Around the Classes in RE

The children are doing some amazing work in Religion lessons in their classrooms. This week I would like to share some of the wonderful work children have undertaken in each class this term.

Kinder/Year 1

In K/1 the children have been looking at the Church in religion. After listening and discussing a story from the bible, they created images of sheep to symbolise God is our Shepherd and we are his sheep.

Year 2/3 

Year 4 

In Year 4 the children have been learning about the Trinity. Their understandings have involved looking at how the Trinity is symbolised and connected to our Faith. The unity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is considered to be one of the central Christian affirmations about God.

Year 5/6 

In Year 5/6 the children have been learning about the many ways in which faith is lived out by believers, past and present, to shape a socially just world. They have also been investigating the concept of ‘just leadership’ in the light of Catholic social teaching and Jesus ‘New Law.

Readings this Weekend - Twenty-Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time A

GOSPEL:  Matthew 20:1-16
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%2020%3A1-16&version=NIV

Parable of the workers in the vineyard.

Living the Gospel

The parable of the workers in the vineyard is about several workers who are hired by a man who owns a vineyard, over different periods of time. At the end of the day the people who are hired first expect to be paid more than those hired later. But, the man pays all of the workers equally.

This parable is significant because it is a representation of the fact that you can become a good person at any point in your life and you will receive equal treatment in heaven as someone who has turned their life around very recently. The workers, who were picked up earlier and were saved from unemployment, represent those who have been good for their entire life. Those picked up later; represent the ones who have turned it around later in life. No matter, who you are as long as you die as a good person who did good deeds than you will be accepted into the kingdom of heaven and be given equal treatment.

As a recurring theme in the parables, we are taught through this story that God cares that we are a good person when we die as opposed to throughout our entire life. God appreciates when we admit that we’ve made mistakes and as soon as we do that, he will accept us in heaven. When someone decides to change their ways, which is enough for God as he is a forgiving person.

This story, then, is a wonderful commentary on how generous God is. What we see in ourselves and others is only a glimpse of what God is like. God is so much more: more loving; more forgiving; more compassionate; and more just.

And because God is so much greater than anything we could ask or imagine, we are constantly surprised at how he turns our expectations, our fears and predictions upside down. We constantly look for God in the big and spectacular and he comes to us poor, naked, sick, in prison and hungry. God speaks through the most surprising people at the most surprising times.

This parable is not exactly about an effective workplace or school policy. It’s really about the way God forgives. If we have a small sin, we are forgiven. If we have a really huge sin, we are forgiven just as much.

Thought of the Week

Wishing everybody a wonderful weekend.

God bless,

Donna Wade