Faith Connections

St. Augustine's School Prayer

Our Father in Heaven,

Look over and bless St. Augustine’s while we are working and playing.

Help us to respect and care for each other as you taught us to.

Give us the opportunity to do our best for you each day.

We look forward to being able to share our lives with our friends and families.

Keep us safe and give us the courage to be

people who want to know you more.

Amen.

I invite all families to pray this prayer at home, maybe before coming to school one morning each week.

Prayer of the Week

A Prayer for First Holy Communion

Lord Jesus,

Bless the children coming forward to receive Holy Communion for the first time on Sunday.

May it be an initial step into a life-long love of the Eucharist.

Give them a hunger for this sacred food so that they turn to you for comfort, guidance, and wisdom as they grow into full discipleship.

Thank you for their innocence and goodness.

May their hands, extended in anticipation of your Body and Blood, inspire all of us to cherish this sacred sacrament.

Amen.

Scripture of the Week

Luke 13:22-30

Through towns and villages Jesus went teaching, making his way to Jerusalem. Someone said to him, ‘Sir, will there be only a few saved?’ He said to them, ‘Try your best to enter by the narrow door, because, I tell you, many will try to enter and will not succeed.

‘Once the master of the house has got up and locked the door, you may find yourself knocking on the door, saying, “Lord, open to us” but he will answer, “I do not know where you come from.” Then you will find yourself saying, “We once ate and drank in your company; you taught in our streets” but he will reply, “I do not know where you come from. Away from me, all you wicked men!”

‘Then there will be weeping and grinding of teeth, when you see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and yourselves turned outside. And men from east and west, from north and south, will come to take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God.

‘Yes, there are those now last who will be first, and those now first who will be last.’

NEW TESTAMENT HOMILY by Richard Leonard

Jesus and Satan have an argument as to who is the better computer programmer. This goes on for a few hours until they agree to hold a contest with God as the judge.

They set themselves before their computers and begin. They type furiously for several hours, lines of code streaming up and down the screen.

Seconds before the end of the competition, a bolt of lightning strikes, taking out the electricity. Moments later, the power is restored, and God announces that the contest is over. He asks Satan to show what he has come up with.

Satan is visibly upset, and cries, ‘I have nothing! I lost it all when the power went out.’

‘Very well, then,’ says God, ‘let us see if Jesus fared any better.’

Jesus enters a command, and the screen comes to life in vivid display, the voices of an angelic choir pour forth from the speakers.

Satan is astonished. He stutters, ‘But how? I lost everything, yet Jesus' program is intact! How did he do it?’

God looks up over his glasses and chuckles, ‘Ah you see, Jesus saves.’

Salvation has, rightly, always been the big issue. Who was going to make it, how it was going to happen and when would Christ return in glory have captured the imagination of each generation of believers.

The roots of this thinking can be found in today's Gospel. The earliest Christians, especially the Gentiles, saw that the Jews had been given every opportunity for salvation. They were the Chosen people. They had the Law and the Prophets. They were looking for the Messiah. Jesus, however, did not come as they expected or act as they hoped, so they rejected him and his followers. Within a generation after Jesus' death the Jews were persecuting the Christians and expelling them from the synagogues. The Christians took comfort from saying that in the salvation race the Jews might have started as the favourites, but they had missed the start and were now coming last.

This way of thinking had a strong effect on the Church. While we have always believed in the mercy and love of God, at different times we have been hostile to other religions, other denominations and the secular world. We have often needed to express this in absolute terms about who was going to be saved and, more importantly, who was not!

The Second Vatican Council, however, reflected on the Church's experience of working side by side with religious people and secular humanists throughout the world who were as committed as we are to justice, love and freedom. In the ‘Declaration on the relationship of the Church to non-Christian religions’, the bishops thought more generously about how God has a relationship with all people who in turn relate to God, even if they do not name it in the same way we are able to. The Council did not resile from believing that Jesus is the way to the Father, but they also affirmed that God can work in an infinite number of ways to assist people to salvation. It is Church teaching now that our relationship to all people who share the best of our values must be characterised by acceptance, collaboration, dialogue and charity.

This does not make salvation any less important. It just clarifies for us that it is God, not us, who does the saving and the judging. Christian salvation marks us out as people who know who we are following, where we are going, how we are getting there and why this world, and the next, matters to us. Salvation gives our lives meaning, direction and purpose.

The way we live out this salvation should be irresistible to others. As the folk hymn sings, ‘They will know we are Christians by our love, by our love. Yes, they'll know we are Christians by our love.’

REFLECTION FOR YOUNG PEOPLE

by Lisa-Marie Calderone-Stewart

Life’s problems can be seen as challenges that help you to grow well and to learn important skills. As God’s creatures are imperfect, so we need to help one another toward a final perfection that is a gift from God.

What difficulty or crisis in your life has taught you a lot? Do you think you have grown from dealing with it? How?

Discipline from parents and teachers and coaches is often not desired, yet it is usually given because of love.

What do you think motivates parents and teachers and coaches? Why do they do the things they do for you? What is their purpose as they attempt to give you discipline?

How have you benefited from the discipline and influence of parents, teachers or coaches? Have other adults in your life helped you become a more mature individual? Who are they and what influence have they had?

The Last Supper

As the Year 3/4 students prepare to receive the Sacrament of First Holy Communion this Sunday, I thought it would be good to include this scene from Jesus of Nazareth depicting the Last Supper. It is an accurate portrayal of how the Last Supper would have been. It is important to remember that it was the Jewish Passover that Jesus was celebrating with His disciples. He took the symbolism of that meal and added a deeper connection and interpretation of the symbols of the bread and wine.