RE

TERM 4
Our focus this term is the Rosary for the month of october. In week 3 the juniors will lead the rosary.

All are welcome to attend. Thursday at 8:45 in the school hall.

How To Pray The Rosary - The purpose of the Rosary is to help keep in memory certain principal events or mysteries in the history of our salvation, and to thank and praise God for them. There are twenty mysteries reflected upon in the Rosary, and these are divided into the five JOYFUL MYSTERIES, the five LUMINOUS MYSTERIES, the five SORROWFUL MYSTERIES, and the five GLORIOUS MYSTERIES. You may also wish to pray the rosary online, with others or by yourself. As suggested by the Pope St. John Paul the Great, the Joyful mysteries are said on Monday and Saturday, the Luminous on Thursday, the Sorrowful on Tuesday and Friday, and the Glorious on Wednesday and Sunday (with this exception: Sundays of Christmas season - The Joyful; Sundays of Lent - Sorrowful).

The rosary is a devotion in honor of the Virgin Mary. It consists of a set number of specific prayers. First are the introductory prayers: one Apostles’ Creed, one Our Father,  three Hail Mary’s , one Glory Be. 

Also Monday, week 4 at 10:00 in the church, we are having our All Saints and All Souls Liturgy. This is in remembrance of all those we love and have died.
Again all welcome to attend. 





TERM 3
This term in RE we are looking at:

Gathering, celebrating, and recognising God's presence.

Our local parish as it gathers, celebrates, lives and prays as a community, is a part of the Church which Jesus founded and is a sign which brings about God’s presence and love in the world.  Belonging to a parish is both a privilege and a responsibility.     

    

1. Recognise that their parish as it gathers, celebrates, lives and prays as a community, is a part of the Church which Jesus founded and that it is a sign which brings about God’s presence and love in the world.

Key Concept: The local parish

and the way it gathers, celebrates,  lives and prays is a sign of God’s love and presence

 

2. Identify the privileges and responsibilities of belonging to a family or whanau as the domestic church, and to a school and a parish.

Key Concept: Belonging to a parish is a privilege and a responsibility

We celebrate Mary Mackillop Mass in week 3...you are welcome to join us!






RESPECT is our focus at present in  Religious Education. 
We are learning about respect for .....people, animals, ourselves, the environment and property.
Our Golden Rules are very much all about respect in these areas.

Have your child list the Golden Rules!!!

Talk to your child about the many ways they show respect in these areas.
Respect enhances and promotes everyones wellbeing and nurture of our environment.


Check out these short clips, an explanation of what respect may look like.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DmqRNu_Wzbc


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1ug9VtE8Fw

We are moving into pentecost in a few weeks, here is some information about Pentecost.

                        PENTECOST

1.                    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5tr4pqWIo4
2. This day became especially significant for Christians because, seven weeks after the resurrection of Jesus, during the Jewish celebration of Shavuot/Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon his first followers, thus empowering them for their mission and gathering them together as a church.

1. The Presence and Power of the Spirit

A stained glass window from the Meaux Cathedral in Meaux, France. Public domain.

On the day of Pentecost, seven weeks after the resurrection of Jesus, the Holy Spirit was poured out upon those followers of Jesus who had gathered together in Jerusalem. What happened on the first Pentecost continues to happen to Christians throughout the world today, though usually not in such a dramatic fashion. We rarely get a heavenly wind and tongues of fire anymore. Nevertheless, God pours out the Spirit upon all who put their faith in Jesus Christ and become his disciples (see Romans 8:1-11).

Christians are meant to live in the presence and power of the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit helps us to confess Jesus as Lord (1 Cor 12:3), empowers us to serve God with supernatural power (1 Cor 12:4-11), binds us together as the body of Christ (1 Cor 12:12-13), helps us to pray (Rom 8:26), and even intercedes for us with God the Father (Rom 8:27). The Spirit guides us (Gal 5:25), helping us to live like Jesus (Gal 5:22-23).

Personal Implications: Pentecost presents us with an opportunity to consider how we are living each day. Are we relying on the power of God’s Spirit? Are we an open channel for the Spirit’s gifts? Are we attentive to the guidance of the Holy Spirit? Is the fruit of the Spirit (love, joy, peace, etc.) growing in our lives? Most Christians I know, including me, live in the presence and power of the Spirit, but only to an extent. We are limited by our fear, our sin, our low expectations, not to mention our tendency to be distracted from God’s work in us. Pentecost offers a chance to confess our failure to live by the Spirit and to ask the Lord to fill us afresh with his power.

 Timetable for Easter 

Holy Thursday: 7pm St Mary’s

Good Friday Stations of the Cross 10am - St Mary’s Good Friday: 3pm St Mary’s 3pm St Michael’s Easter Vigil Mass: 7pm St Mary’s  Easter Sunday Mass: 8am St Michael’s, 10.00am St Mary’s 5.00pm St Mary’s Charism The class will be covering this topic in RE. Charism is a gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church, communicated through a particular person who gathers disciples around him or her and with whom he or she translates a bold vision into action. Charism is a living passion for whatever dimension of the life of Christ is needed now -faith, obedience, compassion, thoughtfulness, hope, contentment, determination... It is the burning desire in the heart of the founder/foundress that was alive at one period of history, living on in us, in another day and age. It is ever evolving.... it is where the reign of God is needed most. It develops from age to age and dies from age to age ... and then grows up in a new way.

 It is the beginning of Lent this week, I have given the times of the Liturgies in the weekly notices.
Please talk to your children about what Lent means and how they can make a promise for the 6 weeks. I like to suggest to them that they don't fight with their siblings, help with the dishes each night, make their beds in the mornings etc

Information about Lent

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the Season of Lent. It is a season of penance, reflection, and fasting which prepares us for Christ's Resurrection on Easter Sunday, through which we attain redemption.

Why we receive the ashes

Following the example of the Nine vites, who did penance in sackcloth and ashes, our foreheads are marked with ashes to humble our hearts and reminds us that life passes away on Earth. We remember this when we are told

"Remember, Man is dust, and unto dust you shall return."

Ashes are a symbol of penance made sacramental by the blessing of the Church, and they help us develop a spirit of humility and sacrifice.

The distribution of ashes comes from a ceremony of ages past. Christians who had committed grave faults performed public penance. On Ash Wednesday, the Bishop blessed the hair shirts which they were to wear during the forty days of penance, and sprinkled over them ashes made from the palms from the previous year. Then, while the faithful recited the Seven Penitential Psalms, the penitents were turned out of the church because of their sins -- just as Adam, the first man, was turned out of Paradise because of his disobedience. The penitents did not enter the church again until Maundy Thursday after having won reconciliation by the toil of forty days' penance and sacramental absolution. Later, all Christians, whether public or secret penitents, came to receive ashes out of devotion. In earlier times, the distribution of ashes was followed by a penitential procession.

The Ashes

The ashes are made from the blessed palms used in the Palm Sunday celebration of the previous year. The ashes are christened with Holy Water and are scented by exposure to incense. While the ashes symbolize penance and contrition, they are also a reminder that God is gracious and merciful to those who call on Him with repentant hearts. His Divine mercy is of utmost importance during the season of Lent, and the Church calls on us to seek that mercy during the entire Lenten season with reflection, prayer and penance.