1. A GUIDE FOR PRIMARY AND JUNIOR CLASSES The Mass Part II - Storytelling

2. The Mass is a celebration of thanksgiving and remembrance. Before we share the meal (the Eucharist) we praise God and we remember his son, Jesus. We tell the stories of God’s people. We think about our relationship with our Lord and we learn how to make it better.

3. First Reading Second Reading This is a story about our relationship with God and how our friendship began. We hear about the “old days”, before Jesus. We thank God for his mercy and love. This story is usually some good advice from Jesus’ Apostles and they tell us about his life and about things that he wanted us to do to become good people. This is the story that paints a picture of all that Jesus said and did while he was alive – it also tells what other people said about him. We read stories about our relationship with God

4. Psalms are songs of praise! The Psalms are written like a beautiful kind of poetry – they are like songs. In between the two readings about our history with God and about the times of Jesus, we praise God for our many blessings and we also thank him for his love and forgiveness. We often sing these prayers because singing is a special way to communicate with God.

5. In Jesus’ own words The Gospel writing is the most important story we will hear – we stand up for this story because it is Jesus talking directly to us! We hear Jesus’ own words about how we should lives our lives in friendship with God today. We believe we are in his presence when we listen to the Gospel and so we greet each other by saying: “The Lord be with you – and with your spirit!” When we mark our heads, our hearts and our lips – we are asking God to keep us faithful to his message. We say: “Glory to you, oh Lord”

6. What do the stories really mean? The Homily is the chance when our liturgy leader helps us to make sense of all the stories we have heard during the Mass. Sometimes the stories we hear will sound like a sort of riddle - the leader will connect the stories to our lives today and help reveal what we should try to do if we want to be People of God.

7. We believe! Next, we tell the world about the roots of our faith. When we recite the Creed, we highlight the most important stories of God the Father, the creator of heaven and earth, Jesus Christ – the only son of God who was born, died, and rose from the dead, and the Holy Spirit. When we say this prayer we tell everyone what we believe in our hearts and our heads about being a Catholic Christian. I believe in God!

8. Prayers for everyone At the end of the storytelling, it is time to remember special intentions of our church, our country our community and some very special needs of people we know. We pray that we continue to build the City of God in everything that we do. We pray to the Lord and we ask: “Lord, hear our prayer!”