Mercy – from our friends at The Becket School

Leader/Young person: “Good morning, let us start our prayer by making the Sign of the Cross.”

All: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”

Mercy means showing love and respect to our neighbour. We can be merciful by doing helpful and charitable actions. Today we are going to be learning what the spiritual and corporal works of mercy are:

The Corporal Works of Mercy – actions that help our neighbours with their material and physical needs. Can you put your hand up and suggest a corporal work of mercy?

Spiritual Works of Mercy – actions that help our neighbours with their emotional and spiritual needs. Can you put your hand up and suggest a corporal work of mercy?

In this week’s WOTW video Joe is going to give you some scenarios and you need to pause the video and decide which of the corporal or spiritual works of mercy might you use in that situation…

You can view the 7 corporal and spiritual works of mercy below the video

Comment below: which works of spiritual and corporal mercy did you use in each scenario?

Leader/Young person – “Let us bow our heads and pray together…” 

Lord Jesus Christ,

You taught us how to be merciful like our heavenly Father. We pray that we may practise the works of corporal and spiritual works of mercy in our everyday lives.

May we be the visible face of Christ in the world with enthusiasm, bring good news to the poor, proclaim liberty to captives and the oppressed and restore sight to the blind.

We ask this through the intercession of Mary, mother of Mercy, you who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever.

Amen.

Leader/Young person: “We end our prayer by making the Sign of the Cross.”

All: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”

Leader/Young person: “Good morning, let us start our prayer by making the Sign of the Cross.”

All: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”

The Beatitudes – Jesus teaches us how to be happy

Our word of the week this week is not an easy one to explain! One of the things that sometimes helps us to understand difficult concepts is to break it down into manageable ideas that we’re familiar with. In Monday’s WOTW video some of the Becket chaplaincy team gave us an example of an acrostic for the word mercy.

Today we would like every Form (as a whole class/ small groups/ individuals) to help us to understand Mercy in our school community.

Your task is to create an acrostic which helps us to understand the theme of Mercy, you can find an example below.

Try to make your entry as personal and tailored to your school community as possible.

We would like you to write out your acrostic poem(s) and stick them up on your walls/doors and comment them in the comments box below!

Leader/Young person – “Let us bow our heads and pray together…” 

“O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good; for his mercy endures forever.”

(1 Chronicles 16:34)

Father, I thank you for you are good and your mercy endures for ever. Thank you for giving us the greatest symbol of mercy and love through Jesus on the cross. 

Amen. 

Leader/Young person: “We end our prayer by making the Sign of the Cross.”

All: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”

Leader/Young person: “Good morning, let us start our prayer by making the Sign of the Cross.”

All: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”

Today we are going to reflect on mercy Biblical mercy. Watch and listen to the song below called Mercy by Phil Wickham. The song is a powerful reflection on the mercy shown by God the Father and God the Son. God the Father showed mercy on us when he sacrificed his son Jesus on the Cross to pay the price for our sins. And now Jesus’ perfect examples and teachings of compassion encourage us to act and love mercifully.

After you have watched the video you are going to share a word or sentence to the group that stood out to you in the song. You might want to jot it down so that you don’t forget it.

Which words or phrases stood out to you in the song and why? 

Comment below: can you think of anymore biblical events or people that demonstrate mercy?

Leader/Young person – “Let us bow our heads and pray together…” 

Leader/Young person: “We end our prayer by making the Sign of the Cross.”

All: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”

Leader/Young person: “Good morning, let us start our prayer by making the Sign of the Cross.”

All: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”

We’ve been exploring the theme of Mercy all week but we need to truly understand how we can practise the corporal and spiritual works of mercy in every day life – in school, at home, with friends, on the weekend, at church, in our hobbies and after school clubs.

In your classes, pairs or individually we would like you to think of 14 accompanying examples for the 14 works of mercy to guide others on how they can practise mercy.

For example ‘visit the imprisoned’ – what is a realistic way we can practise this work of mercy? Imprisoned might not necessarily mean people who have been sent to prison (although it can refer to those people too), perhaps it is more relaistic for us to visit and reach out to people who might be mentally imprisoned. Maybe we have noticed someone who is sad or not being themselves. What can we do to show them mercy?

Find a space or blank piece of paper to write out your merciful examples and comment them below to share and inspire others!

Leader/Young person – “Let us bow our heads and pray together…” 

Leader/Young person: “We end our prayer by making the Sign of the Cross.”

All: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”

Leader/Young person: “Good morning, let us start our prayer by making the Sign of the Cross.”

All: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”

This week’s Gospel reflection is led by Isabelle from the Briars Team. This week we hear in our Gospel reading that we should “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”. We are called to look with mercy and compassion on everyone, not just those people we get along with. Think this week about your relationships and about where you need to
show mercy and compassion to those around you.

Make sure that you complete Isabelle’s mission today and over the weekend – who is a person that could do with some mercy? Maybe this is someone you don’t usually get along with or someone who you don’t have a lot in common with.

As Jesus loved his neighbours and even enemies unconditionally, we are called to do the same and our actions of mercy are more powerful than we think.

Leader/Young person: “We end our prayer by making the Sign of the Cross.”

All: “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”