Children’s Liturgy

Children’s Liturgy of the Word

The children of the parish are invited to celebrate the Liturgy of The Word with their own catechists at Sunday morning Mass. Offering the children a Liturgy of The Word, which is suited to their age and adapted to their stage of development, can become one of the key ways of helping them grow in faith.

The children gather in the church and begin the Mass with everyone else. After the Sign of the Cross and the Greeting, the Priest calls the children forward, presents them with a Bible and the adult leaders process with the children to the “upper room”. The children come back into church at the offertory, where they display what they have done and then some of them take part in the Offertory procession.
This is not a closed group – all primary school age children in the church are welcome and encouraged to attend.

Fourth Sunday of Lent (Year C)

Gospel reflection: What do you remember about the gospel reading that we heard today?  

Jesus was spending time with people who were not very popular in his time. He spent time with tax collectors, and those who others thought were doing wrong. Jesus sat down and ate with them.  Some other people complained and so Jesus told them a story. Why do you think he told them this story? Jesus often told stories to help people better know and understand God, so what happened in the story he told us today? 

A man had two sons. What did the younger son do? He took his half of his father’s money and went off and spent it all.  What happened when the son had run out of money?  There was a famine – which means that many people were hungry because there wasn’t enough food. What job did the son do to try to earn some money? The son started to look after someone else’s pigs. He was so hungry that he would have liked to eat the pigs’ food, but no one would let him have it. How do you think he must have felt to know that no one was willing to share with him? 

So the son set off home to see his father – to say sorry and to say that he would work as a servant in his house. How do you think the son was feeling?  How do you feel when you know you have done something wrong? Is it always easy to say sorry?  When he was a long way off, the father saw his son and rushed out to meet him, giving him a big hug. How do you think the father felt to see his son again after all this time?  How did the son expect his father to feel? But what did the father do after the son said sorry?  

The father threw a big party! He was so happy that his son had returned to him, safe and sound. The father forgave his son for all that he had done and invited everyone to a big meal to celebrate.  The elder brother was not so pleased. Have you ever been cross with your brother or sister or a good friend?

Why do you think the elder brother was angry that his father was throwing a party? He was upset because he had done everything right, but his father had never thrown him a party. He was jealous of how much the father loved his younger brother. But what did the father say? The father reminded the elder brother that he loved him very much and that everything that he had would belong to him one day.

God loves us all. When we say sorry, God forgives us for the things that we have done wrong, just like the father in this story forgives his son. God is always happy when we come back to him. How does it feel to know that God always loves you? Jesus shared food with all different sorts of people. And the father in Jesus’ story welcomed his son back to share in the feast, even though he had not always done the right thing.  

God welcomes everyone to the feast. It doesn’t matter who we are, where we come from or what we’ve done, we all have the right to share in the food that God has given for all people.  And we have to do our best to make sure that all people can get their fair share as well.  So perhaps this week, we can do our best to say sorry for the times when we haven’t done the right thing, especially when we haven’t shared very well with others?  But let’s also make a change, let’s try to share more with others and work together so that all people are able to join in the feast of good food that God gives for us all.    

Parents, grandparents and guardians, please feel free to share today’s Gospel with your children and grandchildren alongside the activities.

Look below for fun colouring pages and puzzles