7th Sunday in Ordinary Time Cycle C
Welcome children to their worship space.
Ask them to get their carpet squares and sit down in a circle.
Introduce yourself and your helpers.
Introduce
Explain: Today is the Seventh Sunday of Ordinary Time.
Ask: Does anyone remember what we learned last Sunday? That God wants us to be happy! <show last week’s symbol and/or poster to help them remember>
Introduce symbol
Say: Today’s readings and all the readings until Lent are about when Jesus started teaching people about love, when He began His public ministry. Today’s symbol <hold up the symbol> is a dove. What might the dove represent? <discuss - peace> Doves usually represent peace, or forgiveness.
Explain: Let’s look at the poster. What does it say? <The Lord is kind and merciful.> This is our Responsorial Psalm for today. The Responsorial Psalms also come from Scripture, from the Book of Psalms in the Old Testament.
Ask: What does ‘kind and merciful’ mean? < discuss > To be merciful is to be nicer than someone deserves for you to be – kind of like when you do something wrong and your parents don’t punish you too hard. You could say that they were merciful in that situation. We pray that God will be merciful to us.
Introduce readings
Say: Let’s light the candle to show that we are ready to listen to the Words of God.
Say: Today’s first reading is from the Old Testament, the book of Samuel. (1 Sam 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23) Do you remember the story of David? The shepherd David who became king? Today’s reading tells about something that happened between David and the king of the Israelites, the kind God chose for the Israelites. The king’s name was Saul – not the same Saul who became the Apostle Paul. David did not like Saul. Listen to the story and hear how David acted like a servant of God.
Have the reader read the first reading.
Ask: What did you hear that surprised you? Do you think it was easy for David to spare Saul’s life? David’s action was merciful and produced peace for the people.
Say: Now it is time for the Responsorial Psalm. Your part is to say:
The Lord is kind and merciful.
Say: Today’s Gospel reading comes from the book of Luke. (Lk 6:27-37) In today’s Gospel, Luke tells us about some of the things Jesus had to say about love and kindness. Jesus talks about forgiveness and behaving in such a way that produces peace. See if you can hear anything that sounds a little bit strange to you.
Say: Now we will stand to get ready to hear the Gospel
Alleluia! Alleluia!
Have the reader begin: “a reading from the holy gospel.....”
Read: Read the Gospel
Ask: Did you hear anything surprising? How about “love your enemies”? Does that make any sense to you? Why would Jesus say anything like that?
God tells us to treat others the way we would like to be treated. So if we are kind to others, He will be kind to us. If we forgive others, He will forgive us.
Hand out the Offertory symbols to color and cut out. (The symbol is a dove) Hand out the smaller poster symbols. Have the children write their names on the small doves. Collect the small doves and glue them to the poster.
Explain: Color this symbol of the dove and bring it to the altar (don’t forget to put your name on the back!) to show that we have learned about the way God tells each of us to behave.
Say: If you can, write one thing you need to work on a little harder to act the way God wants you to act.
If there is time, ask questions and go over the lessons one more time to help the children remember.
While they are coloring, explain how we will go back into the church, up to the front with our gifts and rejoin our families.
Give out stickers and hand-outs as they leave.
Parent Letter
7th Sunday of Ordinary Time C
Today your children heard a simplified version of the same readings that you heard: 1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9,12-13 and Luke 6:27-37
To reinforce at home:
Love, peace and forgiveness! We are called to always show love, even when we do not understand. We are called to forgive, even to those who may not deserve it.
Today’s readings remind us that we need to love and forgive as much as (or maybe MORE than) the people that we show that love and forgiveness to!
Activities to do at home:
*Forgive someone. Do you have a grudge or heartache that needs to be resolved? Talk with your child about forgiveness… how hard it can be.. but how much peace it brings in your life. This is what Jesus wants for us.
*Think of one thing you can do together this week to act out of love toward someone else.
Thank you for sharing your children!
No comments:
Post a Comment