Religious Education News 

Dear Parents and Guardians

Hope you are all well. 

I trust you have read the article about our FIJI Stationery Drive for the Bua Province Community. Thank you to those families who have already contributed. Your generous donations will really make a difference to these communities. To the families who have not yet contributed, this is the last week to donate items. 

This Week’s Gospel 

Luke 18: 9 - 14

Jesus spoke the following parable to some people who prided themselves on being virtuous and despised everyone else, ‘Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood there and said this prayer to himself, “I thank you, God, that I am not grasping, unjust, adulterous like the rest of mankind, and particularly that I am not like this tax collector here. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes on all I get.” The tax collector stood some distance away, not daring even to raise his eyes to heaven; but he beat his breast and said, “God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” This man, I tell you, went home again at rights with God; the other did not. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the man who humbles himself will be exalted.’

Reflection by Greg Sunter Catholic Education, Brisbane

It is the tax collector, whose simple prayer is ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner,’ who goes home at right with God. In this simple prayer, the tax collector recognises that he is not in the right relationship with God and asks for God’s mercy. This is a hallmark of the lowly and outcast in the Gospel of Luke: they recognise their need and seek God’s forgiveness and mercy. The model of faith that is depicted over and over again in this Gospel, is the one who recognises their need for God’s loving mercy and asks for it. We are repeatedly reminded that God’s mercy, forgiveness and abundant love are constantly out-flowing towards us and all we have to do is humbly desire and welcome them.

God Bless

Carmel Vozzo

Education in Faith Leader