Term 4 First Communion Program

An email was sent to all families in Year 4 to let you know about the First Communion program for next term. Regardless of whether the First Communion Masses are able to go ahead or not, the Parish Sacramental Team are focused strongly on the preparation for the sacrament. The email contained the link to the enrolment form and needs to be completed by Friday 10th September.

Who Is My Neighbour?

The Jerusalem Community celebrated Mass via Google Meet on Wednesday. The theme of the Mass was ‘Who Is My Neighbour?’.

The story Jesus used to answer this question is pure genius but challenging. It’s the famous story of the Good Samaritan where it was the ‘enemy’ who turned out to the be the one who showed pity and what it means to be a good neighbour.

When Jesus told this story, it was well known by his audience that Samaritans were the enemy. How about we think of it this way:

Collingwood played against Carlton in a classic AFL rivalry game. A lone Collingwood supporter, Maggie, took her seat right in the middle of the Carlton cheer squad. She was wearing all of her black and white gear in amongst the sea of blue. Maggie screamed for joy when Collingwood scored a goal, whilst the Carlton supporters glared at her with contempt.

Seated right next to Maggie, a Carlton fan by the name of Larry, was choking on his meat pie. It was quite serious and Larry was struggling to breathe. The rest of the Carlton cheer squad ignored the choking and spluttering and kept watching the game. Clearly, the game was more important to them. Maggie took her eye off the game, noticed that Larry was struggling and leapt to his aid. She gave him a swift firm knock on his back, dislodging the meaty chunk from his throat. She missed the final winning goal where Collingwood won the match, but she was more concerned with Larry’s wellbeing. While all of the Collingwood supporters were celebrating with “Good ol’ Collingwood forever…” Maggie took Larry to the First Aid area and made sure he was ok.

The important message here is that we need to show each other love, regardless of our prejudices and preferences. We should not pick and choose who we show care and decency for.

The other important thing to highlight is that we need to delve deep and find out about the cultural and historical context in order to gain meaning from scripture. Jesus’ audience knew that Samaritans were the despised cultural group at the time and they would have understood his message but we need to do our research to recontextualise The Good News. It makes scripture come alive.

Who is our neighbour during a lockdown?

Andrew McDermott
Religious Education Leader