Children's Liturgy, Sunday October 4th 2009.

The FIFTH WEEK of CREATIONTIDE:

The Feast of SAINT FRANCIS.

 

Today, all the Creationtide baskets were placed round the altar. Here are some of them:
We wanted to remind everyone about the things we had asked them to think over during all the weeks of Creationtide. Because today is the Feast of Saint Francis, who loved animals, we thought we would tell a story in a way he would have liked. It is based on a Kenyan Myth.

During the liturgy, the children practised acting out the story, whilst three of them were the narrators. Derry became a wonderful elephant; Leonard a dramatic Rain God; Alex a noisy rooster; Grace a trembling tortoise; Eve a fierce lion and so on. The youngest children carried their soft toy animals, whilst others were a pond, a cloud, trees and greenery.
When we had practised the mime, we talked about how it helped us to think about the way we treat the world as individual people, as groups and as countries.
As we processed back into church, we carried the Saint Francis cross we made last year. It is made out of branches and decorated with birds which we made, also.

We mimed the play and told the story. Here is our prayer which came at the end:
Here are our animals round the pond:
and the baskets round the altar:
Next, we asked Father John to read out the nominations for the Greenest Person in the Parish. The nominations were as follows, in no particular order:

Bob Cave, who cannot remember the last time he had a bath.....because he takes showers;
Paula Taylor, who cleans using natural materials;
Gail Gray, who has two compost heaps;
Margaret Grieff, who has a solar panel;
Rita, who cooks all her vegetables in one pan.

And the winner was.....Paula Taylor! She was asked to come forward for her prize.
Fr. John told her that all the parish ideas will soon be appearing on the children's website under a new section called:
"PAULA'S PARISH POLISH".

Later, she wrote us a letter:
Dear Children and Leaders,
What a wonderful surprise to win the Creationtide survey. I was absolutely shocked. The bag and contents are all so lovely and very useful. I shall look forward to using them all and cooking the lovely marrow. I have hung the little bag made out of newspaper in my kitchen, to remind me to stay "GREEN" and when any visitors remark on it I shall be able to tell them all about St. Joseph's liturgy. Look forward to the website feature "Paula's Parish Polish". I will be very happy to provide more tips! Thank you all.
Love,
Paula Taylor XXX

(Paula normally goes to mass on a Saturday evening, but we had hinted to her friend, Olive, that her presence was needed on Sunday morning. Olive and Olga conspired to get her there ...at some risk to everyone's patience..."Keep your hair on!" she had said at one point. Well done to all three!
 
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