The Epiphany– also known as Three Kings’ Day – is a Christian festival, which starts on 6th January. It is a special date in the Christmas story as it’s when people celebrate how a star led the Three Kings/Wise Men to visit the baby Jesus after he had been born. It celebrates when, after following the star for a long time, the Three Wise Men arrived to give their gifts to Jesus.
This week, Key Stage 2 listened to Mrs Avdiu, the RE Coordinator, read the Gospel (Matthew 2:1-12) and had a chance during a live session to explore what this scripture means for Catholics. We read the Gospel from the Bibles which were gifted to all pupils.
We talked about how it feels to receive gifts, which gifts we might offer to a newborn baby and the symbolism of the gifts received by baby Jesus: Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. We tried to imagine how the wise men felt when choosing gifts for the baby king they were following the star to find and we realised that all three gifts represented Jesus’ future life:
Gold:because Jesus is a king
Frankincense: because it is used at Mass when we make our offering to God and Jesus’ life would be a sacrifice/ an offering.
Myrrh: because it is an ointment usually used on the sick or people who are dying and Jesus’ death was going to be very important.
A Prayer:
Dear God,
Creator of the heavens,
who led the Three Kings by a star to worship Jesus Christ, the one who would guide and sustain us, that we may find our journey’s end in Jesus Christ our Lord.
