jesus’ disciples and serve others.
We pray that we will never be cut off from Jesus and we will produce fruit that will last.
Catholic Culture
We are too familiar with today’s gospel. Christ is the vine and we are the branches, sometimes in need of a good pruning. But God’s purpose is not to produce a perfect vineyard. It is to produce a full-bodied wine at the end of history.
There is a foretaste of this at every Mass. The wine we offer – ‘fruit of the earth and work of human hands’ – becomes the spiritual drink which best serves the purpose of our Heavenly Father. How does this happen?
For the Jewish people observing an animal whose throat is cut, it is obvious that the life drains out with the blood. ‘Life’ and ‘blood’ became synonyms. So, when the Jewish Jesus says of the wine in the chalice at the Last Supper: ‘This is my blood’, amongst other things he is saying: ‘This is my life force, this is my very life given unreservedly for you.’
So, when we drink from the chalice at Holy Communion, the life of the Risen Lord courses through our bodies just as the sap of the vine courses through its branches. We share the same ultimate vitality so that our bodily existence builds into the Body of Christ. He becomes truly ‘full-bodied’ as the Divine Vigneron desires.
We could take a moment to pray that we respond to the pruning and the tending and the pressing by our Heavenly Father so as to contribute our distinctive character to the vintage at the end of history, the spiritual drink of the Kingdom of Heaven. (REFLECTION by Fr Michael Tate)
Holy Eucharist
The Holy Eucharist program in the Year 4 classes has commenced. The children will be following an in depth program that explores the sacrament carefully such as:
Eucharist - The Source and Summit of the Christian Life.
Growing Closer to Jesus through the Eucharist.
The Sacrament of the Eucharist.
4 Parts of the Mass
Well done to all the students who presented themselves for the Commissioning Mass for this Sacrament. Please be aware that we have our Holy Eucharist parent information session on the 2nd of May. The children will be displaying pictures of themselves in the Church asking for the parishioners to pray for them as they prepare for their Holy Eucharist. Please keep all of these children in your prayers.
Class Masses:
Class Masses
This Friday 1/2R will celebrate their class Mass in the Church at 9 am The following Friday 4th May, 3/4HD will celebrate their Class Mass. We warmly invite everyone to come along and help to celebrate in the Liturgical and spiritual life of the school.
Mini Vinnies
Nazareth Cluster
On Thursday the 15th of March 2018 the Social Justice and School Captains went to Nazareth College for the Mini Vinnie Cluster Conference. 12-15 schools were invited.
Eric Vien: we really enjoyed the experience and we are looking forwards to the Closing Cluster Festival.
Jasmine Manis: We went to the Cluster Conference so that we could collect ideas from other schools and use them here. One of the ladies there asked me and one of her friends from the other school to do the ending prayer.
Laura Tran: we played some “icebreaker” games so we could get to know each other.
Cohen Kewming: Next we talked about what Mini Vinnies mean to us. After that we got into groups with different schools and brainstormed what we do and what we want to do at our schools. We shared with them what social justice looks like at SJV.
Have a peaceful week.
Dawn Heldt
Religious Education Leader.