Welcome to Childrens Liturgy

Sunday morning is a time when our young parishioners come together with other children, to talk about their week and to listen to the gospel message in their own unique way.

Each week we will give you the following:

 A layout of what would normally happen at Children’s Liturgy

 Some suggested questions to chat to the children about

 A Colouring In Sheet for younger children

 A puzzle for the older children

 Some songs to try with your children

Links to other resources Please use this as is best for your family Add in songs and prayers that suit your family Bringing together Children’s Liturgy in this way is new for us so if anyone has any suggestions As to how to improve this please let us know at this e-mail fredmcconell@btinternet.com

Childrens Liturgy

Find a quiet place to come together with your children. If you have a cross and a candle set these out. If possible, print out the activity sheets in advance.

Good Morning and Welcome

Explain why we have come together this morning. We are in the middle of a very difficult time and we are unable to go to school, out with Our friends or to church on Sunday. That’s why we will take a little time this morning to chat about the gospel. Maybe ask the children how they are feeling and if anything about all this change is Worrying them.

Light the candle

Tell the children that we are lighting a candle to remind us that Jesus is with us today.

Make the sign of the cross Ask your children about their week. Has it been hard. What were the good things in their week How difficult is it to not see their friends, especially as the holidays are here. Try to help them understand that everyone is finding it difficult just now. Ask them to think of ways they can interact with friends and others during this time.

Saying Sorry

Ask the children to close their eyesCan they think of a good time in the past week.. A time when they did something good. Ask them how that made them feel?Can they also think of a time in the week when they did something not so good.It doesn't feel good when we do things that are not so good.

Lets think of all the things we may have said or done this week which we know were not very nice. The times when we could have stood back and thought aboutwhat we were doing and maybe did something different.Now think forward to next week and see if we can try just that little bit harder.

Sorry Prayer

If we have made God feel sad or disappointed with us this week, Ask for his forgivenessFather in heaven, I give you my heartAnd ask for your help to make a fresh start

Forgive all the things which I have done wrong, Fill me with grace so I will be strong Amen

Sing a sorry song

(To the tune of Twinkle, twinkle)

Dear Lord Jesus hear our prayers As we bring to you our cares. Please forgive us any wrongsAs we sing our sorry song. Help us to be kind each day. In our thoughts and all we say.

Encourage them to pray for anyone in need and for anyone/anything special to them.

The Gospel Today’s gospel tells us a story about planting seeds and how important it is that they are planted well.

Let us greet the gospel.

Gospel Greeting:

• Let us now greet the Gospel by making the sign of the cross with our thumbs-

• 1. (touching our forehead first) saying “We think of God”

• 2. (now our mouth) saying “We speak of God” 3. (now our hearts) saying “We love God”

Gospel (MATHEW 13;3-23) THE PARABLE OF THE SOWER

Gospel Discussion

Some questions could include:

• Did the farmer carefully plant each seed?

No, he scattered the seed by hand so they landed in different places.

• Where were the different places that the seeds landed?

• The gospel today was a parable. A parable is a simple story that Jesus told to help us understand and teach us something important.

• What do you think the seeds in Jesus’s story might represent?

The seeds represent God’s words. Jesus brought the words of God to us through his teachings and the parable helps us to understand how God’s words, like seeds, need a good place to grow.

• What happened to the seeds when they landed in different places?

• What do you think all the different types of land where the seeds landed represent?

They are like us.

Sometimes we can be like the stony path where we hear God’s word, but don’t understand. Here the seeds were gobbled up by the hungry birds and didn’t even have a chance to grow. Like the seeds, Gods words didn’t have chance to grow and teach us.

Other seeds fell on the rocky ground, they did start to grow, but the soil was too shallow, and they shrivelled up in the hot sun. Like these seeds some people might want to hear God’s words and try hard to understand them and then might give up.

Some seeds fell where weeds were already growing. The seeds did start to grow, but the weeds started to choke the plants s and they couldn’t grow fruit. People might hear God’s message (the seeds start to grow) , but their hearts might be filled with other thoughts (like the weeds) and God’s message doesn’t grow like the fruit.

At last, some very lucky seeds fell into the farmer’s very rich and fertile soil. They grew into very strong plants that were able to bear fruit. Like these seeds, if we can listen to Gods word and understand we have a chance to grow and live our lives how he wanted us to.

• Which one should we try to be?

Like the seeds that landed on the farmer’s best soil, growing into strong plants, we can grow in our actions, thoughts and words with God’s love growing in our hearts.

• Think of ways that you can grow like the seed on the rich soil.

Listen to God Help someone Be kind Pray Plant some seeds

CLOSING PRAYER

Jesus, help us to listen to

and understand your message,

so that our hearts and lives

will be filled with God’s love.

Resources

If you are interested in doing more then please look at the following:

https://archedinburgh.org/childrens-liturgy-at-home-get-ready-for-sunday-5