Holy Trinity Sunday 11th June 2006

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HOLY TRINITY SUNDAY

Congratulations to the four boys in our parish who made their First Holy Communion today.( We could tell you their names if their parents give permission.) We thought about Enya, who is usually with us, but was making her First Holy Communion in another parish, and we wish her family well.

Today we remember we can think of God in several ways, as the Creator, the Son- Jesus, and as the Holy Spirit. God made us, God loves us, God guides us. When we think of our path through life, we could remember God made us and set us free to walk where we chose. As Jesus, God walks with us, caring about what happens to us. As the Holy Spirit, God helps us choose how we behave.









Jesus, you want us to get to know you. Help us to grow in love and listen to your words, so that we can become your friend. Amen.

Children's liturgy Sunday June 18th 2006

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Fathers Day

In our liturgy today, we have talked about how Jesus said the Kingdom of God is like a mustard seed. It is a small seed, but once it is sown, it grows into the biggest shrub of all, and birds can rest in its branches.

Jesus, you used the things around us to try to teach us about God.
Thank you for making things easier to understand.
When we look at the things around us, help us to see what they can tell us about God.
Amen

Children's Liturgy, Sunday June 25th

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Jesus said, " I will not let you down. Do not be afraid."

We have drawn pictures of things that frighten us. We will remember to pray to Jesus whenever we get frightened.

Children's Liturgy Sunday July 2nd 2006

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Congratulations to all the children who made their First Holy Communion last week and yesterday.

Today, we have been acting out the story of how Jairus and the sick woman asked Jesus for help.
We thought about how worried Jairus would be as his daughter was ill, but how hard it would be to push through the crowd of ordinary people , because Jairus was an important man.
One of our tallest boys wore a special cloak in order to pretend he was Jesus, and lots of children crowded round him. Enya pretended to be Jairus. When Jesus arrived at Jairus' house, the people thought his little girl was already dead, but Jesus said she was only sleeping and told her to get up.
Enya wonderfully expressed Jairus' gratitude that his daughter was alive.

It was difficult, too, for the woman with the embarrassing illness, because she would have been thought of as unclean. People would not want to be near her. She was so frightened, she just wanted to touch Jesus's cloak, without being seen. She believed this would be enough to heal her.
Both she and Jairus had great faith that Jesus could help.

We have taken turns to touch the cloak, pretending it belonged to Jesus. We closed our eyes and asked for help for somebody.Then we chose a piece of material with a colour or pattern which says how we felt when we touched the cloak and thought of the person.
We pinned the material on to the cloak; we pinned our trust and hope to Jesus that he would help the person.
We said the 'DIVINE MERCY' prayer;

'Jesus, I trust in You!'

Children's Liturgy Sunday July 9th 2006

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	Congratulations to all the children who made their First Holy Communion today.

We have been talking about the little voice inside us which tells us what is right and what is wrong. We call it our conscience. We thought about what we would do if someone was trying to persuade us to do something we felt was wrong.It can be difficult to decide if lots of our friends try to make us behave in a way we know is not right.It takes courage to stand out against the crowd. We need God's help to stay firm.

Children's Liturgy Sunday July 16th 2006

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Over the summer, we are making a mosaic picture out of beads, buttons and things we have found on holiday. This is to remind us that God is everywhere. We will not tell you about our picture, so that it will be a surprise, but today, all that we did was yellow.

We heard in the Gospel story how Jesus told the disciples to try to tell people about God, but if they did not want to hear, they were to leave that place as if they were shaking the dust from their sandals.

Out of the story, we picked the colour yellow.
Painters like Van Gogh used yellow to stand for life and energy.
We practised a dance for our return into church. Our dance was a mixture of energy and foot-shaking, reminding us of the words of Jesus. One of us wore a shirt with a sunflower pattern, to make everyone think of Van Gogh's most famous painting of sunflowers.
Dancing and painting can be prayers as much as words. The music we heard, played mostly by bright-sounding brass instruments, was 'The Royal Fireworks', by George F Handel.

Children's Liturgy Sunday July 23rd 2006

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Today, we have been adding the brown parts to our mosaic picture, to remind us of the boat in the Gospel story. Brown might seem a boring, rather dull colour at first, but when we think about it, we realise it is the colour of the earth, in which everything grows. It is also the colour of the cross on which Jesus died because he loved us.

In our Gospel story, Jesus told the disciples to go off on their own, to have some rest and peace and quiet. So many people followed that they sailed away in a boat, to try to be by themselves. Some of us have written our worries on our boat. We give them to God.

A painter called Mark Rothko made some huge pictures which at first seem blank, brown and without interest. But people sit for hours to look at them. If they take the time, they find out things about themselves and their lives and feelings, in the changes and shades of the paint on the canvas.

As we walked back into church, we carried our own boat. It swayed to some sad music by Ravel.

Children's Liturgy Sunday July 30th 2006

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Today we use the colour blue. In the Gospel, the disciples cross the sea before Jesus gives food to the great crowd of people. He gives them what they need.

We have thought about the gifts God gives to us, what we are good at, and how we can give to the people around us. We have drawn or written about our gifts and put them in a present for God.

We have added the blue parts to our mosaic picture.
Each button or bead holds a memory of the person who wore them. All the beads together make the big picture. Everyone in the world matters- we do not see the picture without each other.

Today we celebrate the opening of the new Watermead Centre, where we can share God's gifts.. (We hope you like the Christening balloons!) Just as the blue sea links all the continents of the world, so we are all bound together when we share gifts to give glory to God.
The painter, Kandinsky, was the first to see music and colour could be used together. He said Art made the soul purer. We can think of our soul as our direct line to God.

the music played as the children returned to the main church was ' La Mer' (The Sea) by Charles Trenet.The song has been called a watercolour in words and music.

Children's Liturgy Sunday August 6th 2006

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THE TRANSFIGURATION

Today our special colour is white.
We have heard the Gospel story of how Jesus took Peter, James and John up a high mountain. Suddenly, he looked different. His clothes shone white. God said Jesus was his son and people should listen to him.
To remember this, we have added the white part to our mosaic picture.

We have thought about how we can see other people in a new light. We have made figures which show how we suddenly notice special things about our friends when we thought we knew them.

The music playing as we returned to the main church was 'Finlandia'. This music is used as a hymn tune sometimes. After mass, we found out it was the favourite tune of Ray, whose funeral it is this week. Ray served on the altar at St. Joseph's for many years; he is one of the first people some of us remember seeing at church. We remember him specially, and his wife, Mary, who rings our bell. We can see her picture in our 'Baffling Bell' story on our website.

Children's Liturgy Sunday August 13th 2006

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Today our colour is orange, to remind us of the bread Jesus gives us. We have added the orange part to our mosaic picture.

Jesus says 'I am the bread which comes from Heaven.'
Bread is the most basic food; nearly everyone eats it every day.
Jesus is saying he is sent by God, and through his love, he can take everyone who wants to go, to God in Heaven.
Jesus becomes our bread because we eat his body when we receive Communion.
He also shows us how to live every day. If we copy Jesus, we are fed by God's love, and we are feeding other people.

We have looked at the ingredients used to make bread, and made them into a recipe for life:
FLOUR can be the everyday work we do;
SUGAR can be the fun of surprises;
SALT can be the bitter tears we sometimes shed;
WATER can be the love which binds us together;
YEAST can be the presence of Jesus, who raises us all to life with God.

We have drawn or written about the way we find all of these ingredients in our lives.We have made our paper into slices of toast and put them into our giant toast rack. As we carried the toast rack and a loaf of bread into church, we heard the music used for an advertisement- Dvorak's 'New World' symphony- which introduces a certain brand of bread.
Of course, there are many more brands of delicious bread.....but Jesus is the BEST.

Children's liturgy Sunday August 20th 2006

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We pray for World Peace.
Today our colour is red. Jesus tells people to drink his blood. He means he wants everyone to share in his life when he is risen. When we drink the wine at Communion,we share the life which lasts forever. We hope this will help us change to be nearer to God.
Change is possible when we know we are loved first just as we are. God does love us already.

Jesus gave his life, his blood, because he loves us. But in many parts of the world, we shed each other's blood in fighting. We also hurt each other day by day, in small and great ways.
We have put red drops on our map of the world, to show some of the places where people are hurting. We include our own hearts.

We held our own PEACE CONFERENCE.
We asked if we all knew each other, by name, which schools we attended;
if we wanted to do this;
why it helped;
why we sometimes might not want to do this.
We asked if we wanted to get to know more about each other.
We found it helped when we might be frightened of someone, because they were bigger- then we would know the person was ok. really. We found someone was sad at school, because they felt they had no friends. Some other children suggested ways to try to get help and make friends.
Then we thought about whether people in different countries wanted to know about each other. We thought the people in poor countries, or where people were dying , might not have enough energy left to make links elsewhere.
We thought about whether people with different beliefs wanted to know about each other. We decided it would make it easier to live together if we understood some of the beliefs held by other people. This would stop us being frightened of them.

One of our senior girls told the congregation back in church about our thoughts.She did a brilliant summing up. Well done everybody for an excellent discussion.

The music as we walked back into church was Michael Jackson's 'Heal the World'.

Children's Liturgy Sunday August 27th 2006

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Today we have chosen the colour green to stand for the life which lasts forever- eternal life.
Jesus says it is the spirit which gives life, not the flesh. He is telling us that life comes from God, and by listening to God, we find a way to live always, even though our bodies die.

Some people did not want to stay with Jesus when they found out he would die.
Peter began to understand that by dying, Jesus would make it possible for everyone to reach a new kind of life with God.
He had come to tell people of God's love.

We have asked ourselves which parts of our lives really matter. Which parts would we like to keep forever? Which parts of our lives are full of love?
We would like to take these parts to God, and we have put them on our leaves.

Children's Liturgy Sunday September 3rd 2006

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We have finished our Summer project mosaic and you will be able to see it next week.

Today our colours are grey and purple; grey for the outside and purple for the inside.

The Pharisees said Jesus was wrong not to follow all the rules that had been added to their religion over the years. For example, they criticised the disciples for not washing their hands in a special way before they ate.
Jesus answered by telling the disciples that what mattered to God was what was going on inside their hearts. His law was about being loving; people were unclean only if they were unkind.

Grey reminds us of rules and things of importance outside our hearts. Purple reminds us of things that matter within our hearts.

We played a game to find different ways of looking at things in our lives. First we thought of what matters in an outside, grey way.
Next , we had to find an answer which would be about having a loving heart instead.
There was a time limit to think of things, and it was girls against boys.
We will not say who won!
Does it matter?
Is that an inside or an outside question?
Did the competition make us think harder?
Is competition an outside or an inside thing?

We wrote our best ideas on an 'Inside/ Outside' certificate.

Here are some of our best purple bits:
Play with someone who is lonely;
Smile at someone;
Be kind, even when the teacher isn't looking;
Share with people who have less;
Let a younger child win sometimes;
Think of God, wherever you happen to be;
Take turns, however much you want to be doing something.

Children's Liturgy Sunday September 10th 2006

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Today we presented our mosaic Summer Project picture in church.

We walked in accompanied by the song ,"I Can Sing a Rainbow".

Next we performed a RAP to tell everyone about how each colour in the picture stood for a Gospel story. We used home-made shakers to bring out our rhythm.

RAINBOW RAP!
YELLOW is for the dust which shook from Jesus' shoes;
GREEN is for the New Life that we never, ever lose;
BROWN the boat that Jesus sailed before he fed the crowd;
WHITE when he was transformed on high-
'OOOH!' said Peter and James aloud....
.................(And John!)
ORANGE is for the Bread of Life; PINK and RED the wine;
BLUE, the Love which joins God's life
Together with your and mine;
GREY was for the outside rules which do not mean a thing;
PURPLE, the love within our hearts when we're copying
Christ the King!

Together we made a picture out of buttons, beads and glue;
To everyone who gave us things, we say a BIG THANK YOU!

Our final hymn was 'All things Bright and Beautiful', which was the first title someone suggested for our mosaic picture, all those weeks ago, when we started to make it.
All the buttons and beads are memories of people, and all the shells, pebbles and toys are memories of places and holidays.

Dear God,
Thank you for a wonderful Summer.
Amen.

Children's Liturgy Sunday September 17th 2006

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During the liturgy today, we listened to the Gospel. We know that Jesus was a perfect man, but it was not always easy for him. He knew the kind of death he was going to suffer. He had to face a cruel death even though he did not deserve it, because this was the only way he could save all the people who really had done wrong.
Peter was his friend, but he began to find it very hard when he realised that, although Jesus was sent by God, he would still die.

We have drawn pictures or written lists to show what God is like and what ordinary people are like.

Here are some of our words to describe GOD:
Helpful; kind;wonderful; enchanting; beautiful;nice; lovely; happy; hard-working; fantastic; friendly; religious; likes Christmas; knows everything; almighty; adventurous; loveable; sent first Christian on earth; magical; a miracle; makes people happy; scared of nothing; special; great; wise; handsome; good mannered; respectful; caring.

Here are some of our words to describe what PEOPLE are like:
Sometimes frightened; half-and -half; naughty and good; shy; kind; funny; sometimes helpful; some can't swim- but I can!; sporty; sometimes nice; sometimes helpful; happy; scared; beautiful; great; lovely; nice; clever; adorable; loving; brilliant; angels; generous.

Children's Liturgy Sunday September 24th 2006

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Today in our liturgy, we have talked about not worrying about being important.
Those who seem important in the world may be much less important in God's eyes than people who are modest.
God isn't fooled by silly things- he wants us to understand what matters most.
Showing love is important. We made letters which tell of ways in which we can show love. We put our individual letters all together on to cards which spell out what we imagine is God's favourite word- LOVE!