THIRTY FIRST SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Jesus sees a couple of big shots in the crowd. He respects them for their offices and teachings, but it stops there. Their lives just don’t measure up to the positions they hold or the lessons they teach.

Jesus accuses them of pushing other people around and always pushing their way to the front of the line; he indicts them for puffing out their chests and always looking to be puffed up by t

Then, Jesus turns to his disciples and says: Don’t do what they do. You have one Teacher, one Father and one Master. This makes all of you brothers and sisters—none better than the other. The most important job each of you has is to help one another. Remember this; the bigger the head, the bigger the target for those you have hurt; the bigger the heart, the bigger the love from those you have helped.he flattery of others. And he convicts them of doing nothing to help people in need.

I asked the kids if there was one word to describe the big shots Jesus was complaining about in the gospel. In each session, the kids came up with the same

word—bully! I told the kids that this week’s gospel is a good example of how Jesus talks to us about real things in the real times and real places we live in. In the classrooms, we began the conversation about bullying and we hope to continue the conversation over the next few weeks.

DISMISSAL AND ABSENCE NOTIFICATION

Thanks for all of your cooperation with our new dismissal procedure for the elementaries. Things went well this week. If you need to have your child leave class early, just come to the office, and we will get your child from class for you.

Thanks also for notifying us about absences. Again, it is so important that we know whether your child will not be in class. That way we can be certain that if someone is absent she/he is not missing. It also saves us time if we don’t have to contact you at home or at the office looking for your child.

Love,

Deacon Charlie

THIRTIETH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Two commandments, says Jesus, and you can’t have one without the other because both have to go together--love God and love your neighbor

KidsRelig took a trip this week down the Via Pastrina to our own little bakery shop. There were all the ingredients for baking a cake, some dry and some liquid. Each was good stuff, but we discovered that if we decided to bake one first and then the other, all we would get is something like sawdust and curdled milk. We couldn’t have one without the other because both have to go together. And so we put it all together, and out popped a cake. It seems that’s just the way it is; good things have to go together.

I told the kids that our cake wasn’t big enough for everybody. So, in each session, we put the teachers’ names in a hat and drew out the class that won the cake. But before we did, I asked who wanted the cake. Everyone! Why? Because it tastes good. How do you know? We’ve had it before. And when was that first taste of cake? When we were given a piece by our moms or dads.

Love God and love your neighbor—good things that have to go together. And although called commands, they are really an attitude of gratitude. We all loved our KidsRelig cake because someone had first made a gift of cake to us and we learned to appreciate the taste.

We are all gifted with love. If we live in an attitude of gratitude, then we get a taste for love, and what we have received becomes what we give. And that’s a command performance.

BUS BEHAVIOR

Please talk to your kids about bus behavior and the demands of safety. Noise and pushing and shoving put everyone in jeopardy.

Love,

Deacon Charlie

TWENTY NINTH SUNDAY IN ORDINARY TIME

Stump the chumps!

That’s the game we played to get started this week. A few trick questions like,

“How many apples does it take to fill an empty box?”

“One, because once you put one apple in the box it’s not empty anymore.”

More than once, the trick was discovered and this trickster was foiled. And that’s exactly what happens in this week’s gospel. The tricksters fail to trick Jesus with their trick question. Because they do not love him, they try to get him to give the answer they want, which they know will get Jesus in trouble. But Jesus gives his own answer, foils the tricksters’ plot and saves himself from trouble—at least for now.

The kids heard that the story of the gospel is not so much about the trick, as it is about the tricksters. They did not love Jesus.. And that’s where the trickery begins. They ask, not looking for Jesus’ answer, but for their own—to end their trickery by making an end of Jesus.

And the lesson for the kids? We must begin by loving Jesus. And if we really love him, then whenever we ask Jesus a question, it won’t be to get the answer we want, but the answer Jesus gives. And that’s how we can all save ourselves from trouble.

KidsRelig Calendar

It’s on the webpage at www.sjsmrcc.com. Click on the Religious Education tab at the left of the homepage. On the Religious Education page, click on the Calendar link on the right. Scroll through the months of our entire year. It’s all there, including that First Communion date of May 12.

Love,

Deacon Charlie

FIRST DAYS OF KIDSRELIG

First Days! The sign above the church doors read:

“I have called you by name. I love you, and you are mine.”

Words spoken by God through the prophet Isaiah and put to music in the hymn You Are Mine, which we sang together once we got into church.

I told the kids that their names had very much been on my mind. As I stood there with a borrowed fedora hat on my head, I told them how I had read their names putting away last year’s books and file folders and archiving last year’s digital files. How their names popped up on my computer screen all summer as registration came streaming in. How their names became like little puzzle pieces as I assigned them to classes and put together that big puzzle, called KidsRelig.

Names on my mind! And to prove it, I pulled off that fedora hat and out came tumbling hundreds of pieces of paper with the kids’ names on them.

“Until now,” I asked, “did you know I had all your names on my mind?”

“Not really,” they answered.

“So what difference does it make if you didn’t know I was thinking about you, worrying about you, wondering about you?”

What difference does it make? That’s this year’s question in KidsRelig. God has called each of us by name—thinking about us, worrying about us, wondering about us. And yet, most of the time, we hardly know it. So, what difference does it make?

The question will be asked in each grade:

• 1st—meeting God and learning to pray
• 2nd—preparing for 1^st Penance & Communion
• 3^rd—learning about our call to faith
• 4^th—studying the Commandments & Beatitudes
• 5^th—learning about the Sacraments
• 6^th—The Old Testament
• 7^th—The New Testament
• 8^th—The Church & Church History

Love,

Deacon Charlie