LOVING OTHERS
After hearing stories of how Jesus showed love to others, we leave Mass and try to show God’s love to everyone we meet. It is easy to show love to the people who are nice to us, but it is very hard to be nice to the people who we find hard to love. This is exactly what Jesus asks us to do!
LOOKING AFTER GOD’S CREATION
God has made so many beautiful things for us that we need to make sure we look after them. Just as God wants us to look after the people He created, He wants us to look after the animals, plants and other things that He made for us.
CARING FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE IN NEED
Jesus taught us to care for others who have less than we do. We can do this through prayer and also through helping to raise money through Catholic initiatives such as Project Compassion.
GO AND ANNOUNCE THE GOSPEL OF THE LORD
At the end of each celebration of the Mass the Priest sends us out into the world to take what we have learned through the readings and prayers and live like Jesus and show God’s love to people in our daily lives.
ALWAYS DOING YOUR BEST
Even when it was really hard, Jesus always did his best to do what he knew God wanted. He often prayed to God to give him the strength he needed to do what was right.
HELPING SOMEONE
Through his life, Jesus was always aware of people who needed his help. We too, need to always be ready to help others.
SHARING WITH OTHERS
Another way of showing God’s love to others is by sharing. There were many times when Jesus shared with others.
SHOWING KINDNESS
We can show kindness to other people, especially people who others are not kind to.
For Reflection and Discussion
1
Choose one of the concepts and have it for your focus for one week. In groups or as a class, brainstorm how you can live in this way. You could put each idea on a paper leaf and stick it on the wall to create a paper tree.
2
Choose 10 pictures of different people behaving as Jesus wants us to and sort them based on the concepts described above.
FOR REFLECTION
- There are many ways we can show God’s love to people in our lives. Can you name some?
- Think about the people you know who are hard to love. How can you show them love?
- Can you think of someone in your life that needs your help? They might need to be cheered up or they might be having trouble with their school work.
- Remember when Jesus fed the people who had come to hear him teach with some loaves and fishes? How can you be like Jesus and share with others?
- How can you show kindness to the people in your life?
- When has it been hard for you to do as God wants? When have you prayed to God to help you to do your best?
- How do you help to look after God’s creation?
- Can you continue what Jesus taught us and pray for people who have less than you do?
- Can you think of any other ways that you can ‘Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord’?