Family Activity:
This week meditate on the stations of the cross as a family, this is a bit different than the communal stations of the cross. Depending on your family dynamics, it may look quite a bit different than the parish stations service. Be open to discussing each station, reading any relevant scripture or even letting little ones act out the scenes (this is a video of our kids doing this many years ago).
You may find one of these resources helpful:
- For families with young children:
- For families with older children:
Weekly Virtue:
Three times a day, make an act of love to God. God so loved you and me that He sent his only Son into the world to save us from sin. Let us respond to this great love by telling and showing Him how much we love Him. Use one of the prayers below or compose your own. Actions can also accompany this prayer, such as praying in front of a Crucifix and/or making a reverent sign of the cross.
- Act of Love prayer | USCCB
O Lord God, I love you above all things
and I love my neighbor for your sake
because you are the highest, infinite and perfect
good, worthy of all my love.
In this love I intend to live and die.
Amen. - Catholic Prayers: Act of Love (From the Cure d’Ars, St. John Vianney) (scborromeo.org)
Family Reflection
Click the link below to read the scriptures from fourth Sunday of Lent. The model we use in the Lenten exercise is detailed in this article. For the readings today we will be reflecting on God’s deep and abiding love for us.
Early and often did the LORD, the God of their fathers, send his messengers to them, for he had compassion on his people and his dwelling place. But they mocked the messengers of God, despised his warnings, and scoffed at his prophets
2 Chronicles 36:15-16
God is always trying to reach us, but too often we don’t recognize His voice and sometimes we even make fun of those who are trying to communicate God’s word to us.
Have you ever heard from one of God’s messengers? Who was it? Did you listen to them?
Name a few Prophets from the Old Testament: Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi – See this chart for a little more information about these prophets.
Name a prophet of the New Testament: There is only one, John the Baptist
Let my tongue be silenced, if I ever forget you!
Psalm 137
God … because of the great love he had for us … brought us to life with Christ
Ephesians 2:4-10
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,
John 3:15
so that everyone who believes in him might not perish
but might have eternal life.
Who is Nicodemus? Nicodemus was a prominent Pharisee from Jerusalem and Jesus refers to him as the teacher of Israel. Nicodemus and his friend Joseph of Arimethea take Jesus’ body down from the cross and prepare his body for burial.
Do you know the story of Moses lifting up the serpent in the desert? share it. If you don’t know it, you can read it in Numbers 21:8. The Israelites grumbled and complained against God and Moses about the food provided by God. The Lord in Numbers:20 provided them water from a rock, and yet the people still grumbled, so God sent seraph serpents which bit the people and many of them died. Then the people repented and God instructed Moses to make a seraph and mount it on a pole and anyone who had been bitten and then looked at the seraph on the pole would not die.
Adam and Eve sinned and choose themselves over and against God … the consequences of that sin were that Adam and Eve lost the grace of original holiness and they become afraid of God. The original harmony between God and man is now destroyed and every relationship is profoundly affected (cf. CCC 398-401). But God did not abandon us to sin, he loved us so much that He sent prophets to His people to tell them of His deep love for His creation. But sin was still in the world and while some believed the prophets and returned to God, many did not and some hated the prophets so much that they killed them.
After a long absence of Old Testament prophets (400 years), God sent the last prophet, John the Baptist) to make straight the way of the Lord, His only Son, Jesus Christ. God’s love for us never ceased, In fact, God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son to save us and make perfect atonement for our sins and save us from the death of sin.
Jesus was raised up on the cross and anyone who believes in him will have eternal life. They will not die even though they have been “bitten” by sin.
Where else is there a serpent in scripture? In the beginning, a serpent tempts Adam and Eve to disobey God and that serpent caused Adam and Eve to commit the first sin and the solution to death by sin is to look at the Lord lifted high on the cross.