Theme - Jesus always listens to us

I can share my most wonderful and deepest thoughts with Jesus. He listens to me all the time.

When I'm sad or angry or hurt I can always talk to Jesus, my friend.

Because he is my friend, he knows if I'm happy or sad, frightened or brave. When I'm happy I want to tell him because I know he will be happy for me too. When I'm in trouble or hurt and things are going wrong for me, I ask him to help me to be brave and to face the problem. He reminds me that he wants to help me, be there for me.

My Mam and my Dad listen to me, and my friends listen to me sometimes too. My special friend Jesus is always there to listen. It's great to have a friend like Jesus who never gets tired of me.

Story - Listening with the heart

When he was born, his mother knew there was something wrong. He lay just a little too limp in her arms. The tests in the hospital confirmed it. He had a weakness of the body muscles.This also affected his vocal chords. He would never be able to speak, and all his movements would be limp and uncontrolled. His mother was devastated. But she quickly grew out of her
disappointment. Instead she developed a fierce love for her handicapped son. As the days and the months passed, she became convinced that her son was gifted. She believed that his talents were hidden because he had no voice to tell anyone what he wanted to say. She read to him, stories and more stories. He seemed to drink them all in. She knew he was enjoying it all. Then it was poetry. After poetry came music. Every kind of music.

People wondered why she was doing all this. Did he need all this education to enjoy a narrow little life in a wheelchair. ‘He needs it,' she said, ‘because he wants it. He wants the challenge. He wants to understand everything, to know everything that can be known. I listen to him. He can't speak but I can hear him. We talk together,' she said. ‘We have our own language. I can share his thoughts.' She laughed, ‘Our chemistry clicks!'

But the boy could never go to school. He couldn't speak, and writing words and sentences was an impossible problem. He had no control over the muscles in his arms or fingers. Holding and guiding a pencil was beyond him. But he did have control over the muscles of his neck and head. She strapped a pencil to his head and the first lessons in writing began. It was slow work. She sensed that he loved every minute of it. She was in tune with his feelings. Someone gave him a present of a computer. The pencil on his head tapped the electronic keys and he was writing: words, sentences, paragraphs. People who know about these things said the quality of his writing was quite exceptional for his age. When he was ten, he wrote a poem that was read out in a University class. The boy was indeed gifted. His mother was right. She had heard the call of the spirit of creativity that was imprisoned in his broken body and had worked and worked to set it free. In his darkness she heard a voice asking her to open a door into a world of words and thoughts and endless dreams. And what a struggle it was to open that door. But they swung it open together.

He is a teenager now. They are both doing the Open University Course on his computer. He helps her with assignments! There are a few doors he can open for her, too.

Prayers- Listening

1.
Dear God,

Help me to listen at Mass.

Help me to listen to the priest.

Help me to listen to your word,

because I know

that you speak with love. Amen.
....James 9 yrs.

2.

Dear God,

Help me to listen to all the beautiful sounds

in your world,

the sounds of the city,

the sounds of the countryside,

the sounds of the sea.

Thank you, God our Father,

for all the beautiful sounds

in your world. Amen

3.
Dear God,

Jesus wants us to listen to our friends.

He also wants us to listen to people

who are not our friends.

This is sometimes not easy.

Help us, God our Father. Amen

Games

1. Is this a true picture?

Discussion:
Is this little boy really holding the sun in his hands?

What would happen if you did hold the sun like this?

How does God hold the world in his hands?

How does he hold usin his hands?

Can you take interesting pictures like this with your mobile phone camera?

2. Quiz about Jesus on top of the mountain  (Can be downloaded)

3. Colour this picture of Jesus' Transfiguration

4. Craft for this week: Making a stainglass picture

Materials:
White paper
Pencils
Rubber
Paints and markers
Dinner plates or compas
Brushes
Cooking oil
Newspaper
Cellotape and scissors.

How to do it
Take a sheet of white paper, place a dinner plate upside down on the paper and pencil a circle around the plate. Remove the plate. With a compas or smaller dinner plate, pencil an inner circle about half a centimeter in from the first circle. In the centre of the inner circle, draw a large cross and in the centre of the cross draw a dove.

Fill the space between the cross and the inner circle with odd shapes to resemble the pieces of stainglass. Colour these shapes in vibrant colours with either markers or paints. It will take a few days to complete the task as each colour must dry before applying another colour next to it. When the painting is complete, outline the colours in black.

Outline the cross and the dove in black and paint the space between the outer and inner circles in black. Allow to dry.

Now, turn the picture over and, with a clean brush and a little cooking oil, paint the whole picture on the wrong side. Place the picture between sheets of newspaper to soak up the excess oil and leave overnight.

When dry, cut around the outer circle and tape the picture to a window-pane. Once you have the idea, you can use all sorts of shapes and designs for your own stainglass windows.

Easter Garden  project  - Week 2

Building our Easter Garden is on-going six week project we need to stress a particular aspect each week.
Last week we looked at the the making of the tomb.  This week the emphasis is on the people in the garden.

Making some Pipe Cleaner people

Materials:
Pipe cleaners
Table-tennis balls
Wool for hair
Glue and scissors
Pieces of coloured tissue-paper or material
The neck and arms are made from one pipe cleaner. Bend in half, with the bent end uppermost. Twist the top half to form the neck and open out the ends for arms.

Holding two pipe cleaners side by side, twist them together about two centimeters from one end. Hook this end around the shoulders. Twist a few more times down from the first twist and this is the body. The loose ends are then the legs.

Cut out a simple costume from material or coloured paper as shown in the diagram and put it on the figure before the head goes on. Using coloured tissue paper and glue to dress the pipe-cleaner people will be simpler for small children than using material.

Pierce a small hole in the table tennis ball with a sharp scissors and insert the neck of the pipe-cleaner person into it. Paint a face with the markers and glue on hair and a beard as required.

The pipe-cleaner person is then fixed in a base of playdough or plasticene and you can bend them into different poses.

A long veil was the headdress for women, and either a short veil with head band or a turban was common for men. These can be held in place with straight pins or glued on.