As we adjust to these times of uncertainty, we remember how closely we’re connected to each other across God’s world. Pope Francis, Missio’s patron, calls us to respond to this crisis with ‘the universality of prayer, of compassion, and of tenderness’.
At Mission Together, the children’s branch of Missio, prayer has always been an important way for children to live out our motto: ‘Children helping Children’. Through their prayers and donations, children all over the world stand in solidarity with those who live in poverty overseas.
Children like those living at Nazareth House in South Africa, whom schoolchildren here in England and Wales helped during Advent. Religious sisters care for the 40 children, who have either been abandoned or orphaned. They’re already living with HIV/AIDS, frequent power cuts and water shortages. And now the Coronavirus pandemic is hitting the most vulnerable the hardest.
The Sisters pray with the children and assure them that there are children elsewhere who pray for them. It’s this exchange of love and friendship that makes Mission Together so unique.
Together while we’re apart
By following our home schooling activities pupils can still be ‘children helping children’. As well as Maths, English and Geography, our resources include prayers and Scripture. They encourage children to stand in solidarity with children who were already living in hardship before the pandemic.
Find all our homeschooling resources here>>
You can say this Five Finger Prayer on the fingers and thumb of one hand. Each digit prompts children to pray for others before they pray for themselves. They discover how we are connected to one another through God’s love; even to those faraway, whom we may never meet.
The month of Mary
As we enter May, the month of Mary, you can use our Marian resources to encourage children to ask for Our Lady’s intercession. Just as the child saints, Jacinta and Francisco, prayed during the dark days of the war, so, too, can children bring hope to the world by praying the Mission Rosary. Meanwhile, our Pray with Our Lady Chart makes the prayer more manageable for younger children. They can draw the face of a child from the continent they are praying for.
We know many children in England and Wales are finding the current crisis very difficult and emotional. But we hope our home school activities will help them remember how loved they are! We hope they remember that, through their prayers and actions, they can still bring God’s love into the world, in whatever way they can and wherever they may be.
All Mission Together’s home school resources can be found here on the Mission Together Website>>