On 13th May 1917 Our Lady appeared to three young children in the small village of Fatima in Portugal. in 1917 the World was not at peace. The First World War continued and in this year Communism would become the dominant force in Russia which would lead to the formation of the USSR and its atheistic dogma which would blight the World for decades.

Through the three children, Our Lady urged the people of the World to pray especially her Rosary; to go to Mass; to go to the Sacrament of Reconciliation and to make sacrifices for sinners.

The events of Fatima are told in this classic documentary with the link below. On the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima we will post a link for a modern version of the story. Both are good for families to watch together.

Following on from work on Mary’s Meals, Generation Hope is another great video on the work of this great organisation.

Dear Fathers, brothers and sisters,

Pope Francis has asked believers of all religions to unite spiritually in a Day of Prayer and Fasting and Works of Charity on Thursday 14 May, to implore God to help humanity overcome the coronavirus pandemic. ‘All believers together, believers of different traditions, to pray, fast, and do works of charity.’
Please spread the word and do what is possible in the circumstances.
Many commendations on all the amazing good you are already doing in these times, which is widely appreciated by our people.
God bless and keep you safe,
+ John

If you are taking the opportunity to read the excerpts from ‘The Shed Which Fed A Million Children’ you will enjoy, indeed, be moved by the Mary’s Meals Video ‘Child 31’. This is a great video for the family to watch together.
The link is given below.

In 2015 Magnus MacFarlan-Barrow wrote the Best Seller ‘The Shed Which Fed A Million Children’ which told the inspiring story of Mary’s Meals. Mary’s Meal and the publishers of the book. Generously, they have released excerpts from the book for individual and family reading. They have also suggested a variety of creative tasks along with some short questions to consider.

There are six sections which lend themselves to a light read either on your own or with your family. If you complete any of the creative tasks, please send a photo of them to the RE Twitter Account @StNiniansRE

Mary’s Meals

Each Friday Lunchtime in School we would gather at 12.20pm for Eucharistic Adoration and to recite the Rosary. We may not be able to gather in our Oratory but we can gather with our family in in unity with other members of our School Community to recite the Rosary. On the First of May, the beginning of the Month of Mary, you are invited to recite the Joyful Mysteries of the Rosary for our intentions and the needs of our World.

The Fist of May is also the Feast of St Joseph the Worker and in our prayers on Friday we will also ask for his intercession and to join with us.

This link gives the prayers of the Rosary and a short reflection for each Decade. It starts with the Novena to the Sacred Heart and the Novena of Mary Undoer of Knots.

Friday Rosary 01 May 2020

On Friday 1st May we celebrate the Feast of St Joseph the Worker.

Pope Pius XII instituted the feast of Saint Joseph the Worker in 1955. The Feast builds on a long tradition linking St Joseph, dignity of work and the causes of workers. In the Book of Genesis, God commands humanity to care for his creation and they are to be stewards of the Earth. Through work humanity both fulfills the command found in Genesis to care for the earth (Gn 2:15) and to be productive in their labours.

In tradition, Joseph, the Carpenter is seen as being the best role model of conscientious work, being the first teacher of Jesus to whom he taught the trade of carpentry.

In his encyclical Laborem Exercens, Pope John Paul II stated: “the Church considers it her task always to call attention to the dignity and rights of those who work, to condemn situations in which that dignity and those rights are violated, and to help to guide [social] changes so as to ensure authentic progress by man and society.”

Saint Joseph is held up as a model of such work. Pius XII emphasized this when he said, “The spirit flows to you and to all men from the heart of the God-man, Saviour of the world, but certainly, no worker was ever more completely and profoundly penetrated by it than the foster father of Jesus, who lived with Him in closest intimacy and community of family life and work.”

Today, we pray for all workers and for those denied their right to work.

If you spent time researching information on the Shroud of Turin you will enjoy this fairly straightforward in balance video on the Shroud.

On Easter Morning, the three women visited the Tomb of Jesus to complete the burial rituals but were astounded to find that the tomb was empty except for the linen used to wrap the body of Jesus. We are not told what happened to this linen – we are told the great news that Jesus is risen from the dead.

However, the intriguing story of the Shroud of Turin gives us much to consider and perhaps tells us what happened to the linen from the tomb. The Shroud is a piece of linen kept in Turin Cathedral in Italy and is what we would expect a body in First Century Jerusalem to be wrapped in for burial.

The Shroud has been kept in Turin since the 14th Century. Where it was before then is uncertain though through the previous centuries, there are a number of reports of a miraculous cloth which would match the Turin Shroud.

The Shroud has an unexplained image of a man with wounds on his body which match those of someone crucified by the Romans but more specifically the wounds of Jesus as described in the Gospels. The most amazing discovery about the Shroud was made by an Italian photographer, Secondo Pia who in 1898 was allowed to photograph the Shroud and discovered that the image of the man was far clearer in his negatives of his photographs. As yet there is no accepted explanation of how these images were formed on the Shroud.

However, a 1998 carbon dating of the Shroud suggested that its origin was in the 14th Century. Many people have some concern over the validity of this carbon dating.

For many people the Turin Shroud gives a devotional insight to the Passion of Jesus. The image marks out his wounds and suffering. All accepted to save each one of us from sin.

Your task is to research and take notes about :
1. The history of the Shroud.
2. Links to First Century Palestine including the material and pollen.
3. The origin of the image.
4. The wounds on the image particularly the nail marks on the wrist and not the palm of the hands.
5. Carbon Dating.
6. What the Shroud tell us.

As Easter is the greatest Feast in the Christian Year, it is fitting that the Easter Season – Eastertide – is the longest season. This week we begin the Third Week of Easter and the emphasis remains on the Resurrection Stories. The last task we looked at examined the Empty Tomb and asked the question why was the tomb empty.

The traditional Christian Teaching is that Jesus rose physically and spiritually from the dead.

The followers of Jesus would not have taken his body as this would have been so disrespectful and they would not have considered such an act. Futhermore, access to the tomb was guarded by Roman Soldiers. The Romans and the Jewish Authorities saw Jesus as a threat and wanted his him literally dead and buried so that his followers could not make any claims. Neither would take the body.

History tells us that the tomb of Jesus was empty except for the shroud in which his body was wrapped.

The Catholic Church has a great tradition of relics of saints and many people use relics in their prayers and to support their faith. These relics can be very varied and can include small portions of materials with which the saint had contact. The term ‘first class relic’ can include the saint’s body of a portion of the body. In Rome, in the Church of San Sylvestre, you can view the skull of John the Baptist. A church in Motherwell which serves the local Polish Community treasures drops of the blood of St Pope John Paul II.

Devotion involving relics might not seem attractive to all but the concept is not that strange. Many of us will have some of the belongings to people who we love and who have died. These articles will have special meaning. Some of us may have, away in a drawer, the first tooth of the a lock of hair from our children’s first hair cut.
Such have meaning because they belong to a person we love.

Throughout the World in the Catholic Tradition there are so many relics – you may even have a small relic of your favourite saint, most likely a small article associated with them. Yet, in over 2000 years there has never been a claim worth considering about a relic from the body of Jesus. There are many relics associated with Jesus but none from the his body. He was resurrected and ascended body and soul into heaven.

Your task today.

1. Do you have a relic of a saint in your house or do your grandparents. Ask them…

2. Find out information about a relic of a saint and write a short paragraph.